1 A Famine of Horses

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Of course they are,” said Jock, “unless your friend Lowther’s bringing one up here.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have any powder for it.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “You know it as well as I do. In fact, I’ll bet the powder they’re shooting at us with is Carlisle’s finest.”

  Jock grunted. “It’s no’ very good quality,” he complained, “and he charges something shocking for it. What theory?”

  Carey sat down facing Jock, with his knees drawn up, examined the skinned knuckles on his right hand and flexed them. He hated punching people in the face, it always hurt your hand so much.

  “Did you ever hear of a man called Sir Francis Walsingham, Jock?”

  Jock nodded. “Ay, the Queen’s Secretary. Sir John Forster in the Middle March did him a good turn, oh, ten, twelve years ago.”

  “I know. He’s dead now, but I was on an embassy with him to Scotland in the summer of ’83, it was the first time I went to King James’s Court.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “It was well enough so long as I kept my arse to the wall and a table between me and the King.”

  Jock laughed. “Took a fancy to ye, did he?”

  Carey coughed and looked down. “You could say that.”

  “Jesus, man, what are ye doing here? Your fortune’s made.”

  Carey shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. In fact I damn near puked in his lap when I finally worked out what it was he wanted.”

  Jock found that very funny. “What did Sir Francis think of it?”

  “He was a strange man, you know, Jock. I’ve met my fair share of puritans, and most of them are hypocrites, but he was not. He was an utterly upright man. He worked night and day to keep the Queen safe, though he hated the thought of obeying a woman…”

  “Small blame to him,” said Jock, “it’s unnatural.”

  Carey thought of the iron grip most border women seemed to have on their menfolk, but didn’t say anything. He peered over the parapet and saw Bothwell and Wattie and the other men gathered together talking, while Old Wat of Harden walked up and down. To keep them on their toes he shot a couple of arrows at them. They scattered and dived for cover satisfactorily.

  “When I told him what the King wanted from me, he saw to it that I was never alone with him again without it seeming he was doing it, if you follow. And I never knew him to take a bribe.”

  “What never?”

  “Never. When he died his estate was gone and he was deep in debt.”

  “Why was he at Court then, if he didna take bribes?”

  Carey shrugged. “To serve the Queen, he said, because she was the best hope for the True Religion against Papistry. To his mind it was immoral to take money for giving her advice he knew was bad, and immoral to take money for giving advice he would give anyway.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “He always told me that truth belonged to God, it was sacred. Every lie, every injustice was an offence to God because it was an offence against truth. The stock of truth in this life is limited like gold, and every time you can dig out a little more of it from the mud and the clay of lies, you bring a little more of God’s Grace into the world.”

  “It’s a fine poetical sentiment,” said Jock consideringly, “but aye impractical.”

  “He believed also, that like gold, truth was incorruptible and would always leave traces. And if you were prepared to dig and scrape a bit, you could find out the truth of anything.”

  “What’s this got to do with Sweetmilk?”

  “Somebody murdered him and got away with it. To me, that’s an offence against justice.”

  “Justice, truth. What are we doing up here, lad, we should be in church.”

  Carey ignored him. “It happened I got a good look at his body and I went to see the place where Dodd found it. It was all very odd.”

  “Why?”

  “The shooting for a start. There were powder burns all over the back of his jack, no sign of a struggle. That gives you a bit of truth right there.”

  Jock swallowed and blinked at the sky. “Why?” he rasped. “It was a quick death, so?”

  Carey shook his head. “It was more than that. The dag that killed him must have been right up behind him, close, perhaps less than a foot away. Would you let your enemy get so close to you with a loaded dag?”

  Jock thought about it. “I wouldnae,” he said finally, “if he’s that close, you’ve a chance of knocking it away or hitting him before the gun can fire, and if he’s waving a dag at ye, it’s worth a try because he’s going to kill ye anyway.”

  “Precisely,” said Carey pedantically, “no gun ever fires instantly: if it’s got a powder pan, the flash has to go down into the gun, if it’s got a lock, the mechanism has to unwind to make the sparks. Sweetmilk knew that as well as anybody.”

