Chapter Three
LETHAN VALLEY
'Robert!'
He lay on his face, groaning softly. I put my hands under him and helped haul him upright, with his face twisted in pain and one hand on his haunches. 'Are you badly hurt?'
'Not too bad,' he said, trying to be brave. 'That devil in the yellow jack unhorsed me and landed a foul stroke.'
'I was watching,' I said. 'Luck was not with you.'
I saw Mother embracing Father, both of them chatting noisily as if they were young people in love and not grey-haired oldsters who should have known better and behaved with more propriety.
'I think he cut me badly.' Robert was rubbing at himself.
'You will have the luck next time.' I wondered if I should offer to check his wounds, decided that I had better not look at that part of him and offered him my arm for support instead.
'He ran too fast for me to catch him,' Robert said.
He limped at my side. I saw his father and my mother talking as the men of Lethan dismounted and discussed the late encounter with rough laughter and much exaggeration.
To hear them talk you would think they had won a major battle rather than merely chase a bunch of young callants away from the door.
'Come on, Robert.' I knew that Mother and Archie of Whitecleuch were discussing Robert's recent participation in the action.
I wished he had acquitted himself better although I knew he had at least tried.
He had proved himself to be no coward, even though he had been bested in single combat.
I took Robert to one of the chambers upstairs and eased him onto the bed.
He lay there, face down and giving the occasional piteous groan.
I thought his wound must be causing him considerable pain and wondered what was best to do.
I was loath to leave him yet unsure if I could help by remaining.
'Well then!' Mother bustled in, all decision and authority. 'How is he?'
'Not well,' I said, part aggrieved that Mother should interfere and part relieved she was there for if anybody knew what to do, Mother would. 'Robert's wounded,' I said, looking at her hopefully.
'I saw.' Mother did not waste time. 'Lie still and let's have a look at you,' she said and, without hesitation, dragged Robert's breeches down past his knees.
'Mother!' I was not sure whether to be shocked, surprised or something else as I had a sudden look at Robert's haunches all delightfully bare for my inspection.
I looked, expecting to see a huge open wound gushing out blood.
Instead, there was a faint weal, slightly red and with the skin only broken in one place.
'Oh tcha!' Mother tutted. 'Oh, you poor wee soul.' She stepped back, shaking her head. 'I am surprised you are able to walk at all after enduring that.' She surprised me with an expansive wink. 'Do you think he will survive?'
'Is it that bad?' Robert spoke over his shoulder, trying to squint backwards to view the injured part of him.
'Oh, bad!' Mother shook her head again. Suddenly tutting again, she looked at me.
'I've seen worse in an infant! Now get up and get along with you.
' She turned away in disgust. 'And you, Jeannie, can see now why Robert Ferguson is not right for you.
A woman needs a man, not a greeting little boy.
' For one horrible moment, I thought that mother was about to slap him as he lay there, but she resisted the obvious temptation and instead hustled me outside the door.
'I do wish you would find a man,' she said.
Tempted to sneak back and watch poor Robert hauling up his breeches, I knew that Mother would not approve and instead walked into what we fondly called the Great Hall, from where a jubilant noise was emanating.
In case you have never been in the great hall of a border tower, pray allow me to describe it for you.
As I have already explained, Cardrona Tower was no larger than many others in the Borders, a solid, four-storey, whinstone-built lump of masonry that would withstand the wind and weather for many centuries unless the English or some reiving band took crowbars or cannon to it.
With walls some five feet thick, the interior was necessarily cramped, making the great hall a little less than great although it did extend the full width and length of the building.
With a vaulted ceiling above, and straw covering the slabbed floor below, logs crackling in the fireplace, and tapestries on the walls, the room was packed with men and women, children, and dogs, all laughing at their victory over the raiders and lauding their own parts in the proceedings.
A piper enlivened the proceedings with his Border pipes until Mother sent him on his way with a cuff to the back of his head.
'It is surprising that with all that gallantry,' Mother said caustically, 'nobody got hurt. You did not kill a single one of the attackers and only one of us was in any way injured.'
'Who was hurt?' Father sounded strangely surprised. Did he think that such a victory could be obtained without blood being spilt? I thought he knew better than that.
'Young Robert of Whitecleuch.' Mother explained his extensive injuries to the now hushed room, leaving them laughing hard.
When Robert walked in, the merriment increased, with the children demanding to see his battle wounds and Archie Ferguson scowling in embarrassment for his son.
I sat in a corner, red-faced, wishing that anything had happened except what had actually occurred.
I hardly heard Archie's near-casual statement: 'we captured one of them. '
'You captured one? I did not know that.' Again, my father sounded surprised. 'Where is he now?'
'In the black hole of your keep,' Archie said.
'Bring him here,' Father ordered. 'I want to see him.'
The prisoner was little more than a boy.
He was about sixteen, straight-backed with a shock of fair hair and an expression of utter disdain as a brace of servants dragged him into the centre of the floor.
We watched him with a mixture of amusement and trepidation.
Was this an example of the reivers that scared us so much?
'He doesn't look much, does he?' Old Martin said. 'A callant at most. What's your name, boy?'
'That's my business,' the boy said boldly.
'That is a brave answer when you are surrounded by men you were so recently inclined to rob,' Old Martin told him and repeated. 'What's your name, boy?'
The boy pressed his lips together and said nothing.
'He's harmless,' Father said. When he pointed, firelight caught the heavy ring he wore on his pinkie finger. 'Put him back in the black hole or kick him out into the night and let him find his own way back.'
'Hand me that poker,' Old Martin said. He pressed it deep into the fire. 'When it is hot enough, we will ask you again and this time you will tell us.'
I had known Old Martin all my life. I knew he had ridden with my father when they were younger; much younger, and I had never seen him cruel before. I stepped forward.
'No!' I said. 'You can't torture him. He is little more than a child!' I felt the boy's gaze on me as I tried to defend him.
'There would be no need if he told us his name and where he came from.' Old Martin seemed amused by my outburst. 'Then we will know if it was only a chance raid or if they intended to return.'
I could see logic in that. 'We need to know your name,' I told the boy. He stared at me through level brown eyes. 'If you don't tell us, that man there,' I pointed to Martin, 'will hurt you sore.'
'I know,' the boy sounded very calm. 'I still won't tell.'
'Western marches,' Old Martin said at once.
'His accent gives him away.' He withdrew the poker from the fire, inspected the end and thrust it back in.
'What are you, son? An Armstrong from Liddesdale?
A Graham from the Debateable Lands? A Maxwell from Annandale?
' He reeled off some of the most notorious riding families from the western marches of the Border, with the boy standing mute.
'It matters not who he is and where he is from.' Mother took the poker from the fire and clattered it down on the hearth. 'He is a thief and a reiver. We have the power of pit and gallows in our own land. Hang him.'
'Mother!' I knew of course that we had the power to do virtually as we liked to lawbreakers in the Lethan. The Crown had given the Tweedies that power centuries before but, to the best of my knowledge, we had never exercised it. Certainly, I had never seen anything like that in my time.
The boy started and looked at Father, who shook his head slowly. 'Let me think about this,' he said.
'There is nothing to think about.' Mother had made the decision, as she was wont to do.
'He is a thief. Thieves are hanged. So, we hang him.
' She pushed the boy toward Old Martin. 'Put him back in the Black Hole Martin.
We will get rid of him tomorrow.' She clapped her hands.
'The rest of you: get back to bed or to your homes or wherever you should be.
' She took hold of my arm as I moved away.
'Not you, Jeannie. We have something to discuss. '