A Famine of Horses (6 page)

“You won’t let him make you leave?” She was blinking up at him with a frown.

Carey sucked wind through his teeth. “If the Queen orders me back to Westminster, you know I have to go.”

“She won’t, will she?”

“Not if we can forestall whatever Lowther writes to Burghley.”

“You could send a letter with the Berwick men and have John put it in his usual package to London.”

“Yes,” said Carey, thoughtfully, “I’ll do that.” He yawned. “I’ll do it in the morning before I go out with Dodd. There’ll be no time later, I want to inspect my men before I call a paymuster for them. And I must go to bed, Philly, or I’ll fall asleep here and you’ll have to turf Nurse out of her trundle bed and put me in it.”

Philly grinned at him. “Nonsense, she’d carry you down the stairs on her back and dump you with the other servants in the hall and then she’d give you a thick ear in the morning.”

“She would,” Carey said as he stood up, and kissed his sister on the forehead. “Thank you for your good word to Scrope.”

“You don’t mind that I made him send for you?”

“Sweetheart, you did me the best favour a sister could, you got me out of London and saved my life.”

“Oh?’ said Philly naughtily, “And who was she?”

“None of your business. Good night.”

Monday, 19th June, morning

Dawn came to Carlisle with a feeble clearing of the sky and a wind to strip the skin and cause a dilemma over cloaks: wear one, be marginally warmer and risk having it ripped from your back by a gust, or leave it off and freeze. Dodd put on an extra shirt, a padded doublet and his better jack and decided to freeze.

Carey was already in the stableyard when he arrived, between two of the castle’s rough-coated hobbies, checking girth straps and saddle leathers and passing a knowledgeable hand down the horses’ legs. He had on a clean but worn buff jerkin, his well-cut suit of green wool trimmed with olive velvet and his small ruff was freshly starched. He looked repulsively sprightly.

“Do you never shoe your horses, Sergeant?” he asked as Dodd came into view.

Dodd considered an explanation and decided against it. “No sir.” Carey patted a foreleg and lifted the foot to inspect the sturdy, well-grown hoof. He smiled quizzically and Dodd relented a little. “Not hobbies, sir.”

“I like a sure-footed horse myself,” said Carey agreeably and mounted.

As Carlisle’s stolid red walls and rabble of huts dropped behind them Carey seemed for some reason to be quite happy. Dodd failed to see why: the vicious wind was harrying clouds across the blue like a defeated army and the land was soused with the rain of the previous days. This was June, for Heaven’s sake, and it felt like February. Dodd began to run through his normal tally of worries: lack of money, the hay harvest likely to fail, lack of money, the barley crop poor, the rye and oats only middling and the wheat gone to the Devil, lack of money, pasturage poor and sour and Mildred, one of Janet’s work-horses, mysteriously off her feed, Janet in general, lack of money, the dead Graham…

Dodd glanced sideways at the present occupant of the Queen Mary Tower. He was riding loosely along, looking all about him, whistling slightly and half-smiling and when his hobby tried an exaggerated shy at a limp dandelion, he rode the hopping good-humouredly and hardly used the whip. He did not look like a man whose sleep had been upset by a corpse in his bed. Why hadn’t he mentioned it? And if his servants had dealt with the body, what in God’s name had they done with it?

Privately deciding to send Red Sandy out to Gilsland to warn Janet of a possible raid by Jock of the Peartree if he hadn’t found the dead man by the evening, Dodd cleared his throat.

“Different from London I doubt, sir.”

Carey was deep in thought. “Hm? London? Yes. Have you ever been there?”

“No sir. I’ve been to Edinburgh though, carrying messages.”

“What did you think of the place?”

Dodd tried to be just. “It had some fair houses. Too many…”

“Scots?”

“Er…people.”

Carey grinned. “You wouldn’t believe how many people there are in London. And every man jack of them with some complaint to bring as a petition to Her Majesty.”

