1 A Famine of Horses

by P. F. Chisholm

  Janet grinned at him. “I’ll keep it to meself if you will.”

  Tuesday, 20th June, morning

  The inquest, such as it was, took half an hour. Scrope sat in his capacity as Warden at the courtroom in the town hall; Bangtail came forward, identified himself as Cuthbert Graham, known as Bangtail, identified the corpse as his second cousin by marriage George Graham, known as Sweetmilk, youngest son of John Graham of the Peartree. Dodd explained of his own knowing that the man had been shot in the back by person or persons unknown and Scrope adjourned the case to the next Warden’s Day.

  A black-haired ill-favoured man at the back of the court came forward to claim the body, and took a long hard stare at Dodd as he passed by. Dodd thought it was Francis Graham of Moat, one of Sweetmilk’s cousins, and his nearest available relative that wasn’t outlawed and at risk of arrest in England.

  By the time the clouds had cleared and the sun shone down for the first time in a week, Carey, Dodd and all six of his men were out on the road to Longtown ford where the Esk began spreading itself like a blowzy wife on the way to Rockcliffe Marsh and the Solway Firth.

  At the ford Carey stopped and looked around.

  “This is where you met Jock?”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, not relishing the moment, “they had us neatly.”

  Carey said nothing but chirruped to his horse, let him find his own way down into the water and splashed across and up the muddy bank. The rest of them followed. Unseasonable rain had washed away most of the traces, but there were still a few old prints in sheltered spots.

  When Dodd gestured wordlessly at Sweetmilk’s bushes Carey stopped, leaned on his crupper and looked all around him. A gust of wind nearly took his hat off, but he rammed it down again and slid from the saddle.

  “Tell me the tale, Sergeant.”

  Dodd told it and Carey followed his movements exactly, then beckoned for Bessie’s Andrew and Bangtail to follow him into the gorse. Bangtail rolled his eyeballs but obeyed: it was remarkable how gold could sweeten a man’s disposition. After a struggle with his worst nature, Sergeant Dodd also dismounted and followed them. The springy branch which had caught Bessie’s Andrew nearly took his cap off and he swore.

  “Wait a minute, Sergeant,” said Carey, examining the branch as if it was the first he’d ever seen. “No,” he said, disappointed. “Pity.”

  In the centre was a flattened place and some broken branches.

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  Bessie’s Andrew looked bewildered.

  “I saw a corpse, sir.”

  “Yes, but how did you see it? How was it lying?”

  The lad swallowed. “The crows had pecked it.”

  Carey was patient with him. “I know, but which way was it lying? Was it on its back, or…”

  “On his side.”

  “Which side?”

  “God, I don’t know, right side I think.”

  “Then the right cheek was to the ground.”

  “Ay.”

  “Was it stiff?”

  “Stiff as a board, sir.”

  “Well, how did you get it on a horse to bring it back then?”

  “Sir?”

  “If the body was stiff, how did you put it over a horse? Did you have to break him…”

  “Och no sir, nothing like that.”

  “Then how…”

  “It was bent over already,” snapped Dodd. “Like this.” He showed the mad Courtier and the mad Courtier grinned like a Bedlamite.

  “Would you say he’d been brought here on a horse?”

  “Well, of course, he was, sir,” said Dodd. “I told ye, I followed the tracks of two nags from the ford…”

  “But he was dead when he was put on the horse and then brought here; not, for instance, alive when he came and dead when his killer left him?”

  What was the man driving at? “Ay sir. I’d say so, the tracks of one of the horses didn’t look like a beast was being ridden, more a beast burdened.”

  “Excellent. So he was killed somewhere else and dumped here, on an old battlefield in the hope that after a few months anyone who came on the bones would think they died fifty years ago.”

  “I suppose so, sir,” said Dodd who couldn’t see any point in this expedition at all. “There weren’t any traces of blood or suchlike around about here either.”

  Carey nodded. “What did he have on him?”

  Bessie’s Andrew blushed. Dodd saw it and hoped Carey wouldn’t. Unfortunately he did.

  “So what did you take off him, Bessie’s Andrew?” Carey asked ominously.

