2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (30 page)

‘Send Julia to find your husband,’ he murmured. ‘I want a word with you alone.’

Janet’s expression cleared slightly. ‘Ay sir.’

Julia went with a wiggle of her hips and a toss of her red curls while Janet darkly considered what she would do to the little bitch if she aimed her wiles at Henry while she was fetching him. Carey had a thoughtful expression on his face.

‘Mrs Dodd,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about that girl.’

Me too, thought Janet, but she held her peace.

‘I think she may have seen something which she isn’t telling us because I’ve heard that she went upstairs at the Atkinson’s house around dawn, to fetch a ribbon, she said, and she hasn’t mentioned that although I invited her to.’

‘She might have forgotten,’ suggested Janet.

‘Do you really think so?’

‘No, I dinna. Where did you hear that from?’

‘From Mary Atkinson, which means I can only wonder.’

‘Ye’ve questioned the little girl?’

‘We had a very long conversation. Dodd was there, he can tell you what she said, but she seemed to me to be a bright child and quite truthful.’

Janet examined his face thoughtfully. It surprised her that he could have coaxed Mary to give him anything like a coherent tale after he had arrested her mother.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said defensively. ‘I’ve no need to bully maids to get them to talk to me.’

And isn’t that the truth, thought Janet.

‘Now, Mrs Dodd, I haven’t the time to go enquiring about Jemmy Atkinson’s death. My lord Warden considers the matter solved by Mrs Atkinson’s confession and he has given me direct orders to get on with organising the muster for Sunday and the inquest for Thursday and as I have no clerk yet, I have to write the letters myself. But Sergeant Dodd is presumably at a loose end…’

That thought made her blood run cold. With money in his pocket and Bangtail in town…She nodded.

‘First, I want him to subpoena Pennycook’s clerk, Michael Kerr, to appear at the inquest tomorrow. Then I want him to enquire into the matter for me. Poke around a bit and see what he finds. And you too, Mrs Dodd. Mrs Atkinson’s gossips will talk differently to you than they would to me.’

Janet’s mouth fell open. Carey didn’t seem to have noticed what he had said and now he was cocking his head to listen to the funny noises from the bed. Next minute he was on his feet and beckoning her over to it. She followed suspiciously. He drew back one of the faded curtains gently; she peered in and then started to laugh. The yellow bitch lying there with her pups nuzzling up against her flank lifted a lip and gave a low growl.

‘Shame on you, Buttercup,’ said Carey. ‘Mrs Dodd, this is Buttercup and Buttercup this is Janet Dodd. Buttercup,’ he said with the first proper smile she had seen from him that day, ‘has evicted me from my own bed.’

He let the curtains fall again as Dodd came shambling lankily in, looking injured and sorrowful as usual. At least his long dour face brightened when he saw Janet who came over to kiss him and then he remembered what he had been doing recently and his expression became wary.

‘Where’s Julia Coldale?’ she demanded.

‘Och, the maid with the red hair?’ he asked.

‘Ay.’

‘She said she had tae go back to the town again urgently and she didnae want to wait for ye, so I said she could go.’

‘By herself?’ sniffed Janet.

‘Er…no,’ admitted her husband. ‘Bangtail and Red Sandy went with her to see she was all right.’

‘They’re both married men.’

‘Ay, they’ll protect her right enough.’

‘
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
,’ said Carey suddenly.

‘Eh, sir?’ asked Dodd.

‘“Who will protect her from the protectors?”’ Carey translated, and Janet laughed.

‘Now there’s a piece of sense,’ she said. ‘Who said that?’

Carey thought for a moment. ‘I can’t remember,’ he admitted. ‘Some Roman or other.’

‘Well, it’s uncommon good sense for a foreigner,’ said Janet patronisingly. ‘Good afternoon to ye, sir.’

