The Disorderly Knights (62 page)

Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig smiled, if a shade sourly. A slender, comely man, well and expensively dressed, he had been casting a shrewd eye, Janet knew, over the ranks of orderly Scotts and cousins following Sir Wat, each burnished as never Scott ever troubled to glitter before, and modestly armed with sword and knife. ‘It should,’ he remarked at length, ‘be an unusually orderly meeting. The new army at St Mary’s has been summoned, I believe, to keep guard.’

So much for Mr Francis Crawford’s beautiful surprise, thought Lady Buccleuch, and caught the eye of their servant Tosh, riding discreetly behind. But, ‘Oh, I ken, I ken,’ said Sir Wat airily. ‘Auld Wharton must fairly be past it, calling in yon giddy sprig o’ gentrice and his pack o’ priests. I trust they won’t have to bestir themselves overmuch, that’s all. I wouldna like my lord count to sweat up one o’ his sarks.’

‘
Wat!
’ said his wife Janet warningly.

‘Eh, my dear?’ said Sir Wat. ‘We’re nearly there. I think ye should just take a hud o’ my wee dirk. Your chastity is the Buccleuch honour, ye’ll mind. And in case of contumaceous language, I’ll just thank ye tae shut off your lugs.’

‘Wat Scott of Buccleuch!’ shrieked his wife. ‘After all the contumaceous language that dirled in my ears and the ears of your poor innocent bairns from cockcrow to compline, is there a wee naked dirty word on the face of the earth that’s no acquent wi’ Buccleuch?’

‘Hud your whisht,’ said her husband genially, and rode past the
first crofts of Hadden. Ahead, flat between river and hill, lay the Stank, the March banners flying. The Homes had arrived, he noted. Also the Elliots, the Armstrongs, the Veitches, the Burnets, the Haigs and the Tweedies, who were the mortal enemies, as it happened, of the Veitches; who were also at loggerheads with the Burnets. Plain in the middle of the field, bright with early sunshine, there flew also the standard of Richard, third Baron Culter, Lymond’s brother.

*

On the stroke of eleven, the English Warden rode on to the field. By that time all the English families were there too: the Dodds, the Charltons, the Milburns and the other freebooting clans: the Ridleys, the Robsons, the Halls and the Grahams who inhabited both sides of the Borders. The banners stuck like gooseberry stalks out of the crowd, helmeted, cuirassed, and spilled like leadshot in heaps throughout the big meadow and along all the roads into it.

The tents were up by then, and the tented booths, score upon score, where anything from a whip to a copper kettle could be bought, at a price. In the middle was the platform under its awning, where the two Wardens of Scotland and of England, with their deputies, clerks and officers, would hear cases and pass judgements. Nearest to these, on the Scottish side, were the stations of the Scotts, and of the Kerrs. Behind Sir James Douglas’s place on the platform there stood, ranged on the dusty grass, rank upon rank of Drumlanrig men. Behind the English Warden, stood dismounted the hundred light horsemen permitted Lord Ogle to discharge his duties.

But Lord Ogle, as they all knew, was sick; and Lord Dacre, whom he represented, was in the Tower. The office of Warden of the Middle and East Marches itself had been appropriated, at a salary of a thousand pounds per annum, by the Earl of Warwick, the Saviour of England.

Since the Earl, owing to pressing duties in London consisting largely of hanging the Government, was unable to attend personally to his office, this was normally occupied by a deputy. The deputy in this instance, brought hither by curiosity as well as duty, and accompanied by Sir Thomas Palmer and by Master William Flower, Chester Herald in person, was Thomas, Lord Wharton, Deputy Warden General of the Three Marches, straight from Carlisle.

Small, tough, self-made; a member of the English Parliament; one of the peers who tried and condemned the Duke of Somerset, England’s Lord Protector, the previous year; veteran of every recent war on the Scottish frontier and ancient enemy of Lymond, Lord Wharton rode on to the field, his helmet pushed back from his grim, teak-coloured face, his hand held high in traditional token of good faith. Francis Crawford, who had been riding, chatting amiably, at
his right hand, dropped behind and sat, still mounted, to one side of the dais while behind him the quietly shining ranks of St Mary’s deployed alongside the Warden’s men, officers, mounted also, at their sides.

The meeting with Wharton had been fortuitous. But the staffwork which had united Jerott and Lymond with the company and brought them here, fully armed and provisioned in perfect order, was not. Sitting beside Graham Malett, watching the Wardens cross the green grass, approach and embrace, while all around them the soft earth and flowers of high summer were metalled with armour, blinding under the kind yellow sun, Jerott was elated.