  “Nothing sir, I…”

  Carey folded his arms and waited. Dodd was glaring at Storey who looked terrified.

  “Well, nothing much, sir…”

  “What did you take off him?” Carey didn’t raise his voice.

  Bessie’s Andrew muttered something.

  “Speak up, boy,” growled Dodd.

  “He…er…he had a ring.”

  “A ring?” Carey’s eyebrows were very sarcastic. Dodd wondered if it was the eyebrows that broke Bessie’s Andrew’s spirit.

  “Well, he had three rings, gold and silver and one with a little ruby in it,” stammered the boy in a rush, “and he had a purse with some Scots silver in it, about five shillings worth and he had a dagger with a good hilt…”

  “By God,” said Bangtail admiringly, “that was quick work picking him clean, lad.”

  Bessie’s Andrew stared at the ground miserably. “And that’s all, sir.”

  “All?”

  Dodd was impressed for the first time. Bessie’s Andrew’s face twisted. “He had a good jewel on his cap. No more, I swear it.”

  Carey reached out and patted Storey’s shoulder comfortingly.

  “The Papists say that confession makes a man’s soul easier in his body. Don’t you feel better?”

  “No sir. Me mam’ll kill me.”

  “Why?”

  “I only gave her the rings sir, but I took a liking to the jewel and the dagger and the silver…”

  “Of course you did,” said Carey softly. “Now, Storey, look at me. Do I look like a man of my word?”

  “Ay sir.”

  “Then you believe me if I swear on my honour that if you ever rob a corpse while you’re in my service, I will personally flog you.”

  Bessie’s Andrew went white. His large Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he nodded.

  “And,” Carey continued, “if there’s a second offence, I will hang you. For March treason. Do you understand?”

  Bessie’s Andrew squeaked something.

  “What?”

  “Y–yes sir.”

  “Which applies to any man in my service whatsoever,” said Carey, glaring at Bangtail and then at Dodd. “You’ll see the men know that.”

  “Yes sir,” said Dodd. “When did you want to flog him?”

  “It depends if he’s told the truth this time and if he hands over what he took.”

  Bessie’s Andrew’s face was the colour of mildewed parchment. “But my mother…”

  “Blame it on me.” Carey was inflexible.

  “Och God…”

  “You can bring me what you took after we get back. I might be merciful this time, since you were not, after all, in my service when you stole Sweetmilk’s jewels.”

  Carey seemed to dismiss the wretched Bessie’s Andrew from his mind completely. He was pulling at the branches near where the corpse had lain, turning them about. One of the spines stabbed him through the leather of his glove and he cursed.

  “What are you looking for, sir?” asked Bangtail. “More gold?”

  “That or bits of cloth. Anything that shouldn’t be in a gorse bush.”

  They all looked. It was Bessie’s Andrew who found the only thing that Carey found interesting, which was a long shining thread of gold. Carey put it away in his belt pouch and they searched fruitlessly for a little while before struggling back out of the bushes again to find the men also wand
ering about, checking hopefully for plunder from the old battlefield. There was none of course, the field had been picked clean for fifty years by crows and men. And nobody had bothered to set a watch, which caused Carey to lecture them again.

  It was sad to think of all the fighting and the men who had died fifty years before, among them a couple of great-uncles of his, Dodd thought. Some of them were sucked into the mosses round about, quagmires they knew well enough but could not avoid in a pitched battle. That was a bad death—to go looking for a fight and end up with a mouthful of mud and foul water. Those would be angry ghosts. Nothing short of a loaded dag would have persuaded Dodd to venture near the place after dark, and he might have taken his chances with a bullet. He was relieved when Carey gave the signal to mount and they rode away, back to the ford.

  Bessie’s Andrew was sent ahead to scout and prevent ugly surprises like the last one and the ever-venturesome Bangtail took the chance to ride alongside the Deputy Warden.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Bangtail.”

  “How did you know so fine that Bessie’s Andrew was lying?”

  Carey smiled and looked mysterious. “Never lie to a courtier, Bangtail. We’re all experts at the game.

