“You can owe the rest, Mr Turnbull,” she said, “I wouldn’t want you to be travelling the Border completely empty-handed.”
“No. I thank you,” said Turnbull feebly.
“Good day, then. I expect you’ll want to be out of Carlisle before Sergeant Dodd tracks you down,” said Lady Widdrington and added formally, “God go with you.”
“Ay, well, good day, ladies.”
Turnbull trudged up the wynd feeling as if he had already walked ten miles and wondering how one started proceedings against witches. He thought he heard the sound of laughter behind him but decided he must have been mistaken.
“You know what I find so odd?” said Lady Scrope after a while. They were gathered in a private room of the Bear and Ragged Staff, near the drawbridge gate of the castle. The windows of their private room overlooked the moat so they could watch the pleasant sight of the fish who were a thrifty source of food to anyone that could catch them and were therefore as cunning as foxes.
“What?” asked Lady Widdrington as she cautiously drank the beverage sold to her as wine.
“Why didn’t this man Swanders go to Thomas the Merchant Hetherington? Or if he did, why didn’t Thomas the Merchant buy such a beautiful piece of horseflesh as this Courtier was supposed to be?”
“Ay,” said Janet slowly, “now that is odd.”
“He’ll have known we’d have paid good money for the animal.” Lady Scrope went on, “Seven or eight pounds, likely enough, if he was good; God knows we’ve been searching out decent horses ever since the old Lord got sick.”
Lady Widdrington put down her goblet. “Shall we ask him?”
Wednesday, 21st June, 12 noon
Thomas the Merchant Hetherington happened to be completing his accounts for some important clients when his servant came in to announce that the Ladies Scrope and Widdrington would like to see him. He was honoured and a little puzzled. He was a man who could see a way to make money at anything: the kind of man who bought up and forestalled barley when there was going to be a bad harvest, who paid cash down in advance for the entire shearing of the West March sheep and then joyfully twisted the cods of the Lancashire woolbuyers who came to do business with him and him alone because there was nobody else. However, stay laces and pots of red lead for improving ladies’ appearances he left strictly to the common cadgers and peddlers, since they were small, retail items and invariably low profit. He dabbled in horses but only because he loved them.
The ladies came in and he bowed low.
“How may I serve you, your ladyships?” he said in a voice as unctuous as he could make it.
“We are here on the same errand,” said Lady Scrope, “in search of good horses.”
You and me both, thought Thomas the Merchant.
“We heard that Mrs Dodd had bought a beautiful animal from the Reverend Turnbull and we were wondering if you knew where it came from?” said Lady Scrope blithely. Lady Widdrington frowned at her across the room.
“Surely,” said Thomas the Merchant with a warm smile, “this is really a matter I should discuss with your husband, my lady Scrope, since…”
“Of course,” said Lady Scrope, nodding vigorously, “I would never dream of buying a horse without his advice and permission.” Lady Widdrington made what sounded like a repressed snort.
“But I do so want to help him find the right horses for his father’s funeral and he’s so busy with other matters, I thought I could save him a little time.”
“But it’s just been postponed to Sunday.”
“We’ll still need horses.”
Suddenly Thomas the Merchant was alert. He was as sensitive and shy of trouble as a fallow deer and could sense it on the wind in much the same way. He looked from Lady Scrope to Lady Widdrington and back again. Damn me, if Janet Dodd isn’t outside, waiting on them, he thought suddenly.
Thomas the Merchant normally backed his hunches, to great effect, but that was only because he meticulously checked on them first. He turned from the high desk he used standing up, as if he were a mere clerk which was what he had been twenty years before.
“It’s a little close in here, mesdames,” he said, to cover the move. As he opened the little diamond paned window, he looked down in the street, and there, of course, was Sergeant Dodd’s wild-looking Armstrong wife.
“Alas,” he said smoothly, “I canna help ye ladies. I know nothing of Turnbull’s horse save that he bought him, perhaps unwisely, from Swanders the Peddler.”
“Do you know where Swanders got it.”
“Presumably,” said Thomas the Merchant, steepling his fingers and smiling kindly at their womanly obtuseness, “presumably he stole it from the Grahams, or so it seems.”
