After Flodden (38 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

3 November 1513

The Bellscleugh shepherd would never know the good turn he had done for Louise and her family that day. Because the old man rarely spoke, the villagers thought he was simple,
but if anyone had heard how easily he had diverted the courtier from his path, when he had been within an hour of his quarry, they would have regarded him with new respect. The look in
Gabriel’s eye would have been enough to scare the wits out of most of them. To have come up with a story that sent him haring across the country was little short of genius.

While the shepherd was slurping his soup that afternoon, Gabriel was riding across the hillside, through the hamlet of Old Jeddart and past a lonely cottage half-hidden by trees, whose lights he
ignored as he thundered down the track.

It was late morning the following day when Louise, Crozier and Tom reached the hamlet. They had ridden hard since daybreak, and their horses’ flanks steamed as they entered the woebegone
moorland place.

‘The house is beside an old chapel,’ said Louise, as they looked around at a straggle of cottages and byres. ‘Benoit said he wanted to marry there, only a step away from
Ella’s door.’ They rode down the silent street. There were no villagers about, though chimney smoke told them they were being watched. Crows flew overhead, as if curious, their cawing
like an alert.

They had ridden beyond the hamlet before the chapel could be seen. A mossy grey building with a Norman arch over the door, it stood on the edge of a wood in a necklace of crooked headstones.
Some way into the trees there was a low thatched cottage, wood-smoke swirling around its roof in the icy air.

Louise was trembling. As they tied up their horses, Crozier took her gloved hand in his. Their boots crunched on the hoary grass. He knocked at the door. The place had been quiet before, but now
the silence thickened. He knocked again, and there was a scuffle from inside, no louder than a rat running across a board. The threesome did not see an eye peering at them through the shutters, but
they could feel it.

Louise stepped back from the door. ‘Benoit?’ she called. ‘It’s Louise. Are you there, Benoit? Please open the door.’

A bolt was drawn, a key turned, and the door was flung open. A strapping young woman faced them, so heavy with child she filled the door frame. Louise and she stared at each other. Neither
smiled. ‘Is my brother with you?’ Louise asked at last, when it seemed the girl had no intention of speaking. She did not reply, but stepped aside, to let them in. At the sight of
Crozier’s and Tom’s swords, she put a hand on her belly.

In a box-bed by the fire, propped against a bank of pillows, was Benoit. When Louise stepped into the room, his expression froze. It was as if he could not believe what he saw. Louise hesitated,
shocked at the change in him. His face was wasted, his complexion yellow, and he was thin as a child. She took a nervous step forward. ‘I never thought I would see you again,’ she
whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Everyone thought you were dead! Almost everyone else did die. Almost everyone.’

She hurried over to him, hands outstretched, and her brother reached out to grasp them. They hugged, rocking with emotion, bathing each other with their tears. After a minute, they laughed, and
sat apart, holding hands. Benoit’s face was pale with sweat.

‘He canna take much excitement,’ said Ella, standing by the bed, as if to warn Louise away from him. ‘He’s healed now, or almost, but he gets exhausted awful
quick.’

‘I’m fine, Ella, dinnae fuss,’ said Benoit. He looked at Louise. ‘Ella saved my life. Without her care, I’d be long deid.’

Ella stood awkwardly by, but there was colour on her cheeks. Louise caught her by the hands. ‘I don’t know what to say. I can hardly begin to thank you, or tell you how much I, my
family, owe you.’ She hugged the girl, her arms barely reaching around her, since Ella was twice her size, in height as well as girth. The girl flinched, then slowly put a hand on
Louise’s back, and returned her embrace.

‘I love him, is all,’ she said quietly.

‘Thank God for that,’ Louise replied. ‘And when is your child due?’

‘End of next month,’ Ella said, sinking onto the bed beside Benoit, ‘though it’s been kicking up a storm, so it may be sooner.’

