Matthias shook his head, splashed some water over his face and stared across the heathland. At first he could see nothing but, straining his eyes, he glimpsed colour behind a copse of trees and saw some riders emerge. Half a dozen, these fanned out as they rode towards them. Behind them came another party. Matthias tried to make out the colours. He glimpsed a banner, green and white. The breeze blew more strongly, the riders turned direction and he saw the black and gold banner of Lord George Douglas.
‘There are pursuers!’ Matthias shouted. ‘And they are coming fast.’ He trotted his horse down. ‘What now?’
Kennedy had grasped the King by the shoulder and was lifting him up from the ground. A faint trickle of blood snaked out of the corner of the King’s mouth. His face was white. He was grasping his side.
‘He has broken a rib, bruised something inside.’ Puzzlingly, Kennedy smiled up at Matthias. ‘Who’s leading the pursuit?’
‘Lord George Douglas.’
‘Aye,’ the King muttered, opening his eyes. ‘He has pursued me in life, he will pursue me to the death.’ He grasped Kennedy’s arm. ‘Archibald man, kill him.’ He pointed at Matthias. ‘We’ll take his horse.’
‘Sire,’ the Scottish captain dabbed at the King’s face with a rag, ‘you cannot be moved.’
The King stared at him wildly. ‘But, for God’s sake man, if we stay the Douglas will take my head!’
‘Get him some water!’ Kennedy ordered.
Matthias offered the small leather bottle.
‘Ach no,’ the King groaned. ‘Bring me fresh from the burn!’
Matthias ran up the bank, grasped his helmet and went down to the burn. He filled his helmet with water and looked up. Douglas and his party were drawing closer. He heard a faint shout as they glimpsed him running back up the bank. He went to kneel by the King. Kennedy snatched the helmet from his hand and poured the water over the King’s face.
‘Are they drawing closer?’ Kennedy asked.
‘For God’s sake, yes, man!’ Matthias retorted.
‘Kill him,’ the King murmured. ‘Kill the Englishman and fetch me a priest!’
Kennedy drew his dagger. Matthias didn’t know whether to spring at him or jump away. He caught a look in the Scotsman’s eyes, gentle, kindly: then the dagger was brought down. One swift thrust into the exposed throat of King James III of Scotland, who wriggled and choked as Kennedy held the dagger firm, all the time his eyes staring at Matthias.
‘Go on, Creatura! Go on now!’
‘Why?’ Matthias asked, getting to his feet.
‘Win or lose, the King had given orders for your death but his soul was ours. Go on, Creatura, ride like the wind.’ He pointed to his own horse and the longbow looped over the saddle horn. ‘I have unfinished business with the Lord Douglas!’
23
At Lanercost Priory outside Carlisle, the chronicler transcribing local events during the second half of the year of Our Lord 1488 was as mystified as anyone by the strange stories brought by travellers, journeymen and packmen when they stayed in the guest house on the far side of Lanercost church. Brother Simon, the chronicler, avid for information, greedy for scandal and gossip, scratched his balding head and would spend a long time, pen poised, wondering how to record such mysterious events. True, Barnwick Castle had been destroyed in a Scottish raid in the winter of that year: the keep had been fired, the gatehouse demolished, any wooden building burnt to the ground whilst parts of the wall were brought to terrible ruin by the Scots marauders. The Warden of the Scottish march, too fearful of what might be happening in Scotland, left the place neglected. The castle became the haunt of ravens, owls, foxes, badgers and other wild animals which roamed the desolate heathland between Scotland and England.
Occasionally some traveller would stay there, taking shelter amongst the ruins, lighting a fire, cooking food and sleeping till dawn. However, they all felt that they were not alone. They would talk of footfalls in the darkness, the sound of someone moving around them. Of a dark shape or a figure glimpsed briefly in bright moonlight. In the morning the travellers would be only too willing to leave. Brother Simon listened to their stories and wove an embroidered tale of the ruins being haunted by a coven of ghosts.
Such stories helped Matthias. He had reached Barnwick early in August 1488, having successfully eluded Scottish patrols. He slipped over the border and, on one golden-filled summer day, arrived back at Barnwick. He had changed during those weeks since he’d fled the battle at Sauchieburn. He had been hunted by men and dogs. He knew, from the small villages and hamlets he passed through, that huge rewards had been posted for an Englishman, a devilish traitor, responsible for stabbing the Lord’s anointed, King James III, as well as the cowardly murder of Lord George Douglas. The latter, according to common report, had been ‘hurrying to help his king when a mysterious bowman, no less a person than the Englishman Matthias Fitzosbert, had sent a longbow shaft deep into Douglas’ neck, killing him instantly’. Matthias, disguised, his hair long and straggly, half his face covered by a moustache and beard, had secretly rejoiced at the news. He was innocent of spilling any royal blood but pleased that Lord George Douglas, who had shattered his own life, had, at last, received his just reward.
Matthias had not immediately fled to the border: that would have been a mistake. Instead, he had ridden to and fro across Scotland, lying low until the hunt died down and the Scottish Council became more concerned about who would control the young King rather than the death of his feckless father and a Douglas laird. Matthias had eventually crossed the Tweed, striking south-east, following the rugged Northumbrian coast before turning west. He was well armed and the horse he rode was a sturdy garron.
Now and again he’d stop to do some work on a farm or in a village where he would obtain free food or a few coins. He did not know what to do or where to go. He knew he should visit Barnwick, but after that? Matthias considered the problem many a lonely night and found he really didn’t care. Something had died in him. He was ruthless, determined not to become the cat’s-paw of any man, yet on that August afternoon when the ruined towers of Barnwick came into sight, Matthias sat stock-still in the saddle and cried for what might have been.
He rode on. The moat had been filled in with bricks, rocks and boulders from the ruined walls. The gatehouse was shattered. Local farmers and peasants had already plundered the ruins for stones and wood for their own barns and granges. Steel and iron from the portcullis had long been stripped. The outhouses in the castle baileys had simply vanished. The keep still stood but the north tower was a pile of shattered masonry. Of the hall, parlour and solar, only blackened timbers remained.
Some of the soldiers’ quarters, built into the small towers along the inner wall, were still usable. Matthias stabled his horse in one of them. He collected fodder, drew water from the well and made himself at home. He snared rabbits in the warren and, armed with bow and arrow, went out on the heathland to shoot quail and pheasant.
For the first two days Matthias found it impossible to go to the cemetery. When he did, he was astonished to discover that the grave had been carefully tended: the tumulus of soil neatly raked and weeded. The cross still stood secure and, at the other end of the grave, a small rose bush grew. The flowers, small and delicate, were white as snow. Matthias knelt down. He must have stayed for hours quietly sobbing. When he had finished, he lay down on his back staring up at the sky watching the day die. He poured his heart out, as if Rosamund were still alive, lying in his arms beside him. He told her about Scotland, about its mad king whose dreadful death he had witnessed; the intervention of the Rose Demon and his own long desperate flight to the border. When the wind stirred he caught the sweet smell of the roses and, on one occasion, just before he drifted into sleep, the faint fragrance of his dead wife’s perfume.
After that Matthias decided to stay at Barnwick: the grim life of a hermit had its own rewards. He was free of any responsibilities, of any duties. He had no one to care for but, there again, no one to bother him. He revelled in the silence and resented any intruders. Even when the weather changed, the winds turning harsh and the snow lying thick over the castle ruins, Matthias wouldn’t have exchanged it for the warmest, most luxurious of chambers in some royal palace.
Matthias spent some of his day hunting for food. Now and again, though very rarely, he would travel to one
