The Disorderly Knights

  Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig, on his side, was also scanning the papers bequeathed him by Buccleuch, standing arms akimbo among his Scotts to the right. A certain irregularity in Sir Wat’s beard led him to believe that Lord Wharton’s question had not gone unremarked. He leaned over discreetly. ‘Well? Are they related, Wat?’

  ‘Only in misfortune, Jamie. Only in misfortune,’ said that untrustworthy old knight, in deepest sorrow. Sir James Douglas sighed.

  *

  The morning passed, however, innocuously enough. There were one or two moderate cases of poaching, a theft of peats and oat straw from the stackyard, some off-season salmon fishing, and the ceremonial return of two loud-swearing rebels at the horn, caught in Kelso and handed back, with pleasure, by the Scottish Warden to their fate. The heavy guns, the horse and cattle stealing, the household robberies and thatch burnings and all varieties of slaughter, unpremeditated, chaudmelle or forethocht felony, were for the afternoon, when concentration had weakened and the more quarrelsome onlookers, touched by ennui, might have wandered away to the booths, the tents, the makeshift sports arena where attention and money were more seductively solicited.

  Jerott, obeying orders, had begun circling the field slowly on horseback as soon as proceedings began, checking his men detailed discreetly on every part of the circumference, along with Ogle’s hundred, thinly spread. Gabriel was doing the same.

  So far, there had been no trouble. Lancelot Plummer, mounted with a strong detachment immediately behind the Kerrs, signalled nothing to report, but seemed uncommonly flushed about the cheekbones. Jerott hesitated, but rode on. Chester Herald (‘Call me Billy’) had elected to tour at his side, and he didn’t care to expose something personal to the little Yorkshireman’s shrewd gaze.

  Fergie Hoddim, next on guard, was arguing law with someone dressed in black, and with only half an eye, Jerott saw, for his work. Latin flew like dubs from a puddle: ‘continuatur ex partium consensu’, Fergie was saying heatedly, and ‘essoin de malo lecti’; and then began to press home a brilliant argument, no doubt, about litiscontestation and lawburrows. His tongue licked lawburrows into shape like a bearcub.

  ‘Fergie!’ said Jerott.

  ‘And God give you the quartain!’ said Fergie Hoddim precisely, turning his long, black-jawed face on the knight. ‘My lord count of Sevigny has been visiting us on that tack already,’ and in a surprisingly good imitation of Lymond at his most irritating: ‘You can’t swing a sword in a writers’ booth, Fergie. Either the one or the other, Solomon; divide as you please.’

  ‘He’s a tongue, Mr Crawford has, hasn’t he?’ said Chester Herald in a pleased voice. ‘We found that out in France. A proper lad. And what he got up to!’

  ‘You should see what he gets up to here,’ said Jerott, bored. ‘Fergie … our gallant commander, it must be admitted, is right. Pay attention, man. You can loose your lawburrows on Gabriel afterwards if you want a thorough-going debate.…’

  Hercules Tait was off duty, nominally to eat but actually buying something a little secretively from a packman’s roll. Jerott couldn’t see what it was. Alec Guthrie was grimly in position; and the biggest concentration of all, de Seurre, des Roches and Adam Blacklock, all in the vicinity of Buccleuch. ‘… Fought a boar single-handed,’ Billy Flower, Chester Herald, was saying. ‘At Angers. Single-handed.’

  ‘You were there?’ said Jerott. It was something to say. He had noticed Gabriel, off duty beside Buccleuch, sitting on the dry grass chatting to the old man as they both ate. Under the noonday sun his head was gold as a newly-coined noble and his engraved armour, his one magnificent possession, was still on but untied. He waved.

  ‘That I was. And had the privilege of hearing the gentleman exercise his other talents as well, before their Majesties, you understand. Such an art; such an ear! I studied the lute myself once; in my youth, that was,’ said Chester Herald, swept away by his memories. ‘But it sounded different. Yes, I must confess, it was in a different class from that.’

  Jerott, dismounting, said without listening, ‘So there were two bores? Chester—Billy,’ said Jerott with distaste. ‘Come and meet Sir Graham Malett and the Laird of Buccleuch. Proper lads both.’

