Carey grunted. There was nothing wrong with Bessie’s assessment of his situation, unfortunately. He had to remind himself that to a Borderer, a broken man was simply a man without a master. He didn’t like the sound of it; he had always thought of himself as the Queen’s man first, and the Earl of Essex’s second. But it was true at the moment: if Scrope took his office away, that was what he would be—broken.
‘How did you do with your enquiries, Sergeant?’ he asked. ‘Did Bessie see him in here last night?’
‘I only just got here,’ said Dodd mournfully, swallowing his last piece of cheese. ‘Ye can but ask. Hey, Nancy?’
Nancy put a wooden platter in front of Carey with the heel of a loaf and some cheese on it, with a couple of pickled onions rolling about beside the little crock of butter.
‘Ay, what is it, Sergeant Dodd?’
Carey pulled out his eating knife and started engulfing the food. He wondered privately why Sergeant Dodd could not simply do as he had been told. What had he been doing all morning if he had only just got here?
‘Did ye see Barnabus in here last night?’
She sniffed and tossed her head. ‘I did. He was here all evening playing dice.’
‘Where did he go when you closed?’
‘Out the door with the rest of them.’
‘Do you know where he was headed?’
‘It’s none o’ my affair. Now if you’ll excuse me, sir, we’re that busy…’
‘Thank you, Goodwife.’
Dodd and Will the Tod exchanged glances.
‘Ah know how ye can solve yer troubles, Deputy,’ said Will the Tod as he finished his second quart.
‘How?’
‘Find Solomon the gateguard and get him to say he saw Barnabus coming in for the night.’
‘Barnabus says he was at Madame Hetherington’s.’
Will the Tod guffawed. ‘Ye could speak to the women, I suppose,’ he said. ‘For a’ the good that’ll do ye.’
‘No doubt they’ll lie,’ said Dodd.
Carey looked at him properly for the first time. Dodd’s long dour face was always hard to read, but at the moment he looked happy. That meant he was uncommonly pleased with himself.
‘What have you been doing, Sergeant?’ he asked. ‘Before you came here, I mean.’
Dodd sniffed. ‘I was looking for Simon Barnet.’
Simon Barnet was Barnabus’s nephew and was supposed to help Barnabus look after his master. In fact, Carey had been seeing less and less of him as he was sucked into the gang of boys that hung around the Castle, nominally working in the stables and kitchens. His speech had changed with lightning speed until now Barnabus often complained he couldn’t understand the lad at all.
‘Why?’ asked Carey.
Dodd gave another sniff and drank some more beer. He looked as if he was having one of his perennial internal struggles. At about thirty two years Dodd was the same age as Carey himself, although he looked older, and he had spent most of that time hiding a surprising intelligence. Whatever was going on under the miserable carapace would decide whether Dodd grunted something noncommittal or whether he actually explained what he was up to. Carey had already learned from experience not to interfere with his thought processes, and so he waited as patiently as he could.
‘Ye see, sir,’ Dodd began, ‘Begging your pardon, but I didna think what Barnabus was at last night was so important.’
Carey didn’t like being told his orders were unimportant but he kept his mouth shut.
‘Ye see,’ Dodd said again, staring at the lees in his mug. ‘I thought it stood to reason, if he’d had a good alibi for last night he would have said so to us. And he’d have said so earlier, and not even Lowther would have put him in the dungeon.’
‘Go on.’
‘So he hadnae got none or couldnae remember. So then I thought of what your lady sister said and I wondered, sir.’
‘What Philadelphia said?’
‘Ay sir. Lady Scrope.’
Carey tried to remember. Come to think of it, there had been something…
‘She said they found Barnabus’s dagger and one of my gloves by the corpse.’
‘Ay, sir. That was it. So that set me to wondering. How they got the dagger—well, if Barnabus was at Madam Hetherington’s it’s no mystery, but how did the murderer lay hands on one o’ your gloves?’
Carey laughed. ‘By God, how did I miss that? Excellent, Dodd, of course.’
‘Ay,’ said Dodd smugly, ‘So I said, the one to ask is Simon Barnet. But I havena found him.’
‘Damn.’
