Marchman

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

During the 16th century, the Borderland between Scotland and England was something of a world apart, with its own strange laws, beliefs and customs. Young John Maxwell, Warden of the West March, did his best to control a motley crew of dalesmen and mosstroopers from Liddesdale, Eskdale and Dryfesdale among others, and keep some sort of balance with the unruly West March English. As the turbulent reign of King Henry VIII gave way to the rule of Elizabeth Tudor, John Maxwell - a loyal supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots - inevitably found himself drawn into the wider sphere of the kingdom's affairs. How he fared with Mary's suitors, courtiers and enemies, and his courtship of the beautiful Agnes Herries, forms the fascinating subject of Nigel Tranter's captivating novel.

Release date: September 13, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 374

Sample

The young man on the spirited, splashing horse yelled with triumph as he raised his long spear high, with its gleaming, twisting trophy impaled thereon, a fine salmon, flapping urgently but securely held, heavy as it was to hold up, taxing on his muscular arms. But he was a determined character, tall and powerfully built, open-featured, keen-eyed, his long fair hair blowing free in the breeze. With a fierce effort he flung the spear round in an arc, so that its shaft fell across his broad shoulder, and this took the weight largely off his arms. The fish would weigh twenty pounds at least. Reining his mount round, he kicked it into a canter through the wavy shallows, in a shower of spray, back to the sandy beach where, beside an isolated rock, two other fish lay, fair-sized both but not so large as this one. Lifting the spear from his shoulder, he shook it, without dismounting, until his catch fell off beside the others, and pulled his beast’s head round again, to send it plunging back into the tide.

This was a favourite sport of John Maxwell’s, spearing salmon in the shallow waters of the Solway Firth, where the tide receded further than anywhere else on that coastline, going out for miles, but at its present stage leaving these shallows of no more than two or three feet, where the salmon were apt to lurk, especially here near the mouths of the Nith, Lochar and Annan Waters, where the fish came to spawn. It was a challenging sport, demanding much skill and expertise, as well as strength – but that young man was ever the one for challenge. The fish moved swiftly and unpredictably, particularly when alarmed by the splashing of the horse’s hooves, and the refraction of the water had to be allowed for also, so that the spear-point had to be aimed not directly at its target but at where the salmon would be in the split seconds later, this demanding instant calculation of the degree of light deviation through the water, as well as compensating for the confusing effect of surface dazzle. But it could all be effected with practice and swift reactions, once a fish was spotted.

John knew the likeliest places to search, where conditions were favourable, where there were eddies and swirls caused by hollows and deeper ridges in the sand, which the fish seemed to like. It had been a good morning, with three salmon already. Some days he got none at all, and had to be content with leaving his horse on the shore and, taking off his boots, pacing through the nearer shallows in bare feet, feeling with his soles and toes for moving flatfish, flounders, which wriggled just below the surface of the sand, and then spearing down to try to transfix them, watching heedfully not to skewer his toes in the process; fair sport, but nothing compared with the salmon. Next to roe-deer stalking, and shooting the flighting wildgeese with a crossbow – and these Solway marshes were excellent terrain for these also – he loved salmon-spearing.

He had made only one other stab, and missed, when a hail from the shore turned him in the saddle. There, nearly four hundred yards off, a figure stood waving, beckoning, Dod Armstrong, his body-servant and friend. That one would not come to interrupt the sport unless there was good reason. John reined round and headed for the beach.

“The countess would speak with you, master,” the other young man shouted as he neared. When they were alone, Dod did not normally call the other master; perhaps it was the shouting of the name that did it, or the fact that he came at the behest of John’s stepmother. “The countess has tidings. Ill tidings I’d say, by the looks of her. She sends for you.”

“Now? At once? What’s to do, Dod?”

“I do not know. She did not tell me. But yon Pate Liddell from Blackshaw came, on a hard-ridden beast, one of your father’s men . . .”

John nodded. “Very well. I will go to her. Bring the fish, Dod – three there. A good catch.” He kicked his mount into motion again.

He had no long ride, a bare two miles. Indeed he could see the three towers of Caerlaverock Castle rearing ahead on slightly rising ground behind the level marshland. He wondered what was so important as to have his stepmother, no fluttery woman, send for him like this in mid-forenoon.

