P. Chisholm - A Famine of Horses

It was Dodd, poking his head round the door. “Sorry to disturb ye sir, but I’ve spoken to Lady Widdrington and she wants to see you tomorrow and she also says her stepson Henry’s waiting at Bessie’s to take a message to Chancellor Melville and he has a passport from Scrope so he can go at once.”

Carey blinked as he caught up with all this. “Excellent,” he croaked at last. “Wait a minute.” He hobbled over to his desk in the next room, wrote a few lines, signed it, and folded and sealed it.

“Tell Henry to take the long way round and on no account go anywhere near Liddesdale. The verbal message is that Bothwell’s got at least 200 men with remounts, mostly Grahams, and I think there’s someone working for Bothwell amongst the courtiers inside the palace.”

When Dodd had gone, Barnabus said tactfully, “Shouldn’t you warn him about King James’s…er…habits, sir?”

Carey laughed, stopped with a wince and sat down on the bed again. “Not Henry: he’s far too spotty for his Majesty’s tastes. And Melville’s known him since he was a boy, he’ll look after him.”

“Seems like you’ve saved the King’s life, if he gets through.”

“Hmf. Knowing the King he won’t pay a blind bit of attention. But I’ve drawn the raid’s sting anyway and he’ll never understand how.”

“Why’s that, sir?” asked Barnabus, wondering if he should call in a surgeon to strap Carey’s ribs which were black and blue and looked very much as if they might be cracked.

Carey smiled. “I told Jock of the Peartree about the horses in Falkland Palace. By now he’s told all his brothers and nephews and cousins and they’ll have lost interest entirely in King James.”

He lifted his feet onto the bed, dropped the cloth on the floor. “And I’ve almost solved the problem of Sweetmilk’s murderer and I’ve made friends with Jock of the Peartree, if you can call it that, and I’ve…”

He snored richly. Barnabus tucked him up and drew the bed curtains. He’d send for the surgeon tomorrow, when Carey would be in a terrible mood, and he’d get Lady Scrope to bring him and Lady Widdrington could continue to organise the funeral which she was doing with her usual briskness.

Simon had made friends with some of the other lads in the castle and reported that Young Hutchin seemed remarkably rich in silver at the moment, which information Barnabus would decide whether to pass onto Carey in the morning.

Carey woke up late at seven o’clock with a ravenous hunger and ribs that twinged monstrously every time he moved or breathed. Someone had pulled his bedcurtains to let the sun in and left a tray laden with fried collops of ham, grilled eggs, bread, and a flagon of mild beer, which made his mouth water so much he almost drooled as he pulled it towards him.

Ten minutes later it was all gone, despite the way his jaw hurt when he chewed. But his belly was packed tight and his sore face and body receded slightly in significance. Then somebody knocked on the door.

“Enter,” said Carey, thinking it was Barnabus. The door opened, and Philadelphia came flying in, her clothes in their usual tumble no matter what the attentions of her tiring woman, and threw herself into his arms, never mind that he was still in his nightshirt and dressing gown.

“I thought they’d hang you, oh Robin, Robin, I was so afraid they’d hang you…”

“So was I,” said Carey gruffly, “but they didn’t, so why weep about it?”

“They hurt you…” She was touching his face and he reared back.

“That was Jock of the Peartree,” said Carey, “and he’s just as sore this morning as I am. Well almost.” He handed her his hankerchief from under the pillow and Philly blew her nose, composed herself and flipped bewilderingly into scolding him.

“I hope you’re thoroughly embarrassed, Dodd having to come to the rescue like that? Did you hear how he got out of Carlisle through the secret passage nobody knows about except the warden?”

“Yes. Twice.”

She wasn’t going to leave him in peace, blast her. Carey grabbed his clothes off the chest where they were laid out, shut the bedcurtains and started dressing. Philadelphia continued.

“Well please don’t do it again. It was awful waiting here with Lowther keeping the gate with his men and threatening Red Sandy with flogging there and then if he tried anything. You won’t do it again, will you, Robin?”

Carey was coughing again. He cursed. There was still smoke in his lungs and it nearly killed him every time he did that. “I don’t think anyone in these parts will trust strange peddlers any more. I’ve probably ruined their trade. Is Red Sandy all right?”

“Scrope made Lowther leave your men alone if they promised to stay in the castle.”

“Good, I’m glad they tried.”

“How could you do something so dangerous? Scrope said you were mad and he wouldn’t get you out of a schoolboy prank.”

“I’ll bet,” muttered Carey to himself.

“What?”

“I said, did he?”

“Yes, he did. I’m still not speaking to him. Stupid man, pretending he had an ague, I hate him. And I hate you too, for worrying us like that.”

Carey drew back the curtains again and climbed out of bed to pull on his boots, saying, “You’re allowed to hate your brother but you’re not supposed to hate your husband, Philly.”

“Well, don’t give me some romantic nonsense about learning to love him, either. In any case, that’s not what I married him for.”

“Of course not,” said Carey, “you’re not a peasant. But you are supposed to respect and obey him, Philly.”

“Pah!” She tossed her head and her curly black hair partially escaped from its white cap and fell down her neck. “I’ve brought some people to see you and first you’re going to have a surgeon.”

“Oh no, Philly, I don’t need a surgeon…”

She ignored him and led the man in, a stocky, thickset thug called Mr Little, with hair growing luxuriantly out of his nostrils and up his arms, who prodded and grunted, strapped Carey’s ribs, declared that neither his skull nor his nose were cracked, but his cheekbone probably was, which Carey knew already, and let him eight ounces of blood from his left arm to balance up his humours. He offered to put in a clyster to guard against infection and was offended when Carey told him curtly to go and ask Barnabus for his fee.

“Bloody surgeons,” he muttered, as he carefully pulled on his shirt and doublet again. He took a quick look down his hose at the damage there, winced at the sight and wondered if he’d ever be the man he was. God knew, the ride back to Carlisle had been Hell, Purgatory and the Spanish Inquisition rolled into one, and every step he took was a punishment. He simply hadn’t had the courage to let the surgeon examine his balls.

Somebody else knocked on the door. Damn it, the place was like the Queen’s antechamber in Westminster, with all the bloody traffic in it.

“What the hell do you want?” he roared, then coughed when his ribs caught him.

Lady Widdrington marched in, trailing an unwilling but resplendently dressed Thomas the Merchant Hetherington. Behind her, obviously primed, Barnabus shut the door and no doubt stationed himself outside to repel interruptions and, naturally, cram his ear against the panelling.

When she first married her elderly crook of a husband, Elizabeth Widdrington had not known the meaning of the word “tact”. He had taught it to her, with the aid of his belt, on several occasions. When her rage had subsided she had decided to learn subtlety and dissimulation, no matter how hard it came to her, since it seemed that was what God wanted.

Clearly God had been training her. When she had seen Robert Carey the night before in the courtyard, her first, chokingly powerful impulse, had been to run to him and hold him and kiss him. She had managed to stay where she was and let him deal on his own with Lowther, whom she wanted to run through with a lance. She still had the marks of her fingernails on her palms to prove her self-control. Now she looked at him and recognised the symptoms of a man whose pride was as badly bruised as his body and who was clinging to his temper by the fingers of one hand.