Raider’s Tide. Maggie Prince

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СКАЧАТЬ am too hot in my grey woollen gown. My byggen cap is sticking to my forehead. I rest for a moment, and from habit gather a few dry sticks to replenish the kindling on Beacon Hill. I have taken the less known path because it seems safer. Off to my left is an old hermit’s cottage in the hazel thicket. It is half overgrown with brambles since the hermit died of a quinsy last winter. I tell myself I could hide there, if the Scots came now.

      This way up Beacon Hill is hard going, overgrown through little use. When I reach the top the smoky air makes me cough. I rest a moment, then pile stones round the collapsed ashes of the fire, and shovel damp soil into the middle. We will prepare it ready for next time once the embers have cooled. A false twilight has spread across the valley and the bay, from the smoking fires, but the wind will soon clear it. On my way back down through the woods I feel a surge of cheerfulness. A distant brush-fire has taken a day from our lives, but no matter. Tonight all the beacons will die down, and tomorrow Mother will come home.

      As I emerge from the trees I do not notice, at first, the thin, dark line streaming down the far side of the valley. I am out into the open before I see them, careering between the windblown trees on the Pike, racing down the distant, pebble-strewn screes.

      It had seemed an impossible slope, almost vertical. They have never come that way before. I realise, all in a flash, that they must have been hiding up there on the Pike, waiting for us to relax, knowing they would not be expected from that direction because we thought the sheer screes protected us. How long have they been watching? Days, perhaps. The speed the steepness gives them is terrifying.

      I am out in the open, but they have not seen me yet. I start to run towards the tower. The Scots are spreading out in an arc. Now I can hear them shouting. I can see their saffron coats, goatskin jerkins and brown and green draperies flapping about their knees. They have bows over their shoulders; a few, horrifyingly, have crossbows. At their waists are axes, dorks and cutlasses. Some carry muskets, and others, most ominously of all, scaling ladders. They are coming faster than I am. It is like running into the gates of Hell. For a moment I consider hiding in the woods, but it is too late. The outer edges of their line are spreading into a circle that will join arms behind me. There is no way back. Suddenly they see me. A great shout goes up. Individual Scots break free of the line and run straight at me. The ground is shaking under their feet as I reach the tower door. Their hands stretch out for me. Their sweat suffocates me.

      I had been afraid that no one would hear me or let me in, but the grille goes up fast, the door opens and Verity and Martinus pull me into the gatehouse. I stagger back against the wall, but something is wrong. The door will not shut behind me. Verity and Martinus throw their weight at it but the Scots are pushing from the other side, and slowly the door is opening again. I try to wind down the grille, but it will not move. I give up, realising they have jammed it, and instead add my strength to those trying to push the door shut. Laughter from outside mocks us. A cutlass pokes through the widening gap.

      “They’re making it easy for us this time, laddies,” calls a voice next to the hinge, a hand’s breadth from my ear.

      “Father! Send down more men!” Verity shouts through the inner door. Footsteps come running from above, but they are going to be too late. The door is opening now and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Those coming down the stairs behind us ought to bar the inner door against us, and safeguard the rest of the tower, but I know they will not. None of us here dares let go to seize weapons. Martinus gestures desperately to Verity and me to get behind the inner door and barricade ourselves in. Verity mutters, “And give you the pleasure of finishing off the bastards on your own?” except she does not describe them so genteelly.

      The hairy hand and arm holding the cutlass pushes further through the gap. There is an explosion – our hagbut. Gunshots thud against the walls. In a brief, quiet moment I hear the hiss and whistle of arrows. Now James is here. He does not add his weight to pushing at the door, but instead seizes the horn from its niche and brings it up hard against the elbow that is pushing through the gap. The hand springs convulsively open and the cutlass clatters down, but the arm does not withdraw. Instead, with a jolt from outside, the door opens faster. Then a hand comes from behind me, a hand holding a sword. With a swift up and downward chop, it slashes at the arm. It is Kate. If her angle had been better she might have severed the limb. An inhuman scream spirals out of audible pitch. Blood spurts, and the arm is pulled back. I know I shall never again watch with equanimity while Kate carves the meat.

      We all hurl ourselves at the door then, and at last it slams shut. Father is here now, and he crashes the six bolts and three heavy iron bars into their slots, fumbling with drunken haste. I steady his hand as he feeds metal into metal. Martinus drags at the handle which lowers the iron grille outside, and as he puts his full weight behind it there is a cracking noise, and it finally turns. Somebody outside yells as the descending grille hits them. James picks up the horn and restores it to its place.

      

      The battle is long and terrible. It is the worst I remember. Father stands at the window of the living hall with his antiquated longbow, pumping arrows into the enemy. We don’t bother with crossbows here at Barrowbeck. At this height and range they have no particular virtue, and are too slow to reload, though the Scots put them to terrifying use from below. The extra power sends their arrows high over our battlements where our henchmen crouch, firing back. Behind them some of the young men and women from the valley kneel in the shelter of the beacon turret, binding arrow points in linen, dipping them in hot tar and setting them alight before passing them forward for firing. We all have short swords and knives at our belts, in case hand-to-hand combat should become necessary. Verity and James operate the catapult. James hefts the stones and Verity pulls back the lever. Occasionally James just throws a particularly heavy stone over the battlements. Downstairs Leo stands watch on the outer door, ready to bar the inner door if needs be. In the kitchen Kate boils lard for pouring on the enemy, and Germaine carries it up the stairs in wooden pails, cursing under her breath as homesteaders get in her way and the stairs grow greasy underfoot.

      Many of the valley homesteaders who herded their animals into the tower are now huddled in the lower rooms with them. There are so many this time that in places it is difficult to move. We have put James’s black cattle in the kitchen with Kate. All the animals are going mad with terror. Their lowing and whinnying and squealing fill our ears, and the stink of them rises up the stairs in great waves.

      My job is to go round checking that all possible entry points are defended. I have not forgotten the rope scaling ladders which I saw earlier. As I reach the gatehouse on one of my patrols, I find Leo looking very grim.

      “They’re trying to fire the door, lady.”

      I look down, and see a curl of smoke feathering out of a narrow crack at the base of the door.

      “It will never burn, Leo. Thank the Lord we treated it in time.”

      “Mebbe best get Mistress Kate to soak some leather for under it.”

      “I’ll do that.” I move towards the kitchen, then stop. “Did you hear that?”

      We both listen. Leo’s mouth tightens. “Grappling irons. They’re trying to get up the walls.”

      “They must have hooked into one of the windows. Quick, Leo. If you start looking I’ll get some of the others to go round too.” As I speak, a homesteader comes rushing down from the battlements to tell us the Scots are scaling the walls. There is a flurry of commotion from above. Leo and I quickly bar the inner door and I hurry through the arch to the kitchen. Here people from the valley are tearing up linen for arrows and bandages, feeding and tending their animals, soothing their babies. At the far end of the kitchen James’s black cows are imprisoned by the long table, knee deep in straw and dung, lowing and stamping and rolling their eyes. Over СКАЧАТЬ