Presently he was clattering through the castleton of Caerlaverock, quite large, all but a village, cot-houses, shacks, sheds, barns, even a mill, where folk waved to him, for he was popular, friendly towards all, unlike his over-serious and seemingly stiff elder brother, the Master of Maxwell. The castle was not far off, beyond orchards, imposing with its vivid red-stone high curtain walls and higher towers, these last each flying the Maxwell banner of a black double-headed eagle on silver in the breeze, all within what was more than any moat, a small loch indeed, the walls rising straight out of the water. As a boy John had fished from the parapet walk along the tops of those curtain walls, tiny as the fish were that he had caught.

He rode through the orchards and pleasance to the north end of the loch, where it narrowed notably or, at least, where the castle had been erected close enough to the shore to create only a gap which could be spanned by a drawbridge. But before that, he had to cross an outer removable bridge over a deep ditch, which ensured that cannon could not get into practical range of the castle. The Maxwells had always considered their security.

His mount’s hooves drumming on the drawbridge timbers, John rode in under the gatehouse arch between the two great drum towers, where the iron portcullis hung, ready to drop down to bar all entrance, waving to the guard on duty, and so on into the large open and paved triangular courtyard.

Dismounting, he handed his horse over to a second guard and entered the pedimented doorway on the right-hand or western side of the great range of buildings, this containing the private apartments of the family, the eastern side holding the kitchens, larders, stores, laundry and the like, the stabling under the banqueting-hall at the southern side. He ran up a twisting turnpike stair to the first-floor landing, to enter the private hall and reach the withdrawing-room beyond, where he expected to find his stepmother.

She was there, sitting beside a well-doing log fire, for it was the end of October, and chilly within those thick stone walls, doing needlework, with his sister Margaret. Agnes Stewart, widow of Adam, Earl of Bothwell, and second wife of the Lord Maxwell, insisted on still being known as countess rather than Lady Maxwell, a strange conceit which the family had to put up with, for she was a strong-minded and determined woman, who had brought John’s father great lands as well as a handsome person. Probably it was her royal Stewart blood which made her cherish this style, for she had been the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Buchan, himself a natural brother of King James the Second. The young Maxwell trio, if they scarcely loved her, did respect her, and alleged that it was her bastardy which accounted for this countess appellation.

“Ah, there you are, John,” she greeted him. “You have taken your time! There is more pressing work for you to do than catching fish! You are to be off forthwith, on your father’s orders. First to Herries, at Terregles. And then to your own Maxwell lairds. And others. To warn and rouse them.”

“Herries? Rouse?” he wondered. “What is this, of a mercy?”

“Trouble,” she said succinctly. “Battle, indeed – of a sort. You know that your father and brother are gone to Edinburgh at King James’s command, with a force of men to repel English Norfolk, who has been harrying the East March and the Merse at Henry Tudor’s orders, James assembling his main array on the Burgh Muir of Edinburgh. Well, they moved south to Fala Muir, under Soutra Hill, on their way to the border, when word reached them that Norfolk had retired, gone back into England, down to York. This because he was unable to feed his army, on account of the Merse having been burned before him by Home and the others to deny him grain, mutton and beef to eat, and forage for his horses.”

“That is excellent, at least!”

“Wait you. The king, my kinsman – or his friend Oliver Sinclair leastways – saw opportunity to strike a counter-blow against Henry Tudor. Not through the East and Middle Marches, ravaged as they are, but here through the West March. To invade England on the west, thus, at Carlisle, and show that the Scots can hit back. But most of the nobles assembled with the king have failed him. They will not march to invade. They say talk peace with Henry now that he has suffered a setback, not further rouse him. Fools! But they do not like James’s fondness for Sinclair, who urges this course. Beaton, the cardinal, is against it also. So most of the lords have turned back from Fala Muir, taking their twenty thousands of men with them, and leaving the king with only eight thousand. Your father, needless to say, is leal, supports James. But more men are needed, many more. So you are to go rouse Herries and the other West March lairds. Forthwith.”

“Now? Go now?”

“Aye, now. There is no time to lose. The king and your father will be on the way now. In four days, five, they will be here. Herries and the rest will require every hour they can have to raise the men. So do not linger. Say that you order it on the command of your father, the Warden of the West March.”

