A Famine of Horses (11 page)

That night Dodd dreamed he was about to be hanged for some crime he could not remember. He could hear the Reverend Turnbull intoning his neck-verse in a huckster’s gabble.

“Have mercy upon me, oh God, according to thy loving kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…”

He was just trying desperately to think of something to say as his last words when the drums leading him to the gigantic scaffold turned out to be a fist hammering on the door of his little chamber.

“Sergeant!” roared Carey’s voice, “Up and rouse out your men.”

Dodd was already hauling on his hose and shrugging on his doublet. He put on his second-best jack, the one Janet had spent hours reinforcing with bits of secondhand mail where ordinary steel plates would chafe. By the time his eyes were properly open he had laced himself up, buckled on his sword and found his helmet under the bed, and he was following Carey down the dark passage past the tackroom to the barracks door, as the Carlisle bell started ringing.

“Where’s the raid?” he asked.

“A boy came in a quarter of an hour ago and he said the Grahams lifted ten head of cattle and three horses out of Lanercost at midnight.”

“How many reivers?”

“Between ten and twenty men, he thought.”

“Forty in all then,” said Dodd, and Carey nodded. He was already booted and spurred and his own jack seemed well-worn and serviceable. No way of telling the man’s courage though when it came to it, Dodd thought, he wished he’d seen Carey in a fight before having to follow him on a hot trod. What was wrong with a cold trod, anyway, they had six days to follow in for it to be legal, and nobody blinked much at a day or two to spare? Which would be worse? A fire-eater or a man who was all bully and brag and no blows? His face settling into its customary sullenness, Dodd decided he was hoping for a coward who would follow the trod well back and discharge his duty without too much sweat. But seeing Carey’s grin and the sparkle in his eyes, Dodd began to feel uneasy.

By the time the men had turned out and were in the castle yard, with sleepy hobbies snorting and stamping protestingly and blowing up their barrels to prevent their girths being fastened, another boy had ridden in with news of a herd of horses gone missing from Walter Ridley’s fields and a farmhouse broken into on the way. Estimates of the Graham’s strength ranged from fifteen to forty men and Dodd nodded.

“Where are the Elliots?” he asked.

Carey turned to the most recent arrival, a lad of about twelve on his father’s fastest pony, his face flushed with the ride and the excitement.

“We didna see them,” he said.

“The Grahams don’t always ride with the Elliots, though Sergeant?” Carey asked, raising his voice to be heard above the clanging of the bell.

“Not always,” Dodd allowed, “Usually. It could be Johnstones or even Nixons or Scotch Armstrongs. Tom’s Watt Ridley,” he called to the other boy, “Did your uncle say aught about the Scots?”

“Only he hadna seen none,” said Tom’s Watt, helpfully. “It was all Grahams.”

Dodd sucked his teeth.

“Are these out of Liddesdale, Tom’s Watt?”

“Oh ay.”

Red Sandy came bustling up, with his steel bonnet in his hands and a crossbow under his arm, followed by his two sleuthhounds. The two dogs were bouncing around him, panting and leaping up with their paws and making the odd excited strangulated squeaks of dogs that have been taught not to give tongue.

“No sign of Bangtail,” he said, “no sign of Richard Lowther either. The Warden says Sir Robert’s to lead the whole castle guard.”

Carey nodded and looked pleased. If he had any worries about it they didn’t show.

“Sergeant, if you were the Graham leader, where would you be taking the animals?” asked Carey.

“Into Liddesdale across the Bewcastle Waste,” said Dodd instantly. “There’s plenty of nice valleys in the dale with pens for holding booty in, no better hiding hole.”

“I take it we don’t want to be pursuing them directly into Liddesdale?” said Carey.

Dodd winced while Red Sandy looked appalled.

“No sir.”

“Name me a meeting place within two miles of the mouth of Liddesdale.”

Dodd named the Longtownmoor meeting stone which was a mile from Netherby, held by an unfortunate Milburn who paid blackrent to everyone.

