A Chorus of Innocents

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Could you?” Dodd asked, “There’s a boy, a few men, and two women in the castle and I dinna see nae more. And forebye, they could have seen what happened here, why did they not help?”

  Why did the old lady in fact lie to him, eh? That was something he’d like the answer to.

  “Are any of these tracks from Ekie or Sim?” he asked, casting about for more hoofprints.

  “No,” Young Henry said after he’d taken another look, “I had Ekie on Butter which is a fat hobby and the tracks would be heavier.”

  “Ay, so they sold her to the reivers and went off. At least it means they aren’t seven.”

  Young Henry was breathing hard through his nose.

  “How long to get some men here?” Dodd asked, though he knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

  “Most of the Widdringtons are in the Middle March, a forty-mile ride at least. Say half a day to ride back for them and another half day to ride here again.”

  He had been right. He didn’t like the answer.

  Anricks had been sitting on his pony, staring hard into space as if he was reading something there.

  “I happen to know,” he said judiciously, “that Sir Henry Widdrington and my Lord Spynie are meeting near Jedburgh, which isn’t nearly as far from here as Widdrington itself. And he’ll have taken at least twenty men with him.”

  Young Henry stared suspiciously at the man while Dodd asked curiously, “So are ye a Jesuit or not then?”

  A strange almost fey smile curved the man’s mouth under his skimpy beard. “No sirs, I am not,” he explained slowly and coldly. “I am unalterably opposed to his Catholic Majesty of Spain and at the moment I am by way of being a pursuivant in the service of Sir Robert Cecil.”

  Dodd whistled. “Are ye now?” he said. “I’ve met the man, see ye.”

  “Have you?” Anricks gave Dodd a look he was beginning to recognise as a reappraisal. “A very interesting personage—tall and handsome.”

  Dodd laughed shortly. “Well ye havenae met him if ye think that. He’s a hunchback, though I’d say he wis handsome, ay, and interesting.”

  Anricks smiled again. He took a packet of paper out of his doublet pocket and unfolded a letter from it which he passed to Young Henry. “I am well aware of the fact that the last tooth-drawer in these parts, bar one that was a drunk, was in fact a Papist spy, but I am not and I took the precaution of obtaining this.”

  Young Henry passed the paper without comment to Dodd who turned it the right way up and read it carefully.

  “A’ right,” he said, “let’s see yer hands.”

  Anricks showed his hands palms up. There was a dark scar across the middle of each hand as if he had clutched a bar of red hot iron once and been burnt.

  Young Henry and Dodd looked in silence for a while. “What was it did that?” asked Dodd. “I havenae seen the like on naebody else.”

  “The same thing which gave me the grip I need to pull teeth. Forgive me, gentlemen, but I prefer not to speak of it nor remember it. However the scars prove I have not stolen the commission from another man and I am in fact the Simon Anricks of whom he speaks.”

  The commission had Sir Robert Cecil’s seal on it and was written in a fine italic hand which might even have been his. It spoke of his confidence in Mr Anricks, described the scars on his hands, and asked whoever saw the paper and the scars to help him in all his enterprises.

  “Please be so kind as not to mention this to anyone at all, especially not Sir Henry,” added Anricks. “I am truly a tooth-drawer as well.”

  “How will we explain to Sir Henry how we found him?” asked Young Henry.

  “I saw him riding west with his men when I was on the road from Edinburgh so I think there will be little difficulty. In any case, no doubt Sir Henry will be anxious to find and ransom his wife, if necessary.”

  Dodd had listened to Carey ranting on about how he hated the man and how he mistreated his wife and wondered if he would be that eager. It didn’t matter, because his wife being kidnapped put a brave on him that he could only ignore if he wanted to lose every scrap of credit or reputation that he had.

  Young Henry nodded once. Dodd sighed. He supposed he should stick with the tooth-drawer so he couldn’t get out of drawing Carey’s tooth. Though now he thought about it, he supposed Carey wouldn’t approve of him not taking an interest in Lady Widdrington’s kidnapping.

