1 A Famine of Horses

by P. F. Chisholm

Dodd told him. It seemed Carey had heard something of Jock Graham’s reputation, for he was thoughtful.

  “When’s the inquest?”

  Dodd sighed at the reminder of things he hadn’t done yet. “I’ll try and fix it for tomorrow: there’s no question of the verdict.”

  “Any hint of the murderer?”

  Dodd shrugged. “Jock of the Peartree could likely tell you more about that. Who knows? Who cares?”

  Carey gave him an odd look. “I think murder is still against the law, isn’t it?”

  “Sweetmilk? He’s already had three bills fouled against him in his absence for murder in Scotland and he was just gone eighteen. Only the Jedburgh hangman will be sorry he’s dead.”

  “And Jock of the Peartree, no doubt.”

  “Oh the Grahams will be riding once they know who did it. We’ve no need to trouble ourselves about Sweetmilk’s killer once the inquest’s finished and Jock’s got the body.”

  “Why didn’t you give him to Jock when you met yesterday?”

  Dodd blinked. “Well sir, I wanted the fee and I didnae want to be facing a grieving Jock and fifteen Grahams with only six of my own behind me.”

  “Fair enough, Sergeant. I want a look at the place where you found the body—can you show me this afternoon?”

  “Ay sir, but…”

  “Excellent.” Carey urged his hobby up the cobbles to the castle gate and Dodd had to raise a canter to catch up with him again.

  “Sir…”

  “Yes, Sergeant. Oh I shall want to inspect the men at two hours before midday.”

  “Inspect the men?”

  “Yes. You and your six patrolmen. And I’d be grateful if you could put your heads together and make a list for me of any defensible men within ten miles of Carlisle who dislike Lowther and might come out to support me in a fight.”

  “But sir…”

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, where’s Sweetmilk’s body?”

  “You’ll find him, Sergeant.”

  Monday, 19th June, morning

  Having been given fair warning by Carey, Dodd mustered the men as soon as he rode into the castle, told them what would happen and further his reaction if they failed to show the Courtier how things were done properly on the border and his men scattered looking deeply worried.

  Paperwork for the inquest attended to and his temper a little improved by a morning bite of bread and cheese, Dodd checked his tack, his weapons and his armour, and after a nasty scene with his occasional servant, John Ogle’s boy, was in reasonable order by ten o’clock.

  Carey inspecting men and weapons was an interesting sight. At least it was quick. He had all six of the men stand in a row facing him in the castle courtyard. Then he walked up and down the line, smiling slightly. He picked out Archie Give-it-Them Musgrave, though how he already knew that Archie was the worst for his tackle among them Dodd had no idea. Archie sweated for a quarter of an hour while Carey painstakingly explained why his caliver would inevitably misfire because the pan was clogged, his lance-point needed new rivets, his sword had no edge and was rusty and his jack was a disgrace. Archie thought he had scored when Carey asked what the brown stain on his jack happened to be.

  “Armstrong blood, sir.”

  “How old?”

  Archie’s talents were not in his brain. “Sir?’

  “How old is the blood?”

  Archie mumbled. “I killed him in April.”

  The snotty git, thought Dodd, to pick on poor Archie. Carey nodded for Archie to go back to his position in the line. He then stood with his left hand on his rapier hilt and his right fist on his hip and looked at them thoughtfully.

  “Gentlemen,” said Carey at length, “I have served in France with the Huguenots, and under Lord Howard of Effingham against the Spanish Armada. I have served at several sieges, I have fought in a number of battles, though I admit most of them were against foreigners and Frenchmen and suchlike rabble. I have commanded men on divers occasions over the past five years and I swear by Almighty God that I have never seen such a pitiful sight as you.” He paused to let the insult sink in.

  “I was born in London but bred in Berwick,” he continued in tones of reproach. “When I took horse to come north, a southerner friend of mine laughed and said I should find your lances would be rotten, your swords rusted, your guns better used as clubs and your armour filthy. And I told him I would fight him if he insulted Borderers again, that I was as sure of finding right fighting men here as any place in England—no, surer—and I come and what do I find?” He took a deep breath and blew it out again, shook his head, mounted his horse without touching the stirrups and rode over to where Dodd sat slumped in his saddle, wishing he was in the Netherlands.