“He might have another source of horses.”
“He might,” allowed Thomas the Merchant, “but I doubt it.”
“Why?” asked Lady Widdrington suddenly.
“Er…”
“Why do you doubt it, you seem very sure.”
Thomas the Merchant was nettled. “Because, madam, I ken verra well where every single nag in this March was born, raised, and who it was sold to and stolen from, I make it my business to know.”
“Do you?” said Lady Widdrington kindly. “Then you knew when Swanders showed you the animal in question that he belonged to Sweetmilk Graham. Why didn’t you buy him to give back to the Grahams—surely they’d like that?”
Thomas the Merchant moved with dignity to the door and opened it.
“I verra much regret that some ill-affected fellow has been telling you ladies the old scandal about the Grahams and myself, but that was tried and I was cleared of the charge at the last but one Warden’s Day.”
“Oh,” said Lady Widdrington, not moving, “and what scandal was that? I live in Northumberland and I’m not familiar with the gossip in this town.”
Give ye two days and ye’ll know the lot, madam, Thomas the Merchant thought to himself, but didn’t say.
“He was accused of collecting blackmail money for the Grahams,” explained Lady Scrope.
Thomas the Merchant found himself being examined at leisure by Lady Widdrington’s steely grey eyes. He examined her in return. Her face was too long and her chin too pronounced for beauty but she was a striking-looking woman, with soft pale brown hair showing under her white cap and feathered hat. He disliked tall women, being a little on the short side himself.
“I fear I canna give you ladies the information you’re seeking,” he said humbly, “as I have not the faintest idea what you’re talking about. If ye will excuse me now, I have a great deal to do.”
Lady Scrope moved to the door, but Lady Widdrington stayed still for a moment. Then she smiled suddenly, not a particularly sweet smile.
“What an opportunity you’ve missed to be sure, Mr Hetherington,” she said and he bowed to her. Both ladies gave him the barest token of a curtsey and sailed out, the hems of their gowns whispering on his expensive rush-matting. When they had gone he sat down and stared into space for a while, thinking of the price of gunpowder and where firearms could be had. At last he made a decision and began writing a letter to a cousin of his in York.
Wednesday, 21st June, afternoon
Barnabus brought his master bread and cheese to eat immediately after he came out of the castle jail. Carey, to his surprise, gave him the afternoon off. While Carey and Richard Bell disappeared into the Queen Mary Tower to attack the tottering pile of papers and the arrangements for the postponed funeral, Barnabus hung around the castle twiddling his thumbs. He found a young lad with shining fair hair sitting in the stables, polishing some horse tack and borrowed him from the stablemaster to act as his guide. Then Young Hutchin and he wandered down to the market place.
At noon the town crier made the announcement at the Market Cross that his lordship, Henry Lord Scrope, quondam Warden of this March, would be buried on Sunday and not the next day which caused Young Hutchin to blink and raise his eyebrows.
“He’s lying in state
at the cathedral,” explained Young Hutchin slowly and carefully so Barnabus could understand him, “so anybody that wants can be sure the old bugger’s dead as a doorpost and not as sweet.”
“Not much liked hereabouts, eh?” asked Barnabus, munching on a flat pennyloaf (referred to by Hutchin as a stottiecake) with salt herring in it, since it was a fishday. Young Hutchin grinned and shook his head, but didn’t add any information.
“Well,” Barnabus patted his belly as he finished, “Now what shall we do?”
“I could show you round about the town, Mr Cooke,” said Young Hutchin, “so ye can find your way.”
“Lead on.”
No one who knew his way around London town could be in the least confused by Carlisle which was barely a village by comparison. They wandered down Castle Street and looked at the cathedral, which was in a little better condition than St Paul’s and examined what was left of the abbey. English Street was where the best shops were and Barnabus had been there before to buy paper and ink for his master with Richard Bell and also to visit the goldsmith’s. Young Hutchin’s eyes shone as he peered through the thick bars of the goldsmith’s grill and counted the rather poor silver plate and gold jewellery displayed there. Barnabus wondered if the goldsmith also dealt in receiving stolen goods, as some of his London colleagues did, but Young Hutchin when asked, explained virtuously that he knew nothing of such sinfulness.
