P. Chisholm - A Famine of Horses

On the hill something was burning: no doubt it was Clem Pringle’s farm, since it was traditional to set light to it. The stones that made the walls were set hard as rock together from repeated firings.

There were some men riding about, some torches set in the earth to give them light, two torches in two roofs, trying stubbornly to spread through the sodden turves. A little further off she could hear protesting lowing and whistles.

“Jock!” she shouted, “Jock of the Peartree!”

An arrow on fire sped over the wall, nearly setting her hair ablaze and she squatted lower, crawled further along.

“I want to talk to you, Jock.” Before the next arrow could come, she moved again. Somebody put the other one out.

“Where’s my horse?” came a shout from the other side.

“If you can see him, shoot him,” Janet whispered to Geordie.

“Steady Janet, do we want a feud with the Grahams?”

“You fool, we’re already at feud with them.”

“Oh Christ.”

“Don’t blaspheme in my house.”

“But you…”

“Shut up. Jock !” she roared.

“Janet Dodd, I have Little Robert here and I want my horse back. In fact, I want all your horses.”

“What?” She peeped over the palisade and there he was in the torchlight, the young fool, fifteen years old and no sense, kneeling in the mud with four Graham lances at his throat and back, and blood purling down his face from a slice on the head.

“I bought him fair and square,” she shouted. “If I’d known he was yours I wouldna touch him on the end of a lance. But I bought and paid for him.”

“What did you pay?”

“Five English pounds.”

“I dinna believe you, Janet, no one would sell my Caspar for so little, he’s the cream of Scotland. Your man Sergeant Dodd took him off my son when he shot him dead from behind.”

“He’d nothing to do with it, you know that.”

“I don’t, Janet. Sweetmilk’s dead, your man had the body and lied to me about it. Who else would kill Sweetmilk, he was the gentlest wean I ever had.”

God give me strength and patience, Janet thought, remembering Sweetmilk in a brawl at the last Warden’s Day. “Jock, would you keep hold of a horse from a man you’d murdered like that?”

There was silence on the other side.

After a while Janet stood up. “Give me Little Robert back, Jock.”

Jock’s voice was mocking. “I’ll let you buy him off me with all the mounts you have in there and for a sign what a patient man I am, I’ll not even take the kine.”

Janet closed her eyes so as not to see Little Robert trying not to wriggle when the lancepoints poked him as their wielders’ horses moved.

“I canna give you Shilling,” she said. “He’s sick with what killed Mildred.”

“Fair enough. Ye’ve five mounts to give me then: my Caspar, and the nags your two brothers were riding and the two from the Pringles. Do it now or I’ll use this one for pricking practice.”

Down in the barnekin Willie’s Simon was staring up at her, his arm bandaged and in a sling. She nodded at him. Anger in every inch of his back, he went to the tiny postern door in the base of the tower and led out their beautiful Courtier, which Jock called Caspar. The other horses were still out in the courtyard.

Janet beckoned Simon up onto the fighting platform and waited until all the crossbows were wound up. Rowan had one as well: she was a good shot and Janet told her to pick out Jock and keep her bow aimed at him.

“Send Little Robert forward,” she shouted, “and you all fall back ten paces.”

Down on the ground, everyone was watching as she peeked through a shot-hole while the horses stamped and snorted and pulled at their halters.

At a prodding from Jock’s lance, Little Robert got unsteadily to his feet and staggered forwards. Janet had Clemmie Pringle, Kat’s vast husband and Wide Mary on either side of the gate, ready to shut it if there should be treachery. She opened it, then smacked each horse hard on the rump and shrieked. The horses broke forwards through the gate, snorting and panicking.

“Run, Little Robert!” she yelled.

He ran, dodging to and fro and between Caspar and Sim’s Redmane, a lance stuck in the mud behind him, he tripled his speed and fell into Janet’s arms as the gate shut behind him. There was nothing wrong with him bar his headwound, a little rough handling and stark fear, so she passed him to Clemmie Pringle to take to Kat, and climbed the ladder again.

There was confusion as the Grahams caught their booty and then the sound of hooves riding off. “Stay where you are,” she snarled, when Geordie began to unwind his crossbow. “How do we know this isn’t some trick?”

“Why would they trick us, Janet?” Geordie asked reasonably, “They’ve got what they came for.”

“Henry’ll be fit to be tied,” said a voice in the background.

Janet pretended she hadn’t heard. “We’ll wait until morning and then we’ll out that little fire and see the damage and I’ll take Shilling to Carlisle.

“The March is up,” said Geordie, “Lowther’s on the trod already if they didna pay him for this. Why go to…”

“Did ye not hear what I told you? There’s a new Deputy there and I’ve business with one of Dodd’s men.”

“God help him,” muttered one of the other men.

Lady Philadelphia Scrope was glaring worriedly at her embroidery hoop as she sat on a padded stool in the Queen Mary Tower and finished a rampant blackwork bee. She heard her brother’s boots coming heavily up the stairs, tripping once. There was a pause at the door before he opened it and came in.

Almost laughing with relief at the sight of him, she put down her work and ran to hug him. He was rank with sweat, horse and human, and the oddly bitter scents of sodden leather and iron, he was spattered from head to foot with mud and blood, but none of it fresh enough to be his, thank God. The only thing not some shade of brown on him, other than the grubby rag of his collar, was his face which was white with weariness.

“You caught them,” she said joyfully, “You caught the reivers.”

Robin’s swordbelt clattered onto a chest and the pieces of rapier fell out.

“Bloody thing broke,” grunted her brother, stripping off his gloves and fighting the laces of his helmet which had shrunk in the rain so that the knots became inextricable. He started to swear but Philadelphia delved in her workbag, brought out her little broidery shears and snipped the laces, so he could take it off and shake out his hair. She helped him with the ones on his jack which had also shrunk, took if off his shoulders for him, acting the squire as she had on occasion for her husband, and set it on its stand. As always it surprised her with its weight: you expected a steel helmet to be heavy, but you couldn’t see the metal plates in a jack under the padded leather. She set to work on his doublet points.

He swatted at her feebly.

“For God’s sake, Philly, I can do it myself. And where’s Barnabus?”

“He had to go a message.” The room was beginning to steam up.

“Christ, who sent my own bloody servant off…”

“And anyway, he told me himself he’s not much of a hand with armour and suchlike, you never took him to the Netherlands with you remember. I’m much better at it than he is.”

“I can’t afford to lend you any more…”

Resisting the impulse to punch him, Philadelphia sat him on the stool, which made him wince satisfactorily, and hauled off his left boot.

“Be quiet,” she said. “Behind the screen is my lord’s own hip bath with hot water in it. The cold is in the ewer next to it, don’t knock it over. There’s a towel and a fresh shirt airing on a hook by the chest, and your other suit, the good cramoisie, and your other boots and-come on, Robert, pull will you? — a fresh pair of hose. Don’t worry about the leaves in the water, they’re lovage, they’ll soothe your saddle burns…” She put the boots down near the door.