They had done the impossible. And Crawford was good: God, he was good. Good enough to do what had to be done and, in the middle of it, deliberately waste two hours on sleep. Two hours to the minute, and then the cutting edge was back. Christ, thought Jerott, Wharton must have wondered what was happening when they met. He hadn’t tried to patronize after that.

Jerott glanced behind him at the still ranks of his own men. He lifted his eyes to the pale, airy void above him, and then across to the sunlit, classical profile of Gabriel, sitting still on his horse. At the same moment, Graham Malett looked round, and smiled.

Jerott’s white teeth shone in an answering grin. Come what may, this was life.

*

A day of March dealt with crimes of the Border, too trivial to be referred to head Government. All thefts, robberies, depredations, homicides and fire-raisings and similar cruel, dreadful and iniquitous crimes committed by the inhabitants of these parts upon her Majesty’s faithful subjects were in time referred to the Governor-General and Justiciar of Liddesdale, old Buccleuch. For as Warden of the Middle Marches he could both capture criminals and hold assizes to punish them, with all the clerks, sergeants and judges he needed.

In its day, a Wardenship had been a prize worth a small fortune, and handed out only to favourites. Even now, some thought went into the choice. In their hands lay negotiations that would daunt a first-class ambassador. One slip could cause, and had in the past caused, a war.

They punished criminals according to the law of the country in which the crime was committed. They had to hand over refugees if required, always bearing in mind the possible riposte from head Government for doing so with too great an alacrity. They had to arrange for reparation, and to crush trans-Border feuds.

It worked, in a perilous way. Before each advertised meeting,
injured parties sent in bills of complaint to their Warden, who passed them to his opposite number across the Border. He in turn either arrested the accused men or summoned them to the next March meeting where each appeared with his two witnesses and his following and was tried, judged and sentenced or allowed to go free. In time of war, the Wardens took their own heralds, formally to demand and concede truce until sunset next day. In time of peace, as today, Chester Herald in his red and blue and cloth of gold merely had a formal exchange, followed by a good gossip in private with Bute Herald, while suits were being called and the rest of the formal fencing procedure got through by which the Warden’s meeting was legally constituted. As the suitors filed in and took their places on the two long benches reserved for the victims, Scottish and English, of theft, bloodwite, spulzies, ejection and wrangeous intromission, as reeled off complacently in lawyer’s Scots by Fergie Hoddim in an undertone, the two Wardens now settled side by side under the awning looked with careful indifference at the raw material of the day’s work.

There were a great many women among them. Lord Wharton, the English deputy Warden, turning to big Tommy Palmer at his side, said in an undertone, ‘Have you Ogle’s list of pursuers there? Are these women related?’

Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig, on his side, was also scanning the papers bequeathed him by Buccleuch, standing arms akimbo among his Scotts to the right. A certain irregularity in Sir Wat’s beard led him to believe that Lord Wharton’s question had not gone unremarked. He leaned over discreetly. ‘Well? Are they related, Wat?’

‘Only in misfortune, Jamie. Only in misfortune,’ said that untrustworthy old knight, in deepest sorrow. Sir James Douglas sighed.

*

The morning passed, however, innocuously enough. There were one or two moderate cases of poaching, a theft of peats and oat straw from the stackyard, some off-season salmon fishing, and the ceremonial return of two loud-swearing rebels at the horn, caught in Kelso and handed back, with pleasure, by the Scottish Warden to their fate. The heavy guns, the horse and cattle stealing, the household robberies and thatch burnings and all varieties of slaughter, unpremeditated, chaudmelle or forethocht felony, were for the afternoon, when concentration had weakened and the more quarrelsome onlookers, touched by ennui, might have wandered away to the booths, the tents, the makeshift sports arena where attention and money were more seductively solicited.

Jerott, obeying orders, had begun circling the field slowly on horseback as soon as proceedings began, checking his men detailed discreetly on every part of the circumference, along with Ogle’s hundred, thinly spread. Gabriel was doing the same.

So far, there had been no trouble. Lancelot Plummer, mounted with a strong detachment immediately behind the Kerrs, signalled nothing to report, but seemed uncommonly flushed about the cheekbones. Jerott hesitated, but rode on. Chester Herald (‘Call me Billy’) had elected to tour at his side, and he didn’t care to expose something personal to the little Yorkshireman’s shrewd gaze.