‘We are married, Louise,’ said Benoit quickly. ‘When it looked like I wouldnae make it, the priest came. It wisnae the wedding I’d planned, not what you’d want for
your girl . . . ’

‘It was beautiful,’ said Ella. ‘I’ll never forget a minute of that day.’ When she looked at Benoit, her wan face was lit with something like beauty. ‘I think
it was knowing you were a husband, with obligations, that brought you through. You knew you couldn’t wriggle out of it now.’ She smiled at him, and brushed his hair off his
forehead.

Crozier scuffed his boots. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There’s much news to catch up on, I know, but now is not the time.’

‘Who are you?’ asked Benoit, seeming only now to notice him.

‘He is Adam Crozier, my husband,’ said Louise. ‘But we’ve no time to go into all that now. We’ve got to get you out of here, at once.’

She pulled up a chair. ‘Listen, Benoit. I know you’ve had dealings with Patrick Paniter’s man, Gabriel Torrance. That maybe you’ve been in league with him . . .
’

In the face of Benoit’s expression, she faltered.

Benoit sat forward, his face darkening. ‘Jesus Christ, Louise, it was Torrance who tried to kill me, and very nearly did it too, the bastard.’

She shook her head, puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. I thought you’d been wounded in battle.’

‘It is a long and fearful story,’ said Ella. ‘I will bring food while he tells it.’

Reluctantly, Crozier agreed. As the party picked clean a platter of oatcakes and cheese, Benoit recounted the night he had almost perished. It was a couple of days before the battle, he said,
staring over their heads as he relived it, as if his memories were painted on the rafters. He did not see relief spreading over his sister’s face, as his innocence became clear – relief
mingled with shame, for having ever doubted him.

‘Me and Ella,’ he began, ‘we’d agreed tae meet. Her family knew nothing about us, then. The month before, she’d told me she was pregnant. We arranged to run away
and marry in secret, at the next full moon, but then the king called the muster, and I had tae fight. So we were forced to postpone our plans.

‘It was risky, because her family would soon start to see her condition. I was frightened how they would react, if they found out afore we’d got married.’ He chewed his lip, a
gesture Louise had forgotten, it was so long since she’d seen him.

‘Well, we knew the battle was soon coming, so I wanted to see her before it.’ He caught his wife’s eye. ‘I could not believe it when she came to meet me with her father.
She’d told him, or her mother had guessed, I forget which now.’ He passed a hand over his face.

‘Anyway, everything was fine, and there was no need for a moonlight elopement. Her family had been furious, like ours, but they’re sensible folk, and they realised it was too late
for that. They didnae want to lose their daughter forever, so they got over it. If only our mother had thought the same way,’ he added, bitterly.

‘Go on,’ said Louise gently, sensing Crozier’s impatience.

‘Well, we said our goodbyes, and I left her. I had a long walk ahead of me. I was ploughing across the fields, soaking wet, when I heard a horse coming up on me. Morning was just breaking,
and I wasn’t far from the camp. I looked over my shoulder, and even at a distance I recognised the rider. It was the hair. His hood couldnae hide it. I was about to step out of his way, when
I realised there was something wrong about this.’

As he recalled that moment, Benoit plucked at his shirt, his fingers as agitated as his thoughts.

‘I could never abide that man,’ he confessed, ‘puffed up with importance, as he seemed. But that wisnae what made me suspicious. A few times before, in camp, I’d come on
him acting strange. If he wisnae stuck to the side of Master Paniter like a leech, then he wis all alone, a solitary creature.

‘Fair enough. Many an honest citizen prefers his own company to the blethering of a crowd. But once, it was late at night, and I wis watering the horse. I was leading her back up the hill
when there he wis, crouched behind the king’s tent. At first I thought he had taken ill, and wis about to be sick. But when I stood for a bit and watched, he did not move. Not until I
approached and called out did he get up. Very grand he wis. Asked what I wis doing near the king’s quarters.

‘I wis canny enough no to ask him the same. But I could hear voices from the tent, even from where I was standing. He had been listening to them, that much wis clear to me.’