  Jock nodded slowly. “Ye’re saying, he let whoever killed him come up close because he wasnae an enemy, he was a friend.”

  “Exactly. Or at least someone he knew and had no reason to fear right then.”

  Jock nodded again. “Go on, Courtier.”

  Carey peered over the parapet again and saw men hurrying about with lighted torches and faggots of wood. He shot at them, and got one through the leg. He stayed there with his bow, wishing he was a better shot, peering over the parapet and trying to think himself into Bothwell’s mind.

  “The next point is that he wasn’t robbed by whoever killed him.”

  “He’d been robbed by the time we got the body.”

  “Yes, that was one of Dodd’s men. I have the jewels and rings in Carlisle and I’ll send them back to you when I can.” He coughed. “If I can.”

  “Wasna robbed, eh? He was wearing some good stuff.”

  “I know. So why was he killed? It wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t to steal his jewels, or even his horse.”

  “Ah, the horse. I should have known the beauty would be trouble.”

  “There’s a reason why I don’t think he was killed for the horse, but I’ll come to it. The next point is where the killer left the body. Solway Moss, in a gorse bush.”

  “Maybe that’s where he was killed?”

  Carey shook his head. “No, he was killed somewhere else and brought there slung over a horse’s back, probably on your Caspar. He stiffened while he was bent over the horse, and there wasn’t any blood spattered near where he was found. And why Solway Moss? There are marshes, there’s the sea, any number of good places to put a corpse where it’ll never be found to cause you trouble. Why there?”

  Whatever else he was, Jock was not stupid. “The man didna know of a better place or couldna reach it in the time,” he said. “He’s a stranger to this country.”

  “And Daniel Swanders saw someone when he stole Caspar,” said Carey. “He saw a man in a rich doublet, cleaning a jack, and what’s more, the man didn’t chase after him either so Caspar wasn’t the reason for the…”

  “A rich doublet,” repeated Jock.

  “So,” said Carey, counting off on his fingers in a way he had picked up wholesale from Walsingham, “we have signs and portents of the murderer. He was well-known to Sweetmilk so he could get up close behind him with a loaded dag, he was rich, he was a stranger to these parts…”

  “Good God Almighty,” said Jock, putting his head back against the wooden post, “I’ve been sitting down to eat with my son’s killer for this past week.”

  “It has to be, doesn’t it?” said Carey. “It has to be the Earl or one of his men.”

  “But why…?”

  “I don’t know,” said Carey, but he couldn’t hide the expression on his face well enough for Jock.

  “Ye do know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Ay, ye do,” said Jock, “and ye’ll tell it me, if you’ve gone this far.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Who knows, it could even get you out of this alive.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Jock.”

  “Well, it coul
d get you a quicker death, any road. Come on.”

  “Whoever killed Sweetmilk is the father of your daughter Mary’s bairn.”

  “Her what” Jock’s eyes were glaring with fury and he struggled against the ropes holding him. “WHAT did you say?”

  “Your daughter Mary is expecting a babe around Christmas time. Bothwell, or one of his men, is the father.” Jock’s face was swollen, he seemed to be choking. Carey, who knew perfectly well he was talking for his life, but was a natural gambler, carried on remorselessly. “My thinking is that Sweetmilk found out what had happened to his sister, and challenged the man to a duel. They went off away from Carlisle to fight it out, so Mary wouldn’t be shamed by it, and while they were on their way, the man came up behind Sweetmilk when he wasn’t expecting it, and shot him. Then he abandoned him at the only place he could think of and came back.”

  There were tears flowing down Jock’s crusty face. “God damn him, God damn him to hell, poor Sweetmilk, I’ll skelp the little bitch, I’ll…”

  “You’ll marry her off quickly is what you’ll do. I think she might have been forced.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I’ve talked to her and I don’t think she was willing,” Carey, knowing what he did of the Queen’s maids of honour, thought she’d probably been perfectly willing at the time, but felt sorry for her. “At best, he persuaded her against her better judgment. At worst he raped her.”

