P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘I’ll have to ride wi’ ye against the Grahams now,’ he said, not feeling as miserable about it as he might otherwise have done.

‘Yes,’ answered Carey equably. ‘I know.’ He finished his beer and sighed. ‘God, that’s good.’

He lifted his mug in salute to Janet who tilted her neck to him in acknowledgement. Dodd poured himself some more before the Courtier could finish the lot.

Janet always served the strongest beer for this supper, unless you included what she gave to the harvesters after the last sheaf was in, which could knock you over. She was sitting at the next table which was packed with local girls who had been helping with the raking and the stacking. Word had evidently gone round about the Courtier. Many of them were wearing ribbons in their hair and craning their necks to stare at the Deputy Warden. At least half had forgotten to tighten their bodice lacings which offered a very pleasing view. Dodd saw that Carey was human enough to be admiring it. After all, it was very distracting.

‘So what would you advise, Sergeant?’ Carey asked after a moment’s thoughtful pause.

‘I’d advise not mixing it wi’ them,’ said Dodd, wiping beer off his mouth and digging into his food again. ‘Wi’ the Grahams, I mean,’ he clarified round a lump of beef, and Carey grinned perfect understanding. ‘But what would be the use?’

‘Come on, Dodd,’ said Carey. ‘Be reasonable. I can’t let Wattie Graham lift Lady Widdrington. I couldn’t hold my head up again in this March.’

‘Ay, he’s puttin’ a bit of a brave on ye,’ agreed Dodd. ‘The cheeky bastard.’ He snorted again at the memory of the elegant Deputy sweating on his hay cart. That would be something to think of on his deathbed, he decided; it would cheer him up no end. ‘Well, sir, if it was me running the rode, and I had the start that he’s got, I’d steer well clear of Bewcastle itself and lie up by Hen Hill or Blackshaws in the forest for tonight. I’d give it till the sun was up to let the lady get well on her way, then I’d cross the Irthing above the gorge and use the rough ground and the Giant’s Wall as cover until I got to the Faery Fort at Chesterholm, and I’d nip her out there.’

‘Right,’ said Carey. ‘Now, how many men do you think we could scrape up overnight?’

‘If we ring the bell…’

‘No, I don’t want to do that; he might hear it. I want to stop Wattie quietly if I can.’

‘Quietly,’ repeated Dodd. ‘Well, it doesnae make so much odds because we’ve got the night. Have ye not tried to warn Captain Carleton what’s afoot?’

‘Of course I have,’ Carey said. ‘But I’m not betting on my messenger getting through. It would only be sensible for Wattie to send some men out to Thirlwall Castle overnight to keep an eye on what’s going on and make sure Carleton hasn’t convinced Lady Widdrington to let him send some men with her.’

‘Ay,’ nodded the Sergeant. ‘Ye’re right. I’d do it.’

‘So would I.’

‘Well, then, it’s nobbut a couple of miles to Thirlwall. We get the men together, we deal with Wattie’s lads and we warn the Castle what’s afoot. Then we escort her along the road to Hexham.’

‘Of course, there’s the possibility that Captain Carleton’s in on it as well.’

Dodd thought of the barrel-shaped Captain with the loud laugh, and decided it wasn’t so unlikely as all that.

‘And if Wattie’s loose on Thirlwall Common with fifty men, there will be a pitched battle when he hits us on the road, with us at a disadvantage. We don’t know he’ll be at Chesterholm; there must be other places.’

‘What’s wrong wi’ a pitched battle?’ Dodd wanted to know, made confident by the beer. ‘Bloody murdering Grahams.’

‘With a woman in the middle of it.’

‘So?’ said Dodd, wondering if they were talking about the same Lady Widdrington. ‘She’d likely grab a pike and do for Wattie Graham herself.’

Carey sighed. ‘Listen, Henry. I’ve no quarrel with a pitched battle, I just like to choose my own ground. And getting to the Castle isn’t simply a case of dealing with some lads. You know what the ground around it is like; it’s horribly steep, there are earthworks everywhere. You could hold off an army if you placed your men right, that’s why they built it there. I can’t even be sure Wattie’s got no more than fifty riders. I only know what left Netherby, not what he might have picked up along the way.’

‘Ay,’ allowed Dodd, beginning to wonder if Carey had some other pressing reason for not wanting to meet Lady Widdrington face to face.

‘And there’s the question of authority,’ Carey added with a sigh. ‘Once Wattie’s over the Irthing and into the Middle March he’s supposedly out of my jurisdiction and into Sir John Forster’s. I don’t want to start up any inter-Wardenry feuding if I can help it and Sir John’s known to be difficult.’

Dodd nodded, appreciating the Deputy Warden’s talents at understatement. Sir John Forster was irascible, deeply corrupt, as old as the century and far into his dotage. Unfortunately, he also seemed to be indestructible.

‘Anyway,’ Carey went on, ‘I want to teach Wattie a lesson. Who the hell does he think he is, running a raid that size across the March at haymaking?’

He thinks he’s a Graham and one of the lords of creation, Dodd thought but didn’t bother to say. After all, Carey was convinced he was a lord of creation too, wasn’t he? That was half the trouble between him and Lowther who had the same opinion of himself. The other half was money and politics, of course, but there was plenty of room for the pure animosity of two bulls in the same field.

‘Well,’ said Dodd slowly after some more thought and a lot of cheese. ‘We could surely come up with twenty or thirty good men from hereabouts, especially if we went to Archibald Bell and warned him, and in any case the Bells are always willing to give the Grahams a bloody nose when they can. That’s all, I’m afraid, sir. Ye could get double the number inside the hour at a different time of year, but…’

‘I know, I know. It’ll have to do. All the more reason not to tangle with Wattie on the road.’

Dodd was thinking hard and sucking his teeth. ‘We should be able to get over to north of the road and maybe shadow them, but it’ll be a long ride and hard country, and the horses will be tired and…’

Carey shook his head. He swallowed one of Janet’s eyewatering pickled onions half-chewed and drank some beer.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not prancing about in Sir John Forster’s March with a mixed bunch of…of men, if I can help it. I want to stop Wattie quick and clean before he goes near Lady Widdrington. In fact I want to ambush him on the way and send him back to Netherby with his tail between his legs.’

Dodd’s heart started to warm to the Courtier a bit more. It seemed he had some sense after all.

‘Hm,’ he said. ‘Ay.’

‘What about when he’s crossing the Irthing? Where will he do that? There can’t be more than a couple of places, it’s too steep.’

‘Ay,’ said Dodd. ‘He’ll go over the ford at Horseholme and then there’s the Wou bog, so he’ll likely take the path that runs north of it round by Burn Divot and Whiteside. But then he’ll strike off eastwards away and there’s any number of roads he could go after that…Ay, the ford would be the place to find him for sure.’

A horrible thought struck him. ‘By God,’ growled Dodd, ‘He’ll be in among my own shielings as well. I’ve forty head of cattle at the summering up there, and nobbut a man and a boy to guard them. If that bastard bloody Graham…’

‘Absolutely,’ said Carey cheerfully. ‘I agree, we must stop them there.’ He was making messy puddles with his finger on the table. ‘Is this what the country looks like?’ he asked. Dodd squinted at the puddles and wondered what he was jabbering about. Carey explained patiently. ‘If this was the Irthing and that was the bog…’