  He tried to imagine Carey’s reaction to that and found his imagination failed him. Carey would be very upset, to put it mildly, and might take it into his head to do something even crazier than his normal notions, which was where Dodd’s imagination gave up. It was hard to beat spying out Netherby tower dressed as a peddler, selling faulty guns to the Irish and causing a riot in a London jail—all things Carey had regarded as excellent ideas in the past.

  Without further ado they headed west and south to Jedburgh. At least it was in the right direction, Dodd thought philosophically.

  They found Jedburgh full of Widdringtons who greeted Young Henry respectfully, considering his youth, and told him his father wasn’t there. He was hunting with Lord Spynie at a small hunting lodge northwards which was sometimes used by the king on his way to a justice raid in the Scots West March. They would be back later in the day, and meantime Young Henry and his men could wait for them. Some of Spynie’s men were hanging around in the town as well, the same combination of popinjay vicious courtiers and hard nuts that Dodd had thoroughly disliked in the summer.

  They came and insisted on searching Anricks’ pack and two of them even dared to question Young Henry until his uncle Thomas Widdrington snarled that he’d vouch for the boy. One asked Dodd his business.

  “Ay,” he said, “I’m a Dodd, sir.”

  He was looking as wooden and stupid as he could, helped by his buff coat and lack of helmet and for good measure he tipped his statute cap to the lad in a magnificent purple and tawny padded doublet.

  “That’s well enough,” said the other one, glorious in bright green and yellow. “We ha’ tae ask, goodman, for somebody took a potshot at my lord Spynie ainly last month.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, not bothering to look interested, “what with?”

  “A crossbow. He got away too and then he tried again in the night and killed a bolt of linen Spynie had in his bed and then he got away again, so Spynie’s no’ pleased wi’ us.”

  “Ay, bad luck tae him.”

  “Ay.”

  Dodd was more interested in what Anricks was up to and wandered after him. He found him in the courtyard of the biggest inn at Jedburgh, the Spread Eagle, with his pack already taken off the packhorse and both horses in a loosebox.

  Anricks took off his doublet and rolled his sleeves up, put on his blood-stained apron and unrolled his instruments in their canvas. The innkeeper brought a sturdy armchair out to the yard and then two more on further instructions and lined them up.

  “Teeth drawn,” shouted Anricks.“Get your teeth drawn for one English shilling or four Scots shillings. Teeth drawn.” He had a weak voice that didn’t shout very well, so Dodd offered his services and was soon strolling round the town with the innkeeper’s youngest and his drum, bellowing “Teeth drawn! Get yer teeth drawn!” in broad Scots.

  By the time he got back a queue had formed that was already out of the stableyard. He watched for a while, ready for drama and screams, but it was boring. The patients sat down in the chairs and told Anricks which tooth was giving them trouble. He poked about in their mouths, sometimes producing gasps and moans. Then he made them drink a great deal of brandy, supplied at double prices by the inn, and gave them a cloth in their hands to sniff. He was pouring out drops of something oily from a brown glass bottle onto it every so often. After a bit they fell asleep and then Anricks was onto them, opening their snoring mouths, reaching in with a steel instrument, placing it carefully round the bad tooth and th
en clenching his fist and drawing it out. And then he moved on to the next patient.

  Dodd had a go at pulling a tooth himself and found it much harder than he expected for the grip was awkward and you needed all your strength to pull. Anricks did two more with crunching sounds and a lot of blood and pus while he was fumbling.

  Then the patients would wake up, look around dizzily as if hungover, feel their mouths in wonder and then wander off with their friends, shaking their heads. A few people started scowling at Anricks and muttering about witchcraft, but the ones who had had their teeth drawn shushed them.

  “Is it witchcraft, sir?” Dodd asked curiously as they waited for a stout woman to go to sleep. “Is it a secret?”

