2 A Season of Knives

by P. F. Chisholm

  Scrope sighed happily and turned a beaming face to him.

  ‘Splendid. What it must be to be able to sing…’

  The music had worked some of its accustomed magic; Carey smiled back and dug in the box of music.

  ‘You’re sure it wasn’t Lowther?’ he said, still sounding puzzled.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Scrope. ‘For the same reason I was sure it wasn’t you either. Character.’

  ‘Character?’

  ‘I loathe the man as much as you do and I don’t doubt you’re right that he sent Mick to bring in the Grahams and lift Lady Widdrington. That’s much more his style. In any case, why duplicate his effort? Presumably he wanted Lady Widdrington kidnapped so as to lure you into some kind of trap.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, then, what’s the point of it if you’re in irons for Atkinson’s murder and can’t risk and break your neck trying to rescue her?’

  Carey sighed. That was certainly logical, blast it. So now he had three suspects in gaol and not one of them the right person. He turned back to the sheet music and finally found what he had been looking for.

  ‘This is the one the Queen likes.’ He set the music before Scrope.

  ‘Good lord, this is new.’

  ‘All the rage at Court, my lord,’ murmured Carey.

  Scrope was running through the music, first right hand, then left hand, then both together.

  ‘Here you go, two and one.’

  Carey sang the Latin voice part to the end, knowing it quite well. Scrope turned the page, blinked hard at the close-tangled black notes, and carried straight on sight-reading, humming to himself and tapping his foot. It was a delicate pastoral piece, the kind of thing the Queen always liked to play. Carey sat down in Scrope’s carved chair to listen until Philadelphia returned again. Despite the somnolence brought on by a heavy meal and the end of the day he was in no hurry to return to his bedchamber, the absence of Barnabus’s snores and the ridiculously short truckle bed to which Buttercup and her family had relegated him. If he closed his eyes he could imagine an Arcadia of shepherds, shepherdesses and Elizabeth Widdrington, as constant in his phantasy as the Queen at Court, and quite as formidable, despite being generally mother-naked in the Greek style. He smiled a little.

  ‘Oh, look at him,’ said Philadelphia when she returned at last, leaning over her sleeping brother. ‘Poor thing.’

  Scrope was lost in the lands of music and only said ‘Eh?’, before carrying on with a complex variation on the notes before him. Philadelphia called John Ogle and his eldest lad. They carried Carey to the guest chamber where Scrope’s own bodyservant, Humphrey Rumney, undressed him and put him to bed to the complex strains from the nearby dining room, and through it all Carey smiled.

  Thursday 6th July 1592, before dawn

  Carey awoke with that feeling of dislocation that comes from sleeping in a different bed than the one expected. At least it was just long enough for him. The curtains drawn around his bed were half-open and the darkness had that faint pearly greyness of false dawn. For a few seconds he blinked and picked his way through fragments of dream and memory. There was snoring in the room, as usual coming from a truckle bed by the door, though on a subtly different note from Barnabus. No, he was not in fact in bed with a woman; unfortunately he was alone. For a moment he dwelled on his unnatural and pitiable womanless state; in Carey’s opinion, if God had meant men to live without women, He wouldn’t have created Eve.

  But Court music was still flowing through his memory. Oh yes. He had been listening to Scrope’s playing the night before and had dozed off; they must have put him to bed. Had he been drunk? No, his memories of the evening were too clear; he had simply been tired.

  Memory filtered back. At the forefront of them all was Philadelphia’s reminder of Walsingham’s question: who benefits? If not Lowther, if not Kate Atkinson, who actually benefited from Jemmy Atkinson’s very bloody death?

  The answer had come to him from God while he slept: it lay in the fact that by English law, all the murderer’s property went to the victim’s family. Underneath all the complications, that was a simple beacon. Andy Nixon couldn’t have benefited simply because it was so likely he would be accused; as Philly had said, that went double for Mrs Atkinson who was not at all martyr material. No, he was actually looking at an attempt at double or even triple murder, with himself intended as the murder weapon.

