P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘How d’ye ken that, sir?’

‘Long George told me.’

‘Ah.’ Long George was always a fool, Dodd thought; why did nobody know how to keep his mouth shut? And he had never liked Ill-Willit Daniel.

‘Andy Nixon is helped into his doorway by my appalling servant, Barnabus Cooke, who completes Andy’s happy evening by cutting his purse.’

‘Ay.’

‘Next morning, Andy Nixon is full of wrath and vengeance. He comes up with a plan for landing Barnabus in trouble and getting his own back on Atkinson. Probably he asks his master Pennycook for help, and Pennycook agrees to loan him a handcart and get hold of one of Barnabus’s knives. Nixon himself comes up to the Keep to get one of my gloves-perhaps at Pennycook’s suggestion, who has reason not to like me.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’

‘Oh, I’m interfering with the smooth corrupting of the victualling contracts for Carlisle. He was very upset.’

‘Oh.’

‘Andy Nixon with Kate Atkinson’s help then cuts Jemmy Atkinson’s throat in his bedroom; they bundle the body onto the handcart after dark and take it to Frank’s vennel, where they dump it along with Barnabus’s knife and my glove, and there you are.’

Dodd sipped some more of his beer and thought for a while.

‘Hm,’ he said.

‘Is that all? Hm? I think that’s what happened, don’t you?’

‘Ay, perhaps.’

‘Why don’t you agree?’

‘I didna say I dinnae agree.’

‘You don’t look as if you do.’

It occurred to Dodd that perhaps one of the things you learnt at Court was bald-headed persistence. Certainly Carey had that. He gave up trying to keep his counsel. After all, the Deputy kept saying he wanted to know Dodd’s opinion.

‘Ay well, sir, it’s in the character. He’s no’ a clever courtier like yourself, sir, Andy isnae. He’s a fine wrestler and a bonny fighter…’

‘So everybody keeps telling me.’

‘But he’s no’ a clever man. If he was angered enough to kill Jemmy Atkinson then he wisnae cool enough to think out all yon about gloves and knives.’

‘Perhaps Pennycook helped him.’

‘Ay. Perhaps. Will ye ask him yet?’

‘No, I want to find out what was going on at the Atkinsons’ place.’

And the Deputy Warden swallowed down his beer at a sinful pace seeing how good it was and that it was on the house, came to his feet again. ‘Come on Dodd, unless you want to sit there supping.’

Sighing deeply Dodd finished his quart and followed Carey on his self-imposed mission to prevent the Deputy getting a knife in the ribs before he had a chance to do for Lowther.

***

They went straight to Maggie Mulcaster’s house, across the road from the shut-up Atkinsons’ place, and found Kate’s little girl Mary sitting by the door very slowly shelling peas. She had her tongue stuck out and she held her breath every time she pressed open a peapod which made her gasp occasionally when she forgot to breathe again.

Mary looked up at Carey and immediately flinched back. Her face crumpled up and she started to cry. The bowl slipped off her knees and Dodd bent down just in time to catch it from going into the mud.

Dodd squatted in front of her and put the bowl down on the doorstep.

‘Mary, Mary,’ he said gently, ‘D’ye know me?’

She nodded, very big-eyed. ‘You’re Mrs Dodd’s bad-tempered husband.’

Carey who had looked glum at finding the little maid frightened of him, grinned at this, though Dodd failed to see what was funny.

‘I’m her husband, ay,’ he said. ‘Now, Mary, is Mrs Mulcaster in?’

She nodded and then shook her head. ‘She’s gone to fetch in Clover. She said it wis soft to leave her in our garden since there’s nobody there and she’s need of the milk as well for the extra pack of weans the Deputy put to her, the southern bugger, and what was he thinkin’ of arresting Kate and her a poor widow and us poor orphans. And I’m shelling peas,’ she finished with a sunny smile.

It faded and she shrank back again because the Deputy Warden had sat himself down on the step beside her. He took off his hat, put it beside him and scratched vigorously at his head. There wasn’t room for Dodd so he leaned against the wall.

‘Do you mind if I sit here and wait for her?’ said Carey politely to the small girl. She shook her head. She was staring at him wide-eyed. What was the mad Courtier playing at now? For a few moments there was a silence until curiosity got the better of Mary’s fear.

‘Is it true you know the Queen, sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Carey simply. ‘She’s my aunt.’

Mary’s mouth opened, revealing a gap where she had lost one of her teeth.

‘What does she look like?’

Carey took a penny out of his belt-pouch, tossed it up and showed her the head.

‘She looks like that only her skin is pink and white and her hair is red.’

‘Does she really have a hundred smocks and kirtles and petticoats?’

‘More like a thousand.’

Mary’s mouth opened wider. ‘Why?’

‘People give them to her because they know she likes to look pretty.’

‘What colours are they?’

‘Most of them are black and white with some different coloured trimming, but some of them are cloth of gold or cloth of silver and a lot of them have pearls sewn on them loose enough to drop off when she walks.’

‘Why?’

‘So people will pick them up and keep them and remember her by them.’

‘Will she come here?’

‘It’s very unlikely. She doesn’t travel so much now she’s…er…a little older.’

Dodd had learnt enough about the Queen from Carey by now to know that mentioning her age was skimming dangerously close to treason as far as Her Majesty was concerned.

‘Is she very old?’

‘She was already a grown woman and Queen when I was born. But she’s still beautiful,’ said Carey diplomatically.

‘Will she die soon?’

‘It isn’t polite to talk about it.’

‘How many gowns has she got?’

‘A couple of hundred, most of them made of velvet.’

‘Like your doublet?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like your clothes. They’re pretty. Do you have lots of pretty clothes like the Queen?’

‘Not nearly as many,’ said Carey straightfaced. ‘And not a tenth as pretty.’

‘Why are your hose so fat?’

‘Because it’s fashionable.’

‘Does it no’ make it hard to walk?’

Carey grinned. ‘A bit. But you get used to it.’

‘Do you like pretty clothes?’

‘Yes, very much.’

Now there’s the truth, thought Dodd.

‘ I have a yellow kirtle with rose velvet trimmings,’ said Mary proudly. ‘ And a going-to-church petticoat with a false-front like your hose.’

‘What, made of brocade?’

‘Yes, only it’s purple. Mrs Dodd gave the bits to me mam when she made hers. It’s very beautiful.’

‘It sounds it. You’re a lucky girl.’

For God’s sake, Dodd thought to himself, what is the Courtier on about, prattling over clothes with a child?

‘And I am learning to sew. I made a purse for money.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Will ye give me the penny to remember the Queen by to put in my new purse?’ asked the dimpled child artlessly.

Carey made a small choking sound which he turned into a cough and then smiled.

‘I’ll give you two pennies if you can show me you have a good memory.’

Eh? thought Dodd.

‘I have a very good memory,’ said Mary. ‘Me mam says so. She says she canna speak her mind without I’ll repeat it after.’ Her face clouded over momentarily as she remembered how the Deputy had come and taken her mam away.

‘I thought so. But I bet you can’t remember what happened on Monday.’