‘No bother, sir; the lads are in town now and I’ve set them to searching for him. He’ll turn up. And then,’ Dodd said ominously, ‘we’ll ask him.’
They had finished eating by the time Bangtail Graham and Red Sandy Dodd arrived, looking about for them. Red Sandy went straight up to Carey and handed him a piece of paper. Carey looked at it with awful foreboding; it was an official-looking letter sealed by Scrope’s signet ring. He put it down by his trencher and finished his beer, his heart beating hard. The seal was in the nature of a Rubicon: once opened…He thought about it.
‘Now why would the Warden do that?’ asked Will the Tod’s voice, fascinated.
‘Hm?’ Carey asked.
‘Send for ye by letter? He only has to tell Red Sandy to tell ye…’
‘Och,’ said Dodd. ‘It’s quite friendly, really.’
Carey had worked it out but was a little surprised that Dodd had.
‘See,’ explained Dodd patronisingly to his father in law. ‘If he’s made a warrant out for Sir Robert, an’ he tells him by letter, he’s covered but Sir Robert can still…er…get away and no one the wiser. Or not, as he chooses.’
‘Trouble is,’ Carey said, putting his tankard down again with a decisive tap, ‘where the hell would I go?’
‘The Netherlands?’ suggested Will the Tod, with all the impersonal ingenuity of one who was quite secure in his position. ‘There’s always room for right fighting men there.’
The Netherlands were fast becoming a sink hole for the unemployable young gentlemen of Europe. All of them went in the hope of sacking a town and making a fortune; most of them died within six months of fever, wounds or, occasionally, starvation.
‘Or Ireland?’ put in Dodd with ghoulish interest.
Carey shuddered slightly. He had heard descriptions of that particular hellhole from Sir Walter Raleigh, one of those unfortunate enough to have served there, of malarial bogs and half-savage but extremely intelligent and ferocious Wild Irish.
‘Not if I can help it,’ he said to the both of them as he picked up the letter and used his eating knife to break the seal.
Aggravatingly, Scrope had not seen fit to be clear when he wrote. All it said was, ‘Sir Robert, I require to speak to you immediately. Please come up to the Keep at your earliest convenience.’
Carey sighed. The only possible indication was the signature, which was Thomas, Lord Scrope. If a warrant had already been issued, it would more likely have been Lord Scrope, Warden. However, there was no question but that he was right about its meaning.
He stood up and took his morion. The bloody thing was more of a nuisance than his jack, whose weight he hardly noticed any more. But the helmet weighed several pounds and was too expensive to lose.
‘Where are ye going, sir?’ asked Dodd.
‘Up to the Castle,’ Carey answered, putting his helmet on.
Dodd gave a dour nod. ‘I’ll keep asking for ye,’ he said as if it were a foregone conclusion that Carey would end up in the Lickingstone cell next to Barnabus.
Red Sandy came with him, not precisely as an escort, more likely out of nosiness.
‘Will ye be taking the patrol tonight, sir?’ he asked.
Carey had forgotten all about it and looked up at the sky. It was promising rain.
‘I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’
‘Ay,’ said Red Sandy happily. ‘Who d’ye thi
nk killed Atkinson, then?’
‘I don’t know.’ Carey looked curiously at Red Sandy, who was Dodd’s younger brother but took life much less seriously. ‘You’re the first man who hasn’t asked me whether I’m sure I didn’t do it.’
‘Ay sir,’ said Red Sandy. ‘See, I wouldna say ye wouldnae do it, sir, of course not, but by my thinking ye’d ha’ done it better.’
‘Thank you, Red Sandy.’
‘H’hm. Your usual hobby’s in the stables by the way, sir, wi’ his tack on. In case ye’ll be needing him for…for patrol, sir.’
Carey nodded. It was very touching really, their consideration for him. And it gave an insight into the Borderers. Carey had spotted Dodd’s intelligence, but had thought Red Sandy the same as any others of the garrison, much better at fighting than thinking. But there it was: he must have tacked up the hobby himself as soon as Scrope gave him the letter, which suggested he understood its meaning too. Given their intelligence, why on earth did so many of them spend most of their time raiding and killing each other?
