P. Chisholm - A Famine of Horses

“Good morning, ladies,” he yawned as he pulled on his jerkin and shambled to the table. “Any room for a little one.”

Madam Hetherington was sitting in splendour in a carved chair with arms at the head of the table, almost as if she was the paterfamilias of the household. Which she was, really, thought Daniel, touching his forehead to her in respect. As usual the meal was Scots porridge with salt and very mild beer. Daniel Swanders wished he could get tobacco in Carlisle, but the nearest place for that was Edinburgh where he was not welcome at the moment. Or rather he would be a bit too welcome, but he hated the whole idea of his ear being nailed to the pillory and having to pull free because it had hurt so much the last time.

The girls shoved up for him, packing their petticoat-covered bumrolls together and making an enchanting sight with their hair pinned roughly and their breasts pushed up by their corsets. Two of them were magnificent that way and with typical female perversity, Madam Hetherington insisted that they wore high-necked smocks, the better to entice the customer into wanting to undress them.

By the time Daniel had finished his porridge and beer, Arthur Musgrave had gone into the courtyard to chop firewood and the girls were fluttering about in a complication of underwear, hairbrushes, make-up and pins, making ready for the day’s trade. Daniel sat back on the bench and watched them with admiration: perhaps if he did well with the ugly Londoner and learnt better dice play, Madam Hetherington would let him take Grainne or possibly Maria to bed, or perhaps, if he was very successful, both of them. Lost in happy dreams, he only noticed the Londoner had turned up when Madam Hetherington spoke to him sharply.

“This is Barnabus Cooke, Daniel,” she said, “Are you listening?”

“Yes mistress,” said Daniel humbly, “I’m sorry, I was only admiring Maria.”

“Maria, cover yourself, you’re not working now. I want you to pay attention to what Barnabus teaches you, since he’s a master craftsman at this game.”

“Yes mistress.”

Barnabus Cooke gave him a considering look and then said, “Madam Hetherington, I’m happy to teach Swanders some of my secrets but they’re worthless if everyone knows them, so…”

“Of course,” agreed Madam Hetherington, “you may use the private banqueting room at the back, no one is using it.”

Arthur Musgrave came struggling in with his arms full of firewood and glowered at Barnabus who smiled back and raised his hat.

“I was going to suggest the courtyard, but the private room is even better,” he said. “Come on, Daniel.”

The smell of roast beef and wine always clung to the walls of the private room which occasionally saw some very strange behaviour. Barnabus carefully cleared the rushes away from the floor at one end of the big table and then went to the glass-paned window and opened it.

“Well, here we are,” he said loudly, breathing deeply. “Let’s begin with the basics of palming dice. After all, it’s no good using highmen if you can’t swap them for lowmen when your opponent is playing, is it?”

Daniel nodded and sat down next to Barnabus on the bench. Barnabus brought out half a dozen dice from his own purse and separated them into their various families, asking Daniel to identify them. He then began a game with three pewter beakers taken from the sideboard, and one of the dice where he switched them round and magically moved the die from one to the other.

“This is called Find the Lady,” said Barnabus wisely, “and it’s not much good for catching coneys in London now, since even the coneys have heard of it, but you might find it worthwhile here or in Scotland. The idea is they bet on where the Lady-the die-is going to end up. See it’s all done with the fingers, like that. All right? Now you try.”

Daniel tried and found it much harder than he had thought at first and very different from the way he usually palmed dice. For ten minutes he moved the beakers and tried to shift the dice without being spotted by Barnabus’s beady eye, and although Barnabus said he was improving, he felt a little the way he had when his father had first begun teaching him the ways of persuading people to buy. There was so much to learn, so little time, and so many men who were better at it than him, he became quite depressed. Though that could have been the effect of living with so many beautiful girls and no money to pay them.

He was trying again to move a die from his sleeve to the table and back again without being spotted, when he heard the sound of someone at the window. He turned to look and saw to his horror that Robert Carey was sitting on the sill with one knee drawn up, ready to jump down.

Barnabus had drawn a knife, but Daniel was in too much of a panic to be afraid of it. He simply fell backwards off the bench, scattering dice in all directions, rolled, headed for the door. By some miracle, he got through it first, slammed it, tried to lock it, dropped the key in his haste and ran up the stairs to the bedrooms, with Carey hot on his heels.

It was Maria’s room they barged into, and she already had her first client of the day. Daniel dodged, tried to hide behind the bed, but Carey skidded to a halt and stared.

“What the Devil…” wailed the man on the bed, whose shirt had tangled round his armpits as Maria worked on him. He sat up, throwing Maria aside and tried desperately to pull down his shirt.

Carey had turned his back.

“I’m very sorry, my lord,” he said in a strangled voice, “I was chasing a horse-thief…I had no idea.”

Barnabus, who had seen Burghley’s hunchbacked son Robert Cecil in circumstances too wonderful to tell and was not at all concerned, went behind the bed like a ferret and hauled out Daniel, with a knife at his neck.

“You’ve caused a lot of trouble, you,” he hissed into Daniel’s ear as he twisted Daniel’s arm behind him very painfully. “That’s the Lord Warden of the West March you’ve offended. What did you think you was doing, running like that, we only wanted a little chat. Guilty conscience, that’s what it is. Come on.”

“For God’s sake,” said Thomas Lord Scrope, realising he looked worse standing up than he did in bed, sat down again and pulled the covers up to hide his embarrassment, “Robin. You won’t tell Philly, please. I know she’s your sister, but…”

Carey still had his back turned, but his fists were clenched. At last he turned with a perfectly calm expression on his face.

“Don’t worry, my lord,” he said, “I would never do anything to hurt her.”

Scrope winced and looked at the floor. “She’s a good woman,” he said lamely, “she’d never…well, you know. I’m only flesh and blood…”

Carey had got a proper grip on himself. “I think we should both forget that this happened, my lord,” he said.

Scrope’s face was full of relief. “Er…yes, forget it, absolutely right, of course.”

Barnabus was at the door with Daniel, not being too careful with his knife point either. Daniel squawked and struggled as he nearly lost his earlobe but the pain from his arm stopped him. Carey took a step closer to the bed.

“One thing, though, my lord,” he said very quietly.

“Er, yes, Robin,” said Scrope vaguely. He was being distracted by Maria’s busy fingers under the covers, Daniel saw jealously.

“If you pox my sister, I will personally see to it that you never have the opportunity again. Do you understand me?”

“Well…er…”

“I’ll make a woman of you, my lord, is that clear?”

Thomas Lord Scrope quivered and shrank back under the bedclothes.

Carey didn’t wait to see his reaction, but waved Barnabus on and walked out of the room, shutting it very carefully behind him.