P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Och,’ said Dodd, having difficulty converting his instinctive knowledge of the land into a picture. ‘Ah. Maybe,’ he allowed cautiously.

With the aid of some bits of bread, Carey explained what he wanted to do, and Dodd put in his notions to which Carey listened gravely. Although Dodd was being deprived of the dancing and the singing in order to go and fetch out the Bells, he didn’t mind as much as he would have thought. It was a pity really, that Carey had had the misfortune to be born on the right side of such a very high-class blanket; he had the makings of a decent reiver in him.

Wattie Graham was in the middle of an argument with the outlaw Skinabake Armstrong while they waited for the rest of their party to cross over the Irthing ford in the damp grey dawn. Skinabake wanted to hit a nearby Dodd for his cows; Wattie wanted to concentrate on taking Lady Widdrington first before indulging in private enterprise. He had a couple of foreriders out, from sheer habit, but nothing else. The land was empty of anything but a medium sized herd of likely-looking cattle and horses and a tumble-down shieling a few hundred yards away. They had another good eight miles to go before they came near the Stanegate road, and most of them had their helmets hanging on their saddles and their jacks open in the heat. The dawn sky was dull and stifling, armoured with cloud that promised ruin for anyone who hadn’t got his hay in. Not a single man among them had loaded a caliver; their bows were still unstrung across their backs.

The first he knew was when one of Skinabake’s broken men yelped and clutched his leg. Wattie Graham looked at the place and at first refused to believe what his eyes told him, that there was a feathered arrow shaft sticking out of it. Another arrow zipped by his nose and a third stuck in the hindquarters of one of the horses in the ford who promptly went berserk, reared up, stood kicking on its head and then crashed through the press of other horses and up the bank. Its rider was in the water, spitting mud and weed and looking astonished.

Wattie grabbed for his gun out of its case, pulled out the small ramrod, tried charging it, but more arrows were flying from the low hill. Men who had been lying down in the bracken on the slope were standing, shooting at them. They were at too great a range to do much damage, but the panic they were causing among the horses was bad enough. The cattle in the field lowed unhappily. Some of the broken men who had already come across trampled back down into the ford, trying to run away, and added to the thrashing, shouting, swearing confusion.

Wattie fumbled and dropped his ramrod, cursed, slammed the gun back in its case and drew his sword.

‘Come on, ye fools, get on out of the water,’ he roared. A few of them managed to do what he ordered and bunched around him looking scared, while the men on the hill continued to shoot judiciously. There was the sound of hooves from their right, men and horses boiling like bees from the little shieling, more men swinging themselves up onto their horses’ bare backs from where they had been hiding in amongst the cattle, joining with the riders pounding down from the shieling.

Wattie swung round to face the threat, saw lances, hobbies, and at the head of them a long man in a morion pointing a dag straight for his chest. Unthinkingly, he slid sideways clinging to his horse’s neck and actually heard the crack as the bullet passed through where he had been. Then the men hit them, and he found himself cutting and slicing against the press of bodies; it was all Bells at first, Archibald Bell at their head roaring something obscene about blackrent. He glimpsed Sergeant Dodd in there, riding bareback, with a face like a winter’s day and blood on his sword, and then it was the man with the fancy morion battering at him with a bright new broadsword, and he recognised Sir Robert Carey.

‘Shame on you, Wattie,’ roared the Courtier. ‘Attacking a defenceless woman.’

Somebody backed a horse between them, and Wattie managed to collect himself. Half his men had scrambled back across the ford; he could see a few horses’ rumps galloping away in the distance. More broke from the right as they worked their way to the edges.

‘Skinabake!’ he yelled in a sudden breathing space, catching sight of the Armstrong reiver. ‘Back across the ford; we’ll have them if they follow.’

He felt something behind him, ducked; steel whistled over his shoulder and nicked his hobby which promptly squealed and tried to run away. He managed to turn about to face his attacker and found Carey must have been pursuing him because there he was again, sword in one hand, dag in the other and its wheel-lock spinning sparks. He froze, staring at death like a rabbit. It misfired. He swung his sword down on Carey, hoping he would be distracted by his gun, but the bastard Deputy parried and slashed sideways, still shouting something incomprehensible.

Another plunging riderless horse banged into the other side of Wattie, bruising his leg against his own mount. Carey was coping with another rider on his other side, crossed swords a couple of times and knocked that man out of the saddle. Wattie disentangled himself from the terror-crazed nag, just in time to face the Deputy as he turned again and came after Wattie.

Nobody would dare call any Graham a coward, but it was unnerving to see Carey dismissing all the dangerous mayhem around him while he tried to attack only Wattie. Skinabake was already across the ford, shouting at him. There were a few Grahams left on this side and in a second they would be surrounded, perhaps captured. The Deputy Warden looked to be in a hanging mood.

‘Liddesdale, to me!’ yelled Wattie, standing up in his stirrups. When as many as could were around him he launched his horse down the bank again, through the water, up the other side and turned about, breathing hard.

Let them follow us and we’ll have them the way they had us, he thought, but Dodd and Archibald Bell were wise to that and so were the others with them, too wise to try crossing a ford opposed. Only the lunatic Deputy Warden seemed eager to try, but Dodd caught his horse’s bridle and snarled at him and he seemed to calm down.

The two sides stared at each other, those of the Grahams who had bows stringing them frantically on their stirrups and awkwardly nocking arrows. It was very hard to use a longbow on horseback, but it could be done if you twisted sideways and leaned over a little. The bowmen on the hill came jogging across and lined up facing them over the water.

Wattie looked about at his men. A number of them were bleeding somewhere, there were five still shapes over on the other bank and three men surrounded. A couple of the ones who had fallen off during the melee in the water were climbing out again as fast as they could, cursing. Several horses were down, others galloping away squealing.

Skinabake came up beside him, shaking his head.

‘We’re out of it,’ he said without preamble.

‘Ay,’ said Wattie heavily, knowing a lost cause when he saw it. He shook his fist impotently at the Deputy Warden. ‘Ye’ll regret this, Carey,’ he shouted. ‘I’m no’ forgetting this.’

‘Ah, go home and cry, Wattie,’ sneered the Courtier. ‘I’ll give you a long neck one of these days, you bloody coward.’

Wattie’s neck swelled and his eyes almost bugged out of his head. He took a firm grip on his sword, kicked his horse forward to the water.

Skinabake got in his way and the hobby was anyway not inclined to go near the blood-tinged water.

‘Come on, Wattie,’ said Skinabake, highly amused. ‘Put a lance through him some other time.’

Wattie was shaking with rage. ‘Did you hear…’ he sputtered. ‘Did ye hear what he called me?’