  And, cheerfully unnoticing, a smile on his rosy face, Chester Herald got down, just as Graham Malett, saying, ‘Have you eaten, Jerott? No? I’m just going back on duty then. Wait and you shall eat here,’ dispatched a man running for food. He brought back enough for Flower and Jerott both, and some wine as well, and Gabriel lingered a moment, talking to the herald, his shadow short and massive on the flattened grass as he refastened his straps. Buccleuch, struck by a thought, cut without ceremony through the chat. ‘Is yon an Italian suit?’

  ‘My armour?’ Gabriel looked up. ‘German, sir.’

  ‘It’s a grand fit round the houghs,’ Sir Wat gave his opinion. ‘Ye’ll be having a set made for that sister of yours?’

  ‘Joleta?’ Sir Graham smiled, but his fair face held a look of faintly puzzled inquiry. Adam Blacklock, coming to life suddenly, stirred and got up.

  ‘Aye,’ said Sir Wat helpfully. ‘Ye’ll no have been at Midculter recently, maybe. The lassie came home in a right state the other day. Fell off her pony. She said.’ Gabriel, wounded, had ridden twenty-one miles the other day to comfort Janet’s sister Grizel. In principle, Buccleuch approved of Sir Graham. What stuck in his craw, now and always, was that St Mary’s had failed to save Will.

  Adam Blacklock, who could interpret as well as anyone the old man’s tangled emotions, opened his mouth. But before he could speak, Gabriel said quietly, ‘If my sister says so, then of course it is true. I have been to Midculter, as it happens. She won’t go, even to Boghall, without a proper escort again.’

  ‘But she didna.…’ began Buccleuch and paused, as Blacklock laid a hand on his arm. ‘I think they’re due to start again, sir.’

  ‘Are they?’ Sir Wat craned round, his saddle creaking. ‘No, they’re not. There’s Francis Crawford talking to Wharton, and Culter keeping himself to himself on the ither side o’ the field. That reminds me. She didna.…’

  ‘Wat!’ said his wife Janet, emerging briskly from the tent into which she had been pushed, fuming, at the start of the break.

  ‘I was just going to mention,’ said Sir Wat, giving up, aggrieved, some part of his design, ‘that I hadna seen the two Crawfords speak this morning. Culter must still be showing that ill-spawned young jangler the door.’

  Anything to do with Lymond, Jerott knew and Blacklock now noted, would always draw Gabriel’s full attention. He said now, still quietly, ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Is there trouble between Francis and his brother?’

  ‘Wat!’ said the voice of female doom over Buccleuch’s shoulder.

  He ignored it. ‘Oh, aye. They’ve quarrelled!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Culter’s flung his brother out o’ Midculter, and Sybilla’s fair chawsed. Did Joleta not mention it? Biggar’s exhausted with guesswork.… Ah, ye were right, Adam. There’s the signal. Ye should have a word with your young friend about it, Sir Graham. A man of God such as yourself, brought up to entertain and nourish love, peace and unity and with a heidful of texts forbye should find no hardship in it.’ And heaving himself up, Buccleuch nodded and offered an iron arm to his crimson-faced wife.

  Graham Malett’s fresh-skinned face, smooth as a sea-worn rock, smooth as an imbecile’s, smooth as that of a man at complete spiritual ease with himself, reflected the shadow of trouble. But he smiled at the old man notwithstanding, and said, ‘Do you think so? Somehow I don’t think M. le Comte de Sevigny would agree with you.’ And as Buccleuch, peching mysteriously, moved off, Gabriel sighed, and catching the eyes of Jerott and Adam Blacklock, ruefully smiled. ‘I love my young friend, but this afternoon, I seem to be a little overwhelmed with his ineffable wake. Lancelot Plummer was having a stroke, nearly, when I found him, over some mild misdemeanour he and Tait had enjoyed at Liddel Keep, that all the Kerrs have been badgering him about today.’

  Th
e theft of Nixon’s Staurotheque, thought Jerott, but didn’t say so. Instead he remarked, ‘Had Lymond told the Kerrs about it?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ said Gabriel. ‘But Plummer thought he had. And then Fergie Hoddim was annoyed because he had been accused, virtually, of showing off his knowledge of law—not without justice, believe me,’ said Gabriel, a shade of exasperation entering the rich voice. ‘But if that same young man would apply his intelligence to delegating his work just a little and sparing his own health, he would be able to control himself and us just a little more easily.… Alec!’ He turned, smiling, as Guthrie stumped up behind, ready for food. ‘I’m getting old. I’m delivering lectures on the obstinacy of the young.’

