2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (9 page)

He caught up with them quickly and reined in, let Thunder get over his customary side-stepping and pawing as he came back to a sedate walk.

The look Elizabeth Widdrington gave him was not what he would have wished. Carey swept his hat off and bowed low in the saddle to her and tried to smile. He found that the steadiness of her grey glare was making him feel like a schoolboy in the middle of an escapade and for a moment he felt awkward. Then he had to grin.

‘Do tell me the joke, Sir Robert,’ Elizabeth said frostily.

He waved an arm expansively. ‘I was thinking that only the Queen and yourself can take me back to my schooldays so easily.’

Elizabeth faced forwards and said, ‘Humph.’

‘Thunder needed exercise,’ Carey explained innocently. ‘I thought I’d bring him along the Roman road for a while.’

She said ‘humph’ again. Thunder snorted and tried to speed up to go past, but Carey hauled him back. Young Henry Widdrington was pretending he hadn’t noticed Carey’s arrival but the wide neck at the base of his helmet was bright red and not from the sun.

‘Have I offended you again, my lady?’ he asked Elizabeth.

‘Do you understand the meaning of the word
discretion
?’ she asked very haughtily. Never mind, at least she was talking to him.

‘No, my lady,’ he said. ‘Please explain it to me.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’re making a public exhibition of yourself. What do you expect me to do? Welcome you with a kiss?’

‘That would be nice,’ he said wistfully and wondered if she would slap him. She didn’t, but it looked like a near thing.

‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than make a nuisance of yourself?’ Elizabeth asked in tones that would have withered a tree. Lord, he liked looking at her when she was in a temper.

‘Yes, I have,’ he said. ‘I have piles of tedious papers to deal with and Scrope won’t let me have Bell to be my clerk today, so I have to write all the damn letters myself.’

‘It sounds as if you had best get back to work then.’

‘On the other hand, the sun is shining and Thunder…’

‘Needed exercise. So you said. You haven’t raised a sweat on him yet, so we’ll move aside for you and you can give him a good run. Then you can get back to your papers.’

‘To hell with the papers,’ Carey said conversationally, ‘I wanted to ride with you for a while.’

‘Why do you insist on making this so difficult for me?’ she asked, and for a moment he felt guilty. Only for a moment, though.

‘How am I making it difficult?’ he asked, deliberately obtuse. ‘I’m not in your way. I’m riding alongside in a perfectly proper manner. I thought you might like to be entertained with some conversation for a little of your long journey.’

‘I really don’t want to talk,’ she said, looking straight between her mare’s ears.

‘Then I shall ride beside you in silence, my lady.’

‘Hmf.’

He did manage to stay silent for several miles, so they could hear the shouts from the hayfields. They got stuck for a while behind a haywagon screeling along behind two yoke of oxen, so Carey trotted ahead and asked the driver to stop while they squeezed past at a wider place. With the road clear ahead of them he let Thunder have a run and then came back to the Widdringtons. Young Henry looked as if he was trying to decide whether to say anything to the scandalous Deputy Warden but, as Carey knew, Young Henry was a likeable young man and far more sympathetic to his step-mother than he was to his unpleasant father. On the other hand, he took his responsibilities as heir very seriously.

Carey took Thunder alongside Henry and tipped his hat in courtesy. Henry bent his head a little and flushed.

‘How badly tired are the horses, Mr Widdrington?’ he asked and Young Henry frowned.

‘We shouldn’t be travelling at all, Sir Robert,’ he said. ‘If none of the horses goes lame, it’ll be a miracle. We should have rested for two more days.’

‘I quite agree,’ Carey said. ‘Did you explain this to Lady Widdrington?’

‘Yes,’ said Henry unhappily. ‘I did, and she said my father had ordered us home and so home we would go.’

‘It’s a pity none of the horses went lame in Carlisle,’ said Carey innocently. Young Henry looked at him sideways and then quietly swore.

‘I never thought of that,’ he admitted.