  Dodd grunted to himself. He thought he knew another reason why Carey had been so sure of Andrew Storey’s perfidy. After all, he’d had the chance to take a good look at the corpse, and rings long-worn leave dents on a man’s fingers.

  At Carlisle, Carey dismissed them and hurried into the Keep calling for Bell. Once they were safely in the barracks, and Bessie’s Andrew had taken his jack off and put it on a stand, Dodd turned to him and punched him hard in the gut. Bessie’s Andrew sank to the floor mewing and gasping. Dodd kicked him a couple of times for good luck.

  “And that’s for keeping the gear from me,” he snarled.

  Tuesday, 20th June, afternoon

  With Carey gone about some urgent business, Dodd rubbed down his own horse, saw the animals were properly watered, fed and clean, and then wandered, belly rumbling, down towards Bessie’s again. Time enough to eat the garrison rations when he had no more money left. He was still in a bad temper and cursing Bessie’s Andrew: if the ill-starred wean had behaved properly with his windfall and shared it with his sergeant, Dodd could have given Janet a little ring with a ruby in it which she would have liked. On the other hand, he might then have had to ask for it back…

  He was sauntering along, thinking about that with his long dour face like the past week’s weather, when he saw something that cheered him at once.

  There, astride Shilling his old hobby, rode the splendid sight of his wife Janet, market pannier full of salt and string and a sugar loaf poking out the top, her eyes and the dagger at her waist daring any man to try robbing her. Unlike the Graham women, she felt no need of carrying a gun to keep her safe. Dodd liked his woman to look well and Janet was in her red dress with the black trim, a neat little ruff round her neck, and a fine false front to her petticoat made of part of the old Lord Scrope’s court cloak, which the young lord had disdained since it was out of fashion, Philadelphia had accepted, her maid taken as a perk and Janet snapped up as a bargain the month before. Her white apron was of linen she had woven herself and was a credit to her. The red kirtle suited her high colour and the snapping pale blue eyes and Armstrong sandy hair. If her teeth were a little crooked and her hips broad enough to be fashionable without need of a bumroll (though she wore one of course) and her boots heavy and hobnailed, what of it? He put his hand to the horse’s bridle and Shilling whickered at him and tried to find an apple in the front of his jerkin. Janet smiled at him.

  “Now then wife,” said Dodd, grinning lecherously at her.

  “I heard you were out on patrol.”

  “We were looking at the place where we found a body.”

  Janet frowned. “Was that the body of Sweetmilk Graham you’ve not yet told me of?”

  “It was.”

  “Will Jock raid us, do you think?”

  “Why should he?” demanded Dodd, “It wasn’t me that killed his son.”

  Janet looked dubious. “What about lying to him at the ford?”

  Christ, how did she hear so much? “He’ll know it was because I was not inclined to a fight. And where are you off to?”

  “To see my lover,” said Janet with a naughty look. Dodd growled. She slid from the horse and began leading the animal, holding her skirts high above the mud.

  “How’s the wheat?” Henry asked, walking beside her and enjoying the view.

  Janet began to suck her bottom lip through a gap in her teeth and her brow knitted.

  “Sick,” she said. “We might get by with the oats and the barley if there’s no more rain. I’ll leave that field fallow next year.”

  “But it’s infield,” protested Dodd.

  “Give it time to clean itself. I might run some pigs on it. The beans are doing poorly too.”

  “What will you do to replace Mildred?”

  “I’ve heard tell there’s one for sale.”

  “Not reived?”

  Janet shrugged. “Not branded, any road. That’s why I want to buy him.”

  “Buy,” said Dodd and shook his head.

  Janet giggled. “Will you want to come with me or would it go against your credit to be seen giving money for a beast?”

  Dodd considered. Janet was almost as good a judge of horseflesh as he was himself, and knew most of the horses from round about and wasn’t likely to be sold a stolen animal, at least not unknowingly. But she was only a woman. If it had been a cow…

  “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  They turned down a small wynd leading to one of the many ruined churches of Carlisle: this one had a churchman in it, a book-a-bosom man who spent most of his time travelling about the country catching up with the weddings and christenings.

  “Good afternoon, Reverend Turnbull,” said Janet politely, “we’ve come about the horse.”