  Anricks shook his head. “No, it’s an alchemical miracle. No secret at all. Paracelsus first noticed its effect on chickens and I tried it on myself once I had made some. They are sniffing sweet oil of vitriol, distilled from aqua vitae and vitriol.” He gripped, clenched, the instrument slipping. “Hold her mouth more open, please. Thank you.” Not a sound from the patient. Again the hands tightened on the instrument and the cracking crunch told Dodd the tooth was out. Anricks produced a large long-rooted tooth that was black all along one side and had two holes in it. The root was full of pus. He dropped the tooth in the bucket and swabbed at the space with a cloth wet with aqua vitae while the woman slept on.

  Dodd looked in the bucket, with all the other eaten-away teeth and suddenly felt sick. That was an ill sight to see, to be sure, how your actual teeth could be eaten away. Horrible. What did that for God’s sake?

  Anricks didn’t need him anymore; he had a queue going down the hill now. Dodd wandered out to the yard and found a boy there asking for him, who told him to come and meet Sir Henry.

  Young Henry was looking grim and Sir Henry was loudly raging. “Do you believe this about my wife, Mr Dodd, that she went off with persons unknown?” he demanded.

  Dodd was about to correct him about what he was and then left it. “She didnae go voluntarily and she tried to escape, the signs were clearer than the nose on yer face,” he said stolidly. “And she left her mother’s ring on a twig near the place where they caught her.”

  Sir Henry swung about on his son. “So why didn’t ye follow the tracks and catch them?”

  “Perhaps because I had no desire to ride into an ambush, sir,” said Young Henry, with admirable calm. “Or not until I had enough of my men to back me.”

  “My men, puppy, I’m the headman.”

  “Yes, father.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  Young Henry looked blank. “We thought it was worth trying Jedburgh because this is where you come to meet with Lord Spynie and we’d heard you were riding west.”

  Suddenly Sir Henry slapped his son across the face and followed up with a nasty rabbit punch to the short ribs. Young Henry took the slap and only grunted a little with pain at the rib punch.

  “Don’t think ye can outguess me, boy,” hissed Sir Henry.

  Young Henry said nothing. His face was a mask under the reddening print of his father’s hand. Sir Henry was standing, scowling up at him and chewing his moustache.

  “What would you like me to do, sir?” Young Henry asked steadily.

  Suddenly Dodd saw fear in the man’s face, and couldn’t think why. Young Henry towered over him and yet was as respectful as a man should be to his father, no matter how unreasonable. Was that what he was afraid of? That his son was a better man than him?

  “Weel weel, wha’ ha’ we here?” came broad Scotch tones. Dodd turned to see the handsome young man with gold hair that was still the King’s lover come striding over to them. Lord Spynie was wearing a smart black satin doublet with diamond buttons and a very nice cutwork leather hunting jerkin over it. He wasn’t very tall, a couple of inches shorter than Dodd himself and four inches shorter than Young Henry, but he swaggered and swung a whip in his hand.

  Young Henry and his father both bowed to him and Dodd did the same, quietly stepping backwards out of the way. Sir Henry explained that his fool of a wife had got herself captured by reivers while fossicking about in Scotland where she had no business to be.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get my message by Roger,” Young Henry said, “about the killing of Minister Jamie Burn?”

  “I got it,” growled Sir Henry. “She had no business in Scotland. She should have minded my business in England.”

  “Wives,” said Spynie, with an indulgent smile, “allus poking about in what doesnae concern them.”

  Sir Henry stood irresolute, although what he had to do was obvious. He should gather his men, ride out with them and find out who had his wife. And then he should ransom her and follow up with some reprisal raids unless the kidnappers were too powerful, in which case he should wait and take reprisals later and more carefully. That’s what Dodd would have done if anyone had been stupid enough to kidnap Janet. Although unfortunately he loved his wife, which would make everything much more complicated. He decided to go back to the inn and the tooth-drawing.

  When he got there he found Anricks in an argument with a bunch of sour-looking men in black or brown clothes and white collars.

  “Ye say it isn’t witchcraft, Mr Anricks,” said one of them, “but ye canna deny that ye make them sleep and so they get out of the pain o’ the tooth-drawing.”

  “I do not deny it, that’s why I do it. It makes my work easier for they are not fighting nor screaming.”