They examined the glowering two towers of the citadel, with their cannon, defending the road called Botchergate which led to Newcastle and ultimately to London. Then they retraced their steps and bore right up Scotch Street which was a poorer place altogether, though well-supplied with ale houses, horse dealers and smiths.
All about them flowed the townsfolk, greatly thinned in their numbers by the men who had gone out to work the fields round about. The women kept many of the shops, particularly the fish and butcher’s shops, and some of the fish they were selling actually looked and smelled quite fresh. Barnabus remembered they were only a few miles from Solway and no doubt there were fishermen who went out to harvest the Irish sea. Perhaps Wednesdays and Fridays would not be such a trial here as they were in London, where the trotting trains from Tilbury and East Anglia could not bring in the fish any quicker than two days old.
They were passing by a wynd with the strong smell of herring saltworks coming from it when Barnabus said to Young Hutchin, “Where would I go to…er…find a woman?”
Young Hutchin grinned cynically. “Depends on the woman, master,” he said. “What kind of woman was ye thinking of?”
Barnabus coughed. Well, Devil take it, he’d just been paid and what else was there to spend his money on? There was no bear or bull-baiting in this backwater and there certainly wasn’t a theatre. “I was thinking of a…helpful sort of woman,” he said. “The kind that might take pity on a poor southerner far from home.”
Young Hutchin nodded in perfect comprehension. “Ay, well there’s two bawdy houses, ye ken, but neither of them have lassies that are much in the way of beauty if ye’re used to London ways…”
“Are they poxed?” asked Barnabus.
Young Hutchin raised his eyebrows and for a second he looked astonishingly like Carey, who could be no relation.
“Now, master, how would I know such a thing, being only a poor lad meself.”
“You might have heard where the nearest of them is, so I can go and inspect them myself,” said Barnabus, gravely.
“Nay, master, I’m too innocent for…”
Barnabus sighed and produced a groat. “I could likely find the place myself,” he said, “or ask someone else?”
Young Hutchin took the groat smoothly and led the way down the nearest wynd.
Barnabus liked the boy’s technique. For instance, he was perfectly well aware that he was being led on a deliberately twisting and complex route so he would have difficulty finding the place again and that Young Hutchin had tipped the wink to one of the lads sitting in the street minding his family’s pigs that he was bringing in custom. He didn’t mind in the least, it made him feel nicely at home, though every time he looked up he saw a nasty unsmoky sky and almost every wynd off Scotch Street eventually ended in red brick wall.
Down one of the culs-de-sac they came on a brightly painted house with red lattices, a painted wooden sign of a rainbow and a girl sitting on the step. She stood up and smiled at him, leaned over so her large breasts could press enticingly over the top of her stays, and in a reek of cheap perfume, said, “Can I help you, sir?”
His breath coming short, on account of being away from the stews of Southwark for so long, Barnabus nodded. To Young Hutchin he said, “You stay here, my son, we wouldn’t want your innocence being corrupted, would we?”
“What, wait here in the street?” asked Young Hutchin with dismay.
“Tch. You’re far too young to go into a place like that,” said Barnabus gravely, perfectly well aware that Young Hutchin might even lodge there when he wasn’t in the castle, being the age he was, even if he might not be able to do much about it yet. On the other hand, Barnabus as a sturdy lad of thirteen had many fond memories of the Falcon in Southwark and in particular of a girl called Mary. Perhaps he sold his…No, he didn’t look the type and in any case Barnabus doubted that the more sophisticated London perversions had got this far north. Anyway, it was the principle of the thing.
“I’d never shirk my responsibilities to you, my son,” he added preachily, “and you’re not getting corrupted on my money today. Besides, if you stay outside and give me a list of everyone who comes in and goes out while I’m there, you could earn yourself enough for two women in the one bed.”