  Now Dodd was no different from any other man. He may have had a longer and more ill-tempered face than most, but he could fall in love. He fell in love immediately, with the elegant long-legged creature that was tethered inside the porch of the church. The colour was unusual, a piebald black, the neck high and arched, the legs strong and firm, hooves as healthy as you could wish and best of all, he still had his stones.

  Janet’s face was bland. “Where was he stolen?”

  The Reverend Turnbull looked offended. “Mrs Dodd, I would never try to sell you or the Sergeant a…stolen animal. I swear to you on my honour as a man of the cloth, that he was honestly bought. Besides, do you think an animal like that could be reived and the Sergeant not know about it?”

  Dodd turned away so the churchman wouldn’t see his face which he knew would be full of ardour. With a horse like that he could win the victor’s bell at any race he chose to enter, he thought, and the fees he could charge at stud…

  “Well?” said Janet.

  “Eh?” Dodd had his hands on the horse’s rump, running them down the beautiful muscles, feeling the tail which needed grooming to rid it of burrs.

  “Have you heard of a horse like that being reived recently?”

  “Reived…no, no, I’d have heard for sure. There now, there, I’ve no apples, I’m sorry…”

  “Dodd,” growled Janet. Henry paid no attention.

  “He’s an English beast, surely,” he said. “Never Scots, not looking like that, unless he’s out of the King’s stable.”

  “Is he?”

  “Is he what?”

  “Is he out of the King’s stable, Reverend?”

  The churchman laughed fondly. “No, no, he’s an English horse, from Berwick, I know that from the man that sold him to me.”

  Dodd took the reins and swung himself up onto the horse’s back, rode in a tight circle before the church. He had a lovely gait, a mettlesome manner though he might have been short of horsefeed recently, and a mouth as soft as a lady’s glove.

>   “Who was that?” asked Janet.

  “Oh, a peddler I know. He told me he came from further south than that, but he bought him in Berwick.”

  “Why bring him here? Wouldn’t he get a better price from the Marshal of Berwick Castle?” Janet demanded suspiciously.

  “I think he may have had some notion of crossing the border with him to sell to the Scots, but I convinced him he should not break the law and I bought him to sell on.”

  Dodd slid from the horse’s back again and patted his proud neck.

  “Hm,” said Janet, took Henry Dodd’s arm and moved him out of earshot. “Henry Dodd, wake up. Yon animal must be stolen.”

  “Not from here,” said Dodd, “I’d know.”

  “From Northumberland then.”

  Dodd shook his head and smiled. “Get a bill of sale on him and he’s ours legally.”

  “Oh, you…”

  “Janet, he’s beautiful, he’ll run like the wind and his foals will be…”

  “I know you in this state with a horse, you’d blather like a man possessed and pay three times the right price. If you promise me he isn’t stolen from this March, I’ll buy him, but you get away from here or the Reverend will see you’ve lost your heart.”

  Henry smiled lopsidedly. “I can’t promise he’s not reived, but I’m sure as I can be.”

  “We may have trouble keeping hold of him, you know, once the Grahams and the Elliots know we’ve got him.”

  Dodd shrugged. “I’m not mad, Janet. I’ll have him cover as many mares as I can in the time, then I’ll enter him at the next race and sell him after to the Keeper of Hermitage or Lord Maxwell.”

  Janet laughed. “Against the law.”

  Dodd had the grace to look embarrassed. “Or the Captain of Bewcastle or the new Deputy or someone strong enough to hold him.”

  Janet punched him gently in the ribs and kissed his cheek. “He’s a light thing to look upon, isn’t he.”

  Dodd forced himself to turn about, bid the churchman a gruff good day and walk away while Janet leapt hard-faced into the bargaining.

  Afterwards, she took the horses by back routes to the castle so that fewer unscrupulous eyes would see the beauty, and tethered both in Bessie’s yard. When she went in she found Henry, Red Sandy, Long George and Archie Give-it-Them all playing primero with a tall handsome chestnut-haired man she didn’t know, who talked and laughed more than anyone she had ever met, and had skyblue eyes to melt your heart.