She loved finding wives for her sons. Young Daniel had married Jane Nicholson two years ago, although he was younger than Emanuel. Unfortunately, it was a love match, although luckily the girl was the daughter of a local gentleman, so quite suitable. Emanuel had finally got married in the summer to Thomasine, Jane’s younger sister, a very pleasant young woman, Frau Radagunda thought. Now she was happily going through lists in her head of suitable girls of the right social status and the right dowry for Joachim.
For some reason, Joachim had turned monosyllabic again. He sat down, put his napkin on his shoulder and drank some of their own beer and listened while David told him a long and winding tale of the last cupellation campaign and how bad the charcoal had been and how they had had to do the whole process again with some very expensive Swedish charcoal which had caused Emanuel much lost sleep, and made him very bad-tempered.
After dinner, they said their prayers of thanks but Joachim sat silent, not bowing his head nor clasping his hands. Much as she loved him, it hurt and frightened Radagunda to see that, although she tactfully waited until Mark Steinberger and young David had gone before she talked to him about it.
“Joachim,” she said, in her very gentlest voice, “it makes me sad to see you do not pray as we do.”
“Well, Mutti, I can pray if you want, but my heart isn’t in it. I’ve pretended to be a Catholic on occasion and frankly I prefer Latin prayers because you don’t have to understand them.”
She was so shocked, she felt the blood draining from her face. “You pretended…to be Catholic?”
“Yes, of course, when I was in the Spanish Netherlands. Why should I get myself burned for heresy?”
“You must trust in the Lord Jesus, Joachim, He will keep you safe from harm…”
“No, He won’t. Did He save Pastor Stoltz? Did He save Himself?”
“The Crucifixion was part of the Great God’s plan for…”
“Sure, fine. But the fact is, Jesus Christ didn’t save Himself, did He? Pastor Stoltz was a martyr, and the fact is, the Lord Jesus didn’t save him either. The fact is, the Lord Jesus never even said He would save anybody from harm. He said that those who suffer in His name will have eternal life—a very different thing, in my opinion.”
She was staring at him, tears welling in her eyes. “But, Joachim, we are the Chosen People…”
“Ach,” said Joachim, jumping to his feet and throwing down his napkin again. “I am not martyr material and so in the Spanish Netherlands, I pretended to be a Catholic, in Scotland I pretended to be both a Catholic and a Calvinist, depending, though never at the same time like the King, and if I went to Turkey, I would probably pretend to be a Mussulman. And stop gaping at me like that, Mutti, most people will do the same thing.” He stalked out, annoyed with himself for telling her so much truth and with her for…for being exactly as irritating and stupid as she had always been since he was a youth. The island was already starting to suffocate him.
He was in a bad temper anyway. Where the devil was that messenger from Sir David Graham to tell him that the King was dead?
Carey dismounted and led his hobby and remount across the Holyrood courtyard, followed in a line by the other men, Red Sandy at the back. He thought he might appoint Andy Nixon to the Sergeantcy but would see what the bribes came out at first. He was clear he wanted his own man in that position and not some unknown quantity, probably working for Sir Richard Lowther, the other Deputy Warden of the West March, but still, money was money and the office would probably amount to a pretty penny. He must ask Mrs Dodd how much the Sergeant had paid for it. Though perhaps not today.
He sighed as he led his horses into the small stableyard, separate from the much bigger one for noblemen’s horses and nowhere near the size of the magificent stableyard for the King’s horses.
Jesu, what would Mrs Dodd say? His mind skittered instinctively away from that. They would soon need to go home from Edinburgh, as soon as the roads were better for her cart, either frozen solid or melted and dried out. He would escort her, of course, she didn’t need to risk Skinabake again.
And why in God’s name had Hughie Tyndale taken it into his head to kill Dodd? Why? Carey had begun to think the Sergeant was unkillable, especially after what happened near Oxford, but of course no man was. So why? And it was bloody inconsiderate of Hughie to get himself killed too, really it was, he didn’t want to have to find or train yet another valet. And Hughie had been better than most. Although at least he wouldn’t have to pay Hughie’s back wages or hang him, that was some comfort.