  “Sergeant, sit up,” said Carey very quietly. “I find your men are a bloody disgrace which is less their fault than yours. You shall mend it, Sergeant, by this time tomorrow.”

  He rode away, while Dodd wondered if it was worth thirty pounds to him to put his lance up Carey’s arse. He had still not found Graham’s body.

  Carey came by while they were waiting for the blacksmith to get his fire hot enough for riveting and beckoned Dodd over.

  “Who’s in charge of the armoury?”

  “Sir Richard Lowther…”

  “Who’s the armoury clerk?”

  “Jemmy Atkinson.”

  “Is he here?”

  Dodd laughed shortly and Carey looked grim. “As soon as you’ve finished, I want to roust out the armoury and see what sins we can find there.”

  Dodd’s mouth fell open. Sins? Sodom and Gomorrah came to mind, if he was talking about peculation in the armoury. “We’ll not have finished with your orders until this evening, sir,” he protested feebly.

  “I want to see if your longbows are as mildewed as the rest of your weapons, assuming you have any longbows. The rest can wait.”

  “But sir…”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “It’s locked.”

  “So it is, Sergeant.”

  The Lord Warden was there when they went to the armoury in a group, a little before dinnertime, walking up and down, winding his hands together and blinking worriedly at the Captain’s Gate.

  “Do you really think this is necessary…?” he began as Carey strode over with a crowbar under his arm, followed by his little London servant who was struggling with an odd-looking wooden frame.

  “Yes my lord,” said Carey briskly, inserting the crowbar in the lock.

  “But Sir Richard…”

  There was a cracking ugly noise as the lock broke and the door creaked open. Everyone peered inside.

  Carey was the first to move. He went straight to the racks of calivers and arquebuses. Those near the door were rusted solid. Those further from the door…Dodd winced as Carey pulled one down and threw it out into the bright sunlight.

  Bangtail whistled.

  “Well, Atkinson’s found a good woodcarver, that’s sure,” he said.

  More dummy weapons crashed onto the straw-covered cobbles, until there was a pile of them. They were beautifully made, carefully coloured with salts of iron and galls to look like metal. Occasionally Carey would grunt as he found another real weapon and put it on the rack nearest the door. Then he went to the gunpowder kegs and opened them, filled a pouch from each, and brought out the least filthy arquebus.

  “Please note, gentlemen,” he said taking a satchel from his perspiring servant, “this is the right way to clean an arquebus so it may be fired.”

  By the time he had done scraping and brushing and oiling, there was an audience gathered round of most of the men of the garrison. Behind him the Carlisle locksmith was working to replace the lock he had broken.

  Carey made neat little piles of gunpowder on the ground and called for slowmatch. The boy he had brought with him came running up with a lighted coil. He blew on it and put it to the first pile, which burned sullenly.

  “Sawdust,” said Carey.

  In s
ilence he went down the row of little mounds with his slowmatch. Lord Scrope had his hand over his mouth and was staring like a man at a nest of vipers in his bed. The last pile of gunpowder sputtered and popped grudgingly.

  “Hm. Sloppy,” said Carey sarcastically, “they must have missed this barrel.”

  He loaded the arquebus with a half-charge, tamped down a paper wad and used his own fine-grain powder to put in the pan. He then fastened the arquebus carefully on the frame his servant had brought, aimed at the sky, and stepped back.

  “Why…?” began Scrope.

  “In Berwick my brother had two men with their hands and faces blown to rags after their guns exploded,” said Carey. The audience immediately moved out of range.

  He leaned over to put the fire to the pan, jumped away. The good powder in the pan fizzed and the arquebus fired after a fashion. It did not exactly explode; only the barrel cracked. There was a sigh from the audience.

  “What the devil is the meaning of this?” roared a voice from the rear of the crowd.

