P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

He looked back at her. There was nothing whatever remarkable about her, excepting that she had a child sitting on either side of her, but they weren’t the only children in the hall, if a little better behaved than some. She was of middling height and quite slender build, she had brown hair neatly tucked under a cap and pleasant long-lashed brown eyes. Three needles were threaded through her bodice which was doublet-style and made of a dusky rose coloured damask and she was squinting a little short-sightedly. Dodd felt as if Carey’s fetch was sitting next to him and jogging his elbow; Carey would have tipped his hat to her and given her one of his most charming smiles, because that was the kind of man Carey was. Dodd, however, was different and proud of it. He preferred not to remember his sin of lust the previous morning, which was no doubt the cause of all his troubles since. Dodd was married. He looked firmly away from the woman and concentrated on his meat.

After they had filed out of the dining hall into the afternoon sunlight, there was Sir John at Dodd’s elbow again, nagging him to play cards. This confirmed all Dodd’s suspicions.

‘Nay, I’ll not chance it,’ he said. ‘I was lucky this morning but I’m not anywhere near as skilful as ye gentlemen.’

‘The way to increase your skill is to play, surely?’ said Sir John with a tight, rather desperate smile.

Barnabus’s voice came to Dodd’s memory. ‘Wot you do is, you let the barnard win a bit and then you take it off him again and generally speaking, he’ll play harder to try and get his winnings back which is when you skin him, so to speak.’

Sir John then suggested a restful game of dice and Dodd shook his head sadly. The card-playing circle were looking annoyed as well, which was a little worrying.

Somebody came up behind Dodd and said, ‘Excuse me, sir?’ He turned and saw the woman who had been staring at him during dinner. She curtseyed and he made his best bow which caused Sir John’s eyes to narrow.

‘Ay, mistress,’ he said politely. ‘Can I help ye?’

‘Are you Sir Robert Carey?’ Her voice trembled a little.

Dodd sighed. Was this another of Carey’s multiplicity of women? How the devil did he find time for such a complicated private life?

‘That’s what Newton thinks,’ he said.

Her brow furrowed and she looked about to burst into tears. ‘Well, but do you know him?’

‘Ay, I do.’ No, of course it couldn’t be one of Carey’s trollops, what was he thinking of? She would hardly mistake him, would she? ‘Though I dinna ken where he is, mind.’

She frowned again, obviously not understanding him.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Dodd said again, straining to speak in a southern way. ‘But I do know him, mistress, ay.’

‘Please, sir, will you come with me?’

‘Why?’ Dodd was suspicious now. Was this some means of inveigling him into a corner so Sir John and his cronies could take his purse?

‘It’s very important.’

‘Nae doot. But what’s it about?’

She beckoned him closer and when he bent towards her, stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. ‘His brother.’

‘Och.’ Dodd looked severely at her. Was it possible to be so lucky? ‘What are ye saying?’

‘Will you come?’

‘Ay, I will, mistress.’

Newton had taken his sword when he was signed in, of course, but Dodd still had his dagger. He loosened it in its sheath and then followed the woman across the courtyard, past the sewing circle where the woman’s children were sitting under the gimlet eye of an older woman, past a cobbler’s stall and a general stall covered over with a dizzying array of objects for sale, and into the doorway of one of the oldest parts of the place, stone built and with a swaybacked roof.

They went down worn spiral steps. One of the gaol servants was standing there and after the woman had paid him a penny, he unlocked the heavy door. They went through into a dark stinking cellar, with a broad ribbed roof and small high windows that were barred and had no glass. The stone flags of the floor were slippery and there were puddles in the dips, the place stank of piss and mould and sickness to take your head off. There were still shapes lying huddled in the shadows, some of them in no more than their shirts, and there was no sound of talk, only harsh breathing, echoing coughs and the occasional moan.

‘Och, God,’ said Dodd, shaken. ‘What’s this place?’

‘Bolton’s Ward, sir, where Newton puts those who have no money left, the beggars’ ward.’

‘Why do they not leave?’

‘They are chained, sir.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

In his time Dodd had heard some fairly frightening sermons on the subject of Hell, but this was worse than any of them. Jedburgh itself hadn’t been half so bad.

The woman went over to one of the huddled shapes in the corner. Dodd followed her, feeling sick with pity.

She bent down to the man who lay there, felt his forehead, and he moved his head restlessly at her touch. For a moment, in the dimness, Dodd’s belly clenched with superstitious fright because although the man was far skinnier than Carey, it could have been him, with the beaky nose and the high cheekbones. But the man’s greasy hair was receding off his forehead into a widow’s peak and there was a difference about the chin and mouth, and also he had a straggling beard. He was lying on a straw pallet with a bag of clothes for a pillow, wearing nothing but his shirt which was fine linen but ragged. The blanket hunched up over his shoulders was a stinking disgrace Dodd wouldn’t have put on a horse.

‘Do you know him, sir?’ asked the woman.

‘Is that Edmund Carey?’ Dodd asked.

Her face relaxed a little. For the first time she smiled at him. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘But why did his father not find him?’

‘He’s in the book under another name, under Edward Morgan. He was kind to my children when he was first brought to the Fleet, in the beginning of August. Then he took a gaol-fever a week later. Newton was enraged with him for he said that all the garnish he had paid was forged and Newton himself was nearly arrested for it. He had no other money by then, and so Newton put him down here.’ She looked down at her neatly clasped hands. ‘I…um…I have been trying to nurse him. He told me his real name when he was delirious but then when he was in his right mind he begged me not to tell his family and…some other things…and so I did not, but I have been in a quandary to know what to do, sir, because I think the poor gentleman is not far off dying and he should be taken out of this place and looked after properly. I’m not even sure if I have done right bringing you here, sir,’ added the woman, her voice dropping, ‘because he was particularly anxious that his brother not be told; he kept begging me not to let little Robin see him in case he was frightened.’

Dodd kept his face solemn though in fact there was something funny as well as pathetic and idiotic at the idea of Sir Robert being ‘little Robin’ and at risk of fright at the sight of his brother brought so low. But then, he supposed, if he was in a like case and not quite in his right mind from fever, he might want to stop Red Sandy from seeing him. Old habits die hard and you could never stop being a big brother once you were one.

He squatted down and took the bony wrist which felt hot and dry. ‘Och, puir man,’ he said. ‘How much would it take to move him somewhere better?’

‘At least ten shillings, since he’s in debt to Newton for the Knight’s Ward charges as well. And another couple of shillings’ garnish to unchain him.’

Dodd’s lips tightened. He was beginning to take a considerable dislike to Newton.

‘What’s your name, mistress?’