The sky was lightening, the grooms already at work. He stood near a closed lantern and drew out the letters that had been in Hughie’s doublet pocket, squinted his way through the cramped Secretary script.
The letters were from a Mr Philpotts who was paying Hughie the surprisingly generous sum of a shilling each for some ciphered reports of Carey’s doings. That didn’t worry Carey, he was used to being spied on by servants. However he knew that “Mr Philpotts” was one of Cecil’s own noms de guerre and wondered why he had dealt with the matter himself rather than delegating it to someone less busy. But why did Hughie kill Henry Dodd? There was no clue in the letters.
He shook his head, folded and put the letters away. What would he say to Mrs Dodd? Jesu, he hated this part of being a captain and there wasn’t even a body, although they would be out on the hills again with more eyes the minute the snow melted. So maybe Dodd was not dead? He shook his head again. He was being stupid. Hughie didn’t have any hole in him big enough to put so much blood on the snow and Whitesock’s saddle as well. That much blood…No. Dodd was tough, but he was human.
Somebody had taken Sorrel and Blackie in for him and he went in to find Leamus picking Blackie’s unshod hooves while Sorrel drank and pulled hungrily at the hay in the manger.
“Did ye find him?” asked Young Hutchin, running past Carey with a bunch of bridles and a saddle on his shoulder. Had he grown another inch while Carey had been looking for Dodd’s body?
“No, Young Hutchin,” said Carey, suddenly weary amidst all the activity of a stables at dawn. “We found Hughie Tyndale in a patch of blood, Dodd’s dagger in his calf and his chest caved in by a horse’s hooves. Shod hooves.”
Young Hutchin stood stock still and stared. “Ye mean yer tailor attacked Sergeant Dodd?” he asked incredulously.
“Probably with a crossbow,” said Carey, stripping off his gloves which he had just realised were dirty with blood, “almost certainly from behind.”
“Jesu, how did he dare?”
“I have no idea.”
“Ye think the Sergeant’s deid?”
“Yes. Though we couldn’t find his body.”
“Nae wonder Whitesock’s still upset. He’s no’ a warhorse.”
“No, but he kicked Hughie to death. We found the prints of his hooves on Hughie’s chest.”
“Ay?” said Young Hutchin and there was a glitter in his eyes. “He did tha’?”
“I think so. He did right by his master.”
“Ay, he did.”
Young Hutchin sprinted away and Carey waited and heard the trumpet sound as Young Hutchin blew his nose on his sleeve.
And still the Elliot church burned around him. The roof collapsed and Dodd was alone under the beams, somehow always alone. His back was still burning fiercely and breath came short and every breath burned. Something bitter came into his mouth from another world,
He knew. He was in Hell, wasn’t he?
There was no one to ask, he was alone. In any case he couldn’t speak, his mouth and throat were too swollen.
Voices moved around him. “We’ll bring his fever down,” said the decisive voice, “If it goes any higher it will kill him.”
Something very strange happened then, his teeth clenched and his body contracted and for a few seconds he was somewhere else, in a black place.
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“Fetch some snow,” said the voice. “Now.”
There’s no snow, Dodd wanted to snarl, it’s summer, that’s why the church roof burned so well.
Another black moment as the fire burned on and on, never consuming the beams holding him down, never ceasing, hellfires. Then there was something freezing cold covering his back and as it melted, it was wiped off with linen cloths. He gasped when it landed and for a second it felt good, it felt kindly to him. Then he felt the fire come back again. And another shock as more snow landed, melted, was wiped off.
It went in cycles, more and more heat, the shock of the cold, a little relief and then the heat rising again. The fire boring into his back kept up a steady agony, only increasing. Sometimes spoons would come into his mouth to tip broth or small ale into him. Sometimes his bum would be wiped and more clouts wrapped around his hips.
The fire got hotter and hotter until there he was back in the burning church with burning beams falling on him, in Hell.