He sighed, straightened his shirt and continued. His shoulders sagged with fatigue.

‘I kept an eye on him, after that, and on a few occasions I saw him loitering near the king’s tent, or Master Paniter’s, when he had no business to be there. Doing nothing,
like, just acting ordinary. But to my mind, he was skulking.

‘I suppose I thought he was nothing more than a schemer, the kind of man who collects secrets and gossip, and uses them to his advantage. But when I saw him charging like a demon out of
the dark on his horse, I knew something was wrong. I couldnae stop masel.’

Benoit had stepped into the horse’s path, raising his arms. The black stallion reared, and by the time Gabriel had reined him in, the carpenter was at his side, a hand on his hilt. He
watched the courtier’s expression flicker between light and shade, like a hillside under scudding clouds. It was as if he was considering and discarding one lie after another, and finally
decided not to waste his breath. Benoit’s suspicions were plain to read, and even if he managed to allay them, they would very likely flare again, at a more inconvenient time. This must be
settled now.

Cursing, the courtier slipped off his horse, and loosed his sword. ‘You wretched little man,’ he said, circling around Benoit, his blade pointing at his chest. ‘What are you
doing, Master Brenier, creeping around the countryside at this hour? Been wenching, have you? Had your fill?’ He laughed, and jabbed at Benoit’s jacket, making the young man leap back.
‘Is that the only thing your family can ever think about? What a pathetic lot you all are.’ His lips curled in a sneer as he advanced. ‘I promise you, my friend, this will end as
badly for you as it did for your sister.’

With a roar of fury, Benoit lunged. He was a clumsy swordsman but strong, and the weight of his attack took Gabriel by surprise. As their blades met, the courtier reeled, wet earth gripping his
boots like quicksand. His face tightened as he found his footing and regained control. Inch by inch he edged Benoit out of the field and into the copse at his back. It was a deadly dance, every
step fought for in a clash of steel. Sweat was running into the carpenter’s eyes, and his strokes grew wild. When he found himself cornered against a tree, he knew the end had come.

A shimmer of satisfaction passed over the courtier’s face as he moved in for the finish. As his sword found the carpenter’s stomach, Benoit saw Ella’s face swim before his
eyes. With a cry, as much of anguish as anger, he twisted his blade under Gabriel’s guard and, with the last of his strength, plunged forward. He felt his blade slice through leather. Then
the sky turned blacker than night, and he remembered nothing more, beyond the kick of a boot as the courtier turned him over, to watch his blood spilling out onto the leaves.

‘It was a young trapper that found me,’ said Benoit, voice trembling. ‘He put me on a dray, and dragged me to the village healer. When I came to, I told them tae fetch Ella. I
thought I was dead meat, but she thought otherwise. Her father put me ontae a mule to bring me here. That journey was hellish. Dying seemed the easier option, but she wasnae having any of it. And I
woke up again, here in this bed. I havenae moved since.’

‘Where are your parents?’ Tom asked Ella.

‘They’re out at the All Hallows’ markets. It would normally be me goes with father, but I couldnae go anywhere like this. And anyway, there was no way I would leave
Ben.’

Crozier was at the window, squinting at the sky. ‘We’d better get going, if we’re to avoid the weather heading this way.’

Now it was Benoit’s turn not to understand. As Louise explained that Gabriel knew he was alive, and was trying to find him, he shuddered. ‘I will have my revenge on him one day, but
it will have to wait until I am fit enough tae face him. Until then, we will gladly come.’

‘We can discuss revenge once you’re safely at the keep,’ said Louise. Ella began to pack a bag. She was shaking. A shawl, and then a nightshirt fell from her hand. ‘Let
me help,’ said Louise, and the girl looked at her gratefully.

But before the bags were ready, the cottage went dark, as if the lamps had been snuffed. The sky had turned grey, and when they opened the door, snow was falling, thick and steady. Already the
path was hidden. As they watched, the snow began to spin, and in seconds it had become a spitting, savage whirlwind of white, driving under the eaves as if to find them.