2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (14 page)

‘Liddesdale, to me!’ yelled Wattie, standing up in his stirrups. When as many as could were around him he launched his horse down the bank again, through the water, up the other side and turned about, breathing hard.

Let them follow us and we’ll have them the way they had us, he thought, but Dodd and Archibald Bell were wise to that and so were the others with them, too wise to try crossing a ford opposed. Only the lunatic Deputy Warden seemed eager to try, but Dodd caught his horse’s bridle and snarled at him and he seemed to calm down.

The two sides stared at each other, those of the Grahams who had bows stringing them frantically on their stirrups and awkwardly nocking arrows. It was very hard to use a longbow on horseback, but it could be done if you twisted sideways and leaned over a little. The bowmen on the hill came jogging across and lined up facing them over the water.

Wattie looked about at his men. A number of them were bleeding somewhere, there were five still shapes over on the other bank and three men surrounded. A couple of the ones who had fallen off during the melee in the water were climbing out again as fast as they could, cursing. Several horses were down, others galloping away squealing.

Skinabake came up beside him, shaking his head.

‘We’re out of it,’ he said without preamble.

‘Ay,’ said Wattie heavily, knowing a lost cause when he saw it. He shook his fist impotently at the Deputy Warden. ‘Ye’ll regret this, Carey,’ he shouted. ‘I’m no’ forgetting this.’

‘Ah, go home and cry, Wattie,’ sneered the Courtier. ‘I’ll give you a long neck one of these days, you bloody coward.’

Wattie’s neck swelled and his eyes almost bugged out of his head. He took a firm grip on his sword, kicked his horse forward to the water.

Skinabake got in his way and the hobby was anyway not inclined to go near the blood-tinged water.

‘Come on, Wattie,’ said Skinabake, highly amused. ‘Put a lance through him some other time.’

Wattie was shaking with rage. ‘Did you hear…’ he sputtered. ‘Did ye hear what he called me?’

‘Och,’ said Skinabake negligently, in a voice that carried. ‘He only said it to bring ye back in range of the bowmen there.’

Carey’s head went up. He had heard, as he was meant to. But Dodd had already shifted his horse in front of the Deputy Warden’s nag and had changed grip on his lance to bar his path.

‘
Any time
!’ Carey bellowed, his horse backing and prancing under him. ‘Any time, Graham, I’ll meet you. Any weapons, any time.’

Wattie spat over his shoulder, and began riding away north west, his men lightly gathered around him, the ones who had lost their mounts running at their friends’ stirrups. Skinabake’s outlaws were already breaking northwards for the Debateable Land.

The men who had come out for Carey were shaking hands and congratulating each other. They had gained the loose horses who were trotting about shaking themselves, if they could catch them. Some were wounded, but hobbies were notoriously hard to kill. They had three reivers as captives, who could be ransomed once Sergeant Dodd had talked some sense into the hotheaded Deputy Warden who wanted to hang them immediately. They had what could be got from the five corpses, which included some nice swords and a good new jack or two. Also their cows were safe. They agreed with the Deputy Warden that it would be as well for them to stay by the ford and make sure Wattie didn’t return, though it wasn’t any reiver’s way to keep on after something had gone wrong.

Sergeant Dodd decided he might as well go to Carlisle with Carey and they all rode back to his tower where most people, including Sergeant Nixon and Lowther’s other men, were just waking up with sore heads. Carey collected them together, paid them, then insisted on returning by way of Brampton where Dodd’s father-in-law lived. Dodd might have worried about this if Janet were not such a jewel of a woman. He knew she would send to her father to warn him that the Deputy had somehow got wind of the stolen horses he was keeping. Sure enough, the only horses left in Will the Tod’s paddocks were stumpy rough-coated animals that had every right in the world to be there. Afterwards Carey seemed morose, which was natural enough since he had got very little sleep that night and about halfway back to Carlisle the heavens finally opened with a rolling cannonade of thunder and a downpour of fat grey drops.

Behind them, the heavy-laden packtrain owned by Edward Aglionby paced northwest along the road, miraculously unmolested.