Carey smiled at Tom’s Watt, drew him aside, spoke for a time and gave him a ring from his hand before drawing his gloves on. Dodd mounted up and trotted between his men to see all of them were properly equipped. The few who owned calivers had left them behind because of the rain. Dodd himself took the burning peat turf on the end of his lance that signified a hot trod. The horn he was supposed to blow in warning if they had to cross over into Scotland was at his belt.

“Sergeant, do you know the Bewcastle Waste well?”

Dodd considered. “Ay sir. Well enough.” Red Sandy snorted at this modesty.

“Up here by me, then. I know it not at all and am in your hands.”

With the Carlisle bell still clanging irregularly into the night behind them, they walked their horses through the town, glared at by cats interrupted in their own reiving. Once through the gates they came to a canter northwards, the darkness about them sparsely sequined with signal beacons.

They picked up a trail of several dozen cattle a little to the south of Lanercost, the hounds lolloping and panting along and giving no tongue as they had been trained. At least Carey seemed in no hurry to close with the Grahams. As soon as he could the Graham leader dodged into the Waste, and as the sky greyed and the rain fell again, Dodd was threading through the bogs and scrub with Carey uncharacteristically quiet beside him. He rode well enough, Dodd allowed grudgingly, perhaps a little too straight in the saddle for endurance, a little too reluctant to let his mount judge her own pace.

Always Carey wanted to be round to the east of them and the strategy seemed to be working for the Grahams let themselves be herded westwards rather than northwards. Dawn was theoretical rather than real as they wove in and out of ditches and up hills, while the Grahams doubled back and crossed water to try and lose the hounds, all of it cruelly rough country. By the time it was full morning, Carey at last had lost some of his bounce, and began to take on the experienced loosebacked slouch of Dodd and his men.

By the sourness of his expression, Henry Dodd’s men could tell he was enjoying himself, countering every Graham turn and ruse, and reading the man’s mind ahead of himself, until he lifted his head, turned while Carey urged his hobby through another little stream, and nodded with supreme satisfaction.

“There they are, sir.”

Ahead of them they could make out against the grey wet curtains drooling out of the clouds, the lances and lowing of the raiding party.

“Where are we?” Carey asked, a little breathless.

“One mile south of the meeting stone,” said Henry and nodded to the right, “Liddesdale’s that way sir.”

“No sign of Elliots or Armstrongs.”

“Doesna mean there are none,” said Dodd, hoping his various cousins by marriage might remember who he was if they were there.

“What are they doing now?”

“Rounding up the cattle again, sir, ready to take them into the Debateable Land.”

“How long will it take them?”

“Five minutes.”

Carey scraped his thumb on his lower lip where his nicely trimmed courtier’s goatee was invading upland pastures. Like all of them Carey was caked in mud and the slogging through the Waste seemed to have dulled even his enthusiasm for movement. They had come about in a broad anticlockwise arc.

“What do you think of them, Sergeant?”

Dodd blinked into the rain and considered.

“They’re slow, sir.” A thought came to him unbidden but he suppressed it. As Lowther had said to him many times, it wasn’t his job to think.

“Could be the cattle.”

“No, see, sir, I could have had the cattle into Scotland by now.”

Carey raised an aristocratic eyebrow.

“Are they waiting for us?”

“Might be,” said Dodd reluctantly, “I don’t know. They might be waiting for us.”

“So the betting is they’ve got someone to back them hiding in the valley?”

“Ay sir.”

“Where have they set the ambush?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” said Dodd cautiously.

Carey smiled. “As an expert, speaking from your past experience.”

Dodd sucked his teeth again, thought and pronounced his opinion. By the end of his explanation, Carey had begun to look worried. He peered over his shoulder at the miserable pale sun where it was struggling against the clouds and squinted at the western horizon. For a moment it almost seemed to Dodd that he was listening. Far away came the peewits of green plover disturbed by the reivers. Carey urged his tired horse to a fast canter up a slight knoll, stood in his stirrups, looked all around, and came trotting back cheerfully again.

