P. Chisholm: A Plague of Angels

‘Figures of speech, Sergeant,’ said Barnabus patronisingly. ‘Only true in a manner of speaking. Like what you get at the playhouse? You ever seen a play?’

‘I’ve seen the players that come to Carlisle some years,’ said Dodd, who hadn’t thought much of them. ‘Garish folk, and ay arguing.’

Barnabus tutted. ‘Nah. Plays. At a playhouse. With guns for thunder and the boys tricked out in velvets and satin and trumpets and a jig at the end. Best bit, the jig, I’ve always thought. Worf waiting for.’

‘Why?’

Barnabus grinned knowingly and tapped his bulbous nose. ‘You’ll see.’

Dodd grunted and looked around for the cause of this whole stupid expedition into foreign parts. Carey came striding impatiently out of his sorry-looking stand of thorns, his good humour after a fight obviously destroyed by what had sent him hurrying into it. Dodd was quite recovered from the vicious Scottish flux they had both picked up in Dumfries, but Carey’s bowels were clearly made of weaker stuff. He saw them gazing into the distance and turned to look as well, scowling at the view of London before turning back to scowl at all of them. To his clear dissatisfaction, the horses were all drinking nicely, none of them was lame for a change, and there was nothing to complain about. God, but he was in a nasty temper and had been all the way south, starting with an eyeblinking explosion of profanity when he first got the letter from his father. Dodd had heard it in the new barracks building while Carey was in the Carlisle castle yard.

It had been very wearying, riding with a man as chancy as a bad gun, all the way to Newcastle and every step of the Roman road south. They had changed horses luxuriously twice a day and pressed on at a pace that Dodd thought indecent, even with the Courtier having to stop and find cover every couple of hours. It wasn’t the length of time it took-Dodd was no stranger to long rides and three days was not the longest he’d been on by several days-it was the sheer dullness of the business. Hour after hour of cavalry pace, walk a mile, trot a mile, canter for two, then lead the horses again, and never a familiar face to greet nor a known tower to sight by. Dodd felt marooned. Even with the straight dusty Roman road, he doubted he could find his way back home again from so far away, though Carey knew the way well enough. After all, he was used to flinging himself across the entire country on the Queen’s account.

The countryside had changed around them as they went, so you might think they were still and the country moving, changing itself magically from rocky to flat and back to hills, fat and golden with straw after the harvest, the gleaners still combing painstakingly through the fields. They passed orchards-Dodd had not been certain what the little woods full of fruit trees might be, but had found out from Simon; they passed fields full of sheep and kine and only children guarding them, so it made you sad to think how many you could reive if only the distances weren’t so great. Even the size of the fields changed, from small and stone-walled to vast striped prairies and then back to small squares quilted with hedges. The road was generally full of strangers as well, crowded with packponies, carriers’ wagons, even newfangled coaches jolting along with silkclad green-faced women suffering inside them. Once a courier carrying the Queen’s dispatches had galloped down the grassy verge, shouting for them to make room, and leaving the rest of the travellers bathed in dust. Carey had coughed and brightened up a little, and they had talked for an hour about the technicalities of riding post. They had agreed that the key to speed was in making the change of horses every ten miles as fast as possible and paradoxically in taking the first half mile slowly so the animal had a chance to warm up.

Once a trotting train carrying fish from Norwich went past them, little light carts pulled by perkily trotting ponies, trailing a smell of the ocean behind the smart clatter. Once they had passed a band of beggars and Dodd had loosened his sword, but the upright man at the head of them had not liked the look of three men and a boy, well-armed and with the gentleman at the head of them ostentatiously opening his dag case before him. Dodd had thought it was a pity, really, he’d heard tell of southern beggars and a fight would at least have broken the monotony. Dodd was also short of sleep, thanks to Carey’s efforts at economising. At each inn they stayed at, Carey had put them all in the one room so Dodd could get the full benefit of Carey and Barnabus’s outrageous snoring. In desperation he had offered to sleep with the horses in the stables, but Carey had turned the idea down.

The south was a dreamworld where all the familiar normal animals had suddenly turned fat and handsome and he could only understand one word in three that was spoken to him. Dodd felt naked without his jack and morion, and thought wistfully that it would have been nice if his brother could have come too so he could have had someone to talk to. But Carey had refused to pay for any more followers than he had to on the grounds that it was Dodd himself that the Lord Chamberlain, his father, wanted to speak to, not Red Sandy.

‘What do you make of it, Sergeant?’ Carey asked him, nodding at the ambush of houses ahead of them.

‘Ah dinna ken, sir,’ said Dodd at his most stolid. ‘I’ve no’ been there yet.’ Was Carey actually planning to keep all the spoils for himself? Damn him for a selfish grasping miser; he’d only killed one of the footpads and if it hadn’t been for Dodd, they would have been helpless in the Cut when the robbers attacked…

As if reading Dodd’s mind, Carey had squatted down and was emptying out the gold and silver coins onto a flat stone, sorting them briskly into shillings and crowns and angels, and then into three piles which he then doled out. The few pennies left over he gave to Simon.

‘Will we get to see the Queen, sir?’ asked Simon as he stowed his money away.

Carey shrugged. ‘We might, if she’s in London. She’s more likely to be on progress.’

‘Will yer father no’ be with her then, sir?’ Dodd said, having picked up the vague notion that Lord Chamberlains were supposed to look after courtiers and the court and such. ‘How will we tell him our tale if he isnae there?’

‘How the hell should I know?’ snapped Carey. ‘Father’s brains have addled, I expect. Bloody London. What the devil’s the point of making me come back to London now?’

‘Ay, the Grahams will be riding, and the Armstrongs forbye,’ said Dodd dolefully. ‘Once the Assize judge has gone home after Lammas torches, and the horses are strong and the kine are fat, that’s when we run our rodes.’

Carey snorted. Dodd, who was tired of treating Carey with tact, decided to live dangerously. ‘Ah, that’ll be it, sir,’ he said comfortably. ‘Your father will have got wind the Grahams have a price on yer head and he’ll want ye safe in the south again.’

Lord, Carey could glare fit to split a stone when he wanted. ‘I very much doubt it,’ he said frostily, ‘seeing he knows perfectly well I’d rather be in Carlisle and take my chances with the Grahams.’

‘Hm,’ said Barnabus. ‘Not an easy choice, is it, sir? With all the people wanting to see you in London.’

Carey didn’t answer, but went to his horse and started turning up hooves looking for stones. The animal nickered and licked at his neck, searching for salt and knocking his hat off in the process. Uncharacteristically, Carey elbowed the enquiring muzzle away with a growled ‘Get over, you stupid animal.’

‘Mr Skeres will want to talk to you, won’t he, sir?’ Barnabus went on, sucking his teeth and scratching his bum. ‘And Mr Barnet and Mr Palavicino’s agent and Mr Bullard and then there’s Mr Pickering’s men…’