Fergie Hoddim, next on guard, was arguing law with someone dressed in black, and with only half an eye, Jerott saw, for his work. Latin flew like dubs from a puddle: ‘
continuatur ex partium consensu
’, Fergie was saying heatedly, and ‘
essoin de malo lecti
’; and then began to press home a brilliant argument, no doubt, about litiscontestation and lawburrows. His tongue licked lawburrows into shape like a bearcub.

‘Fergie!’ said Jerott.

‘And God give you the quartain!’ said Fergie Hoddim precisely, turning his long, black-jawed face on the knight. ‘My lord count of Sevigny has been visiting us on that tack already,’ and in a surprisingly good imitation of Lymond at his most irritating: ‘You can’t swing a sword in a writers’ booth, Fergie. Either the one or the other, Solomon; divide as you please.’

‘He’s a tongue, Mr Crawford has, hasn’t he?’ said Chester Herald in a pleased voice. ‘We found that out in France. A proper lad. And what he got up to!’

‘You should see what he gets up to here,’ said Jerott, bored. ‘Fergie … our gallant commander, it must be admitted, is right. Pay attention, man. You can loose your lawburrows on Gabriel afterwards if you want a thorough-going debate.…’

Hercules Tait was off duty, nominally to eat but actually buying something a little secretively from a packman’s roll. Jerott couldn’t see what it was. Alec Guthrie was grimly in position; and the biggest concentration of all, de Seurre, des Roches and Adam Blacklock, all in the vicinity of Buccleuch. ‘… Fought a boar single-handed,’ Billy Flower, Chester Herald, was saying. ‘At Angers. Single-handed.’

‘You were there?’ said Jerott. It was something to say. He had noticed Gabriel, off duty beside Buccleuch, sitting on the dry grass chatting to the old man as they both ate. Under the noonday sun his head was gold as a newly-coined noble and his engraved armour, his one magnificent possession, was still on but untied. He waved.

‘That I was. And had the privilege of hearing the gentleman exercise his other talents as well, before their Majesties, you understand. Such an art; such an ear! I studied the lute myself once; in my youth,
that was,’ said Chester Herald, swept away by his memories. ‘But it sounded different. Yes, I must confess, it was in a different class from that.’

Jerott, dismounting, said without listening, ‘So there were
two
bores? Chester—
Billy
,’ said Jerott with distaste. ‘Come and meet Sir Graham Malett and the Laird of Buccleuch. Proper lads both.’

And, cheerfully unnoticing, a smile on his rosy face, Chester Herald got down, just as Graham Malett, saying, ‘Have you eaten, Jerott? No? I’m just going back on duty then. Wait and you shall eat here,’ dispatched a man running for food. He brought back enough for Flower and Jerott both, and some wine as well, and Gabriel lingered a moment, talking to the herald, his shadow short and massive on the flattened grass as he refastened his straps. Buccleuch, struck by a thought, cut without ceremony through the chat. ‘Is yon an Italian suit?’

‘My armour?’ Gabriel looked up. ‘German, sir.’

‘It’s a grand fit round the houghs,’ Sir Wat gave his opinion. ‘Ye’ll be having a set made for that sister of yours?’

‘Joleta?’ Sir Graham smiled, but his fair face held a look of faintly puzzled inquiry. Adam Blacklock, coming to life suddenly, stirred and got up.

‘Aye,’ said Sir Wat helpfully. ‘Ye’ll no have been at Midculter recently, maybe. The lassie came home in a right state the other day. Fell off her pony. She said.’ Gabriel, wounded, had ridden twenty-one miles the other day to comfort Janet’s sister Grizel. In principle, Buccleuch approved of Sir Graham. What stuck in his craw, now and always, was that St Mary’s had failed to save Will.

Adam Blacklock, who could interpret as well as anyone the old man’s tangled emotions, opened his mouth. But before he could speak, Gabriel said quietly, ‘If my sister says so, then of course it is true. I have been to Midculter, as it happens. She won’t go, even to Boghall, without a proper escort again.’

‘But she
didna
.…’ began Buccleuch and paused, as Blacklock laid a hand on his arm. ‘I think they’re due to start again, sir.’

‘Are they?’ Sir Wat craned round, his saddle creaking. ‘No, they’re not. There’s Francis Crawford talking to Wharton, and Culter keeping himself to himself on the ither side o’ the field. That reminds me. She didna.…’