Tuesday 4th July 1592, morning

The roofbeams of the Carlisle Castle stables vibrated with the already legendary Carey roar.

‘
He’s what?
’

Bangtail winced and stepped back a few paces. All the horses stamped and shifted and some of them neighed protestingly. Dodd had to hold the headstall of the hobby he was rubbing down, to stop himself being knocked over.

‘He…he’s in the dungeon, sir,’ Bangtail repeated. ‘Lowther put him there on a charge of murder.’

Carey advanced on him, still in his sodden jack and wet morion. His fists were clenched tight and two spots of colour flamed below the incipient bags under his eyes.

‘It wasna me, sir,’ yelled Bangtail, dodging behind one of the stall posts. ‘It was Lowther.’

Carey seemed to catch himself and stop. He breathed deeply, carefully unfisted his hands and folded them across his chest.

‘Start at the beginning, Bangtail, and tell me exactly what happened.’

‘Ay, well. It were Atkinson, ye see, sir, Jemmy Atkinson, the Armoury clerk, that used to be paymaster until you…’

‘I think I remember him.’

‘Well, what I heard was, he was found deid this morning, in an alley, with his gizzard slit, see ye, and so his wife sent for Lowther because he’s known to be Lowther’s man.

‘Clear so far.’

‘An’ Lowther’s up to the Castle in a fearful bate just afore ye come in, sir, and I’d just arrived, see, and he says, it’s bound to be ye that did him in, because ye didna want him fer armoury clerk, but ye werena there and nor was Dodd, so then he says, ye must have set the thief that serves ye on to dae it, and so he’s gone up to the Queen Mary Tower and haled yer man out and thrown him in the dungeon and he’s making a complaint out against ye now, forbye.’

‘Is that it, that’s the full tale?’

‘Ay, sir, so far as I know.’

‘Well then, thank you for coming to tell me of it so promptly.’

Bangtail smiled. ‘We drew straws for it, sir, an’ I got the short one.’

Carey coughed. ‘Where’s Lowther now?’

‘He’s still in with the Lord Warden.’

‘Is he, by God! Well, go and keep an eye on him and try and see he doesn’t find out that I’m back yet. Go on, off with you.’

‘Ay, sir.’

As Bangtail trotted off on his mission, Dodd wondered what the Deputy Warden would do. For a moment as his colour faded he looked tired and thoughtful, and to be sure, his position was bad. Dodd knew that it wasn’t so much the question of whether or not Barnabus had actually slit Atkinson’s throat, it was whether Lowther could get the bill fouled against him and so hang him. Barnabus might even decide to turn Queen’s evidence to save his own neck and say that Carey had ordered him to do the killing. In London or in Berwick, Dodd didn’t doubt that Carey could muster enough influence to clear himself of such an accusation, but they were in Carlisle where his only important relative was Lord Scrope. And Lord Scrope was notoriously easy to persuade if got at right. It was unlikely but not completely beyond the bounds of possibility that Lowther might see Carey swing for the death of Atkinson, despite the Queen’s liking for him, whether he had anything to do with it or not. Or no: as a nobleman, he would face the axe. At best, with his servant hanged for murder, the blow to his prestige meant Carey would have very little chance of commanding obedience in the March.

Carey set his back against the loose-box wall, one leg bent, took his helmet off and with his eyes shut, rubbed the red marks left by the leather padding and the chin strap.

‘What’ll ye do, sir?’ asked Dodd morbidly, wondering if he should begin making overtures to Lowther. No, it would be a waste of time.

‘Hm? See Barnabus first.’

Carey guessed Lowther would have put Barnabus into the worst prison in the Castle and so they fetched lanterns and the Castle Gaoler and went cautiously through the door that led past the wine cellar to the dungeon in the base of the Carlisle Keep. He wasn’t in the outer room, but in the one behind it, black as pitch and dank from the nearness of the Castle well. It was called the Lickingstone cell because if a prisoner was left there and no water brought for him, he could live by spending most of his time licking the moisture from the dampest part of the wall. Some men had survived a surprisingly long time that way, given that their tongues would swell and bleed from the rough stone. Families paid their fines faster if they knew their man was in that dungeon, Scrope had explained to Carey when he suggested the room be used for something else.

