P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Och,’ said Skinabake negligently, in a voice that carried. ‘He only said it to bring ye back in range of the bowmen there.’

Carey’s head went up. He had heard, as he was meant to. But Dodd had already shifted his horse in front of the Deputy Warden’s nag and had changed grip on his lance to bar his path.

‘ Any time !’ Carey bellowed, his horse backing and prancing under him. ‘Any time, Graham, I’ll meet you. Any weapons, any time.’

Wattie spat over his shoulder, and began riding away north west, his men lightly gathered around him, the ones who had lost their mounts running at their friends’ stirrups. Skinabake’s outlaws were already breaking northwards for the Debateable Land.

The men who had come out for Carey were shaking hands and congratulating each other. They had gained the loose horses who were trotting about shaking themselves, if they could catch them. Some were wounded, but hobbies were notoriously hard to kill. They had three reivers as captives, who could be ransomed once Sergeant Dodd had talked some sense into the hotheaded Deputy Warden who wanted to hang them immediately. They had what could be got from the five corpses, which included some nice swords and a good new jack or two. Also their cows were safe. They agreed with the Deputy Warden that it would be as well for them to stay by the ford and make sure Wattie didn’t return, though it wasn’t any reiver’s way to keep on after something had gone wrong.

Sergeant Dodd decided he might as well go to Carlisle with Carey and they all rode back to his tower where most people, including Sergeant Nixon and Lowther’s other men, were just waking up with sore heads. Carey collected them together, paid them, then insisted on returning by way of Brampton where Dodd’s father-in-law lived. Dodd might have worried about this if Janet were not such a jewel of a woman. He knew she would send to her father to warn him that the Deputy had somehow got wind of the stolen horses he was keeping. Sure enough, the only horses left in Will the Tod’s paddocks were stumpy rough-coated animals that had every right in the world to be there. Afterwards Carey seemed morose, which was natural enough since he had got very little sleep that night and about halfway back to Carlisle the heavens finally opened with a rolling cannonade of thunder and a downpour of fat grey drops.

Behind them, the heavy-laden packtrain owned by Edward Aglionby paced northwest along the road, miraculously unmolested.

The roofbeams of the Carlisle Castle stables vibrated with the already legendary Carey roar.

‘ He’s what? ’

Bangtail winced and stepped back a few paces. All the horses stamped and shifted and some of them neighed protestingly. Dodd had to hold the headstall of the hobby he was rubbing down, to stop himself being knocked over.

‘He…he’s in the dungeon, sir,’ Bangtail repeated. ‘Lowther put him there on a charge of murder.’

Carey advanced on him, still in his sodden jack and wet morion. His fists were clenched tight and two spots of colour flamed below the incipient bags under his eyes.

‘It wasna me, sir,’ yelled Bangtail, dodging behind one of the stall posts. ‘It was Lowther.’

Carey seemed to catch himself and stop. He breathed deeply, carefully unfisted his hands and folded them across his chest.

‘Start at the beginning, Bangtail, and tell me exactly what happened.’

‘Ay, well. It were Atkinson, ye see, sir, Jemmy Atkinson, the Armoury clerk, that used to be paymaster until you…’

‘I think I remember him.’

‘Well, what I heard was, he was found deid this morning, in an alley, with his gizzard slit, see ye, and so his wife sent for Lowther because he’s known to be Lowther’s man.

‘Clear so far.’

‘An’ Lowther’s up to the Castle in a fearful bate just afore ye come in, sir, and I’d just arrived, see, and he says, it’s bound to be ye that did him in, because ye didna want him fer armoury clerk, but ye werena there and nor was Dodd, so then he says, ye must have set the thief that serves ye on to dae it, and so he’s gone up to the Queen Mary Tower and haled yer man out and thrown him in the dungeon and he’s making a complaint out against ye now, forbye.’

‘Is that it, that’s the full tale?’

‘Ay, sir, so far as I know.’

‘Well then, thank you for coming to tell me of it so promptly.’

Bangtail smiled. ‘We drew straws for it, sir, an’ I got the short one.’

Carey coughed. ‘Where’s Lowther now?’

‘He’s still in with the Lord Warden.’

‘Is he, by God! Well, go and keep an eye on him and try and see he doesn’t find out that I’m back yet. Go on, off with you.’

‘Ay, sir.’

As Bangtail trotted off on his mission, Dodd wondered what the Deputy Warden would do. For a moment as his colour faded he looked tired and thoughtful, and to be sure, his position was bad. Dodd knew that it wasn’t so much the question of whether or not Barnabus had actually slit Atkinson’s throat, it was whether Lowther could get the bill fouled against him and so hang him. Barnabus might even decide to turn Queen’s evidence to save his own neck and say that Carey had ordered him to do the killing. In London or in Berwick, Dodd didn’t doubt that Carey could muster enough influence to clear himself of such an accusation, but they were in Carlisle where his only important relative was Lord Scrope. And Lord Scrope was notoriously easy to persuade if got at right. It was unlikely but not completely beyond the bounds of possibility that Lowther might see Carey swing for the death of Atkinson, despite the Queen’s liking for him, whether he had anything to do with it or not. Or no: as a nobleman, he would face the axe. At best, with his servant hanged for murder, the blow to his prestige meant Carey would have very little chance of commanding obedience in the March.

Carey set his back against the loose-box wall, one leg bent, took his helmet off and with his eyes shut, rubbed the red marks left by the leather padding and the chin strap.

‘What’ll ye do, sir?’ asked Dodd morbidly, wondering if he should begin making overtures to Lowther. No, it would be a waste of time.

‘Hm? See Barnabus first.’

Carey guessed Lowther would have put Barnabus into the worst prison in the Castle and so they fetched lanterns and the Castle Gaoler and went cautiously through the door that led past the wine cellar to the dungeon in the base of the Carlisle Keep. He wasn’t in the outer room, but in the one behind it, black as pitch and dank from the nearness of the Castle well. It was called the Lickingstone cell because if a prisoner was left there and no water brought for him, he could live by spending most of his time licking the moisture from the dampest part of the wall. Some men had survived a surprisingly long time that way, given that their tongues would swell and bleed from the rough stone. Families paid their fines faster if they knew their man was in that dungeon, Scrope had explained to Carey when he suggested the room be used for something else.

Carey didn’t have the keys to the inner door, but he gave Dodd his helmet, pulled aside the Judas hole and called softly, ‘Barnabus. Wake up.’

There were a couple of grunts and an adenoidal ‘Yes, sir.’

Carey was silent for a moment as his lantern light hit Barnabus’s face. ‘Did Lowther do that to you?’

A long liquid sniff. ‘Yes, sir. It’s a good one, isn’t it?’

‘Any particular reason, or was it just high spirits?’

Another sniff. ‘Yes, sir. He wanted me to confess to killing Atkinson.’

‘And did you?’

The sniff that followed was offended. ‘No, sir. I’m not that stupid. Even if I dun it, which I din’t, I’d never say I did, would I?’