A Chorus of Innocents

by P. F. Chisholm

  The only thing Dodd could think of was to go and find Lady Widdrington. She seemed to have a good grasp of the East March, her husband was the Deputy Warden, and the tooth-drawer probably had needed to bribe him anyway.

  He asked permission from Carey to ride to the East March on the grounds his wife wanted something from Berwick, and Carey had given it without much attention. He was at Bessie’s playing cards on his own; he called it a fancy Italian name, and it was clearly his way of distracting himself. Dodd took his favourite horse, Whitesock, legally bought and his this time, with the Queen’s brand now cancelled by another one, half-healed. He had a warrant from Scrope, who was happy to give Dodd some despatches as well so he could ride post.

  He liked riding post. You could do a hundred miles in a day with luck, probably less going across the Border, and he’d have to be careful in some places, but he could be in Widdrington at the end of a long day and he planned to be. Also the Courtier’s sarcastic temper was getting on his nerves and he wanted to be away from it.

  Widdrington was quiet and peaceful in the evening when he clattered in on the last post-house’s horse, which was blowing and making a fuss. He’d never been there before and eyed it carefully despite the dusk, in case Carey could get over his stupid scruples and they needed to make a rough wedding party.

  There was the castle, not on a hill—the whole village was flat and the sea nearby, the road the most important part of it. It was rich, you could see, a village supplying grain and horse feed and food to Berwick.

  The castle wasn’t large, not much more than a sturdy manor house with a much older tower and a wall around it for the villagers to bring their stock into when raiders came. He came to the gate, showed his warrant and went on into the main yard to find a pretty young woman who was heavily pregnant and an elderly man receiving him with a couple of the broad young Widdringtons hanging around as well to see he behaved himself. He smiled at them, liked it that they bothered.

  “Ma name’s Sergeant Dodd. I’ve come tae see Lady Widdrington. Is she about?”

  “Lady Widdrington isn’t here, sir,” said the man. “She’s north of the Border in Wendron.”

  “Can I help you, sir?” asked the woman. “My name is Mrs Burn. I’m a friend of Lady Widdrington’s.”

  “Ach,” said Dodd, very annoyed. He had dismounted and the horse was pulling toward the stables after his fodder. Dodd had ridden hard for the last ten miles to be into Widdrington before dusk. He took the horse into the stables, was shown the feedbins and set up the horse with a nosebag and a bucket and started whisping him down with brisk strong strokes. “Where’s Wendron then?”

  “It’s about forty miles from here, sir,” said Mrs Burn who had followed him. The steward had gone off somewhere else. “Would you like to stay here this night and start in the morning?”

  Dodd thought about it. He could have kept going, though he’d need a different horse, but it was full dark now and the Moon not much use. He had to admit he was a bit tired after cantering and galloping for most of the day, and hungry as well since he’d eaten his bread and cheese in Haltwhistle on the Giant’s Wall.

  “Ay,” he said, “that’s kind o’ ye, missus. I could do wi’ a bite to eat as well.”

  “I think there’s a pie and the cook’s made a pottage and a stew, or there’s bread and cheese and some apples too.”

  That sounded more like it. “Thank ’ee kindly, missus, I appreciate it.”

  “Oh, Sergeant Dodd, I’ve heard about you from Lady Widdrington. I’m very pleased to meet you at last and you can keep me company at dinner.”

  He wasn’t sure about that since he was no kind of gentleman and would have preferred the despatch rider’s room at the inn and beer in the commonroom, but he supposed it would be rude to refuse.

  He found Roger Widdrington, the younger son of Sir Henry, was also in the dining parlour, making himself pleasant, which was interesting. Dodd knew about his part in the disaster in Dumfries that summer. Mrs Burn sat beside him with a girl—who was clearly there to learn huswifery, and Mr Heron, the reeve, as well, so it was quite a supper party.

  Roger Widdrington said grace and the great pie was on the table with some soused hog’s cheese and the pottage and stew, so Dodd helped himself to the venison and rabbit pie and the pottage as well.