Tuesday 4th July 1592, early afternoon
Scrope and Lowther were waiting for him in the sitting room on the top floor of the Keep that Scrope was also using as his office, where Carey had first met both Dodd and Lowther. As Carey put his hand to the axemarked door, he heard Lowther’s voice growling dubiously, ‘He’ll never come.’
That was enough to make him pause. Carey eavesdropped shamelessly, having learnt the skill at Court and been grateful for it on several occasions.
‘I don’t know, Sir Richard,’ came Scrope’s reedy voice. ‘I hear what you say, but I still don’t believe it.’
‘What more do you need, my lord?’
‘I admit, the evidence is…er…damning, but you see, you’ve ignored one very important factor.’
‘Which is?’
‘Character. It doesn’t make any sense, you see. I know the Careys. I can’t claim to know Sir Robert as well as I know my lady wife, but…er…nothing I’ve seen from him since he got here has changed my mind.’
This was fascinating. Carey held his breath, wondering what would come next. Lowther grumbled something inaudible.
‘Of course, I understand your point of view, Sir Richard, but even so…They’re all extremely arrogant, of course, despite being upstarts. The cousinship with the Queen is the reason for their prominence, that and…er…my Lord Hunsdon’s paternity.’
‘I heard there was a bastardy in there somewhere,’ said Lowther who was obviously not well up on Court gossip.
‘Ah, well,’ said Scrope. Being of an ancient family himself, he found lineage in men, horses or hounds deeply interesting. ‘Y’ see, Mary Boleyn, Lord Hunsdon’s mother, was Anne Boleyn’s older sister and thus Her Majesty’s aunt.’
‘Ay,’ said Lowther. ‘He’s her cousin. I know that.’
‘But also…’ said Scrope’s voice, rising with extra scholarly interest, ‘Mary Boleyn was King Henry VIII’s official mistress before Anne Boleyn…er…came to Court. She was married off to William Carey in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Oh ay?’ said Lowther, catching the implication.
‘Yes,’ said Scrope gleefully. ‘And she called her first son, her rather…er…premature first son, Henry. And the King let her. You see? You’ve never met Carey’s father, then?’
‘I have,’ said Lowther. ‘Twenty years ago at the Rising of the Northern Earls. But he was a younger man. Loud, I recall, and a bonny fighter too, the way he did for Lord Dacre.’
‘The resemblance to his…er…natural father has become more marked as he got older,’ agreed Scrope. ‘But you can see the Tudor blood coming out in my Lord Hunsdon’s sons, and indeed in Sir Robert—arrogance, vanity, impatience and terrible tempers—but generally speaking they do not arrange for their servants to cut the throats of functionaries. It isn’t their…style.’
Carey, who had been listening with rising irritation to this catalogue, nodded sourly. He supposed there was a little truth in it; he knew well enough he had a short temper, after all. He wasn’t arrogant, though. Look at the way he had helped Dodd with his haymaking. As for vanity—what the Devil did Scrope think he was on about? Just because Carey knew the importance of a smart turnout and Scrope looked like an expensive haystack…
Lowther was saying something dubious about there being a villain in every family.
‘True, true,’ said Scrope. ‘But although I wouldn’t put multiple murder in some berserk rage past Sir Robert, I would put backstreet assassination.’
Carey decided he had heard enough. Berserk rage, indeed! He went down the stairs quietly and came up them again, gave a cough as he did so and pushed the door open.
Lowther had one fist on his hip and the other on his sword hilt, with a scowl on his face as threatening as the sky outside. Scrope was also wearing a sword and his velvet official gown and pompous anxiety in every bony inch of him.
If he hadn’t been listening to Scrope’s opinion of his faults, Carey would have felt sorry for the man. As it was, he had decided that there was no point shilly-shallying; it would only confuse the overbred nitwit. He advanced on Lord Scrope who was behind a table he used as a spare desk, undoing his sword belt as he came. Then he bowed deeply and laid it with a clatter of buckles on the table in front of the Warden.
‘I assume I am under arrest, my lord,’ he said quietly, and waited.
Lowther snorted, and Scrope looked down at Carey’s new sword with alarm. It had only been properly blooded that morning, Carey thought, a hundred years ago or so. Scrope would know nothing about that, of course.