  He flung back the sheets and counterpane and jumped out of bed. Energy filled him; he loved this time of day and he was impatient to do what he should have done from the start. He knew where he was now, mentally and physically: who could mistake the virulent dragon and St. George on the tapestry hangings, and the strangely shaped pointy-hatted women of the last century? He wondered why Philadelphia had not sent for some better hangings from London for her guest chamber, as he used the chamber pot under the bed, found the tinderbox to light a taper, and looked about for his clothes.

  In the truckle bed he found Simon Barnet, lying on his back and imitating his noisy uncle.

  ‘Quicker if I dress myself,’ said Carey, passed his hand over his chin and decided to shave now. He doubted he would have the time to go to the barber’s later and he certainly didn’t trust Simon with a razor yet. On the other hand he needed hot water.

  He shook the truckle bed vigorously until Simon sat up on his elbow and blinked at him.

  ‘Wha’?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Good morning,’ Carey said brightly. ‘Run and fetch me a pitcher of hot water to shave with and something to eat and drink, there’s a good lad, Simon.’

  Simon swung his legs over the side of the truckle bed and rubbed his eyes. Like most of the boys in the Castle he hardly ever bothered to take his clothes off. ‘Yessir,’ he muttered, got up, swayed, hauled his boots on and shambled out of the door.

  ‘I said run,’ Carey called after him reproachfully. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Urrh,’ sighed Simon and speeded to a tottering trot.

  One of the boys from the kitchen eventually turned up with a pitcher of hot water, saying Simon was on his way. Stuffing his face again, Carey thought, as he worked the soap into a lather and nipped through to Scrope’s chamber to borrow his razor; I’ll have to get him new livery soon, the rate he’s growing. It was a lot of trouble shaving himself, but life at Court had ingrained it into him that he couldn’t appear in any official capacity with a chin covered in stubble. And he couldn’t regrow his beard until the black dye in his hair had finished growing out, which he hadn’t thought of when he did it. The Scropes were still fast asleep, along with their respective maid and manservant, their bedchamber a choir of snores. Amazing how people wasted the best part of the day lying in their beds.

  Half an hour later he was in his green velvet suit and shrugging the shoulder strap of his swordbelt over his arm. As usual, Simon Barnet was taking three times as long as Barnabus to do a perfectly simple job and Carey soon got tired of waiting for him. He put his hat on, crept through the intervening chamber and his sister and brother-in-law’s bedroom, and clattered down the stairs of the Keep. Nobody was stirring in the hall, where most of the servants still slept wrapped in their cloaks, on benches or in the rushes, and out into the cold morning air. There wasn’t anybody about so Carey went across to the Keep gate and had a quick word with Solomon Musgrave. Then he went to his chambers in the Queen Mary Tower, greeted Buttercup, lit a candle and did some hurried paperwork. Finally he went to the new barracks, and knocked on the door of Sergeant Dodd’s little chamber next to the harness room.

  It took a while but eventually there were thumping sounds inside and Dodd opened the door in his shirt and hose, with his helmet in one hand and his sword in the other.

  ‘What the hell is it…?’ he demanded. ‘Och, sorry, sir. Is there a raid?’

  ‘Er…no, Sergeant,’ said Carey, trying not to look past his shoulder at where Janet Dodd lay in the rumpled little bed. ‘Only we have a lot to do and not much time to do
it in.’

  ‘Oh. Ah,’ said Dodd, slowly catching up with this. ‘There’s no raid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Och God, it’s still the middle of the night, sir; it’s…’

  ‘Dodd,’ said Carey patiently, wondering what on earth was the matter with the man. ‘It’s a couple of hours before dawn and I want to start rounding up witnesses for the inquest, so I’d be grateful if you would get yourself dressed and come and help me.’

  Dodd leaned his sword against the wall and then put his hand across his eyes and moaned like a cow in calf.

  ‘Ay sir,’ he said heavily at last. ‘I’ll be wi’ ye.’

  Dodd yawned and shut the door. Carey went outside the barracks building and stood in the yard, mentally making lists. Janet came out still lacing her kirtle and hurried past him with an amused expression on her face.

  ‘Have they opened the buttery yet, do ye know sir?’ she asked him.