“Let’s have them then,” he said.

“Now sir?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” He stood in his stirrups again. “Gentlemen,” he said at large to the men, “we’re taking back the cattle. With God’s help, we have friends on the other side of the Grahams who will come and join the fun.” He didn’t mention the possibility that the Grahams might have friends too.

There was the clatter and creak of harness as men tightened the straps on their helmets, loosened their swords, gripped their lances. None except Carey had firearms but Carey’s were a beautiful pair of dags with a Tower gunsmith’s mark on them, ready shotted and wound.

“Nineteen of us?” said Dodd.

“Twenty,” said Carey quietly, letting his horse back and snort nervously as he took one gun in each hand. Bloody show-off, thought Dodd, I hope the recoil breaks his wrist.

“There’s twenty-five of them at least from their trail,” Red Sandy said reasonably, “and ten others and the Elliots unaccounted for…We could likely come to some arrangement…”

Carey’s eyes narrowed. “Now we come to it,” he said, “do I have grey hair? Is my face red? Do I look like Richard Lowther to you?”

“No sir, but…”

“Which is it to be? Do I shout come on, or do I shout go on and shoot the first coward who hesitates?”

Red Sandy flushed. “’Tis only business…”

“No, it’s theft.” Carey’s lip curled. “Christ, I knew you were dishonest and I knew you were sloppy. God as my witness, I never thought you were scared…”

Red Sandy darkened to ruby. He backed his horse into the group of men, put his lance in rest.

“All right,” said Carey, taking a deep breath, “Let’s have the bastards.” He spurred his horse to the gallop. Dodd thought of Lowther’s gratitude and then decided he didn’t care and kicked his hobby till it ran and caught up to Carey in a shower of mud. There were horsemen on the Longtownmoor.

“Elliots?” he yelled, pointing at them.

Carey laughed. “Who knows?” he shouted back.

They had been spotted. Carey put a gun under his arm, winded his own horn three times, dropped it and took the gun again. The strange horsemen shimmered and shifted down the slope in the distance. The raiders put a shot in among the cattle to scatter them and bent low over their horses’ necks as they rode hard for Liddesdale. They seemed to think the other group were their friends the Elliots. In the last few seconds Dodd saw the Grahams suddenly haul their horses up short. At that moment, Dodd, Carey and the men were amongst them. Carey shot one Graham in the face, misfired with his other dag from the wet. Ducking a lance, he thrust his guns back in the saddle case and drew his sword which was the long slender article that Dodd had seen him draw on Lowther. He wielded it more with his forearm than his shoulder. Unexpectedly, he managed to run at least one man through under the arm with it: the blade flickered in and out again like a needle. Dodd with his broadsword was mournfully and methodically cutting and kicking his way through the press of men, and Archie Give-it-Them successfully ran a Graham through the thigh with his lance, which broke off.

By which time Thomas Carleton and a number of Musgraves and Fenwicks had surrounded the mêlée and when the Elliots came swarming out of the valley a few seconds later, the reivers had all either run or surrendered, except for the three of them that were dead and one badly wounded. Seeing the situation, the Elliots swung round and rode away back into Liddesdale again as fast as they could, with a few Carletons whooping dangerously after them.

Dodd came upon Carey wiping sweat and rain off his face with a hankerchief while he stood by his horse to let it catch its breath. He was glaring disgustedly at his pretty rapier which had broken off on somebody’s jack.

“Five prisoners,” Dodd reported, “Young Jock Graham, Young Wattie, Sim’s Sim, Henharrow Geordie and…er…Ekie Graham.” Pray that Carey didn’t know Ekie Graham was Bangtail’s half-brother.

“Where are the horses?” demanded Carey.

“Well, they’re here, sir…”

“Not the ones we rode, Sergeant, the ones they stole. It’s all cattle here.”