There was a galloping of horse hooves thundering from Dodd’s chest, and into the burning church came a tall man with a bullet head in a worn jack with his favourite Jeddart axe on his shoulder, breaking down the burning door with a boom.
The man walked in, looked around at the smoke rolling in great gouts down the aisle, walked over to Dodd.
“Dad!” gasped Dodd.
“Ay,” said his father. “Whit the devil have ye got yourself intae, ye fool?”
The monstrous unfairness of this broke Dodd’s heart.
“Did I say, take revenge on the Elliots till the end of time? Well did I?”
“Ye didn’t,” said Dodd’s mother behind him, “And even if ye did, ye didna mean it.”
Dodd’s father, or the demon who was pretending to be him, bent down and lifted a broken rafter off Dodd’s back. His mother poured snow on it.
“Get awa’ from me,” snarled Dodd. “I ken ye canna talk for the Elliot spear went straight through yer throat.”
“It did tha’,” said his Dad. “I wis never so surpised in me life to be deid.”
“And ye did sae well at first,” said his Mam in reproachful tones, “keeping everybody together, getting the Elliots back a little.”
“But then it went sour,” said his Dad.
He plucked the last rafter off and Dodd suddenly felt lighter than ever he had before. Slowly he stood up, which somehow seemed possible despite the terrible wound in the back of the man prone beside him on the floor.
There were more hoofbeats, the sound of a goodly company arriving. Was it the Castle guard, turned out to help him?
“Ay,” said his Dad, “that’s Davidson. Will ye meet him, son?”
“Nay,” Dodd said through his teeth, “I’ll ha’ naething to do wi’ him…Where was he when Ah burned the church, eh? Why did he let me do that?”
His mother giggled suddenly. She looked plump and young in her best blue Sunday kirtle and hadn’t she wasted away to nothing in the months after his Dad died and his older brothers were killed, wasted away and died, leaving him, abandoning him.
“Och,” she said, “ye’re still my thrawn angry Henry,” and she moved to hug him but he shook the demon off and brushed past the one pretending to be his Dad as well, heading for the burst door and the bright sunlight.
Through it came another man, tall and dark and strong-built, with a strong dark beard and hair to his shoulders and a jack like any fighting man. He hadn’t drawn his sword, which was odd. At his back was his henchman, who did have his sword drawn. There was something wrong about that sword, a shining blue glint to it that didn’t belong. He looked a right fighter though, the hard jaw and the jack and morion said that, and never mind the blurred impression of wings from his shoulders.
His father dipped his head, his mother curtseyed as they might have to their headman if Dodd’s Dad hadn’t been the Dodds’ headman himself.
Dodd stood and stared the man in the eyes.
“What?” he said rudely, feeling for his sword and ready to take on the both of them if need be. His sword had disappeared which was typical.
“Mind yer manners, son,” warned his Dad, “this is…”
“I ken who it is, or who it’s pretending to be,” he grated. “So?”
The dark man smiled and held out his hand. “Joshua Davidson,” he said, “and you’re Henry Dodd, at last.”
“Sergeant Henry Dodd, of Gilsland.”
“Yes, that’s a pity,” said Davidson, taking his hand back unshaken. “The freehold reverts to the Crown on your death, I’m afraid, since there are presently no heirs of your body nor likely to be, and you’ve not made a will. Still easy come, easy go, eh?”
Dodd said nothing.
“Will ye sit and have a quart of ale with me then, Sergeant?” said Davidson, seemingly not put off by Dodd’s rudeness.
Dodd’s lips were cracked with thirst. “Ay,” he said unwillingly.
Davidson sat on a bench which had suddenly unburnt. Dodd’s Mam brought a jug and poured ale into four silver cups, all very lordly.
They all took the cups and toasted each other, drank, while Davidson’s henchman stood behind him, turned to the door, wide stance, arms folded, looking businesslike. Dodd would have given him a position in the Castle guard and not charged him a penny.
Dodd had never tasted ale so fine. It was as if he was drinking what all ale aspired to be, but wasn’t. Next his Mam put a platter of stottie cakes on the bench beside them and Dodd took one, tore off a bit and tasted it. That too tasted finer than it had any right to.