  “God, so that’s what’s been ailing her. Why didn’t she tell me when Sweetmilk was killed?”

  “Afraid of you. Afraid of the man, perhaps he threatened her. Perhaps she still had a liking for him. Who knows?”

  Jock shook his head, snortled violently against his running nose. “How can I find the man?”

  “Well, I’ve done a lot of the work,” said Carey reasonably, “I’ve narrowed it down from most of the population of the March to Bothwell or one of his men. And I hate to admit it, but I don’t think it was Bothwell either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mary said she wouldn’t marry the father if he was the Earl himself, so I think he wasn’t. It’s not that Bothwell wouldn’t do it, but I don’t think he did on this occasion. So you’ve got three or four possible murderers to choose from.”

  “I suppose it would be wasteful to shoot all of them and be done with it,” said Jock thoughtfully. “And it might be a little tickle to do at that. So, how do I find out which one to kill?”

  “Who was at Netherby on the Saturday? Who did Sweetmilk ride out with? Who came back?”

  “Ah,” said Jock, wriggling his shoulders against the wood. “Let me think.” If his arms were cramping him, he didn’t say anything about it, and Carey wouldn’t have risked untying him anyway. He was a grizzled old bastard and tough as doornails, he could suffer.

  Carey’s belly started rumbling again. It was dinner time and nothing to eat but raw pigeon squabs from the little dovecote on the south western corner. Well, he wasn’t that hungry yet. Or perhaps he could light a little fire with the materials for the beacon and roast them.

  There was a stealthy clatter on the other side of the roof. Jock didn’t seem to have heard, but Carey knew if he’d been a horse, his ears would have swivelled.

  He picked up one of the long hardwood poles used for poking the beacon and crept round to the opposite parapet. When he peered over, he saw that the ladder they were trying to use was too short, but that the man climbing it had a caliver under his arm, with the slowmatch lit.

  “Halfwits,” said Carey again, under his breath, “haven’t any of you heard of Pythagoras?”

  Very carefully, while the man was still halfway up, he reached with his pole over the wall, hooked it into the top rung of the ladder and pushed. There was a scream, a bang from the caliver, a loud crash and clatter. Carey went back to where Jock was and offered him some water, which Jock drank. Neither of them commented on the ladder.

  “Ye canna win,” said Jock, “ye canna hold out indefinitely. Sooner or later ye must sleep.”

  “Oh, it’ll be quicker than that,” said Carey, “sooner or later they’ll work out how to do it.”

  “And how’s that?” demanded Jock.

  Carey shook his head. “Besieging’s a science, and I’m not going to give you lessons.”

  “You mean they’ll burn ye out.”

  “Us. They’ll burn us out. It’s probably only Wattie’s objections that’s stopping them now.”

  Jock turned his face away. “What’s making ye so cheerful? It’s only a matter of time before you die.”

  Carey couldn’t really explain it. He knew perfectly well he’d got himself into a ridiculous situation; that his scheme for finding out what was going on in Netherby had perhaps not been one of his best, and that while Elizabeth might be wondering where he’d got to, there was very little she could do for him. Somehow, with the sun shining down on him and the sight he had of Liddesdale valley glowering to the north, sitting talking to a trussed-up Jock of the Peartree was almost pleasant.

  “Well,” he said after he’d wandered round the parapet looking for activity down below and seeing nothing, which would have worried him if he’d been a worrying man, “maybe we can narrow it down even more. Tell me what happened here on Saturday.”

  “Now then. A couple of the women went down to Carlisle to buy oatmeal, but they were back by noon. That was when Mary fell and hurt her hand. And I’d sent Sweetmilk, and Bothwell sent two of his men, Jock Hepburn and Geordie Irwin of Bonshaw, to Carlisle to see if they could scout out who had horses and where they were, and buy a few if they saw some cheap. Sweetmilk was in a taking with something that morning, but he wouldna tell me what it was, so I thought it was some girl or other—it usually is, was,” Jock swallowed. “I said he should take Caspar, which the Earl of Bothwell had brought to me as a fee, in case Scrope was interested in buying him and also to…er…so people could admire him, ye know. So they’d send me their mares.”