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Dodd.’

  ‘Och,’ she shook her head and hurried on.

  By the time Dodd was ready, the stable boys were beginning to stir although the gate wasn’t due to open for an hour yet. Solomon Musgrave opened the postern gate for them and Carey and Dodd went down past the trees and into Carlisle town. There were a few lights lit in the windows and a night-soil wagon clattered slowly down Castlegate ahead of them, while two men with shovels picked up the least unpleasant piles of manure and tossed them in the back.

  ‘Now,’ said Carey. ‘Firstly, what did you find out last night, Sergeant?’

  Dodd blinked and rubbed his eyes. ‘Ay,’ he said with great effort. ‘Er…well, after I found Michael Kerr, I spoke to the men working on the roof by the Atkinsons’ house and asked if any of them had seen aught, and the foreman said they hadnae but they had found a bloody knife stuck deep in the new thatch and they were going to give it to the master.’

  ‘To John Leigh?’

  ‘Ay. So any road, I got them to give it to me and it’s in my room now.’

  ‘Excellent, Sergeant, well done. Anything else?’

  There were a few women moving about the streets, maidservants who didn’t live-in going to their work.

  ‘Ah…Janet went to speak to Julia Coldale again, but got nothing but cheek from the girl, so she came away. None o’ Mrs Atkinson’s gossips saw aught; it was too early in the morning and they were too busy. Janet says none of them save Mrs Leigh thinks Kate Atkinson did the murder. Maggie Mulcaster was wanting to know was there anything they could gi’ ye to persuade ye to leave it.’

  Carey sighed. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she didnae think so and besides ye’re a courtier and verra expensive, but in any case she thought ye had enough sense to see she didnae do it, but it was a case of convincing the jury and ye hadnae set that up, Lowther had.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. Though Lowther still thinks it was Barnabus. Anything else?’

  ‘Then we went to Bessie’s to see if anybody there had heard anything, but they hadnae except that Pennycook’s left town and gone back to Scotland.’

  ‘Very wise of him,’ said Carey. ‘And that was it?’

  ‘Ay sir,’ Dodd saw no reason to fill Carey’s enquiring pause with the details of their evening in Bessie’s. ‘Janet says she thinks ye should arrest young Julia and frighten her into…’

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Carey softly. ‘Look there.’

  It was hard to miss the girl’s wonderful fall of hair, even under her hat, as she walked quickly down the street ahead of them. Carey put his arm out to stop Dodd and then followed her cautiously. The girl went to the door of the Leighs’ house and knocked softly. The door opened at once and she stepped in.

  ‘What’s she up to?’ Carey said to himself, walking about under the spidery growth of poles and planks on the Leighs’ house. The workmen had pulled up all their ladders when they left the night before. Carey whistled very softly between his teeth.

  ‘Right, Dodd,’ he said. ‘Give me a leg up.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Give me a boost. I want to get up the scaffolding.’ He was already unbuckling his sword.

  Dodd sighed, bent his knee next to one of the poles and Carey climbed from knee to shoulder, to an accompaniment of complaint from Dodd, caught the horizontal pole of the first platform and heaved himself up.

  Carey’s legs were kicking, so Dodd backed off a bit. It was the Courtier’s padded Venetian hose that were causing the trouble; they had caught on the edge of one of the planks. No doubt they were well enough for a life spent parading in front of the Queen, though Dodd with sour pleasure.

  At last Carey was onto the first platform, a bit breathless. He let down one of the ladders and Dodd climbed up after him, bringing the sword belt, then he pulled the ladder back up to use it for getting to the second platform. Once there, Carey went to the boundary with the Atkinsons’ house and called Dodd over. He nodded at the place where Carey was pointing.

  ‘Ay,’ he said, suppressing a feeling of sickness at being so high over the street. ‘I was wondering about them marks.’

  Carey went along the platform again. ‘Where did they find the knife?’

  ‘Just about here, sir.’

  ‘Right. Help me make a hole.’

  ‘But sir…’

  ‘Don’t argue, Sergeant. I don’t need a warrant.’