  He asked eventually about the tooth-drawer, though he said it was Scrope who needed a tooth out, since he was in Widdrington, after all. Mrs Burn’s face, which was rather sad in repose, lit up.

  “Oh yes, Sergeant Dodd, there’s a new man in the area. In fact he was planning to go over to the West March soon.”

  “Ay? Do ye ken where he might be?”

  “Yes. Minister Burn and I know him quite well. He’s not like the usual run of barber surgeons. He’s interested in reading and books and he’s supposed to be very good at drawing teeth too. He’s called Mr Simon Anricks and he’s all the way from London.”

  “Fancy that,” said Dodd, reaching for more hog’s cheese since it was very good. He took some more bread too, since that was manchet. You had to admit that lords and ladies saw themselves well for food. “Is he a spy? The last tooth-drawer but one in the Middle March got caught with a mirror with letters fra the Pope behind it.”

  Mrs Burn laughed. “I don’t know. Perhaps he is, you’ll have to ask him. Now I think about it, he’s probably in Wendron now with Lady Widdrington because…because…”

  And just like that she turned to crying. Dodd sat back in astonishment and watched.

  “Her husband was killed a week ago,” Roger Widdrington explained quietly. He didn’t do much about it, just let the woman greet into a handkerchief. “Two men walked into his house and cut his head off.”

  “Och, that’s bad,” said Dodd, sympathetically. “It wasna even on a raid? I’m sorry for yer trouble, missus.”

  She nodded at him as she tried to get a hold of herself.

  “We’d like to find out who the men are, obviously,” said Widdrington pompously. “I’m waiting for another despatch from my elder brother who is with Lady Widdrington.”

  Dodd nodded. It was cheeky, that’s what it was. And it would be difficult to find them too, because they could just ride away and nobody any the wiser. Or at any rate, nobody any the wiser who would tell on them.

  “Mrs Burn was there at the time too,” said Widdrington, “that’s why she’s so distressed.”

  “Ay?” said Dodd. “That’s shocking.” He supposed she couldn’t be expected to do anything about it since she was clearly not a Border woman. Her accent was a little strange, something like Scottish, something like English from the West March, something guttural. The woman got awkwardly to her feet and curtseyed to Widdrington, left the room still crying, followed anxiously by the girl.

  Dodd, Widdrington and the steward ate most of what was left of the hog’s cheese and the pottage, though the pie was a giant and they left three quarters of it for the morning. They talked about drainage ditches and they talked about hobbies and who was raiding whom in the Middle March and the West March. Dodd brought them up to date with the Maxwells and the Johnstones, who were only raiding sheep and cattle at the moment, feints to see where the weaknesses were.

  At last Dodd was shown to a little room next to the stables that was full of the comforting scent of horses and a bed with a tester as well, and so he got to undress, which he wouldn’t at the inn.

  Tuesday 17th October 1592

  He was up as early as he could manage the next morning, two hours before dawn, feeling cold and miserable as usual. When he went to the kitchen in the hope of pillaging some more of the pie, he found it unlocked and a candle lit and Mrs Burn sitting there alone, waiting for him, while the kitchen boy snored on his pallet with his blankets round his ears.

  “Sergeant Dodd,” she said, “I’m so sorry I had to leave the dinner table last night, but it comes on m
e sometimes and I can’t stop crying. I loved Jamie Burn, no matter what he was before and it…I can’t help it.”

  Poor woman, Dodd thought, that’s worse is that, if you loved your husband as well. His mam had loved his dad and she’d gone from being a big plump happy woman to a sad skinny one in a matter of months after he’d been killed. What would he feel if Janet was dead, now?

  It was the first time he’d thought of it, strangely, and just the thought made his stomach squinch up under his ribs and his bowels go to water. Jesu, he thought, I’d be a lost man. He shook his head and deliberately crushed the thought. Janet would have to outlive him, that was all.

  “Ay,” he said inadequately, “Eh…Ah wis wondering if there’s any pie…?”

  She smiled at him. “It’s a good one, isn’t it? I’ve got some breakfast and lunch here, ready packed, and I’m hoping you’ll do me a favour for it.”

