Insurrection (10 page)

‘Good, Master Robert. Again.’

Without letting Ironfoot break canter, Robert steered in a wide circle, itching for another shot, determined to do it just like the last. The warhorse was moving well, obeying every flick of the reins, every nudge of his knees. It was like riding his palfrey again, only faster and more thrilling. The shield had swung round almost to its starting position. Robert spurred the horse into a gallop, rose up. Aimed. Out over the water came a shriek and a mad whirl of wings as two gulls spiralled from the waves, fighting over a fish. Ironfoot’s head tossed up at the piercing sound. Veering away, he bolted up the beach.

Across the sand they went, away from Yothre’s running form, up over the dunes and across the boggy fields that surrounded the castle. Robert, bouncing wildly in the saddle and realising Ironfoot wasn’t going to be halted so easily, threw the lance aside. The horse vaulted a narrow stream without warning. As he was flung forward, both of Robert’s feet came out of the stirrups. He lost his grip on the reins and grabbed hold of the high pommel on the front of the saddle. The horse ploughed on, heading for the woods that led into the hills beyond Turnberry. Robert clung on, trying to match the warhorse’s rhythm, his legs flapping uselessly at the animal’s sides, struggling for purchase in the swinging stirrups. The trees were looming. All at once they were in, under the canopy, branches whipping past.

The horse continued his crazed path, further and deeper in. A branch snapped across Robert’s face, stinging his cheek. He ducked, closing his eyes to avoid being blinded by another. Lunging forward, he grabbed at the reins. His fingers brushed them, but couldn’t get purchase. Robert rocked sideways with a shout as Ironfoot swung left to avoid a tree. His shout became a yell as his knee clipped the trunk on the way past. All his attention diverted by the bolt of pain, he didn’t see the branch rushing up in front of him. As it struck him, he was thrown back over the saddle. He landed hard, sending up a cloud of dust and leaves. Ironfoot continued on, crashing through the trees, leaving Robert on the forest floor, motionless.

Light danced behind his eyes. He struggled to open them and flinched at the brightness. Turning his head to one side he saw a broken line of bracken, behind which rose trees. Fungus had bubbled up out of the trunks, fleshy and poisonous. Something was on his face. He could feel it creeping down his cheek. As he tried to push himself up his head pounded so hard he thought he would vomit. Collapsing back, Robert lay still, letting his vision settle. Far above him the trees made webs of light. Lifting his hand to his face, he touched his forehead. His fingers came away red. As the hammering in his head dulled to a monotonous thudding he felt other pains erupting. His knee was a flare of agony. Planting his hands in the soil, Robert raised himself up, gasping with the effort. His broken fingers throbbed. The knee of his hose was ripped open, the edges dark with blood. He could see the skin beneath, raw and wet. He looked away, trying to get his bearings. Trees hemmed him in on all sides, stretching into green shadows. It had been late afternoon on the beach, but day had since become coppery dusk. He realised that the woods around him were silent. He could hear the creaking of branches and the wind in the leaves, but there was no birdsong, no sounds of small animals in the undergrowth. Then he heard it – a low growl.

Looking to his left, Robert saw the bracken moving. His head jerked round at a snarl, this time from the right. Propping himself up on his hands, fighting off waves of pain, he tried to stand, then froze as the bracken parted and a large, black head emerged. For a second he thought it was a wolf, but the angular jaw and square head were those of a hound. Its lips curled back, revealing liver-coloured gums ribbed over bared teeth. Its shoulder muscles flexed as it stalked towards him, head thrust forward. Out of the bushes to his right came another, with bloodshot eyes that held a wild look. Robert shouted fiercely at them, but it only made their growls deeper. His fingers scrabbled through the leaves, searching for a rock, a stick, anything. There was a harsh call somewhere off through the trees. Both dogs flopped down on their bellies at the sound. The wild-eyed one whined.

An old woman appeared, forcing her way through the undergrowth, a gnarled stick in one hand, a leather pouch in the other. She wore a brown cloak, the bottom of which was covered in briers and caked with mud. Her hair fell thick down her back, dark beneath, but streaked white at the roots. Twigs and leaves were tangled in it. Her face was brutal. Sharp cheekbones made ridges over a humourless mouth, before sweeping up to a prominent brow, creased with furrowed lines of sweat and dirt. Robert had seen her before in these woods and once, long ago, in the village. She was the witch from the house in the valley and the hounds, looking lovingly at her, were the dogs that had chased him and Niall.

