P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Hush now,’ she said to the girl. ‘We’ll go and see the Deputy Warden.’ Julia flinched back in alarm. ‘For goodness sake, ye goose, he willna bite you. Under all his finery, he’s only a man.’

‘Ay,’ said Julia doubtfully.

And an uncommonly nicely-made one at that, thought Janet, who had greatly enjoyed watching him in his shirt and fighting hose on top of her own hay cart. By God, if Dodd got himself killed in a raid one of these days, leaving her a widow…

Get a grip on yourself, ye silly cow, she told herself sternly; this will not save Kate from burning.

‘And that’s a foul piece of slander too,’ she snapped, having caught the tail end of a sneer from Mrs Leigh.

‘Why?’ demanded Mrs Leigh, one hand at her back and another at the prow of her belly. ‘It is God’s judgement on her. You may have lower standards, Goodwife Dodd, but she’s a dirty bitch for keeping a fancyman as far as I’m concerned.’

Janet considered whether slapping her would bring on the wean and decided it might. ‘Ay,’ she said caustically. ‘I’m sorry to find ye sae full of jealousy and so short of charity, Goodwife. All this virtue wouldnae have aught to do with your lawsuit over her house, now would it?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Mrs Leigh with a toss of the head and a satisfactory reddening of her cheeks. ‘Some of us know what’s right.’

‘Well, some of us might do more good looking over the Bible where it talks of judging not that ye be not judged,’ said Maggie Mulcaster unexpectedly, who was able to read quite well. She looked significantly over at the next wynd where little Mary Atkinson was skipping with one of her friends.

There was a mutter of agreement. Mrs Leigh was less popular than she thought with the other women of the street.

‘ If you can read, that is,’ said Alison Talyer, Kate Atkinson’s other neighbour.

‘Well, I’m very sure you cannot,’ said Mrs Leigh snappily.

Alison Talyer heaved her large round shoulders with laughter. ‘That’s true, but then I dinna give meself so many airs, eh, Mistress Leigh, with three maidservants, and a man and a boy and a fine new roof to me house?’

‘ Can ye read?’ pursued Janet. ‘I’m learning it when I can find the time and it’s no’ so very hard, ye ken.’ The kindness in her voice would have spitted a suckling pig.

‘I’m sure I don’t have time to stand gossiping here,’ sniffed Mrs Leigh, quite defeated, and waddled back into her house, leaving the women behind to shred her character instead of Kate’s. Since it was an emergency and she had always liked Maggie Mulcaster, Janet gave her one of the cheeses, six of the eggs and half the wild strawberries to tide her over with looking after three extra children. She left Cuddy with her as well, in case she could put the lad to some use, rather than have him wandering about the Keep and getting into trouble.

‘Come along,’ she said to Julia who had pulled a comb out of her purse, and was giving her long copper hair a good seeing to. ‘And ye can pull yer bodice lacings up tight again, you young hussy. What do you think ye’re at?’ she added flintily as she took Shilling’s bridle to lead him on. Julia blushed.

***

It was all terribly annoying, thought Scrope, gazing at the two contenders for the post of Deputy Warden of the English West March who were glaring at each other again. If these two fire-eaters could possibly bring themselves to agree, they might clean up the entire March between them and leave him with very little work to do. They would make a perfect team: his brother-in-law had energy and courage and a certain amount of wild ingenuity on his side, whereas Lowther had the local influence and vast experience. It was true that Lowther was deep in corruption and Carey was full of arrogance, but in the Lord’s name, it was possible. The Queen had persuaded men more fundamentally at odds than they were to work in harness together. Wistfully, Scrope wondered how she had managed it.

‘I don’t like you insinuations, Sir Richard,’ Carey was saying through his teeth.

Lowther was tapping the fingers of his left hand on his sword-hilt. ‘Ay, d’ye not?’ he said. ‘Well, I dinna ken and I dinna care how ye got the silly woman to confess like that, but it’s a poor thing to hide behind a woman, so it is.’

‘Now, Sir Richard,’ Scrope interrupted quickly before blades could be drawn again. ‘You have no evidence for that suggestion at all.’

‘Imprimis,’ said Lowther, placing a square thumb on a square finger. ‘Atkinson’s body was found in Frank’s vennel, not in his bed…’

‘I explained that the mattress was stained with blood…’

‘Item, his throat was cut and I’ve never heard of a woman killing anybody by cutting his throat; they haven’t the strength, they haven’t the height and forbye they havenae the courage. That’s a footpad’s trick, is that, and your man Barnabus is a footpad and well ye know it.’

Carey didn’t say anything to that, because it was true.

‘Item, we’ve only the woman’s word for it his throat was cut on the Monday morning and I dinna believe her. And naebody knows where your man was on the Monday night when Atkinson was likely done to death. It’s all a bit pat, is it no’, the time she gives is the time when Cooke has an alibi from Solomon Musgrave.’

Carey was breathing hard through his nostrils.

‘It’s possible to twist the clearest evidence,’ he said.

‘Clear? I dinna think so. We’ve no witnesses, no nothing. So what have we got? Your man’s knife and your glove by the body which is the next best thing. That’ll do. And ye’ll have wanted Atkinson out of your way, what’s more, so there ye have it. Ye had the will; ye had the tool in Barnabus, and he could ha’ done it. It’s good enough for a rope.’

‘I have explained about how his knife…’

‘Och, and a cock and bull story it is too. A boy says Andy wanted yer glove. Ye say Pennycook got Cooke’s knife fra the bawdy house. It’s all very complicated, verra elaborate, Sir Robert, but it willna wash, for all ye’ve got a couple of fools in the gaol to swear out their lives for ye.’

‘How the devil do you think I got them to do that, eh, Sir Richard? Your own methods of bribery or threats would hardly persuade anyone to die for me.’

‘Hmf. It’s no’ so hard. I heard ye had a long chat wi’ little Mary Atkinson, did ye no’?’

It was impossible to miss the implication, even without the heavy sneer across Lowther’s jowelly face. Sir Robert’s face took on the white masklike appearance of a Carey about to kill someone, and his hand fell on his swordhilt. Scrope leapt to his feet and put himself between them.

‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘This is all complete speculation. And very offensive, Sir Richard, very offensive indeed. You have no call to go making that kind of accusation.’

‘Me?’ said Lowther. ‘I’m not making accusations, my lord. If the boot fits him, let him wear it.’

‘Yes, well, you know perfectly well what you’re about. I think you should withdraw it.’

There was a moment of tension while Scrope wondered if he would, and then he growled, ‘Ay, well, perhaps I let my tongue wander on a bit. I dinna believe the woman, though, and I willna without better reason to.’

‘You withdraw your hints about Mary Atkinson?’ pursued Scrope.

‘Ay, I do,’ said Lowther heavily. Carey bowed slightly in acknowledgment, obviously still too angry to speak. ‘In fact, I’ll go further,’ Lowther added. ‘I’ll say that perhaps-perhaps, mark you-it was all a misunderstanding betwixt yerself, Sir Robert, and your servant. Was there no’ a king I heard of once, that said he wanted to be rid of a priest and off his henchmen went and killed the man wi’out asking did he mean it? Now, I could see that happening here, Sir Robert; I could accept that.’