  ‘Criticizing the command, eh?’ said Alec Guthrie drily. ‘It’s an ancient pursuit. Flamboyance, intolerance, cruelty are all faults of the young, true enough; but not only of the young. You knew what you were doing when you placed yourself under him.’

  With calm speed, Gabriel was fastening his points. ‘Of course I did. I wished to regain as quickly as possible all the skills I once had in Malta, and also perhaps to help Francis a little too. I think I may have done that. I know he has helped me more than he knows himself. It’s only that … shut off from all affairs of the spirit, all art and all graces in the hard life he’s led, it is sometimes a little hard to reach his understanding … over things I might feel are important, and he, perhaps quite rightly, does not.’

  ‘A sensitive mercenary would be a contradiction in terms, don’t you think?’ said Guthrie. ‘If he does nothing else, he makes us aware of our own weaknesses at least. I know I’m an argumentative old bastard who tends to hold up the action by talk. As now. Shouldn’t you all be at your posts?’

  He was right. They scattered, grinning; and Jerott, completing the circuit back to the dais, saw that Wharton and Drumlanrig were in their chairs with all their officials, and that Lymond, as before, was on horseback close behind. He also saw, now that he searched for it, Richard Crawford’s family banner on the far side of the Stank and, finally, Lord Culter’s grave, well-built person, exchanging words with all his near neighbours and not troubling to glance once in the direction of his younger brother.

  It must be true, then. They had quarrelled. But over what? Ever since Will’s death, Buccleuch had boiled with anger over Lymond. He would be ready to invent any libel. But why had Adam Blacklock been so anxious to intervene? And Lady Buccleuch? Jerott made up his mind to have a word with Blacklock, at least, before the day was over.

  But, of course, the day wasn’t over yet.

  Jerott wondered, if it came to bloodshed, what the Wardens expected of St Mary’s, and what each secretly hoped. Sir James Douglas, who knew a great deal about Francis Crawford, had been guardedly friendly. Lord Wharton, who had been tricked too often in the past to feel anything but pure dislike for Lymond, had been brought in the last few months, through exhaustive and contemptuous inquiry, to a grudging respect for his ability. They could converse, as they had talked all the way to Hadden, on matters concerning the conduct of armies. On personal subjects, and on everything to do with the recent war between their two countries, Lymond was tactfully and Wharton stubbornly silent.

  Jerott noted further that Lord Wharton was one of the very few people totally humourless on whom Lymond refrained from exercising his wit. From which he deduced that, professional that he was, Lymond equally respected the little Cumberland man’s grip of his job. On the whole, he thought that the Wardens would enjoy seeing St Mary’s in action, for all their reservations about its commander.

  The afternoon wore on. Now the more serious cases were coming before the tribunal: cases of wholesale theft and bloodshed; cases involving whole families, mainly of broken men such as the Turn-bulls had been, who scraped an illegal living in the boggy wastes of land which neither country cared to claim. There was a good deal of raucous shouting, some sound cursing and one or two drunken struggles, as well as a volleying orchestration of comment and insult from the watching crowd, but no mass movements had started, either for or against the defenders or pursuivants, and the feuding families, coldly oblivious each of the other’s presence, kept to themselves.

  Down by the river, the sport was well under way: wrestling, shooting, fighting with sword and cudgel. The booths were gradually emptying of their wares as the huckstering and peddling came to a hoarse conclusion and men turned to spend their money on the acrobats, the jugglers, the fortune-tellers, and on, of course, the jolly, well-built, sunburnt women who swaggered back-slapping through the crowds and gave as good as they got when the fresh hogsheads were rolled out dripping from the carts, and the well-worn quips undulated about their impervious ears.

  In mid-afternoon Gabriel, whose splendour on horseback no restraint on his part could dim, observed to Jerott, ‘We are, I fear, a subject for good healthy merriment along the river. Does it strike you, as it does me, that our respected leader is exercising his right once again to keep us alert? March meetings, in other words, are goodly things which remove dullness from little boys.…’

  The thought had occurred to Jerott. Before he could speak, however, Adam Blacklock on his other side said, ‘You w-weren’t here two years ago. If folk from one side of the Border met the other, it was to fight; and pick the eyes from the naked dead afterwards. I’ve seen the Douglases and the Scotts play handball through the streets of Kelso with severed English heads for the ball.’

  Gabriel’s unclouded blue eyes turned on him. ‘What were you doing there? Sketching them?’

  The artist flushed.

