P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Couldn’t he marry again?’

‘I don’t think any of the families near us would give him one of their daughters. And none of the widows would take him either,’ Henry explained damningly. ‘He had to send all the way to Cornwall to get her, remember.’

With some part of his mind, Carey planned to have a great many words with his father the next time they met. But for Lord Hunsdon, Elizabeth would never have married Sir Henry. On the other hand, then they might never have met.

‘How did your mother die?’ Carey demanded, too angry to be tactful.

Young Henry said nothing which was much worse than an answer. Carey took a deep breath, looked back over his shoulder at Elizabeth riding sedately along. Her face was perfectly normal, though she still looked thoroughly annoyed.

He now understood another reason why she was so coy, for all his sister’s machinations. At Court, surrounded by temptation, he had not been a seducer-but he had certainly been very easy to seduce. Like any sensible man, he had avoided the unmarried girls whom the Queen guarded with the ferocity of an Ancient Greek dragon, although occasionally he made mistakes. Married women were much safer, unless their husbands were no longer fit for the marriage bed. In which case the green venom of jealousy was inflamed by the black bile of envy and the whole enterprise became too dangerous for the woman to be fun. Poor Elizabeth.

Certainly Philadelphia could have no idea. It hadn’t really occurred to him, although he had no quarrel with a man exercising proper authority over his wife. Obviously, what Young Henry was alluding to was more than that. Coldness trickled down his spine as he wondered if Sir Henry had the brainsickness he knew that Walsingham’s inquisitor Topcliffe certainly had. He couldn’t ask Young Henry, he wouldn’t understand.

Henry was speaking again, in a low mumble.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I was saying, my father might make her do penance if she’s… er…if he thinks she’s committed adultery.’

‘What, spend Sunday standing outside the church in a white sheet with a candle?’

Henry nodded. Carey looked over his shoulder again. Elizabeth was watching him now, so he turned back in case she saw his face. Considering her pride, he suspected she would prefer to be beaten.

Young Henry was screwing up his face as if he was trying to find the courage to ask something insolent. Carey knew immediately what that was and pre-empted it.

‘Your stepmother, Mr Widdrington,’ he said coldly and clearly, ‘is the most virtuous woman I have ever met. I won’t deny I’ve been laying siege to her with every…every device I have, and I have got nowhere. Nowhere at all.’

Despite the beetroot colour of Henry’s face he seemed happier. He nodded.

‘But I suppose, given Sir Henry’s nature, he isn’t likely to believe it, even without Lowther to poison the well for us.’

Henry nodded again. Carey rode along for a moment.

‘Christ, what a bloody mess.’

Abruptly he swung Thunder away from Henry’s horse and put his heels in again. Thunder exploded straight into a gallop, catching his rider’s mood. Carey let him have his head, though he got no pleasure from it now, and then brought him to a stop under a shady tree where he dismounted and walked Thunder up and down to let him cool more slowly, and waited for the Widdringtons. He stood watching them as they came up and cursed himself for being so obtuse, for thinking he was playing a game with Elizabeth when she was in fact gambling with her life. She reined in beside him and he came to her stirrup and looked up at her.

‘My lady,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll leave you here.’

‘What were you talking about with Henry?’

He also wondered how much she knew of what was in his mind, but she wasn’t a witch, only a woman.

‘We were agreeing with each other about the dangers of travelling in this March with horses that need more rest,’ he lied bluntly. It wasn’t a lie. He was worried about it.

‘We shall be well enough,’ said Elizabeth sedately. ‘Thank you for your concern, Sir Robert.’

‘Good day to you, Lady Widdrington,’ said Carey, uncovering to her as they continued past. ‘God speed.’

***

Barnabus knew better than to say anything to his master when Carey slammed into his chambers with a face as dark as ditchwater and went straight to the smaller room he used as an office. He sat down at the desk, opened the penner and took out pens and ink. Summer sunlight like honey streamed in through the window and he looked up at it once and sighed, then drew paper towards him and dipped his pen.

There was silence as the pile of muster letters grew steadily on one side of the desk. Barnabus finished mending netherstocks that had gone at the heels and canion-hose that had been unequal to the strain of being worn by Carey. For all he liked to look so fine, he was terribly hard on his clothes-one reason why he was so heavily in debt-and it had got a great deal worse since they moved north.

Somewhere around noon they had a visitor. James Pennycook and his son-in-law knocked tentatively at the door and, after wine had been brought, Barnabus and Michael Kerr were told to leave and shut the door.

‘What’s Mr Pennycook after?’ Barnabus asked Kerr as they sat on the stairs, waiting to be called back. Michael Kerr fiddled with one of the tassels on his purse, looked up at the arched roof and said, ‘Och, it’s the usual. Mr Pennycook wants to know his price.’

‘What for?’

‘For not interfering with the victualling contracts.’

Barnabus sucked his teeth. ‘What a pity Mr Pennycook didn’t send you to me first,’ he said meaningfully.

Kerr looked knowing. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Expensive, is he?’

‘Very,’ said Barnabus. ‘And very unpredictable. He’s got to be approached just right, has Sir Robert.’

The low muttering inside had stopped suddenly. Barnabus braced himself.

‘Barnabu-u-us,’ came the roar.

Barnabus opened the door and went in. Mr Pennycook was standing in the middle of the floor, looking pinched about the nostrils.

Carey was by the fireplace with his back turned.

‘Barnabus, escort Mr Pennycook to the gate, if you please.’

‘Yessir,’ said Barnabus briskly and came forward. ‘This way sir,’ he said confidingly. ‘Best to leave now.’

‘But…’ said Pennycook.

‘Good day to you, Mr Pennycook,’ said Carey curtly and walked through into his office, where he sat down.

Barnabus sighed heavily at more riches unnecessarily thrown away-after all, it wasn’t as if Carey had yet seen a penny of his legendary five hundred pounds per annum.

‘See,’ he said to Michael Kerr, as he led the two of them down the stairs again. ‘He’s a bit touchy, is my master.’

Pennycook was looking ill as he walked unseeing through the gate and into Carlisle town. Barnabus made no haste on his way back and by the time he got up the stairs again, Carey had finished the pile of muster letters and put them to one side. He paused, wiped and put down the pen, stretched his fingers and brushed stray sand from the desk in front of him. He looked as if he was fighting a battle with his conscience again, then he sighed and turned to the pile of complaints that were flooding in about the horses reived in the previous weeks-both those that Jock of the Peartree Graham had stolen as his remounts, and those he and the other Grahams had successfully lifted from the King’s stables at Falkland. Carey considered for a moment and then started painstakingly compiling two lists of victims, booty, victims’ surnames or affiliations, value of horse stolen (generally very high, by their owners’ accounts) and area. The pen whispered softly across the paper, with the occasional rhythmic dip and tap on the ink bottle while the light coloured into the slow afternoon of high summer.