‘Nor did I until this minute,’ Carey said candidly. ‘Never mind, we’ll know better next time.’

‘And she would spot it,’ Henry added.

‘Of course she would. But what could she do about it?’

Young Henry sighed.

‘I daren’t try it now,’ he said. ‘She’d know.’

‘I’m not happy about you travelling at the moment, with the Debateable Land so stirred up,’ Carey went on. ‘I wish you could stay in Carlisle.’

‘If I turned back to the Castle now, I wouldn’t put it past her to carry on by herself. And my cousins would obey her, I think, not me. So might the Castle men.’

Carey looked at the two large Widdrington menservants critically. He knew the other two slightly, both Carlislers and often used for dispatches. They would take Lady Widdrington to Newcastle and then wait there for the next dispatch bag from Burghley down in London.

‘Well, they look dangerous enough to keep off any chancers,’ he admitted. ‘And so do you. But what happens if a horse goes lame while you’re in the middle of some waste?’

‘Have you heard anything, Sir Robert?’

‘No. But I’m not happy.’

Henry looked at him with his jaw set square. ‘There could be another reason for that,’ he said after a moment.

‘Well, there is,’ said Carey lightly. ‘But I’m making allowances for selfishness and I’m still not happy.’

Henry gestured with his lance. ‘Go and talk to Lady Widdrington. You know my opinion; I’d willingly turn back to Carlisle and stay there, but my lady…’

‘Your father’s letter was certainly very…peremptory.’

Henry set his jaw again and suddenly looked like the man he would be in a few years’ time. Then he swallowed and broke the illusion of maturity.

‘I wish you were a reiver, Sir Robert,’ he burst out. ‘I wish you could sweep down on us with all your men and carry her back to your peel tower.’

Then he shut his lips very firmly and looked as if he expected Carey to laugh at him for his romantic notions.

‘I won’t deny the thought had crossed my mind,’ Carey said slowly. ‘But why do
you
wish that? Is she so unhappy with Sir Henry?’

Henry had the peculiar expression of someone who is longing to explain a great deal but can’t bring himself to the necessary disloyalty.

‘What’s she going back to, and why is she in such a hurry about it?’ Carey hadn’t meant to sound so peremptory but his heart had gone cold.

Young Henry stared ahead for a few moments longer and then said, in a rush, ‘Well, Sir Robert, you know if someone has to have a tooth pulled, they’re either one way or the other. Some people put it off for as long as possible, and others get it over with as quick as possible.’

For a moment Carey didn’t understand. ‘But she…Oh.’

Even Henry’s spots were glowing red and he looked quite wretched.

‘It’s his right,’ he mumbled. ‘And he’s a very suspicious man. It took him a long time to…to calm down when she came back from Court. And now…’

Carey understood perfectly. His voice became remote.

‘Is he likely to kill her?’

‘Well…’

‘Widdrington, I want to know what she’s facing.’

‘Well…I don’t think he’d kill her. You see, he needs her to nurse him when he’s having one of his attacks of the gravel in his bladder.’

‘Couldn’t he marry again?’

‘I don’t think any of the families near us would give him one of their daughters. And none of the widows would take him either,’ Henry explained damningly. ‘He had to send all the way to Cornwall to get her, remember.’

With some part of his mind, Carey planned to have a great many words with his father the next time they met. But for Lord Hunsdon, Elizabeth would never have married Sir Henry. On the other hand, then they might never have met.

‘How did your mother die?’ Carey demanded, too angry to be tactful.

Young Henry said nothing which was much worse than an answer. Carey took a deep breath, looked back over his shoulder at Elizabeth riding sedately along. Her face was perfectly normal, though she still looked thoroughly annoyed.