“You’ve been at Court, sir?”

“Too much. However, the Queen likes me, so I do the best I can.”

Dodd struggled for a moment, then gave in. “What’s she like, the Queen?”

Carey raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said consideringly, “a scurvy Scotsman might say she is a wild old bat who knows more of governorship and statecraft than the Privy Councils of both realms put together, but
I
say she is like Aurora in her beauty, her hair puts the sun in splendour to shame, her face holds the heavens within its compass and her glance is like the falling dew.”

“You say that do you, sir?”

“Certainly I do, frequently, and she laughs at me, tells me that I am her Robin Redbreast and I’m a naughty boy and too plainspoken for the Court.”

“Christ.”

“And then I kiss her hand and she bids me rise and tells me that my brother is being tedious again and my father should get up to Berwick and birch him well, and that poor fool of a boy Thomas Scrope apparently wants me for a deputy in the West March, which shows he has at least enough sense to cover his little fingernail, which surprised her, and what would I say to wasting my life on the windswept Borders chasing cattle-thieves.”

“What did you say, sir?” Dodd asked, fascinated. Carey’s eyes danced.

“I groaned, covered my face, fell to my knees and besought her not to send me so far from her glorious countenance, although if it were not for the sorrow of leaving her august presence, I would rejoice in wind, borders and cattle-thieves, and if she be so hard of heart as to drive me away from the fountain of her delight, then I shall go and serve her with all my heart and soul and try and keep Scrope out of trouble.

Despite himself, Dodd cracked a laugh. “Is that how they speak at the Court?”

“If they want to keep out of the Tower, they do. I’m good at it and she likes my looks, so we get on well enough. And here I am, thank God.”

He looked around with the air of a man escaped from jail, before some memory, no doubt of Lowther, clouded him over.

“For the moment anyway. Burghley may convince her she wants me back at Court.”

Dodd grunted as they turned from the main trail, heading north, taking a wide sweep around the town, and passing the steady stream of folk going out from the city to work in their farms and market gardens.

They were almost back at the south gate when Carey said, “Longtown would be a little far to go now, no doubt.”

Here it comes, thought Dodd, bracing himself. “I could take you with some men.”

“I thought things were calmer in summer with the men up at the shielings.”

“Well they are, sir, but ’tisn’t seemly for the Warden’s Deputy to be out with no attendant but the Sergeant of the Guard.”

“Much going on near the Sark, at the moment? My lord Scrope said you were there yesterday.”

Was the man taunting him? “I came on Jock of the Peartree at the Esk ford…”

“I know. Any of them get shot in the back?”

In a way it was better to have it out in the open, at least he would know the worst. As often happened to Dodd his mind came up with three dozen things to say, all of which sounded inside him full of the ring of excuses and blame-passing, and in the end he said nothing save a stolid “No sir”.

Carey sighed. “All right, Sergeant,” he said, “I give in. Let’s call vada and I’ll see your prime. Tell me about my would-be bedfellow of last night.”

“I only put him there for lack of any other place…”

“Is there no undertaker in Carlisle?”

“Three,” said Dodd, “but they would know him and…”

“Who is he…was he?”

Dodd told him. It seemed Carey had heard something of Jock Graham’s reputation, for he was thoughtful.

“When’s the inquest?”

Dodd sighed at the reminder of things he hadn’t done yet. “I’ll try and fix it for tomorrow: there’s no question of the verdict.”

“Any hint of the murderer?”

Dodd shrugged. “Jock of the Peartree could likely tell you more about that. Who knows? Who cares?”

Carey gave him an odd look. “I think murder is still against the law, isn’t it?”

“Sweetmilk? He’s already had three bills fouled against him in his absence for murder in Scotland and he was just gone eighteen. Only the Jedburgh hangman will be sorry he’s dead.”

“And Jock of the Peartree, no doubt.”