  “Ay missus,” he said cautiously, sitting down facing her.

  “It’s all right,” she said, “I won’t ask you to kill my husband’s murderers for me, unless you happen to come upon them and have a rope ready…”

  He smiled. “Ay missus, I can promise that…”

  “I just want to send a letter to Mr Anricks. He was such a good friend to Jamie, I want him to know that I think Jamie left him something in his will and a few other things.”

  She had a letter from her bodice, quite a thick packet. Dodd hesitated and then took it. He’d already given the despatches from Scrope to Roger Widdrington who would pass them to his father; he might as well take this.

  He put it inside his doublet, inside his buff leather jerkin that he wore because it wasn’t exactly business and you went quicker if you didn’t wear a jack.

  “If you could give that to Mr Anricks personally,” she said, “I’d be very grateful.”

  Maybe she was having an affair with the tooth-drawer, Dodd speculated. She was a pretty woman or she would be if she didn’t have such black circles round her eyes.

  “Ay missus,” he said. She smiled at him then and gave him two neatly wrapped packages which he carried into the stableyard where he found a sleepy young boy holding a nice-looking hobby for him, already tacked up.

  He was off a couple of minutes later, taking the hobby at a brisk walk and then to a trot for half a mile before he put his heels in and went to a canter.

  Tuesday 17th October 1592

  The boy went to sleep eventually and Elizabeth dressed and left him there to go to see his mother. The father wasn’t there and she had bruises on her wrist and the bruise on her face was the shape of a hand. At least it was an open one.

  Not thinking about Sir Henry with great difficulty, Elizabeth sat down on the stool the woman offered her.

  “Now, Mrs Tait,” she said, “your lad Jimmy has a beautiful voice, hasn’t he?”

  The woman smiled and her face changed from its watchful shut-in look.

  “Ay,” she said, “The minister heard him once when he was scaring crows and singing the Twa Corbies to frighten them and then nothing would do but that he’d go tae the school and learn his letters and sing for the minister. My man didna like it at first, but after a while he said it was fair enough since he got bread and cheese at the school to his dinner and so he didn’t need so much as Young Jock and Lily and the babby.”

  There was no babby visible. The woman coloured and paled. “He died, the babby. In the spring. Eh…he fell over and…hit his head and that was the end of him.”

  I don’t think so, thought Elizabeth, but didn’t say, I think he annoyed his dad and got hit too hard.

  The woman wasn’t looking at her. “Young Jock’s the apple of his eye mind, but…” She shrugged and looked away and gave her sore bruised wrist a rub. Well, to business. It looked like Elizabeth was following in Jamie Burn’s footsteps but no matter. There were worse ones she could choose.

  “I think your young Jimmy could go to the cathedral in Carlisle and be a singer at the services there. How old is he?”

  “About seven, I think. He came before the Armada, any road.”

  “Well he’s young, but that’s no hindrance. Did the minister speak of this with you?”

  “He talked to Jock about sending Jimmy to Carlisle,” said the woman, “And Jock wanted money for the boy.”

  “Really?”

  “To…to replace him as a crow scarer, ye ken. And his labour in the fields when he got big. And…”

  “What did the minister say to that?”

  “He said he’d think about it and we left it at that.”

  “When did he talk to you about it?”

  “About a month ago, when we were sowing the winter wheat.”

  Elizabeth drew a deep breath and let it out again. “What did Mr Tait need the money for?”

  “He wants a new helmet, he said.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten pounds.”

  It was outrageous. Fifty shillings for the boy would have been the going rate, but ten pounds? Tait was clearly a canny father with a good grasp of bargaining.

  “I see.”

  “And the minister got him down fra twenty. I dinna think the minister had ten pounds but maybe he saw a way to get it, ye ken,” said the woman in a whisper.

  “Oh? What way was that?”

  The whisper was so tiny, so soft, Elizabeth couldn’t quite make it out. “What?”

  “The old way,” she said, a little louder. “The way the minister’s brother Geordie would get it, or any one o’ Ralph o’ the Coates’ boys. The way Jock would hisself. Reiving or killing. Insight.”