  Carey folded his arms and waited as Lowther shouldered his way through, red-faced.

  “How dare you, sir, how dare you interfere with my…”

  His voice died away as he saw the pile of dummy weapons and the still feebly smouldering mounds of black powder.

  “Your armoury?” enquired Carey politely.

  Lowther looked from him to the Lord Warden who was glaring back at him.

  “There is not one single defensible weapon in the place.” said Lord Scrope reproachfully, “Not one.’

  “Who gave him authority to…”

  “I did,” said Scrope. “He wanted to check on his men’s longbows as part of the preparations for my father’s funeral.”

  “I see no longbows.”

  “That’s because there are none,” put in Carey. “There’s some rotten firewood at the back, but the rest have been sold, no doubt.”

  Lowther looked about him. Most of the men in the crowd were grinning; Dodd himself was hard put to it to stay stony-faced and the women at the back were whispering and giggling.

  “Where’s Mr Atkinson?” he asked at last.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Carey, “I was hoping you could enlighten us.”

  Lowther said nothing and Carey turned away to speak to the locksmith.

  “Finished?”

  “Ay sir,” said the Locksmith with pride, “I did it just like yer honour said.”

  Ceremoniously Carey paid him, shut the door to the armoury and locked it, put the key on his belt and gave the other to Scrope.

  “Where’s mine?” demanded Lowther.

  The Carey eyebrows would have driven Dodd wild if he’d been Lowther, they were so expressive.

  “The Deputy Warden keeps the key to the armoury,” he said blandly, “along with the Warden. Though it hardly seems necessary to lock the place, seeing as there’s nothing left to steal.”

  Lowther turned on his heel and marched away. Most of the crowd heard the rumbling in their bellies and followed. Bangtail Graham and Red Sandy were talking together and Dodd joined them as Carey came towards him.

  “How far is it to where you found the body?” Carey asked.

  Dodd thought for a moment. “About six miles to the Esk and then another two, maybe.”

  “That’s Solway field, isn’t it, where the battle was?”

  “You come on old skulls and helmets now and then,” Dodd allowed. “It’s aye rough ground.”

  “We’ll go tomorrow then, when we’re more respectable, after the inquest.”

  “Ay sir.”

  “And now, while we’re at the whited sepulchres, shall we have a look at the stables and the barracks?”

  God, did the man never stop? Dodd’s belly was growling heroically.

  “Ay sir,” he said sullenly.

  Carey smiled. “After dinner.”

  At least the stables were clean, which was a mercy because Carey poked about in a way that Lowther never had, digging deep into feed bins, lifting hooves for signs of footrot, tutting at the miserable stocks of hay and oats which was all they had left and agreeing that the harness was old but in reasonably good condition.

  The barracks Carey pronounced as no worse than many he had seen and better than some. Even so, he had two of Scrope’s women servants come in with brooms to sweep the ancient rushes from Dodd’s section out into the courtyard so the jacks could be sponged and dried and oiled.

  When Dodd asked him why on earth he cared about the huswifery of the barracks he told a long story about the Netherlands, how the Dutch seldom got the plague and that he was convinced it was because they kept foul airs out of their houses by cleaning them. Dodd had never heard such a ridiculous story, since everyone knew that plague was the sword of God’s wrath, but he decided he could humour a man who would face down Richard Lowther so entertainingly.

  The wind helped them to dry off the cleaned jacks and weaponry, and they worked on through the long evening and by torchlight after sunset, while Carey wandered by occasionally, making helpful suggestions and supplying harness oil. He also went down to Carlisle town and bought six longbows and quivers of arrows with his own money, which he announced he would see tried the next day.

  At last, dog-tired, with sore hands, worrying over the Graham corpse which had not yet turned up, and beginning to hate Carey, Dodd went to his bed in the tiny chamber that was one of his perks as Sergeant. He would have to be up out of it again in about five hours, he knew.

  When he pulled back the curtain, he stopped. A less dour man would have howled at the waxy face with the star-shaped peck in the right cheek that glared up at him from his pillow, but Dodd had no more indignation left in him. He was simply glad to have found the damned thing, rolled it off onto the floor and was asleep three minutes later. At least the bastard Courtier had wrapped it in its cloak again.

