P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

Carey tutted sympathetically. ‘Legal disputes are very wearing,’ he said. ‘I have one rumbling along myself with one of my brothers.’

‘And very expensive,’ agreed Mrs Leigh. ‘What the barrister charges is…criminal.’

Carey nodded with a straight face. Sometimes he wished he had become a lawyer, but he soon came to his senses again.

‘I hope he’s a good one?’ he said.

‘Very good, I understand,’ said Mrs Leigh unhappily. ‘Or he should be. Unfortunately, that woman has managed to get the services of a young man who has just become the judge’s son-in-law.’

‘Oh dear.’

Mrs Leigh nodded at him. ‘It seems very hard. We are not unreasonable. We even offered the Atkinsons another house, a better house, that we own on Scotch street, but she will not see reason. And she keeps a cow in her yard.’

‘Oh,’ said Carey, not knowing if he was supposed to be shocked about something so normal.

‘That’s where she meets her lover,’ said Mrs Leigh.

‘Ah…?’

‘In the cow byre. He creeps in from the garden backing on behind, she goes out in the morning and evening and that’s where they meet, the dirty sinful…Anyway, she disgraces the whole street.’

‘Do her other neighbours know about this.’

‘Of course they do. It’s common knowledge she’s got no use for her rightful husband and wants to marry Andy Nixon.’

Carey blinked a little at the venom in Mrs Leigh’s voice. ‘Are you saying that Mrs Atkinson might have killed her own husband?’

Mrs Leigh looked away. ‘I would not wish to lay such accusations against anyone,’ she said primly. ‘However, it’s a fact that she has a lover.’

‘Is it, by God?’ said Carey thoughtfully. ‘Well, well.’

Squeak, rattle, rattle, crash… crash! ‘Waah! Waah! Mama! ’

‘She’s fallen over,’ Carey explained helpfully. Mrs Leigh wearily moved her sore feet to the floor and started the rocking movements that would get her out of her chair. The Deputy Warden offered her his arm which she took gratefully.

‘I’ll see to her,’ she said. ‘The idiot girls are useless besoms. Did you want to know anything else, Sir Robert?’

He was looking satisfactorily thoughtful and absent-mindedly helped her to the door.

‘I may do later,’ he said. ‘May I come back some time, Mrs Leigh?’

She smiled at him. ‘Of course, Sir Robert,’ she said. ‘Whatever I can do to help.’

He smiled in return and clattered down the narrow stairs, leaning back and ducking his head to avoid the low ceiling beams. He went through the shop where Jock Burn was serving. Mrs Leigh longed to shout down and send the man for her husband so she could talk to him, but she couldn’t yet. She waddled off to see after her smallest daughter who was still screeching.

***

Carey was deep in thought as he walked up Castlegate towards Bessie’s alehouse, at last noticing properly how clammy and uncomfortable his jack was. The outer leather was beginning to dry, but the inner padding still squelched whenever he moved his arms. He was supposed to be out on patrol tonight as well and he refused to think about going to bed for a nap as he had planned. He simply didn’t have the time if he wanted to find out as much as he could before the trail went cold. Also, he was putting off going back to his chambers in the Castle. He didn’t know what he might find there, whether Scrope would believe Lowther against him or give him the benefit of the doubt. The whole thing was ridiculous, but still very dangerous. He didn’t seriously think Scrope would dare to execute him on such a trumped-up charge, for all Philadelphia’s worries. But he might well find himself in gaol with no ability to help Barnabus, while evil tales galloped down the roads to London and the Queen. The whole thing could ruin him, in which case he might as well be dead, because if he went back to London with no prospect of office and no hope of favour from the Queen, his creditors would certainly put him in the Fleet prison for his mountainous debts. And there he would rot.

He paused to look unseeingly at one of the shops, a cobbler’s, with a bright striped awning over the counter to keep the rain off the samples of leather and made shoes displayed there.

He heard his own voice out of the past, assuring Scrope that he could deal with Lowther when they had been talking the day after he arrived. Evidently he had seriously underestimated the man and his influence. That had been stupid of him.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the man behind the counter hopefully.

‘Er…no. Thank you.’

He left the shop behind him and carried on to where Bessie’s alehouse squatted, unofficial but tolerated, by the wall of the Castle, feeling a thousand years old and heavier than a cannon. For a moment he thought about simply going into the inn courtyard, fetching a horse out of Bessie’s stables and heading north for the Debateable Land. Jock of the Peartree would receive him, might even take him in; they had come to an odd sort of understanding at the top of Netherby tower, despite the old reiver’s deplorable character. He had his sword and his harness, he could hire out as one of the many broken men of the area…

It was a fantasy. It wasn’t that he was too brave to do it, rather the reverse: he was afraid to turn his back on everything he knew, on his cousin the Queen, on his sister…And furthermore he was feeling too tired, he’d probably fall asleep on his horse and wander into a bog.

Bessie’s was packed, with no sign of Dodd or anyone else of Carey’s troop. As he stood in the doorway, peering into the smoky shadows, Carey knew that every eye in the place was on him and that conversations were stopping in each direction. He smiled faintly and shouldered his way through the throng to the bar.

‘A quart of double-double,’ he said to Bessie, who looked at him slitty-eyed. ‘On the slate.’

She snorted. ‘I want your bill paid, Sir Robert,’ she said. ‘It’s getting on for eleven shillings now.’

‘I’ve no money on me, though I’ve plenty up at the Castle,’ said Carey humbly, wondering why things could never let up and be simple. ‘Can you not extend my credit until this evening?’

She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘I give credit to the men I know will come back,’ she said as if she had been reading his mind. No doubt about it, Atkinson’s murder and Lowther’s accusations were all over Carlisle and probably well into Scotland by now.

‘Och, for the love of God,’ boomed a rasping voice beside him. ‘Give the man a drink, woman, he needs it. Put in on my tab if ye must.’

Bessie snorted again, flounced off to draw the beer. Carey turned to see Will the Tod Armstrong beaming up at him, his girth clearing three struggling would-be drinkers away from the bar. The beer slammed down beside him. Carey picked up the tankard and swallowed. It went down a treat; he’d forgotten how long it was since he’d put anything in his belly, and his headache and weariness started to recede.

‘Thank you, Mr Armstrong.’

‘And we’ll have another quart in the booth over there when ye’ve a minute, Bessie,’ Will the Tod added to Bessie’s departing back as she went to mark up the English Armstrong’s heroically long slate. ‘Now then, Deputy, ye come along wi’ me, we’ll see ye right.’

Carey was borne along in Will the Tod’s wake by sheer force of personality, to the booth where Dodd was sitting with a large jug in front of him and a plate of bread and cheese. Carey found his mouth watering at the sight.

Carey lifted his pewter mug to Will the Tod as he slid in beside Dodd, and put his morion down on the bench beside him.

‘Thanks for coming to my rescue yet again, Will.’