  A heavy looking man shook his head. “The Scripture says, man is born tae sorrow…”

  “Ay,” said a skinny man with hot eyes, “and it’s wrong to try to evade Scripture, so it is.”

  Anricks shut his eyes for a moment and then smiled brightly. “You are ordering me to stop using sweet oil of vitriol?”

  “We are ordering ye to stop using the evil spells that make people sleep.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “I am Elder Tobermory, he is Elder Stanehouse. That is Minister Birkin.”

  “Very well, sirs. I will stop using the oil of vitriol and explain to each of my patients why. Thank you.”

  Nonplussed, the sour men moved away in a body and then stood watching to see there was no witchcraft. Each tooth took longer now because they had to tell the patients why they couldn’t sniff the magic cloth: Anricks explained that Elders Tobermory and Stanehouse and Minister Birkin had ordered him to stop using the sweet oil of vitriol, and the elders and the minister had to explain that they had stopped him from using witchcraft and imperilling their immortal souls. The people who still wanted their teeth drawn screamed and cried as he pulled their teeth, which was a lot noisier and the results were not nearly as good and everything took longer.

  The elders and the minister were shouting themselves hoarse at some of Anricks’ patients by the end of it and the queue had disappeared. When the second to the last one went, Dodd reached out and stopped a boy making off with the box that was now full of shillings. When the tooth was pulled from the last woman who cried steadily throughout but didn’t scream, Anricks went and dumped all his instruments into a bucket of water and then used another just to wash his arms and hands, which was a bit dainty, Dodd thought. The woman was weepily thanking Anricks and telling him it didn’t hurt nearly as much as having a baby and insisted on paying him an extra shilling for she already felt much better.

  They moved to the commonroom of the inn to count the money which amounted to about one hundred shillings Scots and ten shillings English, which was very respectable. Then Anricks went to the market and bought three pack ponies’ loads of oats which was good cheap, along with the pack ponies and led them all into the innyard where he paid the innkeeper, also in Scots shillings. The remaining Scots money he used to pay for the ordinary—a haggis and bashed neeps and some ale, which he shared with Dodd.

  Anricks was tired and quiet. Dodd was wondering h
ow quickly he could get him to Carlisle. It was too late in the day to make for Carlisle now.

  “It’s a puzzle,” said Anricks, suddenly, apropos of nothing, “why and by whom was the Minister Burn killed.”

  “He wisnae against yer witchcraft?”

  “It isn’t witchcraft. It’s as natural as a man falling asleep when he’s drunk. Just quicker and easier…”

  “Whatever. He wisna agin it?”

  “He was at first, until I drew one of his teeth for him and then he admitted it might be a good idea. They usually do.”

  “Has this happened before?”

  “Oh yes, especially in Scotland. The elders get very outraged at the thought of people sleeping through something that will hurt. Also the resident barber surgeons usually stir them up. And usually by then my hands are tired anyway and so it works out well enough. They get the blame for the fact that I can’t possibly treat all the people who want it.”

  Anricks took a pull of beer and sighed, cut into the haggis and piled a lot on a silver spoon he took out of his pocket and polished. He ate it with his eyes shut, slowly munching until it was all gone.

  “Mm,” he said, “it’s good.”

  Dodd tried some and it was good. Not as good as Janet’s, but good enough—too much lung and oats and not enough liver in it probably.

  Anricks concentrated on the food for a while and then leaned back and drank more ale. He called for some uisghe beagh as well, the northern firewater. Dodd tried a little and wasn’t impressed; it tasted very smoky in his opinion.

  “So. Minister Burn. Perhaps if I talk through what I know about it, you can find a pattern there.”

  “I’m no’ the man ye want for that. He’s got a terrible toothache in Carlisle.”

  “Even so.”

  Anricks went through the tale of Minister Burn as he knew it and added that Lady Widdrington probably knew a lot more.

  “Ay?” Dodd thought about it and had to agree that it was odd.

  “And last month he went out on a raid of some kind,” Anricks added with a sigh. “I wish I knew where he went.”