A Famine of Horses (28 page)

“Carey, you bastard,” he moaned, pushed his sword in its scabbard in front, put his head in and scraped his shoulders through. There was an ominous creak and whine from the iron gate. Dodd whimpered and crawled forwards on his elbows as fast as he could, heard the rattle and cracking as the rusty chain broke and the wood splintered, and brought his feet up under him just in time, scraping a long hole in his hose and grazing his knees. The iron grill slammed into the holes behind him, and he wanted to be sick.

He didn’t, it was too unpleasant a thought, having to crawl through it. The passage was bad enough as it was, slimy and stinking of rats and excrement, with little spines of limestone sticking up and hurting his hands and spines of limestone hanging down to bang his head. Why the hell was he doing this for Carey, he didn’t even like the man, what the devil did he care…

The passage opened out a bit after a few yards of eeling along on his belly, so he could crawl on hands and knees, feeling ahead of himself with his sword, in terror that the roof might have fallen in. There was one place where some stones had fallen down, but he managed to slither through there as well, to find a puddle on the other side.

He splashed through that, crawled for another age, cursing Carey, Lowther and both Scropes comprehensively, and then the point of his sword rammed into solid stone blocking the way. Not knowing whether his eyes were open or shut, except by the way his sweat was stinging them, he felt the stones. Masonry, tightly packed. He must be at the Tile Tower by now, surely. And surely to God, there was a way out. He felt around, found a small slimy drain that was producing a stink to fell an ox. He thought he must suffocate from it and his head was starting to spin.

The wall in front of him stayed obstinately immovable. Dodd pushed and heaved with his neck muscles cramping and his knees giving him hell, almost weeping with frustration. He finally lay down flat to rest, and happened to look upwards.

Either something was wrong with his eyes or there was a tiny squeeze of daylight up there. Above him was no tunnel roof, only a shaft and beside him, now he had calmed down, he could feel some more metal rungs. He sniffed. He thought at last that he knew where he was: this was the garderobe shaft for the Tile Tower, which was one of the lookout towers on the north wall of Carlisle. It was still in use, clearly, by sentries. God, no wonder the tunnel stank and what exactly was it he’d crawled through…

“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” he muttered in a litany of ill-usage, as he strapped his sword on again and set himself to climb. The rungs were slippery but they seemed firmer than the ones in the well. At last he found the light coming from a little window above a small stone platform. At that point, he could get his bearings. He was in the outer wall where it was at its thickest, seven or eight yards thick, he thought and couldn’t remember. There must be a way to the outside, or why bother with a passage?

There was. Part of the wall swivelled and he passed through it. The passage was as narrow as the one from the well, but this one was at least dry. At the end it dipped down where it joined a gutter and when Dodd lowered himself experimentally, he found himself sitting on a ledge about ten feet off the ground to the north of Carlisle, looking out on the Sauceries and the racetrack and the Eden bridge.

Now afraid of twisting his ankle when he had ten miles to run, Dodd lowered himself down on his arms and fingers, dropped into the soft earth and brambles of the ditch and then sat there for five minutes, gasping and shuddering and swearing all sorts of desperate reformations if God would never make him do that again. At last, with his knees killing him and his legs still rubbery, he scrambled up the other side of the ditch and walked across the rough grass to the river.

Once he got to the Eden he mopped off some of the green streaks and filth that covered him from head to foot. There were a few curious stares from some of the women washing linen at the rapids, but none of them saw fit to comment. Then he set off along the old Roman road at a fast jog trot, past the banks and ditch of the old Pict’s Wall, heading for Brampton nine miles away where Janet’s father lived with his kin, the first of the men on Carey’s list of those who disliked Lowther. Nobody enjoyed paying blackrent for protection against raiders Lowther brought in himself, but some resented it more than others. Will the Tod Armstrong, Janet’s father, had bent his ear often enough on the subject, God knew.

The day was hot for the first time in weeks, and Dodd thought seriously about hiding his jack in a bush and coming back for it later. In the end he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it and risk losing an old friend.

As he loped along, he kept watching for horses though he knew there was less than no hope of finding a loose horse to steal this close to the marauders denned up at Netherby. Most of the men were at the shielings anyway, so not even cows were visible, and the womenfolk hard at work in the fields and gardens near their houses. Some of them unbent their backs to look at him, a couple recognised him, but as they could hear no tolling of the Carlisle bell, they were puzzled to know what to do and simply stood watching. He ignored the ones who called out.

