1 A Famine of Horses

by P. F. Chisholm

  “We might kill the older cow to salt down, but the other two we’ll sell to buy powder and guns,” said Carey.

  “And the Grahams?” asked Scrope.

  “We can keep them until the next Day of Truce,” said Carey. “Then I can swear of my own knowing that they were raiders and hang them where their deaths will do most good.”

  Scrope nodded at the sense of this. “That’s why you didn’t hang them on the spot.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Carey. “I also wanted to talk to them.”

  “Oh?” asked Lowther, “Why?”

  “Horses,” answered Carey. “I’m concerned about horses. Not just the ones we lack for your father’s funeral, my lord, but the fact that we seem to have a general famine of horses.”

  “I heard there was a horse plague in Scotland,” said Lowther.

  “Did you?” said Carey, “I’ve not heard of it. Where is it worst?”

  Lowther shrugged. “I don’t know. It would account for the lack of horses…”

  “It would,” said Carey slowly, ‘but what concerns me is that the Grahams might be reiving horses for a different reason.”

  “Why?” Scrope’s fingers were at their anxious self-knitting again.

  “For a large-scale long-range raid at the next opportunity,” said Carey. “If they want to ride deep into England, they’ll need remounts, especially for the return when they’ll be driving spoil and at risk of meeting us.”

  Lowther’s eyes had gone so small they almost disappeared under his grey eyebrows.

  “What happened this raid…” Carey shook his head. “They used the cattle as bait, knowing we’d follow, with Elliots to spring the trap just outside Liddesdale. Luckily Captain Carleton was there…”

  “No luck about it,” growled Carleton, deep in his chest, “I got your message.” Lowther glared at him.

  “…so we caught them. But meanwhile the main band of Grahams were winnowing the border of horses and taking them off north to Liddesdale. From the preliminary complaints, I’d say they had enough for a journey of a hundred miles or more and back again, depending on how many reivers there are.”

  “When would this happen?” asked Scrope.

  “Well, they won’t want the horses for long because feeding that many animals could beggar them for their winter horsefeed. And further, the perfect date would be one when all the gentlemen of the March will be otherwise engaged.” He said the last couple of words with a great deal of emphasis and looked at Scrope.

  “Oh Lord,” said the Warden with deep dismay. “You mean on the day of my father’s funeral?”

  “Yes, my lord. I would also point out that the preparations are not ready, even if we had the horses for the bier.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be arranging it,” sneered Lowther. Carey did not rise to this.

  “I have been a little busy, Sir Richard.”

  “Yes, yes, quite,” said Scrope. “Are you saying that you want me to postpone the funeral?”

  “Yes, my lord. For a few days only. Hold it on Sunday rather than tomorrow. If you made a proclamation at the Market Cross this noon and sent fast messengers to the gentlemen expected for the service warning them to be ready for a long-range raid…”

  “On the evidence of the theft of a few nags?” protested Lowther. “It’s hardly conclusive that they’d be trying any such thing. And this is the wrong time of year.”

  “It looks bad to me,” grunted Carleton.

  “What about the body?” continued Lowther, “Won’t it start to stink?”

  Scrope was offended. “My revered father’s corpse has been embalmed of course, a few days should do no harm.”

  “And I’d rather postpone the funeral unnecessarily than have to explain to the Queen why we allowed the broken men of the Debateable Land to foray deep into England,” said Carey sincerely.

  Lowther, who had never met her, rolled his eyes but Scrope, who had, was nodding anxiously.

  “I think you’re right, Sir Robert, we’ll postpone the funeral until Sunday. I’ll see to the proclamations and messages. Will you make any other arrangements necessary, and deal with the complaints from this raid.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The meeting broke up and Carleton caught up with Carey as he hurried to the door.

  “Here’s your ring back, Sir Robert. Now, I’m sending a message to my cousin that keeps a stud in Northumberland—he has some draft horses with good dark coats he’d be willing to lend us for a fee. They’ll be here by Saturday.”

  “Thank you, Captain. That solves the foremost of my worries…”

  “Oh ay? What about this long-range raid?”

  Carey shrugged. “There’s little I can do about that save be ready for them if they come. Though I’d give a lot to know where they’re gathering.”