  Monday, 19th June, evening

  Barnabus Cooke had seen his master in action in a new command before and so knew what to expect. By dint of making up to Goodwife Biltock, the only other southerner in the place, he had found an ancient desk in one of the storerooms, and acquired it. After cleaning and polishing and eviction of mice it went into Carey’s second chamber in the Queen Mary Tower, followed by a high stool and a rickety little table. Richard Bell, Scrope’s nervous elderly clerk, was astonished when he was asked for paper, pens and ink and had none to spare. In the end they made an expedition to the one stationer in town, where they bought paper and ink and some uncut goose feathers on credit.

  By evening the pens had been cured in sandbaths and cut by Bell the way Carey liked them, the floor of his bedroom had been swept again and was newly strewn with fresh rushes. They had decided to sell the mildewed bedcurtains and stained counterpane. Goodwife Biltock brought wormwood and rue to try and clear the place of fleas, but she said there was nothing really to be done about them, other than burning the place out and putting new woodwork in. She brought a large quilt and some of Scrope’s hangings to replace the old curtains and announced that Lady Scrope had begun work on a completely new set for her brother. Next on Barnabus’s mental list was a fresh palliasse for him and Simon and an uncracked jordan to go under the bed, but that could wait.

  Barnabus had lit the rushlights and the fire and was just unpacking the second chest they had brought when Carey walked in and stopped. His face lit up.

  “Barnabus, this is splendid. Thank God I can trust at least one of my men.”

  Barnabus snorted and elaborately examined a shoulder seam that seemed on the point of parting. Carey got the message.

  “How can I thank you?” he asked warily.

  “You can pay me my back wages, sir.”

  “God’s blood, Barnabus, you know what…”

  “I know the third chest is heavy, sir,” said Barnabus. “And I know you had an argument with my Lord Hunsdon before you left London.”

  “Aren’t you afraid your savings might be stolen in this nest of thieves?”
<
br />   “If I had any, I might be, sir. But there’s a goldsmith in the town will give me a good rate on it and I know what you plan for tomorrow so if I might make so bold and strike while the iron’s hot, as it were, I’d rather have what I’m owed now than wait another year…”

  Carey winced. “I still owe the tailors…”

  “…far more money than you can pay, sir,” said Barnabus, putting down the cramoisie doublet and picking up the new black velvet one. “However they’re in London and…”

  “…and you’re here and can make my life miserable.”

  “Yes sir,” said Barnabus blandly. “That’s about the size of it.”

  Carey made a face, took his sword off, leaned it against the wall and went to the third chest. He opened it, scattered shirts and hose until it was empty, and then released the false bottom. Barnabus stared at the money with the blood draining from his face.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Thirty-eight pounds, ten shillings and fourpence, including the money I lent you last month,” Barnabus answered mechanically, still hypnotised by the gold and silver in front of him.

  Carey counted the cash out, and handed it over.

  “Wh…where did you get it all from, sir?”

  “I robbed a goldsmith on Cheapside.”

  Although he was fully capable of it, if necessary, Barnabus didn’t find this funny. “Lord Hunsdon…”

  “My father gave me some but the Queen gave me the rest and if I lose it, she’ll put me in the Tower. It’s a loan, anyway,” said Carey sadly, ‘and it took an hour of flattery to stop her charging me interest. So for God’s sake, keep your mouth shut, Barnabus. If somebody robs me before I can use it and I go into the Tower, you’re going into Little Ease and staying there.”

  “Never, sir,” said Barnabus, recovering a bit now Carey had put the false bottom back in the chest. “I’d be in Scotland, you know that.”

  Carey said “Ha!”, went back to the desk and sat down. “They’d rob you blind and send you back naked, that’s what I know. Now then, my lord Scrope will be here in a little while when he’s had supper with some of the arrangements for the old Lord’s funeral which he wants me to organise. Any chance of a bite…”