He scowled and chewed. He knew his Dad and Mam were dead, he knew he was in Hell and the demons were tempting and taunting him and he would not be fooled.
Nobody spoke and Dodd realised that the flames were utterly still, frozen around him. They licked the air as if they had been painted there in the round. The smoke was still too. He stood up and waggled a hand through it and it didn’t move.
So he came back, sat down and poured himself more ale, drank it down. It was just as good as it had been the first time.
“Prove ye’re not a demon,” he said to Davidson.
“Prove you’re not a demon,” laughed Davidson. “How many men have ye killed?”
“How many…How should I know? It’s ma trade.”
Davidson laughed again. His laugh was deep and infectious and it took effort for Dodd not to laugh with him. “So it is!”
“Are ye telling me I shouldnae have killt them?” said Dodd. “Ye should tell them too cos maist o’ them were tryin’ the best they could tae kill me.”
“Fair enough, but not all of them.” Dodd shrugged. “In the church for instance,” said Davidson, “since here we are.” His tone had suddenly hardened. “No fighting men in here, only women and children.”
Dodd shrugged again uncomfortably. He always did his best not to think of it, had succeeded for years, but it was hard now. He had fired the old church, himself, personally, he had set fire to it with a burning torch, laughing to think of the Elliot women and children and old men inside, while Red Sandy had stood and stared, his mouth hanging open in horror, but some of the rest of the Dodds cheering him on.
“I wis young…” he said, “jist seventeen and…”
“And?” said Davidson, steepling his fingers. There were odd bone-shaped marks all over the backs of his hands, a gnarled scar at the wrist under his shirt cuff.
“And it seemed like a good idea,” said Dodd heavily, knowing that this was justice and justice was justly coming to him and he would stay for eternity in the agonising Hell of the burning church because he deserved it.
Davidson nodded. “Why?”
“Why?” How could he catch in words the rage and sorrow and vengeance that had been in him as a youth? “Because the bastard Elliots had taken my Dad and my Mam and my brothers and my little
sister who died of hunger, they had taken so much from me and it was time to take it back.”
“Did you in fact get your Dad and Mam and brothers and sister back?”
Dodd glowered at him.
“Did it make you happy to do it? Afterwards?”
Dodd stared at the flagstones. “No.”
“Did you ever think of forgiving them?”
Dodd spat. “Dinna insult me! Whit’s that but a weak man’s blackmail, a mewling spewling ‘och, I forgive ye, so now ye’ll allus feel guilty.’ Nay, I’ll tek me chances wi’ vengeance, me.”
Davidson smiled a little. His henchman fixed Dodd with a stern look.
“Ach,” said Dodd in a paroxysm of disgust, “and now ye’re gaunae forgive me too. I’ll die first, ye soft bastard!”
And he stood and went back to the still fire, flicking Davidson two fingers as he went and sat down in the flames so he could get hot again.
Carey pulled out Dodd’s dagger, a plain steel blade eight inches long, with a leather hilt and a small bronze crosspiece, oiled and sharp and nicely balanced. Would he give it to Dodd’s wife? He knew he should, but…No, he would keep it just in case, or put it in Dodd’s shroud when they found and buried him.
He sighed and thought perhaps he could go and make an appointment for a final interview with the King…No, he had to get it done, stop procrastinating. Mrs Dodd deserved better of him.
Sorrel and Blackie had been seen to by Leamus, unasked, the dawn was come and a fine cold day, she would be up by now and Widow Ridley and he could find them easily. He didn’t want to.
He walked slowly out of the stables and went in the direction of the old refectory that he had left in a hurry five days before and as he came through the main door, there were Janet Dodd and Widow Ridley, sitting to their porridge and mugs of ale, chatting in Scots with some of the chamberers and dairymaids at one of the lower tables.
She saw him, rose and dropped a curtsey to him. Mrs Ridley started climbing to her feet as well, so he inclined his head to Janet and waved to Mrs Ridley to save her poor knees.
A Suspicion of Silver Page 6