The Lea Rig

It stood against the dark of the forest floor.

'Lizzie, o' Lizzie. Where have they taken Ye?' The man spoke in a whisper, the whisper lost in the rustle of leaves against hide boots.  A scrap of cloth, blue like a mallard's egg, fluttered on the sharp spur of a hazel twig.  The sweat rolled beneath the collar of his jerkin. It was hot neath the canopy of the  trees. The sun pierced the glade in sharp spears of light, reminding him that it was still not yet noon.

She'd been wearing a blue dress when they had met up here, beyond the lea rig.

 'You were all the light in this place Lizzie. Behind my eyes you saw a dark, dismal soul.   And you; an angel in a peasant's dress, you saw things in me I didn't know myself.'  The man bent to study the scrap. He ran a calloused finger down its length but left it upon the twig.   The pain of loss gnawed at his belly. It diminished the ache from his shoulder. It numbed  the sting of his butchered, shredded flesh.   It threatened to unman him and he drew a loud, deep breath.  

'Steady man. Take a grip on yourself. She needs you at your best.'

The man stood, the boiled leather of his outfit creaking, the sword-blade ringing against the path.   He'd not eaten in three days, yet he had no hunger. 'What I wouldn't give for just an hour's undisturbed sleep.'  It sounded like a prayer. An overstretched human beseeching an uncaring creator for the  gift of peaceful slumber.  Yet each time he had closed his eyes, demons whispered of fear he couldn't dare acknowledge.

The battle was lost long before Sandy Seaton had taken to his heels.  He had stood astride the body of his one real friend. Simon lay on his face, the feathered shaft of an arrow buried in the notch of his shoulder.  The barb had found his heart.  Sandy stood inside a hollow square of his countrymen, watching it contract upon itself. 

Standing alongside his friend, he had heard William Wallace's booming war-cry. 'I've brought you to the ring. Now let's see if ye can dance.'  They had danced in thousands, transfixed by English arrows. With Sim staring into eternity, Sandy broke and ran. Clambering up the further side of the hill at Falkirk, he heard the thunder of hooves as the English cavalry rode down the last of the Scots. He made the safety of the woods, but not before a strong, swinging weapon had colloped the flesh from his shoulder.

'And what would the Laird's only son want with me?' Her mocking smile had drawn  a smile to his own lips. 'See, you can smile. You're so much more handsome when your not glowering at folks.'  She had laid her hand upon his upper arm. 'It nearly stopped my breath,' he whispered to  himself, gently flexing the stiff, sore shoulder.   She was the daughter of the blacksmith at Tarbolton. His father was Lord of the same name.   A hard man his father; Sir Alexander Seaton. 'She's not for you Sandy Seaton,' he'd  said in that harsh voice of his. His crusader voice Sandy called it.  'Bed her, by all means. Take your fill of her, but then leave her for some landless ploughboy to wed.'  Despite their many meetings here, in the wood above the learig, Lizzie  remained intact.  He would wed her. He lifted his head from study of the trampled floor of the woods. 'I  will marry ye lass,' he said, in loud confirmation, the promise serving to steel his resolve.

Most of the Nobles in the West of Scotland were vassals of Edward of England, Sandy's father amongst them.   They would not support William Wallace,  the son of a tenant of the High Steward, even though he was the lawful Guardian of the Realm.  'We will not go to war for a baseborn Renfrewshire farmer. You heed me Sandy. You  won't wed a peasant and nor will you follow one.'   The last words he'd had of his father.

'You must do what your heart tells you Sandy.' She had lifted his hand between her own and  kissed his palm, before closing his fingers around that kiss. "You can't marry me. You know it full well.'   She raised her eyes to his.  'But know this too, my heart. I'll love you long beyond this life.'  In the morning he left for Stirling and the Guardian's assembly.

The blacksmith of Tarbolton stood amidst the ruins of his cottage.  'You've killed my Lizzie. As sure as if ye had plunged your sword in her breast.'  Dead eyes flared at Sandy then dropped to the ashen floor of the Smithy.   'Your father and his men took my Lizzie not an hour back. If you run you'll catch them.   They're up there," he said with a sweep of his arm, and then he dropped to his knees.

Sandy stopped where the forest floor angled sharply uphill. High above him he sensed a presence.   Something blue, mallard blue. He smelled it then, the harsh metallic smell of blood. His tongue, coated in a greasy film, cleaved to the roof of his mouth.

She was tied to a tree. Bound around the shoulders and again at her knees. A leather  thong held her head upright and she smiled. A well remembered smile at her lips and below; the grinning, gaping mouth cut deep across her throat.   Sandy screamed. His father's men-at-arms felt their skin crawl at the silence of the scream.  The disembodied voice of his father rebounded off the trees. 'She's gone Sandy.  As she had to.   Bedding her was robbing you of sense man. Now you'll return to your duty and we won't give English Edward any more excuse to displace us.' The silent scream made mock of the Lord of Tarbolton. 'say your farewells and then you can come down off the hill and kiss my hand in simple obedience.'

Sandy remained on his knees long after his father had gone.  'Lizzie. Lizzie.' Two words, screamed at the range of his voice, robbing him of breath, snot at his nose, phlegm at his chin.  He fumbled at his waist, fighting to free the sword from its leather scabbard. He placed the hilt on the ground, point uppermost, and laid his chest to the blade.

He became aware of the damp settling on his clothes. Above the smell of leaf mould he sensed something. It was a scent, a well remembered fragrance. His eyes opened on leaves, twigs, his brow and nose touching the forest floor.  'Lizzie?' He sensed the heat of her body in that scent. He felt her fingers in his hair and he settled like an over-wrought pony.

'You'll be a great man, my love. You'll be remembered as a patriot. A king will come Sandy, one of our own, a Scot who'll be King of all Scots. And you'll be one of his strong supports.'  Sandy felt the hard edge of the sword underneath his body. He didn't move. He was afraid that movement would break the spell.

Rising in the cool, damp morning, he knew she would be gone. The tree was empty. But that scent,that sense of her heat, her presence, remained with him. He knew it always would.