P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

Lowther grunted with suspicion. Barnabus watched him considering the suggestion. Discourteous as ever, Lowther hadn’t even offered his master anything to drink, but Carey was standing there playing with his rings as if he hadn’t noticed, looking benignly enthusiastic.

Carey reached into his belt pouch and took out a folded sheet of paper. ‘I could…er…give you this back,’ he offered. It was Lowther’s note of debt for fifteen pounds.

Uh oh, thought Barnabus, he’s overdone it. Lowther will want to know why he’s so eager to take somebody else’s patrol.

Lowther did want to know. ‘That’s very handsome of ye, Sir Robert,’ he said. ‘Why are ye willing to say goodbye to so much money for such a minor thing?’

Carey smiled. ‘King James is offering a large reward for his horses,’ he explained. ‘If I can find those horses and bring them in, I might make ten times that, besides pleasing the King.’

‘Ah.’ Lowther’s expression lightened slowly. This he understood, and he was only too happy to tear up his large losses at primero. ‘I’ll speak to Sergeant Nixon then.’

He reached for the paper but Carey put it away again.

‘You can have it when I get back,’ he said.

Aggravatingly, when they returned to the Queen Mary Tower, Barnabus was sent to find Young Hutchin and make sure he stayed near the stables where Carey could find him, though out of sight.

Carey arrived a little later with Long George and Bessie’s Andrew, all three of them wearing their helmets and jacks. Long George’s pink-rimmed eyes were looking amused and Bessie’s Andrew was swallowing nervously and biting his fingernails, whereas Carey was humming something complicated and irritating about springtime and birds going hey dingalingaling.

‘Barnabus,’ he said as he passed by. ‘Don’t try and wander off; I want your help as well.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Barnabus resignedly, making sure he had his dagger and the throwing knife behind his neck. The one he usually kept up his left sleeve was currently in pledge with Lisa at the bawdy-house. Then he climbed up one side of a box partition and sat on top of it with his legs dangling.

Lowther arrived, followed by his troop of men, including Sergeant Ill-Willit Daniel Nixon, Billy Little and Mick the Crow Salkeld.

All the men bunched up in a disorderly rabble and stood picking their teeth while Lowther made a short speech explaining that Sir Robert Carey would take them out in search of some of King James’s horses and they were to render to him all the assistance they would to himself, etcetera and so on. Touching, Barnabus called it. Then Lowther departed, quite pleased with himself, while Carey looked them over. Considering the state of them, Barnabus wondered what he would say, but all he did was to ask, ‘Where are your bows, gentlemen?’

They looked at each other. Sergeant Nixon spoke up.

‘We havenae got none.’

‘Ah,’ said Carey. ‘Well, I want you to get some. I assume you can use them? Good. Sergeant Nixon, take your men down to the armourer’s in Scotch street and buy them all bows and a dozen arrows each.’

He tossed Sergeant Nixon three pounds to pay for them and nodded at him to be off.

‘If I’m not here when you get back, wait for me. You can drink the change, by the way, gentlemen, but not tonight. Fair enough?’

This seemed to thaw even Ill-Willit Daniel’s heart. He touched his hand to his helmet as he led his troop back out of the stables. Carey watched them pass and then said. ‘Mick the Crow.’

‘Ay, sir,’ answered the one with greasy black hair hanging out under his steel cap, a sallow skin and a lamentable jack.

‘I’ve got another errand for you, Mick; wait here a moment.’

‘Ay, sir.’

They waited, while Barnabus learned from Carey’s humming that springtime was also the only pretty ring time. The excited chatter of Lowther’s troop faded in the direction of the gate and out of earshot.

‘Well, Mick,’ Carey said in a friendly fashion, and nodded meaningfully at Long George and Bessie’s Andrew. Long George had moved behind Mick the Crow, examining a hobby’s forehoof. Now he whisked about and put his long arm round Mick the Crow’s neck. Bessie’s Andrew was slower but managed to catch Mick’s right arm before it reached his sword and twist it behind his back. Mick kicked wildly at Carey, so Barnabus leaned down from his perch and put his dagger point under Mick’s nose. Mick squinted at it and took breath to yell.

‘’Course you could get along wivout a nose, mate,’ said Barnabus conversationally. ‘But it wouldn’t arf’ urt your chances wiv women.’

‘Eh?’ gasped Mick the Crow. ‘What the hell are ye doin’? Lemme go…’

Carey leaned forward and pulled Mick’s sword out of its sheath, looked at it distastefully and dropped it in the straw. The dagger went the same way. Carey handed Bessie’s Andrew some halter rope and he and Long George tied Mick’s hands behind him.

‘What the…what’s goin’ on…’

‘Shut up,’ said Barnabus. ‘Think of your nose, mate.’

‘But I…Owch!’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

Carey pointed at Mick the Crow’s chest. ‘You’re under arrest, Mick the Crow Salkeld,’ he said. ‘For March treason.’

‘What? Wha’ are ye talkin’ about…?’

‘Question is, which March is the treason in?’

‘You’ll swing for his one,’ said Long George regretfully. Mick the Crow was beginning to look worried. He licked some blood off his moustache. March treason was the catch-all charge: if you couldn’t think what else to hang a man for, you hanged him for ‘bringing in of raiders’-helping raiders to cross the Border.

‘Ah’ve done nothin’…’

‘Shut up,’ said Carey. ‘All I want to know from you is where the Grahams are setting their ambush. They’ll have to lift her before she reaches Tynedale, because there are too many surnames there at feud with the Grahams to risk it. So where are they doing it?’

Mick’s eyes bulged. He croaked a couple of times.

‘My guess is by the Wall somewhere, because they can hide behind it, but I want to know the exact place.’

Mick the Crow was a good rider and a bonny fighter, but he hadn’t the brains for a traitor, Barnabus decided. His brow knitted and his lips moved as he tried to catch up.

‘Look,’ Barnabus whispered to Mick from his perch on top of the partition. ‘I know you’re wondering how he knows so much, but you’d be much better off wondering how you’re going to stop him making you look forward to your hanging. Right? I mean, he learned a lot from Walsingham’s boys, you know.’

‘That’s enough, Barnabus.’ Carey’s voice was curt.

‘Yessir,’ cringed Barnabus, enjoying himself greatly.

‘Also, Mick, I want to know who they’re planning to hit on their way back to make the trip worthwhile.’

‘But I dinna ken that, sir. How could I? All I did was, I took the message, that’s all.’

‘What message?’

Carey had pulled his dagger from the sheath hanging from his belt at the small of his back. It was a fashionable London duelling poignard, nine inches long, with a pretty jewelled hilt and an eye-wateringly sharp point, and he was using it to clean his nails. Mick the Crow watched him and licked his lips.

‘Ahh…he said Wattie could fetch himself a good ransom if he would foray out to the Roman Wall and catch…er…’

‘Catch whom?’

‘Er…Lady Widdrington, sir.’

Carey trimmed his thumbnail carefully and then fixed Mick the Crow with a blue considering stare. He tossed the poignard up in the air while Barnabus winced a little. As far as he was concerned, showing off with blades like that was a good way to get religious-looking holes in your palms.