Dodd looked across at the young laird Johnstone who was disaccoutring with his men. The Lord Maxwell was stripping off as well. Silks, velvets and brocades piled one on top of the other, producing two anonymous herds of men in shirts, hose and boots, who glowered at each other across a grassy chasm of competitive rivalry and family ill-feeling. Carey spoke briefly to Maxwell, who laughed and shrugged. Then he sauntered over and joined the other lot.
Dodd shook his head and stepped back with the crowd. Young Hutchin was sitting up on a fence. The Earl of Mar stood on a small hillock in the middle of the field and announced that the holes dug at each end of the pasture were the goals and no man was to touch the ball with his hands or run with it under his arm. And further no weapons of any kind were to be used or even brought on the pitch.
King James smiled kindly from his carved seat, said a few words about playing in a Godly and respectable way, raised a white handkerchief. Lord Spynie threw the ball into the middle of the crowd of men, the handkerchief dropped and the game began.
***
Elizabeth Widdrington stood beside her husband near Lord Spynie and stared at the field full of desperately struggling football players, trying not to squint in order to focus on one particular man among them. She could feel her husband simmering with spleen beside her, waiting for her to make some slip he could punish her for. She prayed automatically for strength, but could not help thinking that it was very unfair of God to put Robin Carey across her path so persistently when it hurt her heart to look at him and know she could never speak to him again. Her husband had decreed it and backed his orders with the threat, which she had no doubt he was capable of carrying out, that he would personally geld Carey if she disobeyed. She would have obeyed him in any case, naturally, since that was her duty, or she thought she would, but…She trembled for Robin’s impetuosity, his odd contradictory nature: he could plan and organise as wisely as an old soldier or the Queen of England herself, and then suddenly he would take some wild notion and throw himself into the middle of hair-raising risks with blithe self-confidence and trust in his luck. She loved him for it but she was certain that Sir Henry could use his daring to outmanoeuvre and destroy him very easily. And even though she felt as if a stone was hanging from her heartstrings in the middle of her chest at the thought of never talking to him or smiling at him, there was some comfort at least in his still being alive, whole, running like a deer over the rough grass with the ball at his feet, his elbows flying and his face alight with laughter at the pack of Maxwells behind him.
Christ have mercy, she could not take her eyes off him.
Sir Henry’s fingers bit into her arm. “Enjoying the match, wife?”
She could feel her cheeks reddening, but she managed to look gravely down at her grizzled husband. Remotely she wondered if her life would have been easier if she had been of a more womanly height: it had been the source of the first contention between them, the simple fact that she was taller.
“No, my lord,” she said evenly. “It has always seemed to me much like watching a herd of noisy cows lumbering from one end of the field to the other.”
Sir Henry snorted and peered at her, looking for deceit. There was none; how could she enjoy the match? What if Robin was hurt or killed?
“Do you want to go back to our lodgings?”
She thought for a moment, what her answer should be. The words were kind and solicitous, but the tone of voice was ugly. She ducked her head humbly.
“Whatever you wish, my lord,” she said eventually, taking refuge in pliancy. It didn’t mollify him. His fingers bit deeper, hurting her. He might be short, but her husband was very strong for all his ill-health and his gout.
“Ye can stay,” he hissed. “Stay and watch. And keep your countenance, bitch.”
She curtseyed to him and said, “Yes, my lord.” The stone hanging from her heart swayed and chilled. He was planning something ugly, and he wanted her to see. Oh, my God, Robin, take care, be careful…Lord Jesus, look after him, guard him…
The courtiers were enjoying themselves, cheering on either the Johnstones or the Maxwells, depending on their affinities and their wagers. There was a blurring in Elizabeth’s eyes and she stared at the field in a general way, trying not to focus on Carey. The herd of two-legged cattle thundered past them again, shouting confusedly. Occasionally a faster runner than the others would burst from the ruck and run in one direction or the other with the ball bobbing at his feet and then generally two or three of the other side would launch themselves at him, punch him or wrestle him down, the ball would run free and a yelling shouting heap of men would struggle for possession until somebody else burst from the ruck and the process began again, leaving the occasional body prone on the broken sod behind them. She couldn’t help but catch sight of Carey every so often, generally kicking the ball away from him to James Johnstone and on one occasion leaping in, fists flying, to a more than usually vicious contention for the ball near one of the goal-holes.
She couldn’t warn him. She could only watch helplessly and pray.
When it did happen the thing was so confused she had no clear idea how. One moment the ball was in the air and Carey was in the centre of a pyramid of men all trying to leap and head it one way or the other. The next moment, the ball was in play down the other end of the field and Carey was lying on his side with his knees up to his chest, writhing silently. She saw Sergeant Dodd and the rather beautiful fair-haired Graham boy run out from the crowd and bend over him solicitously, then help him off slung between their shoulders, his face still working and his legs not seeming able to support him.
Sir Henry trod heavily on her foot and combined both a satisfied grin and a scowl.
“I said, keep your countenance, wife.”
Elizabeth looked down at him and for a moment felt strangely remote from him and herself, as if she was staring down at an ugly squat creature from some mountain peak. If she had had any kind of weapon in her hand at the time, she would have killed him and burned for it gladly. Sir Henry seemed to recognise her hatred, paused, perhaps even recoiled a little.
She could no longer see Carey, who seemed to be sitting by the fence with people round him. She had seen no blood when he was helped off the field, but she knew enough not to put reliance on that. Please God, let him not be hurt badly.
“Did ye hear me, bitch?”
She looked back at her husband, the man she had been so determined to serve dutifully as a good wife when the match had been arranged ten years before, the man she had tried so very hard to please because God required it of her. Quite suddenly, like a lute string tuned too far, her loathing broke and transmuted itself into cold, indifferent distaste.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, not bothering to hide her weariness of him and his posturing.
“I paid one o’ the Johnstones to grab his bollocks,” said Sir Henry. “That’ll learn him to keep his gun in its case.”
“Did you, my lord?” she said tonelessly. Sir Henry’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose you got Lord Spynie to convince the King to have him play?”
“What are friends for?”
“Yes, my lord.” She turned slightly away and swallowed a yawn-from nervousness, not boredom, but Sir Henry didn’t know that and she could feel the anger vibrate in him again. He told her to keep her countenance, but in fact he wanted her to break down and weep and beg him to have mercy. She had even tried it years before, but she never made the mistake of repeating experiments that failed. He sneered at her sometimes for being as stiff-necked as a man, and she thought bitterly that no man would stand for what she stood for, no, not a galley slave in the French navy. No man would have to.