The woman halted as she saw him, her brow knotting in study. She made a hissed sound through her teeth that made Robert’s stomach spasm, but it wasn’t directed at him. At the noise the dogs rose and loped to her side. As she came towards him, Robert saw something moving inside the pouch, limbs or scales sliding against the leather. Planting her stick against a tree, she bent over him, holding out a withered hand. Robert recoiled, repelled by the smell of her, but, more than that, afraid to let her touch him. The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Stay there then,’ she spat, ‘and let the wolves take you.’

Her Gaelic was broad and pure, as if she had never spoken anything else. It was richer than his, whose mouth had been forming itself around French, Scots, Latin and Gaelic since he learned to speak. Snatching up her stick, she headed through the bushes, the dogs following. As Robert tried to push himself up his knee was lanced with pain. ‘Wait!’

The woman kept on walking. She was almost out of sight, the branches falling into place behind her.

‘Please!’

There was silence, then the undergrowth shifted as she returned. Robert held out his hand. Without a word, the woman grasped it. The strength in her grip surprised him. He came up quickly, too quickly, biting back a cry as the weight came down on his knee.

‘Here,’ she said roughly, handing him the stick.

Robert took it, thinking of an image he had once seen in a book of a sorcerer tracing a circle in the ground with a staff, a black demon rising out of fire and smoke in its centre. He half expected the stick not to feel like wood at all, but it did. The shaft was warm where she had been gripping it.

Together, the woman holding his arm on one side, him digging the staff into the ground on the other, they made their way slowly through the woods, the dogs roaming ahead. After a time the trees thinned out and the ground sloped into a sheltered valley. As he saw the house under the hill, Robert realised Ironfoot had taken him further into the woods than he’d reckoned. Wincing with every step, he looked up as they approached the oak that towered over the dwelling. This close he had a clear view of the webbed shapes hanging from the branches. The webs were twigs, stripped of leaves and bark, their thin limbs, bone-white, bound together to make crude cages. Hanging in the centre of each like misshapen spiders, from lengths of braided twine, were objects. Robert saw a scrap of yellow cloth, a tiny silver dagger, its blade tarnished, a weathered roll of parchment, then the woman was pushing open the door of the house and they were moving inside.

A fire crackled and spat in the centre of the room, throwing a pool of amber light into cramped shadows beyond. The dogs lay down beside the flames, panting. As his eyes grew used to the shifting light, Robert saw that the chamber was crowded with things. Pots and pans clustered from the beams above, skimming the woman’s head in places. In between were bundles of herbs and flowers. Robert felt as though he were deep underground, looking up at the roots of plants growing down. The earthy smell made his head swim. There was a pallet against the far wall, heaped with furs. Skulls and bones were scattered on the floor in front of it, animal, he realised after a pause. There were smooth pebbles from the beach, tools made of wood and stone, and a brace of birds, their dead eyes like tiny beads. Most surprising of all, stacked in one corner by a bundle of skins, was a pile of books. Some were clearly very old, the boards coming away. Robert glanced at the woman, who had set her squirming pouch on a shelf beside a row of clay pots and several wicked-looking knives. He edged towards the books, intrigued. He and his brothers and sisters had been taught to read and write, but these were skills usually reserved for the clergy, the nobility and some merchants and wealthy tradesmen. This woman didn’t fit any of those groups. But neither did she fit any other; a woman of property and possessions, living on her own in the wilderness.

The woman returned from the shadows holding a stool, which she placed before the fire. ‘Brigid!’

Robert started as the heap of furs on the pallet moved and a figure unravelled from within. It was the girl he had followed here months ago. She yawned deeply and rose from the bed, her grey dress falling crumpled around her. Her large eyes fixed on him and filled with curious surprise.

‘Sit,’ said the old woman to Robert, taking the stick, ‘and fetch me water,’ she said in the same breath to the girl.