  “If it’s Bothwell planning it, they’ll be riding from Lochmaben.”

  Carey shook his head. “I doubt it’s the Earl. He’s in such bad odour with the Scottish king since that mad attack on Holyrood Palace last year, he’ll want to keep the Queen of England as sweet as he can. No, I think it’s Jock of the Peartree planning this and Sweetmilk was concerned in it somehow when he was killed.”

  Carleton nodded. “I heard that the Grahams were blaming Dodd for the murder, poor man.”

  “You don’t think he did it either?”

  “God, no,” Carleton laughed. “Any man of any sense that had a Graham corpse on his hands like that would take him down to the Rockcliffe marshes and throw him in the deepest bog he could find, not take him up to the old battlefield and try and hide him in a gorse bush.” Carleton shook his head, his broad face full of mirth. “Me, I’d leave him on Elliot or Armstrong land and let them take the heat. Dodd’s no jewel, but he’s not mad.”

  As they went down the stair, Carey put his hand to his head as he remembered something.

  “By the way, Captain, you’ve a right to a part of our fee for helping the trod, haven’t you?”

  Carleton clapped a massive paw on Carey’s shoulder.

  “Lad,” he said, “watching you and Dodd and the garrison mixing it with those Grahams was almost worth the fee to me. Pay me a quarter of whatever you make on the heifer and the younger cow. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for months, and you won me a pound off my brother.”

  “Oh?” smiled Carey, “what did you bet on?”

  “Whether you’d dare attack, what else?”

  Carey laughed. “At least it wasn’t on whether I’d fall off my horse.”

  Carleton’s face was full of pleasure. “Nay, Sir Robert, I won that bet the day before yesterday.”

  Wednesday, 21st June, 10 a.m.

  Philadelphia Scrope was waiting impatiently for the men to stop blathering and come out of the council room at the back of the keep. She stopped Robert, who was looking very fine, if a bit baggy under the eyes, and took him mysteriously by the arm.

  “All right, Philly,” said her brother resignedly, “what’s the surprise.”

  “Come with me.”

  “Philly, I’ve about a hundred things to do and at least fifty letters to write and Richard Bell promised me he could only be my clerk this morning, so…”

  “It’ll take no more than ten minutes.”

  Carey sighed and suffered himself to be led. They went out through the Captain’s gate and down the covered way a little to Bessie’s handsome inn and through the arch to the courtyard.

  Behind them three of Dodd’s men came tumbling out of the inn’s common room, teasing a fourth for missing out on his share of the trod fee. The men headed for the drawbridge gate shouting crude jokes about the origins of Bangtail’s nickname and how they would improve it, looking very pleased with themselves. Carey watched them go approvingly and when Philly pulled impatiently on his arm, he turned the way she was pointing him.

  A tall woman in a fine woollen riding habit of dark moss green and a lace edged ruff was standing with her back to him, talking to a sandy-
haired young man with broad shoulders and a terrible collection of spots, pockmarks and freckles. Carey stopped dead when he saw them.

  “Philadelphia…” he growled.

  She grinned naughtily at him and went over to the woman. “Lady Widdrington,” she said, “how splendid to see you.”

  They embraced, and Lady Elizabeth Widdrington saw Carey over Philly’s shoulder. Philly could feel the indrawn breath and had a good view of the blush creeping up from under Lady Widdrington’s ruff to colour her rather long face to a surprising semblance of beauty.

  Lady Elizabeth curtseyed to Robert, who automatically swept her an elegant court bow. He paused, took breath to speak, then paused again. Philadelphia decided to take a hand.

  “There, Robin,” she said blandly, “you can go back to your dull old papers now.”

  Lady Widdrington was the first to recover her senses.

  “Sir Robert,” she said formally, “I believe I should congratulate you on your Deputyship. I hope you don’t miss London and the Court.”

  He made a little bow and laughed with delight.

  “Only you,” he said, instincts reasserting themselves, “could have brought me here so quickly to the land of cattle-thieves. I’d hoped I could find an excuse to chase a few raiders into Northumberland and catch them dramatically on your doorstep…”

  “And if necessary you would have paid them to go that way,” said Lady Widdrington drily. Carey laughed again.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Of course, I’m only here for my Lord Scrope’s funeral. Your sister invited me.”