***

In later days, Mrs Leigh often thought about what she saw from the window that afternoon. She was sitting sewing a baby’s nightshirt with the little window open as far as it would go to let in some cool air. It also let in pungent smells from the various yards round about and flies, despite the bunches of wormwood hanging from the ceiling, and the sounds of children playing. Her own brood were out in the garden at the back, apart from the boys who were at school still; the two big girls were playing with hoops and the baby was sitting happily with one of the maidservants gurgling as it ate a dandelion. It was too hot and she was too heavy and tired to go out. The night before she had dreamt of swimming in a river as she had when she was a child, but then a fierce pike had come along and bitten her stomach and she had woken up to the ghost pains that often rippled her stomach now. Mrs Croser, the midwife and apothecary, had attended her at noon and said that the babe was head-down and in the right place and it was only a matter of waiting on God’s decision. At least she was happier than she had been the day before, despite the heat, and the men were no longer hammering the roof.

She saw Julia Coldale come along the street with two of the garrison men, one on each side, both of them as full of pride and preening as a couple of cock pheasants. The girl had a high colour and seemed to be enjoying herself. She left them outside as she went into the Leighs’ own draper’s shop.

And then she saw Janet Dodd and her husband, also coming along the street. Janet paused to talk to Alison Talyer who was shelling peas in her door while Dodd came on and disappeared under the scaffolding. She heard creaking and realised he was climbing the ladder, very cautiously, and she heard his voice drone as he spoke to the foreman.

Mrs Leigh put down her work, struggled herself off the window seat and went to the top of the stairs.

‘Jock!’ she yelled. ‘Jock Burn!’

‘Ay, mistress,’ came the answering shout. ‘I’ll be with ye in a minute.’

It was quite a bit after a minute that the skinny little man finally came up the stairs and stood lowering at her in his greasy jerkin and the incongruous new blue suit her husband had given him. Julia left at the same time and could be seen through the window chatting and laughing with the garrison men.

‘What did Julia Coldale want?’ she demanded.

He looked shiftily away from her. ‘Och,’ he said. ‘She was time-wastin’, only wantin’ to hear the price o’ this and that.’

‘Oh?’

He gave her the straight stare of the experienced liar.

‘Where’s the master, Mrs Leigh?’ he asked.

‘Over at the new warehouse. Why?’

‘Ay,’ said Jock, taking off his shop apron. ‘I need to speak wi’ him; will ye excuse me, mistress?’

She nodded, suddenly glad he could lie, and he turned and pattered down the stairs again. That perhaps was why she failed to notice that, when Dodd came creaking down the ladder again some time later, he was carrying a small bundle.

Wednesday 5th July 1592, late afternoon

Carey was deep in the tedium of paperwork again, his mind nibbling frustratedly at the problem of Jemmy Atkinson as he worked, when he had another visitor. After the first flash of fury, he saw it was the Bell headman who had called out his family against Wattie Graham the day before.

‘Mr Bell,’ he said courteously, wondering when he would be finished with his damned letters. ‘What can I do for you?’

Archibald Bell came stumping in through his chamber looking uncomfortably hot in a homespun green suit and a new high-crowned hat.

‘Ah’ve come about the blackrent,’ said Bell. ‘To pay it, I mean.’

For a moment, Carey didn’t understand.

‘Er…Lowther’s not here,’ he said cautiously.

‘Ay, I know that. I’ve come to pay it to ye, sir.’

Carey sat down again, wondering how to handle this. On the one hand he direly needed the money because his winnings from Lowther wouldn’t last forever and he was sure nobody in Carlisle would make the mistake of playing primero for high stakes with him again. On the other hand, blackrent was one of the cankers of the Border, as poor men paid protection money to crooks like Lowther and Richie Graham of Brackenhill to keep their herds and houses safe from reivers. Since no one could live paying rent to two landlords, most of them got their living by reiving and demanding blackrent of their own.

Archibald Bell had his purse in his hand, ready to do the business. He was looking puzzled.

Carey stood again, went and poured two goblets of the diabolical wine which Goodwife Biltock had sent up by Simon Barnet who was, as usual, not around.

‘Mr Bell,’ he said, handing one to the headman, who looked astonished. ‘How much blackrent was Sir Richard demanding?’

