P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

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.’