  Philly managed to look both smug and shocked. “It was Sir Henry I invited.”

  “In the certainty that his gout would prevent him coming,” said Robert. “Honestly, Philadelphia, your plots are transparent.”

  “Who cares so long as they work,” said Philly. “Will you come to dinner, Lady Widdrington. I’m hoping my brother remembered to bring some new madrigal sheets with him, and if he didn’t I’ll make him listen to one of our border minstrels instead.”

  “No, please, save me,” said Robert. “I brought the madrigals and they’re well beyond my voice so good luck to you.”

  “You’re invited too, Robin,” said Philly inflexibly. “We need a tenor. Now…”

  What she was about to suggest next nobody ever found out. There was a sudden shouting and commotion further down the street, near the drawbridge gate.

  A woman had come riding in at a gallop, sandy red hair flying. She hauled her horse back on his haunches when she saw Dodd’s men staring at her from the gate. Then she leaped from the saddle and caught one of them by the front of his jack. She let fly with a punch and booted him in the groin for good measure. The man tried to defend himself, hurt his hand on her stays, got another boot in his kneecap, and rolled away. He ran limping up the street with the woman in full pursuit, her homespun skirts kilted up in her belt, and Carey saw it was Bangtail Graham and that his enemy was Janet Dodd.

  Automatically he stepped out of the courtyard into the street.

  “What the…?”

  Bangtail ran behind Carey and dodged another punch.

  “It wasna me, it wasna me…” he was shouting, “I only told my brother…”

  Janet Dodd sneered at him as she circled round. “Get out from behind that man, Bangtail, you bastard, you lily-livered git, you’ve lost me five horses, a house and half a field of grain trampled…”

  “Mrs Dodd, Mrs Dodd…” Carey tried to remonstrate.

  “I’ve no quarrel with you Deputy but if ye protect yon treacherous blabbermouthed…”

  “What’s he done?”

  Behind Janet, Carey could see Sergeant Dodd sprinting down from the Castle yard.

  Bangtail unwisely made a break for it from behind Carey’s broad back, and Janet was on him. Philly, Lady Widdrington and Young Henry Widdrington watched with open-mouthed curiosity. Bangtail tried his best, even marked Janet’s cheek, but he was born down and kicked again before Dodd came up behind his wife and grabbed her round the middle, swung her about like a dancer in the volta, dodged a fist, and roared in her ear, “Goddam it wife, what’s wrong?”

  “He sold us to Jock of the Peartree,” she shouted. “That filthy bastard Graham told Jock…”

  “I never…” protested Bangtail.

  “What? What happened?” Dodd was shaking his wife’s shoulders. “Are you saying Jock raided us last night?”

  “Five horses,” shrieked Janet, “five horses, Clem Pringle’s house burned again, half the barley trampled into the mud, poor Margaret miscarrying her bairn with the fright, Willie’s Simon with an arrow in his arm because yon strilpit nyaff couldna keep his mouth shut…”

  “Jock of the Peartree did this?”

  Carey watched with interest. Dodd perpetually looked as if he had lost a shilling and found a penny, but he was beginning to suspect that that often denoted good humour. Now the long jaw and surly face were darkening and the thin mouth whitening with rage.

  “I talked to him from the wall,” Janet said catching her breath. “Courtier’s his horse, he called him Caspar. You said you’d know if he was reived from this country, you said you’d know…Stay there, Bangtail, or I’ll gut you…”

  “You never gave him Courtier,” shouted Dodd.

  “I had nae choice, he caught Little Robert and ransomed him for all the horses except poor Shilling,” Janet wailed. “He said Courtier was his and he said he was proof you’d killed Sweetmilk…”

  “Jock of the Peartree has Courtier…?”

  “Oh Christ,” muttered Carey under his breath, having listened to Dodd boast about the beautiful stallion most of the way back to Carlisle that morning.

  “Wake up, Dodd, wake up. It’s not just the horse, it’s the Grahams thinking you were the one who murdered Sweetmilk. Ye think it’s bad now? What will ye do when they come and burn the tower and us all in our beds…?”

  Looking at his Sergeant, Carey could already hear the hooves thundering and the lances clattering. Dodd’s face was now completely white.

