Dacre's War (20 page)

Part Two

1524

If Not To Heaven . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

February 1524

Winter settled on the borderlands, and the earth grew tight as a drum. At the foot of the frosted hills every path was slick with ice. Rivers froze, caught in twisted plumes as waters leapt over a fall or swirled in a pool, trapped in gargoyle form as if carved by a demented mason. Trees stood sentinel, stiffened with hoar, the slightest wind setting them tinkling as their glaze splintered and fell. A haze shimmered around their tops as living wood breathed beneath its cold skin, warmer air creating a cowl of mist that did not lift from advent to a month after Christmas. Even then, it gave way only when the skies shook out their snows, dragging grey columns that blotted the light and smothered the land.

Adam Crozier roamed the borders in this weather as if it were June. A few days after the regent’s visit he, Tom and Benoit had begun their forays in search of allies. With Albany’s letter in his hand, the borderer approached the most noble families in the region, a tribe whose voices were as hard and expressions as harsh as the season. By comparison the regent, for all his flounces and flourishes, was not half as grand.

Unflinching in the face of a knife or a sword, Crozier found it harder to breach the fortresses and prejudices of these nobles than to launch into armed combat. He was not the first to discover a habitually still tongue miraculously loosened by nerves, and to hear a voice he barely recognised run away with itself and present a fool to the unloving world.

It was to Sir John Wetherington of Wetherington that he introduced his less austere self, and learned his lesson. The knight, who had the king’s ear and could muster a hundred men at six hours’ notice, cast a look soaked in contempt at his visitors. Steam rose from the riders’ frosted cloaks as they stood before the knight’s hearth, creating a fug of horse sweat and leather. The noble kept his guards at his side, hands upon their swords, as Crozier explained his purpose, assuring him of the regent’s support for his cause. The guffaw Wetherington unleashed at this message made Crozier’s face glow with rage. Yet, sensing he was about to be ejected from the tower house by the guards, rather than teach the man manners at the point of a blade he found himself babbling. He did not need to look over his shoulder to feel Tom and Benoit’s surprise as he began to describe the day Albany had visited. The weather, the regent’s retinue and the food they had eaten were all laid before the knight, whose eyes widened to hear a border chief describe plain fare and humble beer as if it might sway his opinion.

Perhaps it was the oddity that made the knight relax. That, or Crozier’s palpable discomfort. No one with treachery on their minds would dare, surely, enter his gates to pour out a cook’s tales. Crozier, finally catching hold of his tongue, stood sweating but quiet. He squirmed at the amusement in the noble’s eyes as he bade the borderers sit, and set his guards at ease. Offering ale – a Northumbrian amber whose velvet taste spoke as eloquently of the man’s wealth as a missal’s worth of words – Wetherington too drank, indicating that now they were able to do business.

That encounter proved fruitful, as well as instructive. When next Crozier approached a noble, he had control of himself. Schooled by his wife in silence in the past week, he was reminded that he could command respect with no more than a look. It was just as well. Richard Foulberry of Foulberry, lord of the lands on the English side of the Solway, was not blessed with patience. Nor was his wife, whose cool gaze would, only a week before, have unnerved the borderer, unused to mingling with the higher estates and suffering their aquiline stares.

Foulberry proved as useful as the regent had promised. Cutting across the borderer’s opening speech, he flicked his fingers for the letter Crozier held. Breaking the seal, he read it in a heartbeat and handed it to his wife, who looked from the regent’s words to the border chief, fresh interest in her dark eyes.

That day, Crozier allowed himself at last to believe he might bring down his enemy. Over a meal of roasted meats and honeyed fruits, whose rich sauces and spiced flavours were a reminder of Lady Foulberry’s French homeland, he, his men and the Foulberrys discussed the liaisons they might make between their houses, and those of the most trusted and powerful of Henry ViiI’s northern subjects.

‘Give me the month,’ said Foulberry at the end of dinner, removing the eyeglasses that pinched his nose as he read the list they had composed. ‘In that time I will enquire of my closest friend, Marcus Selby of Setonlands near Durham, who has men inside Dacre’s camp.’

