Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [218]
Bess Storer of Little Ryle complained that Sir Thomas Kerr of Ferniehurst, heir to Sir John Kerr of that ilk, having promised her marriage and got her with child, had broken the said promise and had neither fulfilled his engagement nor maintained the said child.… Sir Thomas Kerr, who was seventeen, stood, pink as a flamingo among the squeals of his friends, and looked both surprised and pleased as he craned to see the aforesaid Bess Storer—pleased until he saw his father’s black face.
Meg Hall of Screnwood blamed George Kerr of Linton; and Allie Lorimer of Haggerston, George Kerr of Gateshaw or Robin Kerr of Graden—she was not sure which. Sir Andrew Kerr of Littledean, a vast and sober citizen until recently Provost of Edinburgh, had sired two girls, it was said. Walter Kerr of Dolphinton, Gilbert Kerr of Primsideloch and Andrew Kerr of the same were each named as unwilling fathers, and the young laird, Andrew Kerr, Cessford’s son, was accused of engendering twins, and was juvenile enough to crow triumphantly in the direction of Sir Thomas Kerr. The climax came when, half an hour later, Wat Kerr of Cessford himself was named as father of Sue Bligh of Bamburgh’s four sons.
It might have been harmless enough save for one thing. Lying or not, each woman had brought two witnesses. And the accusation against Kerr of Cessford happened to be true, and everyone there knew it to be true, although no one had ever been able to prove it.
It was not surprising then that the clap of laughter which had begun, after the third or fourth notice, to greet every new accusation overreached itself in the case of Sir Walter and fairly frightened the moorhens off the Tweed a hundred yards off. Then it broke off, as a bottle shears at the neck, at the sight of Walter Kerr’s blunt, battle-scarred face as the head of the Cessford Kerrs drew his sword screaming from the sheath and drove it into the ground before the Wardens’ dais.
‘De’il draw ye tae hell. Are ye daft? Is this a March meeting or the ribald outrage of children? The women are bought; the witnesses are plainly lying. The very malicious naming of near every member of mine and Ferniehurst’s family is enough to prove falsehood and malice, and by God, ye won’t seek far to ken whose it is!’ And Cessford’s eyes, seamed with apoplectic blood, veered to the bland, brosy whiskers of Buccleuch.
He finished in silence. As the words rang out, thin in the wide air, Lord Wharton said sharply from his chair, ‘I must pray you, show the respect which this Chair demands. Clearly, the coincidence is not unremarked. The evidence must be sifted and the witnesses reheard. The source of malice, if proved, will be sought. Until then, you will judge as you expect to be judged, on firm evidence only.’
He got Cessford to unearth his sword and withdraw, just a little, while the questioning went on. But the ranks of the Kerrs, of a sudden, had grown remarkably well-knit and grave; and the ranks of the Scotts, glittering with polish, stood trimly as they had throughout. Behind both families, deployed silently on Lymond’s orders at the outset of the case, stood two thirds of the officers and men of St Mary’s, markedly vigilant and, Jerott was sure, not so markedly memorizing names and addresses.
Jerott himself, back to the river with some of his men and facing the Warden’s dais, listened fascinated as Wharton and Drumlanrig, carefully dispassionate, sifted the evidence, to an arpeggio of bawling bastardy. It had been well prepared. While no Kerr, not even Sir Walter, had been caught, it seemed, red-handed, the witness of the wronged maidens could not be proved false either.
There remained the evidence of the children. Running a desperate military eye over the squirming rows of bundles, breeched and breechless, of varying ages and small attraction, he ventured the mild opinion that since every Kerr was either married or promised elsewhere, it was in