‘Thirty shillings a quarter,’ Bell answered promptly. ‘But I havena paid it for a while, so I brung what we owe which is six pounds.’

That was no less than extortionate.

‘I give you a toast,’ said Carey, while he struggled with temptation. ‘I give you, confusion to Richard Lowther and the Grahams.’

Bell lifted his goblet and drank the lot without noticeable strain.

‘Ye willna be wanting more, sir?’ he said anxiously. ‘For we canna pay it.’

‘No,’ said Carey. ‘I’m sure you can’t. In fact, I’m not sure I should accept it.’

‘Eh?’ Bell was flabbergasted.

‘Well,’ said Carey reasonably, ‘you give blackrent in return for protection from reivers, don’t you?’

‘Ay.’

‘To be frank with you, Mr Bell, I’m not sure how much more protection I can offer you. I haven’t Lowther’s contacts or his family backing. I’m only an officer of the Queen.’

‘Ye did well enough keeping my stock fra Wattie’s clutches yesterday.’

‘I have to admit it wasn’t my prime consideration.’

‘Nay, I ken that. I know well enough you was protecting Mr Aglionby’s packtrain.’

Something in the pit of Carey’s stomach gave a lurch of excitement. Now that made sense of a fifty man raid at hay-making. Carefully he drank more of the sloe-coloured vinegar in his good silver goblet.

‘Ah,’ he said wisely. ‘And how did you find that out?’

‘It was one o’ the reivers we caught yesterday. He was in such a taking, yelling and shouting about what he’d lost by ye and how he hated ye, and the packtrain the heaviest to go into Carlisle for years and so on. So then I knew why ye were there, which was puzzling me; it was for the packtrain, to keep it fra Wattie Graham,’ Bell explained.

Carey stared into space, his mind working furiously. He was remembering the cardgame at the Mayor’s house. Suddenly he knew who had killed Jemmy Atkinson.

‘I supposed you haven’t got the reiver any more?’

‘Nay, we ransomed all of them back, the minute Skinabake’s man turned up wi’ the money.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘Ay, it was Fire the Braes Armstrong.’

‘And where does he live?’

‘The Debateable Land, seeing he’s at the horn for murder and arson in two Marches.’

Carey came to a decision.

‘Mr Bell,’ he said. ‘I’ll be straight with you. I don’t want to take blackrent, which is against the law, but I’ll take my rightful Wardenry fee for protecting your cattle, which is two pounds.’

‘Ay,’ said Bell. ‘But I want yer protection in the future.’

‘You have that,’ Carey explained. ‘It’s one of the duties of the office of Deputy Warden to protect you from raiders.’ Dammit, thought Carey, really it’s the only one. ‘You shouldn’t have to pay me rent for that; the Queen’s supposed to do it.’ Not that she did, or not regularly. ‘You only pay me a fee for a particular raid.’

Bell was looking deeply suspicious.

‘Are ye tellin’ me to pay my blackrent to Lowther?’

‘No, Mr Bell, I’m telling you to give me two pounds sterling and call it quits. Keep the money. Buy weapons or steel bonnets for your family or even a new plough or whatever. Just give me information when it comes to you and turn out to fight for me when I call and that’s all the blackrent I want.’

Bell’s mouth was hanging open. Carey was glad neither Dodd nor Barnabus were there to tell him he was mad turning down good cash; he even felt a little mad and reckless doing it. But he was grateful to Bell for solving Atkinson’s murder for him and besides, if he himself took blackrent like Lowther, how could he stop anyone else from doing it?

Bell had a broad spreading grin of incredulity on his face.

‘Are ye tellin’ me ye willna set on anybody to raid me if I dinna pay ye off?’

‘Yes,’ said Carey, wondering if every Borderer would now think him soft, as well as Dodd, the garrison and Jock of the Peartree. ‘I want my Wardenry fee, though. I have to live too.’

‘Ay,’ said Bell, still grinning. ‘Ay, o’ course ye do. Ay.’

He took two handfuls of crowns and shillings from his purse and carefully counted them out. Then he spat on the palm of his hand and held it out to Carey.