That caused Young Hutchin to brighten considerably and he settled down on the step as Barnabus went in. He was met by a grey-haired woman of formidable expression, dressed in a tawny velvet kirtle with a damask forepart and embroidery on her stomacher, her hair covered by a cap and a long-crowned hat in the Scottish fashion, with a pheasant’s feather. Her ruff was edged with lace and starched with yellow starch and altogether she was as magnificent a woman as complete flouting of the sumptuary laws could make her. London work, as well, Barnabus estimated, his eyes narrowing, it seemed Hutchin had brought him to the most expensive place in town. No matter. Barnabus regarded money invested on good whores as money well-spent. No doubt the Scots went to the other bawdy house, wherever that was, since he could hear none of their accents which he was just beginning to be able to tell from an English Borders accent.
“Welcome to this house,” said the woman in a clear southern voice, somewhere in London, Barnabus judged in surprise. “How may I serve you, sir?”
The common room where the whores paraded was nicely floored with fresh rushes and had a fireplace, though no fire since the weather had turned warm and muggy. There was a man there, no doubt acting as security against anyone who tried to leave without paying, a young, clever-faced man, with a weather-beaten face, black ringlets and long fingers. There was something familiar about him but Barnabus couldn’t place the resemblance. He was throwing dice idly and Barnabus watched how he scooped up the ivories and tossed them and hid a smile to himself. It seemed coney-catchers were another universal thing. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“Shall we have a game, sir?” asked the man in friendly fashion, “To pass the time until the whores are ready?”
Barnabus swallowed a laugh. “Well,” he said, “I’ve only a little bit more than the price of a woman here, but I’ll keep you company.”
He sat down, took the wine he was brought and sipped it cautiously, and waited for the other man to make the first throw.
“I’m Barnabus Cooke,” he explained, “servant to Sir Robert Carey, the new Deputy.” Since they almost certainly knew that already, he didn’t see any reason not to confirm it.
“I’m Daniel Swanders,” said the man, “peddler by trade, but I’m waiting about here for a while until whatever’s happening in Scotland has finished happening.”
Barnabus nodded pleasantly, betraying no interest at all. He calculated they’d give him about twenty minutes to win some money before the whores arrived and then after he’d finished with a woman, Daniel Swanders would have a friend arrive, and he’d be brought into some plot to cheat the friend at dice since he was such a good player. Barnabus felt a warm pleasant feeling lift his heart nearly as much as the prospect of seeing to some womanflesh; it was almost like being back in London again.
Two hours later, comfortable and easy in his skin with only a tiny niggling doubt chewing in the hole at the back of his mind where he’d locked up his conscience, Barnabus Cooke walked out of the Carlisle bawdy house, known as the Rainbow, about two pounds richer than when he came in. Daniel Swanders was still inside, examining his four identical dice with great puzzlement, since they seemed to have betrayed him for the first time in his life, and his friend was trying to be jovial with Barnabus and offering to see him home. Barnabus, who had last fallen for that game when he was twelve years old, loosened his knife and explained to the importunate friend that he already had a guide to see him back to the castle and his master was expecting him to wait at dinner.
As they walked back up the wynd, past the courtyards redolent with herring and mackerel drying on the racks, Barnabus said quietly to Young Hutchin, “Can you use a knife?”
Young Hutchin looked insulted. “Ay, master, of course I can.”
“Good,” said Barnabus. “Now, we’re being followed by a large co from near the bawdy house, ain’t we?”
Hutchin stopped to kick a stone, dribbled it round a post in the street and back again. Good, Barnabus thought, liking the boy’s style.
“You know ‘im, don’t you,” said Barnabus, as usual losing his careful Court voice in the excitement.
“I might. I dinna ken his name, but,” said Hutchin.
My eye, thought Barnabus, it’s probably your own brother.
“Now then,” said Barnabus as he stopped to examine a cooking pot hanging on an awning for sale, “I don’t want to ‘urt ‘im, I just want to ‘ave a little talk wiv ‘im, see?” Young Hutchin looked bewildered and Barnabus got a grip on his tongue and repeated himself more clearly. Young Hutchin nodded nervously. “This is what’s going to ‘appen. I’m going down that alley there to take a piss, and you carry on and give ‘im whatever signal you’ve arranged between yourselves.” Young Hutchin’s mouth opened to protest his utter innocence but he wasn’t able to stop his fair skin colouring up. Barnabus had often given thanks that he wasn’t liable to blushing with his sallow complexion. The pockmarks helped as well.
1 A Famine of Horses Page 12