“Oh the Grahams will be riding once they know who did it. We’ve no need to trouble ourselves about Sweetmilk’s killer once the inquest’s finished and Jock’s got the body.”

“Why didn’t you give him to Jock when you met yesterday?”

Dodd blinked. “Well sir, I wanted the fee and I didnae want to be facing a grieving Jock and fifteen Grahams with only six of my own behind me.”

“Fair enough, Sergeant. I want a look at the place where you found the body—can you show me this afternoon?”

“Ay sir, but…”

“Excellent.” Carey urged his hobby up the cobbles to the castle gate and Dodd had to raise a canter to catch up with him again.

“Sir…”

“Yes, Sergeant. Oh I shall want to inspect the men at two hours before midday.”

“Inspect the men?”

“Yes. You and your six patrolmen. And I’d be grateful if you could put your heads together and make a list for me of any defensible men within ten miles of Carlisle who dislike Lowther and might come out to support me in a fight.”

“But sir…”

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“Sir, where’s Sweetmilk’s body?”

“You’ll find him, Sergeant.”

Monday, 19th June, morning

Having been given fair warning by Carey, Dodd mustered the men as soon as he rode into the castle, told them what would happen and further his reaction if they failed to show the Courtier how things were done properly on the border and his men scattered looking deeply worried.

Paperwork for the inquest attended to and his temper a little improved by a morning bite of bread and cheese, Dodd checked his tack, his weapons and his armour, and after a nasty scene with his occasional servant, John Ogle’s boy, was in reasonable order by ten o’clock.

Carey inspecting men and weapons was an interesting sight. At least it was quick. He had all six of the men stand in a row facing him in the castle courtyard. Then he walked up and down the line, smiling slightly. He picked out Archie Give-it-Them Musgrave, though how he already knew that Archie was the worst for his tackle among them Dodd had no idea. Archie sweated for a quarter of an hour while Carey painstakingly explained why his caliver would inevitably misfire because the pan was clogged, his lance-point needed new rivets, his sword had no edge and was rusty and his jack was a disgrace. Archie thought he had scored when Carey asked what the brown stain on his jack happened to be.

“Armstrong blood, sir.”

“How old?”

Archie’s talents were not in his brain. “Sir?’

“How old is the blood?”

Archie mumbled. “I killed him in April.”

The snotty git, thought Dodd, to pick on poor Archie. Carey nodded for Archie to go back to his position in the line. He then stood with his left hand on his rapier hilt and his right fist on his hip and looked at them thoughtfully.

“Gentlemen,” said Carey at length, “I have served in France with the Huguenots, and under Lord Howard of Effingham against the Spanish Armada. I have served at several sieges, I have fought in a number of battles, though I admit most of them were against foreigners and Frenchmen and suchlike rabble. I have commanded men on divers occasions over the past five years and I swear by Almighty God that I have never seen such a pitiful sight as you.” He paused to let the insult sink in.

“I was born in London but bred in Berwick,” he continued in tones of reproach. “When I took horse to come north, a southerner friend of mine laughed and said I should find your lances would be rotten, your swords rusted, your guns better used as clubs and your armour filthy. And I told him I would fight him if he insulted Borderers again, that I was as sure of finding right fighting men here as any place in England—no, surer—and I come and what do I find?” He took a deep breath and blew it out again, shook his head, mounted his horse without touching the stirrups and rode over to where Dodd sat slumped in his saddle, wishing he was in the Netherlands.

“Sergeant, sit up,” said Carey very quietly. “I find your men are a bloody disgrace which is less their fault than yours. You shall mend it, Sergeant, by this time tomorrow.”

He rode away, while Dodd wondered if it was worth thirty pounds to him to put his lance up Carey’s arse. He had still not found Graham’s body.

Carey came by while they were waiting for the blacksmith to get his fire hot enough for riveting and beckoned Dodd over.

“Who’s in charge of the armoury?”

“Sir Richard Lowther…”