Raider’s Tide. Maggie Prince

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       Chapter 5

      None of us emerges until the following day. Double watch is kept all night. By next morning the whole area smells like a slaughterhouse, and a thick crust of black flies has formed on the outside of the tower. They creep in through the window slits and buzz in our faces, grotesquely unable to differentiate between the living and the dead. Outside, they swarm on the bodies. On the grass they move in patterns, forming and re-forming like fishermen’s nets on the sea.

      My father, sober and out of bed for once, leads prayers of thanksgiving for our deliverance, as we all stand crushed together in the men’s common room. On our side only Henry is dead, though several more of the henchmen are wounded. Henry lies now in our tiny chapel over the gatehouse. Father prays for his soul. He even, in what seems to me like a fit of remarkable generosity, offers up a brief prayer for the souls of the fallen Scots.

      “He’d best not let the parson hear him praying for folks’ souls,” Germaine whispers to me. “That’s Popish stuff.”

      I look at her. Is she loyal to no one, not even my father? Not that there seems much point in his prayers. I cannot believe that God listens to my father. He might as well pray to the elder tree in the thicket, the way some people round here still do.

      “Amen,” chorus the homesteaders. I look across their bowed heads. In a few minutes they will have to walk out past those bloating corpses and down the valley to see which of their stick and mud homes are still standing. Their children, tired from two nights on the common rooms’ floors, are mardy and whimpering. The stench from the livestock is overwhelming even up here now, and it blends with the smell of carnage below to create a foul miasma which clogs our noses. Several times I pass people being sick out of windows.

      Later, most of us go down to help redistribute the livestock. Buckets of milk stand all along the downstairs passageways. The floors of the lower rooms are thick with dung. Most of the cattle are in distress because the crowded conditions have not made for adequate milking. They skip and kick as they are released down the curving slope to the cellars, then shoulder each other along the underground passage, through the stone arch under the dairy, up the slope at the other end where part of the flagstone floor has been removed, and out into the barmkin, pursued by Leo shouting, “Git on, yer great lummocks.”

      Two pigs, herded by their owner out of the barmkin, rush towards where the bodies lie. Children watch in fascination to see if the pigs are to be allowed to eat the bodies, and Kate mutters, “Reet pigs an’ all,” and ushers the children away, while the swineherd hurries his charges up the hill.

      Father yells, “Bury the dead!” I see that his hands are shaking from lack of drink. I put my arm round him and embrace him, then join the homesteaders and help them sort out their animals.

      Later I go up to the chapel to see Henry’s body. Bright sunlight pours in through the high window and shimmers on the embroidered altar cloth and the linen sheet covering him. Four candles burn, two at his head and two at his feet. The four spiked silver candle prickets represent Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The old priest said they were Popish folly, but the new priest says they are beautiful. I lift one of the candles, spilling hot wax on my hand, and hold it close to see Henry better. I can feel my burnt skin puckering under the cooling wax. Henry’s cheeks are smooth and white, his chin dark with stubble. The wound from the grappling iron stands out in shades of black and purple, and below it, the graze from my ring is raised and red. I touch it with the hand I used to slap him, then turn away and bring my hand down on the spike. I am not brave. It is a gash, no more. The blood runs over my fingers, through the turquoise ring, and I walk unsteadily back downstairs.

      Mother has arrived home, and with her are Hugh and Gerald. Verity and I stand outside the tower amongst the piled dungheaps which Kate and Leo are still shovelling out, and hold her tightly and cry.

      “Are you all right?” she demands. “I was dreadfully worried about you.”

      “Yes. Are you all right, Mother?” I see that her cheeks are very red and healthy-looking, and despite her stated anxiety she has the appearance of someone rather pleased with herself. Hugh and Gerald grin at us, and take themselves off upstairs to have a tankard of ale in the common room with the men. All of them are now back from burying the bodies of the Scots in a clearing on the hill behind Barrow Wood. Henry’s body will travel the Old Corpse Road to Wraithwaite tomorrow, for burial in the churchyard. Now the men have been given a quart of ale each to help them forget the dreadful sights they have seen and the dreadful textures they have touched.

      Mother, Verity and I go up to Verity’s room and sit on the cushioned stone benches along the walls, leaning back against the pictorial tapestries which Verity weaves. We are all very tired. Kate, unasked, brings hot, mulled wine.

      “Did they attack Mere Point?” I ask. Mother shakes her head.

      “No, but we’d just let the cattle out again, and they took those. They’re getting too darned clever by half, hiding and waiting like that. I was frantic when I heard they were attacking Barrowbeck. A lad said they’d got into the tower, but Aunt Juniper wouldn’t let me come back until now. Even then she insisted on sending Hugh and Gerald with me. Not that they needed much persuading.” She says this with more hope than conviction.

      We talk until Kate rings the bell for supper, then we go up to eat in the living hall. Lately Germaine has been eating here with us, instead of in the kitchen with Kate and the henchmen. As usual, our food is half cold by the time Kate has slogged up the east stairs with it. She bangs down the pewter dishes in front of us. I believe she thinks we should pay for our privileges.

      “Wouldn’t you prefer to eat in the kitchen, Germaine?” Verity asks gently. When she speaks gently, we all know to watch out. “You’d get your food hot from the hearth then. In fact, I think I might start eating in the kitchen myself.”