John looked at his sister, who shrugged, as their stepmother flicked a countess-like hand.

So he repaired to his own bedchamber on the upper floor to change into more suitable gear than that for salmon-spearing, and then ran downstairs to cross to the kitchen wing to collect some provision for the journey. Dod Armstrong was just coming into the courtyard with the fish, and John shouted to him to ready himself for some considerable riding and have the horses prepared.

That young man nodded, and grimaced.

So, not two hours after he had been at carefree sport in the shallows, John Maxwell was riding on his first mission on the nation’s business, and wondering at the wisdom of it all. He was by no means against having a hand in teaching the English invaders a lesson; but if two-thirds of the Scots nobility were against this present project, and more particularly Davy Beaton, the Chancellor and Primate, a shrewd operator if ever there was one, then there could be reason to question. King James was perhaps not the wisest of monarchs, and certainly he was no war leader. And this upjumped new favourite of his, Oliver Sinclair, a grandson of the last Earl of Orkney, they had heard little good about; a pretty boy they called him, scarcely inspiring confidence. James had always been known as a woman’s man, the Gudeman o’ Ballengeich, who had sired innumerable bastards, if no surviving legitimate offspring. Now that his queen, Marie of Guise, was expecting any day to bear a child, an heir to the throne, had the king changed his preferences? It hardly seemed likely, at his age – he was just thirty – but the Stewarts were a strange breed.

Terregles, the Herries castle, lay a score of miles to the north, not far from the town of Dumfries, in Nithsdale. John had been there before, but not for some time. Lord Herries was apt to come to Caerlaverock if he had to see his superior, not Lord Maxwell, the warden, go to him, the deputy warden. Herries was an elderly man who had married late in life and had three daughters. His appointment as deputy warden had been the king’s, not Maxwell’s. They were not particularly friendly. But Herries could field four score mounted men at reasonably short notice.

The pair rode up the Nith by Glencaple and Kelton to the Netherwood ford, where the Cargen Pow stream came in, and they could cross the major river. Then on up the Cargen to Terraughtie, into higher ground now. Although they were passing sundry lairds’ seats, John was concerned to visit Terregles first. At a mere twenty-two years, John’s word might be questioned, warden’s son as he was, and Herries’s authority was advisable to reinforce him.

Terregles Castle, not nearly so big as Caerlaverock, but strongly sited above a bend of the Cluden Water near where it joined the Cargen, was a typical L-planned tower-house within a courtyard, with stair tower and angle turrets. A Sir John Herries had been granted the lands here by the Bruce’s son, David the Second, back in 1365; and a descendant became first Lord Herries, and his village created a burgh of barony in 1510 by James the Fourth, three years before Flodden. The present lord was the fourth.

John and Dod rode up the brae to the castle gatehouse, saw no sign of guards and proceeded into the courtyard. The sound of girlish laughter came to them from somewhere behind the main house, but they went to dismount at the doorway under its carved heraldic panel at the foot of the stair tower, the door standing open. John rasped the tirling-pin thereon, and waited.

Nobody came to answer his summons.

He stepped within, and halloed. Still no reply. This fortified house seemed less than well guarded.

They decided to leave their mounts tied to a tethering-rail and go round to the back of the castle, where there was a pleasance space of turf and fruit trees flanking the steep drop, all but a cliff, to the Cluden Water. And here they found five people, all female, two buxom women of middle years hanging out washing to dry on a line, and three younger, one only a girl in her early teens. These three were practising archery of all things, the youngest being instructed by the eldest, being shown how to hold the bow and position the arrow, urged to draw back the string sufficiently, using more strength. Even as the visitors watched, the girl let fly, to no very effective result, for the arrow flicked off sideways for only a short distance and lodged itself in the lower branches of an apple tree, to much mirth.

John was brash enough to clap his hands. All turned to gaze at the young men.

It was perhaps three years since John had seen these girls, and the change in them was noteworthy, at least to him. Not so much the youngest, who had been little more than an infant then. The middle one, perhaps seventeen years, was now good-looking, sonsy rather than beautiful, of burgeoning figure and reddish hair. But the eldest, another Agnes if he remembered aright, was enough to hold the eye indeed, tall, long-legged, shapely, and of a dark and striking loveliness, almost to hold the breath as well as the eye of this watcher. John had an eye for women, yes; but this one was exceptional.

