P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

‘Get away from that girl,’ ordered Carey.

He can’t get through the window, thought John Leigh; it’s too small for him. Without really thinking things through, he reached for Julia Coldale again. There was a loud hammering downstairs. She was making crowing noises and blindly trying to crawl away from him; he grabbed her shoulder, pushed her back, clipped her jaw again and started strangling her once more. Something hard hit his ear painfully, drawing blood. He looked up, saw Carey with two more diamond panes in his hand, taking aim to throw them at him, his dagger in his left hand. He did throw them, John Leigh ducked, but didn’t duck fast enough and was hit on the cheek. He let go of Julia to put his hand up to the cut and another piece of glass hit him on the forehead.

There were footsteps on the stairs, but John Leigh had picked up his wife’s sewing table and was using it as a shield against the rain of missiles from Carey. The door was booted open and there stood Sergeant Dodd, breathing hard, a drawn sword in each hand.

‘Now,’ said Dodd sadly between pants. ‘Ye’d best do as the Deputy tells ye, Mr Leigh.’

Leigh’s teeth showed like a cornered dog’s. He drew his own dagger, dropped the sewing table in a mess of pincushions and thread spools, and picked up Julia, turned her about so he could put his blade to her neck. Her legs weren’t supporting her and she didn’t look as if she was breathing.

‘Stay away, Dodd,’ he shouted wildly. ‘Or I’ll cut her throat.’

Dodd stopped, partly because Julia Coldale was between him and Leigh and it was always hard to put a sword through two bodies at once. The girl made a loud snoring noise and then another, started coughing and gagging.

‘Matilda,’ roared John Leigh. ‘Matilda, come and help me. Matildaaa!’

There was no answer. Dodd stood there, a sword in each hand and no way to use either of them while Leigh kept his knife to the girl’s neck.

‘Get back,’ whispered Leigh hoarsely. ‘Get back through the door.’

‘Now listen,’ said Dodd regretfully. ‘Ye canna make it work. We both saw ye trying to kill the girl an’ I dinna care why and nor does the Deputy. But ye willnae hang if ye dinna kill her, see, so why not let her go and save us all trouble and sweat?’

The girl was gagging and whooping pitifully, still not able to stand. She must be an awful weight on his arm, thought Dodd, taking one considered step back. Leigh followed, facing him, his hand with the knife trembling dangerously.

I wonder what the Deputy’s up to, Dodd thought to himself.

‘Where will ye go?’ he asked Leigh reasonably. ‘What will ye do? Ye’ll be at the horn for sure and could ye live in the Debateable Land?’

‘Other men have,’ said Leigh desperately. Julia slipped against him and he hefted her up again, sweat on his face.

Dodd shook his head. ‘Fighting men,’ he said. ‘Wi’ all the respect in the world, sir, ye’re not a fighting man. Have ye a sword? Harness? A helmet? D’ye have horses? Can ye use a lance? My brother-in-law Skinabake Armstrong has his pick o’ men to join his gang, sir, and he’ll no’ take a Carlisle draper.’

The knife was shaking hard now. ‘I can learn,’ croaked Leigh.

‘Ay, ye could,’ said Dodd, consideringly. Behind Leigh something white appeared at the little window. ‘But could ye learn fast enough? The prime raiding season starts in August, after Lammastide, and we’re well into July already, sir.’ He raised his voice. ‘Ye’d have a lot to learn, ye ken. Are ye in one of the Carlisle trained bands, or did ye pay another man to take your place? Ay, I see ye had a substitute-and why should ye no’, ye’re a busy man, a prosperous merchant, an’ there’s nae reason in the world why ye should waste yer time out on the race course playing about wi’ pikes and arquebuses and the like…’

Carey barked his shoulders painfully, easing them through the window, then snagged his shirt on a piece of glass and had to free it. He caught the beam above the windowseat with the tips of his fingers and hefted himself through as quietly as he could, with his knife in his teeth and his tongue and lips as far back from its edge as he could grimace. He sucked his stomach in as far as it would go and prayed devoutly as he hauled his hips through past the points of the broken window panes. And then his knees were in, he could drop to the ground quietly, while Dodd droned impassively on about civic duties and Leigh’s own children. Carey was a head taller than Leigh. So with the back of John Leigh’s neck and his expensively furred brocade gown only a pace in front of him, Carey took his dagger lefthanded from his mouth, reached over the man’s shoulder to clamp Leigh’s wrist in his right hand and brought the hilt of the poignard down as hard as he could twice on the back of Leigh’s head.

Leigh grunted and collapsed, dropping his knife as well. Julia Coldale fell too, then picked herself back up onto her hands and knees and was sick. She looked up at Carey, past his hairy calves and his bare knees and his now ragged white shirt to his face, made a soft croak and fainted.

Dodd looked at him impassively and handed his sword back.

‘I’ll go and fetch in yer suit, shall I, sir?’ he asked.

‘If you would, Sergeant,’ said Carey.

Mrs Leigh met them on the stairs, her swollen body entirely blocking them. Dodd had tied John Leigh’s hands behind his back after the man had come mumbling and sobbing back to consciousness, and was pushing him down the steps ahead of him, his sword pressed against the man’s backbone, and the bloodstained shirt they had found in the roof tucked into his belt. Carey was carrying Julia Coldale who was still coughing and cawing like a jackdaw.

‘Wh…what are you doing with my husband?’ Mrs Leigh demanded. She was in her smock and dressing gown and her hair in its nighttime plait.

‘We’re arresting him, Mrs Leigh,’ said Dodd. ‘Would ye kindly move away?’

‘Wh…what for?’

‘Trying to kill Julia Coldale,’ came Carey’s voice from above. ‘He nearly succeeded as well.’

‘That little whore,’ sniffed Mrs Leigh. ‘My husband has nothing to do with the bitch.’

That’s what you think, mistress, thought Dodd, who could think of one reason why a man would give a woman money. He didn’t say that, mainly because he didn’t want to bring on Mrs Leigh’s labour.

‘We only just stopped him throttling the life out of her,’ said Carey. ‘Please, Mrs Leigh, out of our way.’

She did move back into the doorway of the shop. Jock Burn was standing there as well, licking his lips. As he went past, John Leigh looked desperately at his wife.

‘Matilda,’ he whispered. ‘Do something.’

She looked away.

They had a full escort of small boys and dogs by the time they got back to Carlisle Castle and Carey was beginning to puff and blow a bit with Julia’s weight. She had managed to stop whooping by then, so he put her down and she leant very prettily on his arm, trying to give him the occasional trustful smile. Oddly enough he didn’t smile back.

They were running out of space for prisoners; there was only the Lickingstone cell left apart from the hole under the Gaoler’s floorboards which was reached with a ladder. In the end they decided the hole was the least bad of the two.

‘Chain him,’ said Carey.

‘But sir…’ Dodd protested. ‘He didnae actually kill her.’

‘Only by the Grace of God,’ said Carey coldly. ‘And besides, haven’t you worked out why? Chain him.’

‘Ay sir.’

John Leigh sat down on the bench in the Gaoler’s room with his head bowed while Dodd locked his feet together in the leg irons. When he had climbed down awkwardly, and the ladder pulled up again, Carey looked at Dodd.