Lady Foulberry put a hand on her husband’s ermine cuff. He covered it with his own, and looked at Crozier. ‘Isabella wishes you to understand that you and your men are welcome as our guests whenever you please.’ He glanced at her ladyship, who was nodding.

‘In this treacherous weather, your work is hard enough,’ she said, ‘without spending a night on the road. There is nowhere in these parts I would allow my dogs to sleep, let alone a man such as you.’ She paused, as if contemplating just what sort of man he was, her eyes travelling over his countryman’s garb, his unadorned and roughened hands. ‘Should anyone disturb us while you are here,’ she continued, in a voice that held barely a note of a foreigner’s accent, ‘we will say you are my farmer cousin from Normandy. That way you need not speak.’

She smiled and hitched her furs around her neck, though a snowdrift of breast remained exposed.

That first visit had been in December, shortly before Christmas. The men had a punishing ride back to Teviotdale, their horses tiring after a few miles on tracks so hard their shoes rang out like chimes. Jolted with every step, the riders were not much less weary. But while they reached the keep with every bone aching, they were in good spirits. Alerted to their return by the wolf, who was barking fit to waken his ancestors, Louise ran out into the courtyard and caught her husband’s hands as he dismounted. He pulled her to him, throwing the reins into Hob’s care. ‘We make progress,’ he whispered into her hair, and kissed her swiftly, before any would see.

In the following days, Louise watched Crozier’s lightened mood, pleasure mingled with concern. His evident relief revealed all too plainly that until the regent’s visit he had been troubled, and afraid. Now he slept through the night without muttering or leaving their bed to stand by the unshuttered window, staring into the dark until he was as cold as the flagstones beneath his bare feet.

Christmas mass had been celebrated, and Father Walsh sent on his way with a mule laden with enough food to last him till Easter. Louise had pressed him to stay, but since Mother Crozier’s death, five years since, the keep held few charms for the priest. Where once he would have spent a week among them, now he returned to the village as soon as his offices had been conducted, preferring his warm house near the church to the Keep’s promise of chilblains. Perhaps too he was glad to escape the reminder of the place where he had given Martha the last rites, touching holy oil to eyelids that for several days before they closed forever had neither seen nor recognised him. Lifting her head at this solemn moment, when the family was gathered round Mother Crozier’s bed, Louise was the only one to notice that the priest’s oil was mixed with his tears.

Three days of eating, sleeping and loitering within the keep followed the mass, by which time Tom was restless. ‘We need to get back on the road, brother,’ he said, eyeing Crozier with disapproval. Adam sat on the settle by the fire, fondling the wolf’s ears and eating the hazelnuts his wife cracked for him from her stool by his knee. In response, Crozier gave a lazy smile.

Ella bustled across the hall, two small children trailing at her heels like ducklings, the others seated at Benoit’s feet as he carved a toy from a nub of wood. Nothing had been revealed of what had happened while her husband had been away with the Crozier brothers, yet it was obvious to everyone that he had returned with new confidence, and was treated with greater respect. Whatever had taken place, he had acquitted himself well. That he had told her little did not disturb her, nor did Louise enquire. They did not need, perhaps did not want, to know everything their men did.

Smiling as she passed her husband, Ella tapped Tom lightly on the arm. ‘For the lord’s sake, give him peace. There’s folk who need a bit of time by their own hearth. Ye’ll be singing a different tune when you’ve got a wife of your own.’ With a sigh, Tom picked up his cloak and left, seeking the village and whatever excitements it might hold this long, dull day. Louise and Crozier exchanged glances, but no one said a word. He was young still, and they were not his guards.

‘What do you do next?’ Louise asked Crozier, when the noise of Benoit’s children drowned their words once more.

‘Stay here a while,’ he replied. ‘I’m waiting for answers from three houses we’ve spoken to who say they will lodge complaints with the king: Wetherington, Selby and Ratcliffe. I expect their messengers before the snows begin.’

‘And then?’