He stepped forward and sketched a bow. “I am John Maxwell, ladies,” he announced. “From Caerlaverock. And the better for seeing you!” He bowed again. “I had not known that you were archers! Myself, I use the crossbow rather than the long.”

“Much easier to aim and handle, sir,” the elder beauty returned. “But less challenging sport, no?”

“I think that I met you once, at Dumfries. I am seeking the Lord Herries. As to challenge, lady, I would deem shooting flighting wild geese with a crossbow sufficiently challenging for anyone! Although I can use a longbow against the deer.”

“Ah, but perhaps I am less keen on the killing, sir, than on the accuracy of my aim at a butt, weak woman as I am!” That was said with a lift of an eyebrow and a slight flick of the dark hair, which somehow informed John that here was a young woman who was not to be taken lightly, if taken at all.

“It may be that you are right,” he acceded. “But I have no doubt that you can eat wild goose, however shot, without compunction!”

“How nimble you are with your wits and tongue, John Maxwell,” she said. “Let us see whether you are as able with your arms and muscles and eye!” And she took the bow from her younger sister and held it out to him.

So there was more than one kind of challenge, it appeared, even though this sort was not what he had come to Terregles for. Inclining his head, he moved to take the bow and an arrow proffered. He noted the girl’s dancing eyes.

The target, despite the alleged objection to killing, was not the usual shield-like archery butt of circles and a central eye, but a painted replica of a roebuck, life-size, on padded canvas. Testing the tension of the string and then of the bow’s yew wood by bending it slightly against the ground, he fitted the three-foot arrow’s notch to the string, and positioned the shaft between his left-hand fingers and the curved yew.

“I would suggest the eye, sir.” That was gently put.

He pursed his lips. She was a termagant, this one. At one hundred and fifty yards the eye was the most difficult part of the target to aim for. An inch above it and the head itself would be missed. Two inches below it and he would be beneath the jaw.

“I would prefer the heart,” he observed. “More . . . killing!” And he took aim – but it was on the eye that he focused.

Testing the tension again, he drew a deep breath and pulled string and shaft slowly, carefully back and back, as the bow bent, one eye closed. Then, with a grunt, he let fly.

The whistle of the arrow ended in a thud. The shaft stuck quivering in the upper neck of the deer, just behind the ear.

It was the young woman’s turn to clap, although in a deliberate fashion, smiling. She reached out and took the bow, picked up another arrow, fitted it, almost casually took aim, and loosed off. The bolt flew, to strike the butt exactly at the small black circle which marked the deer’s eye.

Gurgles of laughter came from the two other girls, but Agnes waved a hand.

“I am used to this bow and its pull, to be sure. You are not, sir,” she declared.

“M’mm. You are the expert, I see. Skilful indeed. I stand humbled! Who taught you the archery?”

“My father’s chief huntsman. But he has not persuaded me to the hunting, the killing.”

John nodded, and changed the subject. “Your father, my Lord Herries. Is he here?”

“You wish to see him? He is down at the river, the Cluden, not the Cargen Water. At the mill of Halmyre with some of our people. The storm of two weeks back sent down spates, which carried away the dam which leads the water to the mill-lade. So the mill is not working. Father interests himself with the like. Not a concern for such as the Maxwells of Caerlaverock!”

“No? I do not see why not. Where is this Halmyre Mill? For I must see my lord at the soonest. I have tidings of some moment.”

“You say so? Know you the Tofts? No? They lie between the two waters. See you, I will show you, take you to the mill.”

“No need, lady. I will find it.”

“If there is need for haste, as you say, better that I take you. It is no trouble. You come from your father, my Lord Maxwell?”

“At a remove, as it were. He sent the commands from the king’s army.”

“Ah!” She handed the bow over to her sister. “Catherine, I take our friend to Father. I should not be gone long. One hour perhaps. Teach you Janet better bowmanship.” And to John, “Come. I will get a horse saddled up.”

“No call for that,” he said. “If you insist on guiding me, mount you behind me. My beast can carry two well enough.”

