P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

Yes! Harry Hunks was teetering on the stone edge of the pit, heavy for such a leap and he fell in, scrabbling as he went.

Dodd swapped sword and dagger so the poinard was in his right, went in a crouch to the side of the pit where the ladder was, stuck his sword in the earth where he could grab it again if he had to. Harry Hunks came up the ladder, he heard the creaking and puffing. Just before his head would clear the top of the pitwall, Dodd reached out, grabbed his hair and stabbed the man in the eye with the poinard, hard as he could, felt the soft jelly, the slight resistance of the bony back of the eye socket and then the give as the blade went into the man’s brain and stuck in the bone of his skull on the other side.

The hilt was wrenched from his fist as Harry Hunks roared and struck blindly for him, then toppled backwards into the pit, screaming and clawing at his eye. He landed with a thud and a clatter and then his back arched and his feet drummed and the smell of shit told Dodd he was dead.

Dodd sat down next to the pit, gasping for breath and shaking. Christ, that had been close. Christ. All he could do was sit there and pant until the shaking had gone down a bit.

Then he wiped his wet hands on the ground, looked down into the pit and wondered if he wanted that poinard back at all. He’d leave it in Hunks’ head until he decided. But he had to get up and find who Harry Hunks had killed before he arrived. He avoided looking at his feet and forced himself up onto still-trembling legs.

The goats were wildly indignant but unharmed. The old woman lay across the door of her cottage, nearly cut in two by the axe, her cooking knife in her hand unbloodied. Dodd pulled the old body away from the door and called softly through into the darkness, only a few embers of fire still lighting it. Was she still alive?

“Kat?” he said, “Kat, I killed the big yin, are ye there, hinny?”

Nothing at first. For no reason he understood, his belly swooped and clenched itself against his backbone. Was the brave little maid split in two as well?

Then there was a stealthy sniffle. “Kat, I’m coming in, will ye no’ stick me? I’m tired and ma feet are sore.”

They were burning with pain, bleeding badly from their stickiness, cut to ribbons when he sprinted desperately away from Harry Hunks. He ducked and limped in, leaving prints on the tiles under the rucked up rushes. The sniffle had come from under the marble shelf where the bowls of goatmilk were still sitting to let the cream rise for cheese.

Dodd sat down next to the place, cross-legged, partly to have a feel of how bad his feet were and partly so as not to get stuck by the little maid in her panic.

“Kat,” he said conversationally, “how many were they? Ainly Harry Hunks or another man as well?”

No answer.

“I killt Harry Hunks. He’s in the pit I was in, but deid, ye follow? D’ye want tae come and look and be sure?”

Her head poked out with its grubby little cap sideways and her face covered in mud. “Is he completely dead?”

“Ay. I put a knife in his eye. Was he alone?”

She nodded grimly, not a tear shed, still shaking. “I think so, he tried to come in for me and Grandam kicked him and he pretended to go away and she made me hide and then…and then…”

“He come back wi’ his axe?”

“He chopped her and then he was feeling about for me and I shut my eyes because I heard you whistling as you came back and I prayed to the Lady very hard…”

Good God, had he been whistling ? The South was having a terrible effect on him and he would never ever come here again.

“So nobody else?”

She shook her head.

“Did ye see Captain Leigh taken?”

A lovely smile broke out across her grim little face. “I did and he went purple and shouted and that was when I just moved away so they wouldn’t make me stay with them and talk to Captain Carey and I ran back as quick as I could but I was very tired.”

“I’ve taken over the broken men as Captain, we’re packin’ up and leavin’ for Oxford in the morning. I came to ask you if ye’d care to come wi’ us.”

She was staring at his poor feet now, making a face. “Tsk,” she said, “How will you walk?”

He gave a grim snort of laughter. “I willna, I’ll ride. And we’ll take the goats and sell ’em.”

She nodded. “We can take the cheeses too. What about the curds? Can I give them to Wolfie, he loves the curds and there’s no point straining them for…Oh!”

Dodd was slightly ahead of her. He tried to beat her out of the cottage door but his feet were too painful and she slipped past him and out into the darkness and then he heard a scream. He was swearing and wincing and hobbling after her now he wasn’t fighting for his life and the fighting rage wasn’t carrying him and he found her weeping over the lump of dead fur and meat that was all that was left of the poor dog. She certainly wept more for the dog than for the grandam which showed you something, he supposed.

Since he was up and out he limped over to the pit and found Harry Hunks still lying there on his back with the poinard sticking out of the eye.

The ladder was unbroken so he put it straight and went down carefully, unreasonably scared that the big man would suddenly rear up and attack him again like the Cursed Knight in the ballad. But Harry Hunks was cooling now. Dodd hauled the poinard out and cleaned it by driving it deep into the earth a couple of times, its point was a little bent. That would have to do, he’d sort it properly with an oil rag and a whetstone when he had the time.

Then he set to pulling his boots off the man’s feet and managed it finally. He felt about in the man’s old doublet and found the little luckcharm Janet gave him and that made him smile. He didn’t know what was inside the little leather pouch and he didn’t want to know, but he felt quite pleased with it and his wife for playing his enemy false for him. There were a couple of shillings that he took and the buff coat which was too big but would at least make him a bit more decent than the hemp shirt and ragged breeks he had on. Climbing up the ladder again took most of what was left of his strength and then when he tried to put the boots on again he found that his feet were so swollen, it hurt too much.

“If you didn’t give me that message then Harry Hunks wouldn’t of killed Wolfie and my Grandam,” said Kat, standing by the dead dog, hands on hips, narrow-eyed. “Would he?”

Dodd was too tired to deal with this. “Ay, and Harry Hunks is deid, I killed three ither men this night and now I’m master of them all and Leigh will hang for horsetheft and forgery. Whit more d’ye want?”

“I didn’t know Wolfie would get killed!” Her voice was going up in pitch and it went right through Dodd’s head. He could almost hear his temper snap.

“No, ye didn’t. That’s because ye don’t know what will happen when ye set out for vengeance,” he shouted, “ye canna ken until the fight’s over which side will win.” He was nose to nose with the little maid, full credit to her, she didn’t flinch. “People die and ye canna help it, no matter if ye love ’em or no’… Especially if ye love ’em! D’ye hear me?”

He stopped, realised he had hold of the front of her kirtle and let go, turned away. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. “What?” he snarled.

“Thank you for killing Harry Hunks,” said Kat with great dignity. “It wasn’t your fault about Wolfie and Grandam. It was mine.”

“Och no, hinny,” he said, and knew she wouldn’t believe him, would never ever believe him. “It was Harry Hunks that did it.” And me, he thought.

She shook her head, went to the back of the cottage and came back with a bucket of water the old woman must have drawn, ready for the morning. She dipped a pitcher out for their drinking water. Then gratefully he put his feet in and the water went dark.