He now understood another reason why she was so coy, for all his sister’s machinations. At Court, surrounded by temptation, he had not been a seducer—but he had certainly been very easy to seduce. Like any sensible man, he had avoided the unmarried girls whom the Queen guarded with the ferocity of an Ancient Greek dragon, although occasionally he made mistakes. Married women were much safer, unless their husbands were no longer fit for the marriage bed. In which case the green venom of jealousy was inflamed by the black bile of envy and the whole enterprise became too dangerous for the woman to be fun. Poor Elizabeth.

Certainly Philadelphia could have no idea. It hadn’t really occurred to him, although he had no quarrel with a man exercising proper authority over his wife. Obviously, what Young Henry was alluding to was more than that. Coldness trickled down his spine as he wondered if Sir Henry had the brainsickness he knew that Walsingham’s inquisitor Topcliffe certainly had. He couldn’t ask Young Henry, he wouldn’t understand.

Henry was speaking again, in a low mumble.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I was saying, my father might make her do penance if she’s… er…if he thinks she’s committed adultery.’

‘What, spend Sunday standing outside the church in a white sheet with a candle?’

Henry nodded. Carey looked over his shoulder again. Elizabeth was watching him now, so he turned back in case she saw his face. Considering her pride, he suspected she would prefer to be beaten.

Young Henry was screwing up his face as if he was trying to find the courage to ask something insolent. Carey knew immediately what that was and pre-empted it.

‘Your stepmother, Mr Widdrington,’ he said coldly and clearly, ‘is the most virtuous woman I have ever met. I won’t deny I’ve been laying siege to her with every…every device I have, and I have got nowhere. Nowhere at all.’

Despite the beetroot colour of Henry’s face he seemed happier. He nodded.

‘But I suppose, given Sir Henry’s nature, he isn’t likely to believe it, even without Lowther to poison the well for us.’

Henry nodded again. Carey rode along for a moment.

‘Christ, what a bloody mess.’

Abruptly he swung Thunder away from Henry’s horse and put his heels in again. Thunder exploded straight into a gallop, catching his rider’s mood. Carey let him have his head, though he got no pleasure from it now, and then brought him to a stop under a shady tree where he dismounted and walked Thunder up and down to let him cool more slowly, and waited for the Widdringtons. He stood watching them as they came up and cursed himself for being so obtuse, for thinking he was playing a game with Elizabeth when she was in fact gambling with her life. She reined in beside him and he came to her stirrup and looked up at her.

‘My lady,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll leave you here.’

‘What were you talking about with Henry?’

He also wondered how much she knew of what was in his mind, but she wasn’t a witch, only a woman.

‘We were agreeing with each other about the dangers of travelling in this March with horses that need more rest,’ he lied bluntly. It wasn’t a lie. He was worried about it.

‘We shall be well enough,’ said Elizabeth sedately. ‘Thank you for your concern, Sir Robert.’

‘Good day to you, Lady Widdrington,’ said Carey, uncovering to her as they continued past. ‘God speed.’

***

Barnabus knew better than to say anything to his master when Carey slammed into his chambers with a face as dark as ditchwater and went straight to the smaller room he used as an office. He sat down at the desk, opened the penner and took out pens and ink. Summer sunlight like honey streamed in through the window and he looked up at it once and sighed, then drew paper towards him and dipped his pen.

There was silence as the pile of muster letters grew steadily on one side of the desk. Barnabus finished mending netherstocks that had gone at the heels and canion-hose that had been unequal to the strain of being worn by Carey. For all he liked to look so fine, he was terribly hard on his clothes—one reason why he was so heavily in debt—and it had got a great deal worse since they moved north.

Somewhere around noon they had a visitor. James Pennycook and his son-in-law knocked tentatively at the door and, after wine had been brought, Barnabus and Michael Kerr were told to leave and shut the door.

‘What’s Mr Pennycook after?’ Barnabus asked Kerr as they sat on the stairs, waiting to be called back. Michael Kerr fiddled with one of the tassels on his purse, looked up at the arched roof and said, ‘Och, it’s the usual. Mr Pennycook wants to know his price.’

‘What for?’

‘For not interfering with the victualling contracts.’