“Very well. That will be speedier. Is the word you have grievous? You say from the king’s army?”

“Yes. There is trouble ahead, I fear. Disagreement in high places. All but revolt, it seems. I will tell you as we ride.”

So, back at the horses, John mounted first and reached down while Dod assisted from the ground and together they hoisted Agnes Herries up on to the rear of the saddle, which involved some little agility on her part and quite a display of white leg, her skirts inevitably disarranged – not that she seemed concerned in any way, nor reluctant to sit close to the man, pressed against him indeed, as was necessary owing to the size and shape of the saddle.

Off they went, then, the young woman’s arms around John’s middle, out through the gatehouse vault and down the brae, Dod in the rear now, a proceeding hardly visualised for this errand on the monarch’s behalf – not that the courier complained.

Down at the waterside they turned southwards to circle a small hill, with quite steep and higher braes to the right, the west, which the young woman named Clunie Hill, and then moved on down to lower ground eastwards, marshy this, all helping to provide Terregles Castle’s defence. Adhering to what proved to be a stone causeway through the bog, twisting and hidden, John saw why he was being thus escorted and guided. As they rode, he told his pillion rider of the military situation which was behind this visit, a national emergency.

Half a mile beyond the marsh they came to where the burn draining it joined a bend of the Cluden Water; and just below this was Halmyre Mill, where a score or so of men were at work rebuilding a dam, with timber, stones and soil, the Lord Herries superintending.

He was a fine-featured man in his early sixties, slenderly built and slightly stooping. If he was surprised to see his eldest daughter approaching thus, he did not show it; perhaps he was used to her unconventional behaviour. He greeted John civilly as they dismounted.

His expression changed as he listened to the tidings and requirements. He was no born warrior, this lord, despite his lands’ proximity to the border with England and all the raiding and clash associated therewith. But he was a loyal supporter of the monarch who had appointed him deputy warden, and agreed, however reluctantly, to having his men marshal to aid the royal cause, while expressing his doubts as to the necessity and wisdom of the projected invasion into England.

He said that he would send messengers to inform and raise his lairds and their men, in properties scattered over quite a wide area of Nithsdale and the Haugh of Urr. But it occurred to him that John would be calling on Maxwell lairds and landed men, some of them in approximately the same districts, so time and effort could be saved by John apprising some of the Herries ones also. For instance, Terraughtie, only two miles to the south, was a Maxwell place; but Tregallon and Goldielea nearby were of Herries. Arnmannoch on the Bogrie was his also, whereas Shawhead on the Old Water was Maxwell. And there would be others. John agreed that this made sense, but wondered whether the Herries lairds would accept his word as sufficient authority for such a major command; after all, he would be but little known, if at all, to most of them; and Border landholders were not apt to be easily ordered around. Herries acknowledged this, and wondered whether a written and signed authority from himself would be helpful – for such as could read – but his daughter suggested that the problem could be solved by herself going with this young man. All the Herries people knew her, and would accept her as speaking for her father. This, however surprising to John, was accepted by her sire, at least for this day’s calls.

John Maxwell appeared to have acquired an associate.

There was a difficulty however. The pillion was all very well for a short while but less than comfortable, or suitable, for longer riding. Nor would it look so well, arriving thus at lairdly houses. This was got over by giving Agnes Dod Armstrong’s horse and he being sent back to Terregles on foot to collect another mount and come on after them to Terraughtie. So all was agreed, and the places to try to visit that day compiled, for so long as the October light lasted.

So the pair rode off, soon forded the Cargen Water, a larger stream than the Cluden, and crossed a cattle-dotted vale, with much soft and waterlogged ground, to the slopes of a higher terrain, no lofty ridge this but prominent in all these mosses and levels, with the remains of a Pictish fort visible on the skyline. Terraughtie Castle, a modest tower-house, stood on a terrace of the slopes.

Unfortunately they found that Maxwell of Terraughtie was not at home, gone to a cattle market at Dumfries. His wife, however, agreed to send someone to inform of his lord’s demands. It occurred to John that such market and sale might well be attracting other cattle-rearers, and that time might be saved by asking the laird to tell others there of the warden’s orders to rally and muster their men. The lady of the house, a plain-faced but practical female, said that she would herself go to Dumfries, to ensure that her husband understood and acted upon the instructions.

