P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

“Och God, is that what it was?” Dodd said, scratching his ear which was sticky. “Was that why Leigh was sae hot for the Deputy Warden?”

“He was going to get us into the Queen’s procession and then petition the Earl in front of all the people and Her Majesty herself!”

For a moment Dodd was honestly flummoxed. “Did ye truly think it would work? That ye could just walk into a procession like that?”

“He was going to buy us white-and-orange ribbons so we could fit in,” said another lad.

“And then we got you and he was going to talk to Captain Carey about us.”

Dodd shook his head sadly. “Ye never had any chance of getting any of your pay nae matter what,” he said explained, “for the reason Essex has nae ready cash to pay ye and even if he did, he’s got no reason to do it.”

“But he promised us,” wailed the youngest boy.

“Listen,” said Dodd, patiently, “the Earl of Essex is a lord and he disnae give a rat’s shit for any of ye. Ask him if ye like. Jesus, as yer new Captain, I’ll ask him, but trust me, ye willna get what’s owing. You went to fight and if ye didna keep any plunder, then ye’ll take home nae more than stories.”

He looked about at the young dismayed faces and felt pity for them. “But,” he shouted, “if ye follow me as yer Captain, I can get ye home if ye’re so minded or it might be if ye dinna care to go home wi’ nothing, I could find ye places as fighters at Carlisle, where I’m from. I willna promise it, but if ye can back a horse and heft a pike, there might be a place for ye in Carlisle. I willna promise it, but if ye come, ye’ll get a share of the Deputy Warden’s fees and ye’ll have a place in the mostly dry and food ye can mostly eat. What d’ye say?”

Another babel of voices broke out while Dodd waited for them to settle it amongst themselves, ready to fight if they decided to rush him together. If they did that, he could only give himself a medium chance so he stayed ready with his sword still out. He cleaned it again before John Arden’s blood dried.

What was Carey’s main problem? Not money as he thought, because money could always be stolen. No. It was that he did not have enough men that would fight only for him. And here Dodd had a solution if Carey was clever enough to take it. And if not, well, he might take the men over to Gilsland anyway and put his wife in charge of them. They had been easy meat for a night raid but they must be good for something or at least might shape up with some shouting and kicking.

And the raiding season was fast coming, already here. God only knew what outrages had happened in the Debateable Land or what the Grahams or the Scottish Armstrongs had been up to, or, God sakes, the Maxwells and the Johnstones, no doubt at each others’ throats again and lesser surnames taking the scraps.

This was something Dodd had been thinking hard about. He had seen what it was like in the South, where there were no pele towers but there were orchards and fat cows and sheep and sure, there were broken men and troubles, but still mainly people who could live their lives without being raided. It made them soft, true. But a sudden decision had come upon him that afternoon while he thought of Janet and the child he fully intended to plant in her the minute he got her on her own in their tower. He wanted his sons and daughters to grow up where the cows were fat and there were orchards, not raiding and killing the way he’d had to all his life.

And how could you do that? Well, among other things, clearly you needed soldiers, men who were not related to anybody they were fighting. Men who would do what they were told and not hold back in a fight because they were swapping blows with their brother-in-law. Men who had no feuds. That was hard to achieve on the Borders from the way all the surnames went at the marrying and breeding and killing there. But here, right here, he had the start of a solution. So.

Dodd had already taken the swords he could find. The lad Nick Smithson was leaving the huddle of young men, coming toward him with an eating knife laid across his two palms. Dodd waited, said nothing but shook his head when Smithson made to bend the knee to him. The lad genuflected anyway and Dodd let him.

“Sir,” said Smithson, “Mr. Elliot, we would like to ask you to be our Captain.”

He offered Dodd the knife and Dodd put his sword in his left hand and took the knife with his right as dignified as he could.

“Ay,” he said. “Now. My right name’s not Colin Elliott, that’s the name of my blood enemy in Tynedale. My true name is Sergeant Henry Dodd, headman of Gilsland and I’ll be your Captain under my own lord, Sir Robert Carey. Understand?”

He had all of them line up and swear allegiance to him, the old way, kneeling, their hands in his while he looked at their faces. Some looked a little shifty but most seemed relieved. It was hard to decide things for yourself, but harder still to know in your heart that the man who was leading you couldn’t or wouldn’t do the job properly. He knew what that felt like. So they had been easy meat for him and had now got themselves a captain who could do the job.

“Get yerselves ready to move out,” Dodd said. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning at dawn. We’ll take everything with us. I want all of ye to take turns on watch.”

The only thing that still annoyed him was that he hadn’t found his boots yet. Ah yes, Harry Hunks had been wearing them, of course, and he must have gone to Oxford with Leigh so his boots were probably being damaged kicking against the door of the Oxford lock-up.

***

Leaving Jeronimo in charge to set watches and start the business of packing up, Dodd sheathed his sword and limped down the path back to the old woman’s bothy in the hope he could lay hands on some scraps of cloth or leather to wrap round his feet which were feeling even more sore and cold now the excitement was over.

He felt much better. Certainly when he first woke up in the forest, he’d been determined to kill all of them but it was better that he’d only had to kill three of them and now had eighteen men sworn to follow him. He had his sword on his hip again, the comforting weight of it across his shoulder and he had a nice new poinard as long as the courtier’s blade, which he’d envied. Carey would teach him how to use it properly, that useful-looking two-handed sword and dagger work. He’d wake up the old woman and tell her and Kat to be ready to move as well.

He paused. There was a commotion coming from the goats’ shed and something was wrong with the entrance to the cottage, there was…

He smelled the fresh blood before he saw it and felt rather than saw the battle axe coming down on him.

His body flung itself sideways and rolled, followed hard by a huge bear-like shape and another chop from the axe. Christ, that was Harry Hunks, taller even than Carey or his dad, broad and big as Richie Graham of Brackenhill and twenty years younger. Dodd rolled again and struggled up in a nest of nettles, panting.

Harry Hunks was named after a bear and was as big as a bear, but he fought like a serious man. No roaring, he was quiet as he came after Dodd again, battle axe in one hand, short sword in the other, teeth gleaming in a fighting grin, eyes catching little flashes of light in the dark of his eye sockets.

Dodd’s sword was in his right hand, the poinard in his left, he backed up, not at all liking what he saw. The big man wasn’t moving heavily, he was light on his feet, almost bouncing like a child’s pig bladder. And that axe…most Borderers only used an axe if they couldn’t afford a proper sword or billhook, it was a much harder weapon to get the mastery of and you needed to be big and strong.

Harry Hunks came after him again, Dodd dodged as the axe came whistling down past his chest, just missing his shoulder, you couldn’t block that with a sword. He turned, sliced sideways but Harry Hunks wasn’t there any more.