  Graham Malett noted it, but his voice was gentle. ‘And what did you gain from that? Are you a better artist, Adam, for drawing only men of violence and acting in their brutal engagements? Do you expect to become hardened to it? You never will. You have too fine a grain.’ Graham Malett’s deep, rich voice hardened for a moment. ‘There is nothing romantic about killing for money.’

  But Adam Blacklock’s lean, nondescript face with the untidy hair was blank. ‘It depends whom you kill,’ he said.

  With a half-exasperated, half-amused groan, Gabriel clapped his free hand to his brow. ‘Francis again,’ he said. ‘Do you know that you are all becoming copyists as faithfully mannered as the Chinaman who sat on the plate? I shall never redeem one of you until I have his ungodly heart.’

  ‘He hasn’t got one,’ Blyth said shortly. ‘Godly or ungodly.’

  ‘He has something,’ said Gabriel gently. ‘Or why else do we follow him? Why else is Adam here concealing what he knows? Something happened at Dumbarton, something so painful that Lord Culter has become estranged. Must I ask Culter myself?’

  ‘Why not ask L-Lymond?’ said Adam Blacklock, his gaze resolutely avoiding Jerott Blyth’s.

  ‘Because I think he hates me,’ said Gabriel, and his gaze, drifting past them, rested on the distant, confident horseman, leaning down to talk to Wharton’s clerk and then side-stepping to where Buccleuch stood to stoop chatting to him. Lymond’s head, jaune-paille in the clear sun, was without a helm.

  ‘… I think he hates me,’ Gabriel repeated, bitterness for once in the deep voice. ‘A fine churchman, a dexterous shepherd, is Graham Malett. This one man I cannot reach.’

  The words were to remain, engraved leadenly on the air and on Jerott Blyth’s memory. For just as they were spoken, the English Warden Thomas, Lord Wharton, reached the case of the three rows of women.

  They were English women, with good Border names, of peasant and small yeoman stock. Not ladies of pedigree; nor, on the other hand, loose women or gypsies. They wore decent fustian gowns and long hair, to show they were unmarried, and they sat in the benches reserved for those lodging complaint. With them, bawling, squealing, fighting, slavering, and much occupied in casual regurgitation, were their children.

  The fact became clear gradually as the clerk’s weakening voice wheezed through the list of cases; and as he went on, the depleted crowd round the open-air court became markedly briske
r, and in a kind of simmering movement, like oatmeal on the hob, began to thicken and bubble and spread until three-quarters of the total March meeting or all those not otherwise urgently engaged were standing watching the court.

  The complaints, notice of which had been received too late to make known until now, were all the same. Nell Hudson, formerly of the Baxter Raw, Carlisle, did complain that Gilbert Kerr of Green-head, having promised her marriage and got her with child, had heinously broken the said promise and had neither taken her honourably to his bed and board, nor acknowledged and maintained the child. Nell Hudson therefore prayed the Wardens to so judge that either Gilbert Kerr of Greenhead should marry her, with all goodly haste, or if constrained by virtue of prior wedlock, should admit to and maintain his son.

  Gilbert Kerr of Greenhead, who was fifty-five and had eight children by his (living) third wife, had hardly done shouting his denials when the next case was reeled off.

  Bess Storer of Little Ryle complained that Sir Thomas Kerr of Ferniehurst, heir to Sir John Kerr of that ilk, having promised her marriage and got her with child, had broken the said promise and had neither fulfilled his engagement nor maintained the said child.… Sir Thomas Kerr, who was seventeen, stood, pink as a flamingo among the squeals of his friends, and looked both surprised and pleased as he craned to see the aforesaid Bess Storer—pleased until he saw his father’s black face.

  Meg Hall of Screnwood blamed George Kerr of Linton; and Allie Lorimer of Haggerston, George Kerr of Gateshaw or Robin Kerr of Graden—she was not sure which. Sir Andrew Kerr of Littledean, a vast and sober citizen until recently Provost of Edinburgh, had sired two girls, it was said. Walter Kerr of Dolphinton, Gilbert Kerr of Primsideloch and Andrew Kerr of the same were each named as unwilling fathers, and the young laird, Andrew Kerr, Cessford’s son, was accused of engendering twins, and was juvenile enough to crow triumphantly in the direction of Sir Thomas Kerr. The climax came when, half an hour later, Wat Kerr of Cessford himself was named as father of Sue Bligh of Bamburgh’s four sons.