  “Ah,” said Elizabeth. After a moment she rose to go. “Thank you, Mrs Tait, that’s very helpful. I’ll think about the money.”

  She didn’t have ten pounds herself; it was an enormous sum, although a reasonably respectable suit would cost you ten times that. But you’d get the suit on credit and pay for it over six months or a year. She felt quite dizzy again as she walked up the hill from the Taits’ farm and had to stop for a moment at some stones from a peel tower destroyed in the Rough Wooing.

  There wasn’t a lot of reiving now in the Scots East March, or the English East March, most of the trouble happened in the West or Middle March. The Humes held sway in Scotland and dealt with troublemakers their way, the Widdringtons and the Fenwicks were strong enough to deal with troublemakers in England. Blackrent was another matter. Occasionally you’d get a big invasion, forty or eighty men from the Middle March might come riding into a valley at night and take all the stock and insight that wasn’t locked inside a wall, and ride off again. Then there’d be the usual arguments over it at the next Warden’s Day and eventually it would all be composed, but nobody would get back all they had lost or expect to.

  Murders happened, too, mainly for not paying blackrent or for revenge. And yet when you thought about it, what had been the reason for Jamie Burn to get his head taken off? A pastor didn’t pay blackrent and revenge…

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed as she stared at some large stones leaned on even older ones. Revenge might well be a reason, especially given the way the minister had been spoken of. Perhaps it was for something he did when he was younger.

  She realised that one of the rocks in the grey light was not a rock, but a straight back wrapped in a wolf fur. It was too small to be a man so after she stepped back she stepped forward again. Who was it? It turned a little face under a shock of white hair and a linen cap a little sideways, with a fine Edinburgh hat on top of that.

  “Ma’am, Lady Hume?” she asked, in astonishment, “what are you doing here?”

  “Well I like it here, my dear. Do ye not know it’s a faerie fort? At night the stones all float together and build themselves up again and then ye can dance and sing with the lairds and the ladies too, dance yer heart out and then in the morning it’s grey and fifty years ha’ p
assed ower yer head and ye’re an old woman and al’ the lairds and ladies are deid and gone and passed.”

  Elizabeth looked about for Kat Ridley and saw her, sitting on another moth-eaten old wolfskin, some way back, watching carefully. A little further off was a lad with two ponies, a palfrey and a jennet, nice animals both of them.

  Lady Hume seemed to be waiting for something as the late afternoon squelched away, sitting patiently and bolt upright, her head a little tilted on her ruff. Elizabeth moved round to where Kat Ridley sat, knitting away at a pair of socks.

  “Er…”

  “She’s waiting for the fairy fort to build itself—she does it when she’s like this. She willna have nathing but to come here and wait till night for the fair fort and she usually dozes off and then she’ll go hame quite happily. Cousin William’s no’ far away, he bides out o’ sight for she doesnae like a man too near when she’s awa’ wi’ the fairies like she is the day.”

  “Ah. Do you know whose tower this was?”

  “Ay, it were the Taits’, pulled down by Wharton, and his grandfather hanged by the gateposts.”

  “You mean Jock Tait, in the village, his grandfather?”

  “Ay, who else would I mean, there’s nae ithers round here. There may be some distant cousins in Upper Tynedale, but this was their easternmost tower and a fine place it was.”

  Elizabeth was starting to understand.

  “The grandfather?” she asked.

  “Nay, the eldest son,” said Kat Ridley, “Hanged next tae his father to learn ’em for being reivers and Scotch forbye. By Lord Wharton in 1544.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “It wisnae a bad match for a Burn girl, mind, and she wis the pick o’the Border then, a little delicate girl with white blonde hair, so I hear, but then after it was all over and we were picking up the pieces and building turf bothies, she was seen by one of the younger sons of the Laird Hume of Norwood and it wisnae a good match for him but it wisnae so bad the old Laird forbade it for a younger son so they married. Then when the elder brother died of a fever, she became Lady Hume.”