  ‘But they just had the roof done, sir.’

  ‘So they did, Sergeant.’

  Carey had drawn his poignard and was digging away among the rushes. Reluctantly Dodd took out his own knife and helped. The hole was rather large when the Courtier finally hissed softly through his teeth and started pulling something from the thatch.

  It was a man’s linen shirt, crackling and stiff with brown crumbling stains.

  ‘Och,’ said Dodd and then. ‘The silly bastard.’

  Carey looked at him quizzically and gave him the shirt.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Should ha’ burned it, that’s why. What’s he want tae keep it for?’

  ‘Couldn’t bring himself to waste a shirt. Or was going to but hasn’t had the chance yet.’

  Dodd shook his head. Carey led the way back along the platform and started down the ladder, but Dodd stopped by the small window and peered in between the shutter slats.

  ‘Sir,’ he said softly. ‘Come and look at this.’

  Carey came back, peered between the shutters as well. It was hard to be sure in the half-light, but there were two people standing in the little room. One was John Leigh, the other the girl with long red curls. They were murmuring too low for Carey to hear. The girl shrugged and spoke sharply. John Leigh nodded and held out what looked like a heavy purse. The girl reached to take it and in that moment, John Leigh dropped the purse, grabbed her wrist and hit her hard on the jaw. She reeled back and slumped. Then John Leigh was on her with his hands round her neck, silently squeezing the life out of her.

  Dodd’s mouth was open. Carey stepped back, lifted his boot and kicked the shutters hard, kicked again. Dodd remembered something, left him to it, and slid down the ladder to the next level.

  It was a horrible shock to John Leigh when a boot suddenly started splintering the wood of his window shutters and then burst apart the lead flushings of the expensive little diamond window panes.

  Foolishly he let go of Julia Coldale’s neck, and started back, staring wildly. The head and one shoulder of the Deputy Warden shoved through the tattered window, causing glass to fall and shine in the rushes.

  ‘Get away from that girl,’ ordered Carey.

  He can’t get through the window, thought John Leigh; it’s too small for him. Without really thinking things through, he reached for Julia Coldale again. There was a loud hammering downstairs. She was making crowing noises and blindly trying to crawl away from him; he grabbed her shoulder, pushed her back, clipped her jaw again and started strangling her once more. Something hard hit his ear painfully, drawing blood. He looked up, saw Carey
with two more diamond panes in his hand, taking aim to throw them at him, his dagger in his left hand. He did throw them, John Leigh ducked, but didn’t duck fast enough and was hit on the cheek. He let go of Julia to put his hand up to the cut and another piece of glass hit him on the forehead.

  There were footsteps on the stairs, but John Leigh had picked up his wife’s sewing table and was using it as a shield against the rain of missiles from Carey. The door was booted open and there stood Sergeant Dodd, breathing hard, a drawn sword in each hand.

  ‘Now,’ said Dodd sadly between pants. ‘Ye’d best do as the Deputy tells ye, Mr Leigh.’

  Leigh’s teeth showed like a cornered dog’s. He drew his own dagger, dropped the sewing table in a mess of pincushions and thread spools, and picked up Julia, turned her about so he could put his blade to her neck. Her legs weren’t supporting her and she didn’t look as if she was breathing.

  ‘Stay away, Dodd,’ he shouted wildly. ‘Or I’ll cut her throat.’

  Dodd stopped, partly because Julia Coldale was between him and Leigh and it was always hard to put a sword through two bodies at once. The girl made a loud snoring noise and then another, started coughing and gagging.

  ‘Matilda,’ roared John Leigh. ‘Matilda, come and help me. Matildaaa!’

  There was no answer. Dodd stood there, a sword in each hand and no way to use either of them while Leigh kept his knife to the girl’s neck.

  ‘Get back,’ whispered Leigh hoarsely. ‘Get back through the door.’

  ‘Now listen,’ said Dodd regretfully. ‘Ye canna make it work. We both saw ye trying to kill the girl an’ I dinna care why and nor does the Deputy. But ye willnae hang if ye dinna kill her, see, so why not let her go and save us all trouble and sweat?’