As Robert sat, the girl headed out and the woman busied herself at a shelf, grinding fistfuls of herbs with a pestle. A bitter smell rose. The girl returned carrying a bucket, her thin arms taut with the weight. She set it down by the fire then crossed to the old woman. The two of them murmured something Robert couldn’t hear. He watched apprehensively as the girl came towards him, holding a wad of linen. Crouching beside the bucket, she dipped the cloth inside. Her dress hung off her gaunt frame and he could see down the front of it to the bones that splayed across her chest. She rose and moved to him, the linen bunched and dripping between her fingers.

Robert drew back as she stretched out her hand. ‘I can do it.’

Letting him take the cloth, Brigid hunkered down beside the fire, wrapping her arms around her bony knees. One of the dogs raised its head and whined at her. Ignoring it, she watched as Robert wiped the blood from his face. ‘Perhaps he was attacked?’ she ventured, addressing the old woman.

‘I came off my horse,’ answered Robert.

‘He is an earl, you know.’

‘The son of an earl,’ responded Robert shortly, discomforted by the way the girl was speaking as if he couldn’t hear.

‘I know who he is,’ said the old woman, coming out of the shadows with a bowl of dark matter. ‘I delivered him.’

Robert went still, the cloth pausing against his cheek. When he spoke his voice sounded loud in his ears. ‘No. That’s not true. My mother had the same midwife for all her children.’ He shook his head, angered by the woman’s unchanging expression. ‘She wouldn’t have let a . . .’ He trailed off.

The old woman didn’t respond, but scooped out a handful of the herb mixture. Parting the shredded cloth of his hose she slapped it thickly on his skinned knee, making him wince, then handed him the stick. ‘Take him to the woods, Brigid. He knows his way home.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Don’t come here again,’ she said fiercely. ‘You, or any of your family.’

Robert let himself be led by the girl out into the dusk. The air was fresh after the oppressive heat inside and he shivered as he passed beneath the oak, adorned with its slow-turning webs. His head felt clearer and the cold of the herbs had numbed his knee, although every step still felt like a needle in his bone. He glanced at the girl, walking in silence beside him as he limped up the hill. ‘Is she your mother?’

‘My mother’s dead. I came to live with Affraig in the winter. She’s my aunt.’

‘Is she a witch?’

Brigid lifted her shoulders in answer.

Robert was about to ask if she thought her aunt had been lying about what she had said, when he heard shouts in the distance. He caught his name in the calls. ‘That’s my instructor,’ he told the girl.

‘Why do you need an instructor?’

‘He’s teaching me to ride. For war.’

The girl’s lips split in a grin. ‘You should find a better one,’ she said, skipping away across the grass.

Robert watched her go, then headed into the woods, answering the calls with a shout of his own.

With Yothre in the search party were several servants from the castle and Robert’s brothers. Niall saw him first. He gave a cry of relief and ran towards him, then came to an abrupt halt, looking shocked. Yothre came striding in behind, thrusting branches out of his way.

‘Where’s Ironfoot?’ Robert asked, as his instructor put a thick arm around his waist to support him. He kept hold of the stick.

‘We found him wandering loose near the village,’ said Thomas breathlessly, coming over with Alexander and the servants. ‘We’ve been searching for hours. What happened?’

‘I fell.’

‘But where have you been?’

‘Come on,’ said Yothre brusquely, ‘let’s get him home. No doubt his mother will want the physician to look at him.’

All the way back to the castle, Robert’s head was filled with the old woman’s revelation. He was certain it was a lie, although he didn’t see what purpose it would serve her to speak false, except perhaps to be cruel. But wasn’t that what witches did? Toyed with men’s emotions and preyed on their weaknesses? Robert’s speculations were cut short as they neared Turnberry and saw a company trailing in through the castle gates.

The men had returned from war.

Robert, trying to walk faster, grimaced in pain and frustration as his brothers ran away ahead of him, calling out in joy. Some of the men looked round at the boys’ shouts, their faces weary and sunburned. There were two carts drawn by oxen behind them. Robert let out a breath of relief as he caught sight of his grandfather in the midst of the host. Some way ahead of the Lord of Annandale rode the Earl of Carrick on his white mare. Robert felt a confusion of emotions as he saw his father, then was distracted by one of the carts that was trundling past. He and Yothre stopped, seeing ten or more men on the back.