‘Well…er…not so fast, Sir Robert,’ faltered Scrope. ‘I…er… must ask you some questions, but…er…’
‘My servant is in the Castle dungeon on a charge of murder,’ Carey interrupted. ‘I understand from him and…others…that I am suspected of ordering him to kill Mr Atkinson.’
‘You deny it, of course,’ scoffed Lowther.
Carey looked at him. ‘Of course,’ he said evenly.
Scrope sat down behind the table, but did not invite Carey to be seated. ‘If you don’t mind, Sir Robert,’ he said, ‘I must ask you to account for your actions since yesterday afternoon.’
With an effort Carey thought back. He told the story baldly. He had learned from a good source of a large Graham raid out of Netherby, threatening Archibald Bell and also Lady Widdrington who would be vulnerable on the Stanegate road.
‘I take it that Mick the Crow is still in the Gatehouse gaol,’ Carey commented at this point. ‘I put him there because he wouldn’t tell me the name of the man that sent the letter to Wattie.’
Lowther’s heavy face was unmoved.
‘He’s not there now.’
‘Did you release him, Sir Richard?’ asked Carey innocently.
‘Ay, I did. There was no charge and no need to keep him when he’s wanted at home for haymaking.’
‘There was a charge. It was a charge of March treason for bringing in raiders.’
‘Pah,’ said Sir Richard. ‘He’d done nothing; I let him go.’
‘Do continue,’ said Scrope.
As a younger man, Carey would have argued about this but now he only gave Sir Richard a hard stare before telling how he had asked to borrow Lowther’s patrol and had done so.
‘Speaking of which, ye offered me my note of debt back, did ye not?’ said Lowther offensively.
Silently Carey took the paper out of his belt pouch and handed it over. It was no loss, he reflected, since it was very unlikely Lowther was the kind who worried overmuch about paying his gambling debts. Lowther took it, squinted at it and tore it in pieces.
‘Ye said you knew where to find some of King James’s horses,’ he accused. ‘Well, did ye find ‘em?’
‘No,’ admitted Carey. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Hah,’ said Lowther, rather theatrically, Carey thought.
‘Go on,’ put in Scrope.
‘I’m fairly sure the horses were there, my lord,’ h
e added. ‘But obviously the people holding them got word I was on my way and hid them.’
It suddenly struck him how that could have happened and he mentally cursed himself for a fool as he continued, ‘I didn’t want to take Lowther’s men into a fight against the Grahams…’
‘And why not?’ Lowther had the infernal impudence to demand.
‘Because, Sir Richard, I didn’t trust them,’ Carey said as insolently as he dared. Lowther’s bushy eyebrows were already almost meeting; he couldn’t scowl any more deeply. ‘So I went to my own Sergeant Dodd at Gilsland and he helped me call out the Bells and Musgraves. With their help, we met Wattie Graham and Skinabake Armstrong at the Irthing ford early this morning and put them to flight.’
‘Well done,’ said Scrope. ‘It seems you have had a busy time of it.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Doesna mean nothing,’ said Lowther. ‘It only shows he was anxious to be out of Carlisle last night. He could have given his order any time in the past week.’
Carey was itching to punch the evil old bastard, but he kept reminding himself that this was no time to lose his temper. He had had a swordmaster once, a big dark heavy man with wonderful lightness of foot, who deliberately goaded him into a fury, then disarmed him and knocked him on his arse in the mud to demonstrate how temper could undo him. Occasionally he remembered the lesson in time.
‘On what evidence, Sir Richard, do you base your accusations?’ he demanded, hearing his voice brittle with the effort not to shout.
‘On the evidence of a knife owned by your servant and a glove owned by yerself that I found by the body.’
‘How frightfully convenient for you,’ Carey drawled. ‘Did you have much trouble stealing one of my gloves?’
‘Are you suggesting that I put them there?’ roared Lowther, the veins standing out on his neck.
‘Really, Sir Robert…’ began Scrope.
‘With respect, my lord,’ Carey said through his teeth, ‘I’m sorry to find you have such a low opinion of my intelligence.’
‘How dare ye, sir? I never was so insulted in all my…’
2 A Season of Knives Page 13