Carey didn’t have the keys to the inner door, but he gave Dodd his helmet, pulled aside the Judas hole and called softly, ‘Barnabus. Wake up.’

There were a couple of grunts and an adenoidal ‘Yes, sir.’

Carey was silent for a moment as his lantern light hit Barnabus’s face. ‘Did Lowther do that to you?’

A long liquid sniff. ‘Yes, sir. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’

‘Any particular reason, or was it just high spirits?’

Another sniff. ‘Yes, sir. He wanted me to confess to killing Atkinson.’

‘And did you?’

The sniff that followed was offended. ‘No, sir. I’m not that stupid. Even if I dun it, which I din’t, I’d never say I did, would I?’

‘Was that all he wanted from you?’

‘Er…no, sir.’

‘Well?’

‘He wanted me to say you’d ordered it and forced me to do it, sir.’

Carey nodded. He didn’t look surprised. Evidently he had thought along the same lines as Dodd.

‘I din’t admit that either, sir.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Carey’s voice was dry.

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’

‘Where were you last night?’

There was an apologetic cough. ‘Well, you wasn’t ‘ere sir, so…’

‘You were at Madame Hetherington’s?’

‘Er…yessir.’

‘All night?’

‘After I’d been in Bessie’s for a bit, I was there till this morning when the Castle gate opened and I come in. So I’d be here to serve you when you finished your patrol,’ he added virtuously.

‘Would Madame Hetherington testify that you were with her?’

‘I dunno, sir. She might.’ And then, complacently, ‘Maria will, though.’

‘Unfortunately a notorious French whore is not the best of alibi witnesses.’

‘Well, if I’d known I’d need one, I’d’ve got a better one, wouldn’t I, sir?’

Carey treated that impudence with a measured pause that said he was making allowances, but would not make them indefinitely.

‘Did anybody else see you at Madame Hetherington’s?’

‘I don’t think so, sir, that’d speak for me…Oh, bloody hell, it’s started again.’

‘Try pinching the bridge of your nose, see if that stops it.’

‘I can’t, sir. It’s broken.’

Carey was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t get you out yet, Barnabus,’ he said. ‘I haven’t the authority. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea anyway.’

‘I know that, sir. Lowther’s on the up and up, in’e?’

‘For the moment.’

‘You’ll be able to sort it, though, won’t you, sir? I mean, the juries round here won’t be any more expensive than London ones, will they?’

Eh? thought Dodd. Carey had winced.

‘Barnabus,’ he asked gently. ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’

Barnabus’s voice was an outraged adenoidal whine. ‘Sir! You know me better’n that!’

‘I seem to recall a fight at the Cock tavern…’

‘That was different. I never done nuffing like this, sir, never, not that I haven’t ‘ad offers, mind, I just never would. ‘S stupid. There’s better ways of doing it than slittin’ ‘is throat in an alley. Besides, it’s wrong.’

‘Quite.’

‘So what do you want me to do, sir?’

‘Keep your mouth shut. That’s all. Are you cold?’

‘Yes, sir, freezing. I bin in Clink afore now, of course, but this ain’t what I’m used to and Lowther’s bastards took me jerkin and doublet off lookin’ to see if I had a bloody knife, which they didn’t find, I might add.’

‘I’ll get my sister to bring you some clothes and food.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Barnabus gloomily.

Dodd trailed after him as Carey marched from the dungeon, rounded the side of the Keep and was pounced on by his sister. She had her cap on crooked, her ruff under one ear, and her damask apron sideways, with a bundle of Barnabus’s clothes under her arm. She took one look at her brother and said, ‘You’ve heard then, Robin.’

‘I have. How did you stop Lowther searching my office?’

Her heart-shaped face became very forbidding. ‘Simon threw the key for your office in the fire and said you had it with you. I got there just after and when he wouldn’t go I drew my dagger on him and told him I’d stick him if he moved a step nearer, and he believed me.’