  Carey nodded, twanging his thumb gently on the bowstring. Something was niggling his mind, but he couldn’t think what it was.

  Jock wriggled again. “That’s the last time I saw him alive.”

  “So it’s Geordie Irwin of Bonshaw, or Jock Hepburn. Or the Earl.”

  “Unless he met somebody at Carlisle, of course. I mind that the Affleck boy, not Robert, he’s dead, but his younger brother, Ian, he didn’t come here until early Sunday.”

  “Well it couldn’t be him, could it, if I’m right about Mary.”

  “Oh ay. So it’s Geordie Irwin or Jock Hepburn.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Which do you think it is?”

  “Och, lad, it could be any of them, they’re a’ bastards. And I’m not convinced it wasna the Earl; he’s allus had an eye for women that one, and Mary’s a bonny little girl. He wasnae in Netherby on the Saturday either, and I dinna ken where he was.”

  “What’s he got against King James?” asked Carey after a moment.

  “The Earl?” Jock laughed shortly. “I think he had a similar problem wi’ the King to yours. Only he took it harder.”

  “And what are his plans if he captures the King?”

  “Och, I think it’s the Earl of Bothwell for Lord Chancellor and Chamberlain, and Chancellor Robert Melville and his brother for the block. After that…” Jock shrugged as far as he could. “I dinna think he knows himself.”

  “Do you think he will—capture the King, I mean?”

  Jock looked at him thoughtfully. “Why? What do ye care?”

  “Curious. Come on now, I can hardly warn his perverted Majesty from here, can I?”

  “I think he’s got a verra good chance of it, with us and with…” Jock shook his head, “…with his other advantages.”

  An inside job, thought Carey instantly, there are men at the Scottish Court who will help the Earl. Lord above, what am I supposed to do about this? What can I do?

  “And of course there are the h
orses,” said Carey, pursuing a line he had started earlier.

  “Ay, ye mentioned them. What horses?”

  “Falkland Palace is a hunting lodge. I’ve been there, the stables are enormous.”

  “Oh ay?” Jock was pretending indifference, but Carey knew how passionate the Borderers were for horseflesh.

  “The King keeps most of his horses there so they’re ready for him to ride when he takes a fancy to go hunting.”

  “What are they like then?”

  “Well,” said Carey consideringly, “Caspar wouldn’t stand out among them.”

  “No?” Jock didn’t believe him.

  Carey shook his head. “King James is very particular about his mounts and he has them brought in from France by sea. They’re the best horses in Scotland, and perhaps even England too.”

  “Oh?” Jock was struggling with himself internally. Pride lost and curiosity won out. “How many are there?”

  “About six hundred.”

  “What?”

  “It could be more.”

  “What’s the King want with 600 horses?”

  “Not all of them are his, a lot belong to the people at Court. But that’s the nearest number, I’d say.”

  “Jesus,” said Jock, and Carey could almost see the thoughts whirling past each other in his brain. Clearly Bothwell had neglected to mention the living treasure trove at Falkland: far more valuable than gold to Borderers, because horses could run. Jock coughed and shifted his legs a little. “Would ye happen to know if they’re heavily guarded?”

  “Not very heavily.”

  Jock was suspicious again. “Why not? Are they hobbled?”

  “No, they’re not hobbled. In fact, during the summer most of them are out in the horse paddocks round about the Palace.”

  “Not inside a barnekin?”

  “There’d be no room for a herd that size.”

  “Why aren’t they guarded?”

  “Jock,” said Carey sadly, “you wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain to you what a law-abiding country is like, so I won’t try. They’re not guarded because no one thereabouts is likely to steal them.”

  Jock snorted disbelievingly.

  “Does Bothwell know about these horses?”

  “Of course he does, he’s been at Court, same as I have. I expect he didn’t want you distracted from King James.”