P. Chisholm - A Season of Knives

In the distance they heard the booms as the Scotchgate and Botchergate were shut and barred. Carey could see the whiteness of Jock Burn’s teeth.

‘If ye think Ah willna kill the little maid, Ah will,’ shouted Jock. ‘Ye cannae hang me mair than once.’

The boom was softer from Caldergate because it was furthest away. The lift of Jock’s shoulder showed he had heard it.

Carey stepped forwards, his hands held away from his sides, away from his swordhilt.

Jock turned a little, so the bolt was aimed at Carey’s chest now. He didn’t need to explain what would happen if anyone tried to rush him. At the back of his mind Carey wondered why his stomach muscles were contracted so hard when they couldn’t stop a bolt.

‘Come nae closer, Deputy,’ Jock warned.

Carey stopped. He has one shot, he thought, he can’t wind up a crossbow on horseback, but he can break the little girl’s neck with one blow. She was staring at Carey with enormous eyes. Somebody was shouting, screaming from the bunch of men-at-arms and suspects behind him, a woman’s voice. He wasn’t sure what she said; he thought it might be Kate Atkinson’s voice.

Then another voice reached him, sharp with London vowels and lost consonants.

‘I got a cuttle for the co; you get the kinchin.’

Some part of him which had picked up a smattering of thieves’ cant from Barnabus got ready to move, the tension tightening in his chest and back. Jock kicked his horse, one of the jurors’ no doubt, and moved sideways away from them, the horse prancing and shifting nervously, as its rider put pressure on ready to gallop to the Scotchgate.

Carey watched, praying Barnabus wouldn’t leave it too late, waiting, changing his mind about what to do.

The horse pecked and at once there was a cry of ‘Gip!’ from Barnabus and a soft sound in the air.

No time to see where the knife went.

Carey launched himself across the cobbles, heard the metallic twang of the crossbow, no time even to know if he’d been hit because he was at Jock’s stirrup, catching Mary’s kirtle with his left hand, the stirrup and boot with his right, jerking down with one hand, up with all his strength with the other, Jock going over the horse’s back one way, little Mary falling squealing towards him, catching her by his fingertips tangled in her kirtle and hair, putting her behind him, shouting, ‘Run to your mam!’

Still squealing, she ran. Jock had hit the ground on the other side of the horse, which swayed back and forwards, panicking, in Carey’s way and finally reared and galloped off away from the crowds, nearly kicking him in the face as it did so. Then he saw that Jock was up again, sprinting for the Scotchgate, long knife in one hand, eating knife in the other, a bright splash of blood on his arm, not serious-not like Barnabus to miss, but it had been a fiendishly difficult shot.

Carey was already after him. Jock’s short legs were a blur; he had a good nippy speed on him, but Carey had height and was using his greater length of stride now he had got moving. Dodd was on the chase as well, guttural shouts of ‘Tynedale!’ behind him, and the men at the gate running down towards them yelling ‘Carell’ in return.

Suppressing the urge to call ‘T’il est haut!’ as if he was on the hunting field, Carey dodged after Jock down a narrow alley between houses…

And almost charged straight onto Jock’s knife, lying in wait. He dodged at the last second, felt cloth part along his ribs, cannoned into a wattle and daub wall which gave alarmingly and then used its spring to launch himself back at Jock who was distracted by Dodd thundering in his wake.

He caught the little man by the shoulder and punched him hard enough in the face to send pain lancing all the way up his own arm. Jock staggered, shook his head and came back at him. Dodd swung with his sword, tearing a long gash down Jock’s arm. Jock was snarling, the alley crowded behind them with enthusiastic helpers, especially now Jock was wounded, and a sudden voice said inside Carey, ‘No, this one’s mine.’

Later he claimed he would have preferred to hang the man but had thought that a living prisoner was always a danger to others who could be made hostage by his family. He might be bought out. He might escape. He might be torn apart by the crowd.

In fact, Carey had a cold white rage in his heart for a man who could shoot a redhead like Julia Coldale and use a little girl as his shield. That coldness carried him past the stabbing knife in Jock’s hand, knocking it unconcernedly aside, catching him by the front of his jerkin and pulling hard as he stabbed up leftwards into the man’s chest under his breastbone with the poignard he wasn’t even aware of drawing.

The blood came from Jock’s mouth, not the slender wound caused by the poignard. Carey found himself supporting the man’s weight one-handed and let him crumble to the muddy ground, twisting and pulling his blade out with that distinctive sticky sound.

Then the blood came, but mostly on the ground, not him. Carey stood there, hands bloody, lace cuffs bloody, knife bloody, chest heaving, and Dodd came over and watched dispassionately while Jock’s heels drummed and his eyes turned to frogspawn.

‘Ay,’ said Dodd with satisfaction, wiping his sword on a clean bit of Jock’s jerkin. Carey bent and did the same, feeling remote from his own hands and very tired, the way a killing rage always left him. He had never before knifed a man in an alley, though.

The Carlislers who had come to help cheered and slapped his back approvingly as he pushed his way out into Scotch street again. He smiled back, wishing they wouldn’t get in his way, picked up his hat which had fallen from his head as he ran and as he did so felt the cold draught and sting on his ribs which told him where Jock’s knife had passed and ruined his brand new (unpaid for) black velvet suit.

That brought him back to earth a little.

Aglionby had adjourned the inquest for two hours and when the jury reconvened it was in the Mayor’s own bedroom, to which Julia Coldale had been moved. The surgeon came, saw, shook his head and went himself to fetch a priest.

The jurors gathered around her along with the Coroner himself, Scrope and Carey, while Philadelphia sat by the bed and looked curiously like a small sphinx in her gravity. It turned out she was the one who had given Barnabus her knife in the confusion when Jock rode out with Mary Atkinson. Now she was holding Julia’s hand. Julia’s back was arched, her breath bubbled and her red curls were dark with sweat: the surgeon had said he could not get the bolt out without cutting and as it was so close to her heart, he didn’t think she had a chance of living if he did.

Even in such extremis, even with his eyes stinging for pity at the pretty girl turned to dust so soon, Carey couldn’t help noticing how Julia’s eyes looked around at them, pleased they were there.

‘Do you want to give your testimony?’ asked Philadelphia. ‘Are you sure?’

The girl nodded, winced and began to speak breathily.

‘Jock Burn gave me five shillings for opening of Mr Atkinson’s shutters…’ whispered Julia. ‘An’ I did it. I didn’t know why he wanted to; I thought he might want to thieve the plate chest because he’s a Scot…’ She spoke arrhythmically, in long bursts of words interspersed with slow gasps as she caught up breath for the next effort. ‘…When the mistress came down wi’ all the sheets bloody I was afraid as I understood it then…but then I thought perhaps I could get my dowry by it, so I asked Jock if I could talk to…Mr Leigh and when I went to see him this morning, he tried to kill me rather than pay me…and now he’s done it, the stingy bastard.’