  “Mrs Dodd, Sergeant,” Carey appealed, stepping between them with his hands out and his most courtly appeasing smile on his face. He managed to have got between both Dodds and Bangtail who was nursing a bleeding nose and his groin and looking terrified. “Please. If you’ve been raided…”

  “What business is it of yours?” demanded Dodd, “I’ll have my own justice. Janet did you send to your father?”

  “I did and I also…”

  By this time a small audience had formed, including Elizabeth, Philly and Henry Widdrington, plus Scrope himself, glimpsed like a nervous crane fly beyond the crowd.

  “If you will come into the castle,” hissed Carey, “we’ll see what we can…”

  “Keep yer long neb out of my affairs, Courtier,” snarled Dodd.

  Carey was tired: in particular he was very weary of Dodd’s sullenness. Without any of the usual warning signs his patience suddenly snapped. He drew his borrowed sword, stepped up close to Dodd and put the point against the man’s belly.

  There was a moment of shocked silence. Scrope winced and began backing away. Out of the corner of his eye, Carey saw Janet’s hand go to the hilt of her knife.

  “Now,” he said very softly. “Firstly, Sergeant, you will address me as sir if you wish to speak to me. Secondly, this ugly street brawl will stop. Thirdly, you will come into my office now, with me, where we will consider what is to be done. And fourthly, Dodd, if you tell me this is not my affair once more, I’ll run you through. Mrs Dodd unless you want to be a widow, you’ll put up your weapon.”

  For a moment the whole thing held in the balance, and then Janet said, “What is your interest, Sir Robert?”

  “If the Sergeant of the Warden’s Guard is raided by any man, Scots, English or Debateable, that makes it my affair. I will not have it.”

  “You’ll lead the trod?”

  “I will.”

  Janet smiled, which was in so
me ways more frightening than her rage.

  “If there’s a trod,” added Carey.

  “What does the Warden say?”

  Scrope was trying to become invisible at the entrance to a wynd. Carey glared at him.

  “Oh I agree,” said Scrope, rearranging his gown. “Absolutely. Can’t have the Sergeant raided. It’s an insult to the Wardenry.”

  Thank you Thomas, thought Carey, watching Dodd intently. Dodd was still tense, but seemed to be thinking. He nodded. Carey put his sword away and the audience began to wander off on important appointments, since the thrilling prospect of a fight between the Warden’s Deputy, the Sergeant and his wife seemed to have faded. Philly was speaking in a low tactful voice to the Widdringtons and leading them into Bessie’s. God damn the luck, that Elizabeth should have had to see such a brawl.

  “Now please, come up to my chamber,” he said to the Dodds. “No need to broadcast to Jock what trouble he’s in.” Not very subtle flattery, but it worked well enough.

  Both Dodds nodded at that and they all walked docilely towards the castle. Missing someone important, Carey fell back a little and spotted Bangtail limping down an alley. He darted after the man, grabbed his collar and twisted his arm up his back, propelled him along in front. Bangtail gibbered excuses.

  “Silence,” hissed Carey, “or I’ll break your arm.”

  “But I never…”

  “I’ll give you to Janet Dodd.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Scrope disappeared, muttering about arrangements for the funeral. Carey barged Bangtail up the stairs of the Queen Mary Tower, followed by the Dodds. Once into his second chamber, he ordered Richard Bell the clerk out, pulled up a stool for Janet to sit on, kicked the door to the stairs shut, dropped Bangtail in a heap on the floor and then sat at his desk. The others stood looking at each other.

  “Barnabus!” Carey roared.

  The servant’s ferret-like face poked nervously round the door.

  “Fetch wine and four goblets. Send Young Hutchin to bring in Mrs Dodd’s horse and have him rubbed down and settled with some fodder in the stables.”

  It was interesting to watch how they waited. Janet ignored the proffered seat and stood with her arms folded and her hip cocked and her long wiry ginger hair adrift from its pins down her back with a colour on her cheeks that the Court ladies spent hours in front of their mirrors to achieve. Dodd simply stood in a lanky slouch, his fingers tapping occasionally on his belt buckle. Bangtail had the sense to stay where he’d been dropped, pinching his nose to stop the blood.