Dod had not arrived when they departed to head westwards, and they left word for him to be sent after them to the smaller Herries property of Arnmannoch, up the Bogrie, another tributary of the Cargen, some four miles away. Here again they found the laird gone to the cattle sale, and John began to wonder whether he himself would have been better going there to make contact with these cattle-rearers. But a younger son remained at the farmery, and at Agnes’s urging he agreed to ride to Dumfries and tell his father and others, although, by the time he got there, the sale might well be over and many of the various attenders retired to the town’s alehouses and howffs for refreshment before returning home.

Dod Armstrong caught up with them here.

Riding on and trending northwards now for Shawhead, into the hills known as the Glenkins, Maxwell territory, John found Agnes Herries to be excellent and amusing company, with her own views on life and affairs, but not asserting these in any way dogmatically. Her comments on their liege-lord, the king, were to the point, shrewd without being over-censorious, and thankful that he had Cardinal Beaton largely to manage his kingdom for him. She voiced her concern over this present emergency, if it was indeed against the Chancellor’s advice.

At Shawhead they found Maxwell thereof just returning from a day’s hunting in the Glenkin Hills, and so there was no delay here, he agreeing to gather his men, a dozen of them, to bring to Caerlaverock in two days’ time.

Thereafter it was up the Old Water to Scaur and Skeoch, a couple of miles, more Maxwell holdings, where, with the October daylight beginning to fade, they recognised that they could go no further – but which also had the effect of bringing their people in from their outdoor activities and so being available for the instructions. These properties being nearer the Crocketford marts than the Dumfries ones, their owners were apt to attend there with their surplus beasts which they did not want to have to feed over the winter months when fodder was scarce.

They had some nine round-about miles to return to Terregles, for John would not hear of Agnes going off alone through the gloaming and the dusk, as she offered to do; and in consequence he found himself invited to spend the night with the Herries family, which he was nowise loth to do, Dod being looked after by the women they had seen earlier at the washing. Terregles was very much a female-aligned household, its lord having no sons nor male kin, and was none the worse for that, as far as John was concerned.

They passed a pleasant evening by the fire, after a very adequate meal, with the girls proving that they were proficient at more than archery, playing on the lute and the clarsach and singing Border ballads during intervals in the converse and chatter, all very enjoyable for John, who was unused to this sort of family entertainment, Caerlaverock evenings tending to be otherwise, with Lord Maxwell the somewhat stern parent, and having all the turbulent West March rule preoccupying him, his countess scarcely the convivial sort, and John’s brother on the sober and studious side. National affairs were but little discussed that evening.

When yawns sent young Janet off to bed, John took the hint and declared that since he must have an early start in the morning, he probably ought to be seeking his couch also. Lord Herries asked him of his projected round of visits for next day, and hearing of it, agreed that a good night’s sleep was probably wise. Agnes rose to escort him to his chamber.

They mounted the narrow turnpike stair two more storeys to the attic floor, where the young woman ushered him into a bedroom where a log fire blazed on the hearth and a tub of hot water steamed, in indication that the serving-women had had their instructions also. No doubt Dod was being well cared for likewise.

Agnes waved to all the conveniences, including a garderobe in the thickness of the walling, with drainage-chute, for sanitation purposes, and wished their guest a comfortable and undisturbed night.

“I thank you,” he said. “Not only for the hospitality and kind caring here, but for your help and company this day. I had no notion that the duty my father had laid upon me would turn out to be so much to my taste. Thanks to you. What could have been a trying and unwelcome task became a pleasure and a joy.”

“Ha, you are a speech-maker as well as a crossbow master – if none so ill with the longbow also, John Maxwell!” she replied. “I have heard that the Maxwells were . . . otherwise! The lordly ones, that is.”

“We may not all be painted in the same colours,” he suggested. “These are black and silver. Our two-headed eagle is black, but allow us something of the silver background! If you will?”

“Did I not say it? The silver tongue, sir! However you may be two-headed, but not two-faced, I hope!” And she trilled a little laugh, with that hint of mockery, as she turned for the door.

He had not contemplated anything of the sort, but something of the seeming challenge of the laugh spurred him and, following her, he reached ou