‘Then, but not before, we go back to Lord Foulberry, who has promised to get news of Dacre’s plans. He’s the richest of the lot, and has most to lose from the baron’s thieving ways.’ Placing a hand on Louise’s, though his eyes did not leave the fire, he lowered his voice. ‘It is possible that with Foulberry’s help we could trap Dacre and destroy him. I shouldn’t look ahead too far, but I have this feeling . . .’ He broke off, and looked down at her. ‘I think we might win, Lou. For the first time, I sense it.’

Louise’s eyes glittered, but she would not cry. Instead, she gripped his hand. This was good news. If Crozier was confident, she would be too. She had never met a man less boastful, or with such a level head. Neither fearful nor a braggart, he had his own measure, by which he gauged the chances of every venture he undertook. Rested after his journey, in the fire’s soft glow he looked almost as young as when they first met, his face lean as ever but its harshness mellowed, or at least muted, after so many years of marriage. The wintry grey in his hair and beard matched his eyes, which held a faraway look as he leaned back and stretched out his legs. Smiling, Louise laid her head against his knee, staring with him into the scented pinewood flames. They were on the cusp of a long and uncertain year but, for the moment, all was well.

On the last day of January the three set out again. Black specks on a hard-bitten land, they moved like flies across a sleeping face and left no trace but a trail of scuffed frost. Barely a soul was abroad. Smoke rising from the edge of a wood would tell of a hovel nearby, and occasionally they caught a flicker of cloak or nodding hood as a cottager gathered wood, or went on the hunt for rabbits. But few animals were abroad. Foxes lay low, birds kept to their trees, and the fields were empty, their sheep, goats and cattle huddled in pens and byres, where they sniffed the air, sensing snow heading their way.

Crozier too knew it was coming. As they crossed the border, close by the coast, the wind shifted, and a breath of warmer salt air allowed him to hope they might make the journey in time. So it proved. Changing horses twice, sharing a bed for warmth in inns untouched by brooms or soap, they reached Lord Foulberry’s castle in three days. His black walls offered a cold welcome, their sheer stone broken only by arrow-slits and watchtowers, behind which guards moved on patrol.

Crozier was again struck by the contrast between the castle’s forbidding exterior and the comfort within. Once over the drawbridge and through the great doors, it was like entering a fairy tale. Newly cut ivy hung in swags from the walls, and its wood-panelled rooms were draped with tapestries brought, had he known it, at painful cost from Isabella’s homeland. Ceilings were painted in such a profusion of colour and imagery, it was as if the ancient myths had come alive before one’s eyes. Fresh rushes, strewn with bay leaves, lined the flagstones, and carved settles hugged the walls, or were gathered around the castle’s many fires, whose blazes leapt so brightly even the hounds had to retreat. On every shelf, table or cranny silverware and pewter caught the firelight and flashed a reply. From a distant corner came the ticking of a clockwork timepiece from Antwerp, its sound so unfamiliar the visitors believed it came from a caged bird.

For all their awe, the borderers marched in as if they were accustomed to such grandeur. Stern-faced, they followed the guard, who led them to the entrance of the main hall. Servants appeared to take their cloaks, and her ladyship rose from the fireside with her husband to greet them. Ignoring Tom and Benoit, she held out her fingertips to Crozier, who removed his riding gloves to take them, bowing low as he raised them to his lips. Smooth as buttermilk, they were scented with rosewater. Something like a smile softened Isabella’s face as she led her guests across the hall.

Beneath a corona of candles that hung from the beams, the Foulberrys’ children were playing, wooden swords clacking as the boys pranced around like miniature knights, uttering lusty taunts. Two very young girls sat in a corner near the fire, chattering to their painted dolls, absorbed in their private world. In one of their laps a ginger cat lay curled, like a woodsman’s winter cap, but breathing. Crozier’s expression lightened at the scene, and he bit back a laugh as the boys lunged at each other, uttering startling obscenities, no doubt learnt in the stables. It was their footwork that appalled him, not their language. Were he their father, he thought, he would be drilling them every morning in the yard.