Perhaps his father-in-law would take pity on him and lend him a horse to carry him the further seven miles to Gilsland where he could rouse out his own surname.

God help Carey if he’s had the bad taste to get himself hanged before I can bring help to Netherby, was all Dodd could think, as he pounded along the rutted gravel of the Roman road. I’ll hunt him down and beat his brains out in Hell itself.

Friday, 23rd June, morning

Elizabeth Widdrington roused her stepson Henry from his lodgings at Bessie’s and told him the tale as he ate his bread and cheese. He laughed aloud at the thought of Dodd being banged up in his own jail, until he saw his young stepmother tapping her foot and swallowed his amusement. She’s a handsome woman, he thought, a little shocked at himself. What shreds of filial piety Henry had ever felt had been long destroyed by his father’s ill-temper and complex doings with the Fenwicks, the Kerrs and every gang of ruffians that chose to terrorise the East March when Sir John Carey’s back was turned. As a boy of ten Henry had been prudishly shocked when his father chose to marry again, and found himself a young Cornish girl through the good offices of Lord Hunsdon. But Elizabeth Trevannion had won him over in the end by treating him as a brother, rather than a son.

She was talking again.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, not sure he had heard it right.

“You and I are going to Thomas the Merchant and we’re going to get the full story he’s hiding about what he knows of Sweetmilk. And then, depending on what we find, you might go straight to Netherby to tell Jock of the Peartree of it.”

Henry chocked on a lump of cheese. “But I haven’t got a pass to go into Scotland.”

“You will by the time you need one, Philadelphia Scrope is seeing to it. Now come along.”

Thomas the Merchant had a very fine wooden town house on English Street, solidly built of Irish timber and the walls coloured faint pink with a bull’s blood wash. Elizabeth Widdrington swept in, with the top of her high-crowned hat brushing the door lintel and servants scattering behind her like chaff. Henry knew his job for this kind of thing, at least, having collected rents with his stepmother in the past. When an ugly man his own height dared to bar their path, he drew his sword, put it on the man’s chest and walked straight on so he had the choice of giving way or being spitted. The man gave way.

At the end of the hallway stood a middle-aged slightly built merchant in rich black brocade, trimmed with citron velvet and green braid, clasping his hands nervously.

“Lady Widdrington, Lady Widdrington, what is the meaning of this…”

Henry set his face in an ugly scowl and advanced on the man with his sword. Occasionally he was grateful for the spots and pockmarks that ruined his face for the girls, because they made him look so much more unsavoury than he knew he really was.

“Thomas Hetherington,” said Elizabeth in tones that would have skewered a wild boar, “you will tell me what you know about the killing of Sweetmilk Graham and what happened to his horse and you will do it
this instant
! Sit down.”

“How dare you come breaking into my house and threatening my servants, I have never been so slighted…”

“Then it’s about time you were,” said Elizabeth. “By God, I have had enough of your patronage and your shilly-shallying and this time you shall tell me what I ask and you shall tell the truth or I will destroy you and everything you own.”

Thomas the Merchant’s face went putty-coloured. “This is unseemly,” he said, and Henry had to give him credit for courage. “Madam, I must ask you to leave or I shall call…”

“Oh?” asked Elizabeth, “and whom, pray, shall you call? The Warden? He’s in bed. The Grahams? They’re busy. However, I am here and I will have no arguments, do you understand?”

“I’ll sue, I’ll…”

Elizabeth smiled very unpleasantly. “Nothing would please me more than to meet you in Westminster Hall. In the meantime, tell me what I ask, God damn you, or I’LL LOSE MY TEMPER.”

Henry thought it was wonderful how his God-fearing stepmother could swear when she was angry, but he kept his face straight and his sword ready. She had another advantage, in that she was tall and when she shouted her voice deepened, rather than becoming shrill. Personally, he would have told her everything he knew, down to the place he’d buried his gold, if he was Thomas.

Thomas the Merchant had the sense to sit down. Elizabeth pulled up a heavy chair and sat down opposite him.

“I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman,” she said, quoting the Queen whom she greatly admired, “but I have the heart and stomach of a lord, by God, and I’ll have your heart and stomach out in the light of day if I must, Thomas the Merchant, and swear you tried to rape me. So. Tell me about Sweetmilk.”

Friday, 23rd June, morning

With a couple of hundred stolen horse gathered at Netherby alone—never mind the others being kept further up Liddesdale—there was a stunning amount of work to do. Carey was at the bottom of the heap as far as importance and the backing of a surname was concerned, and so inevitably he found himself lumbered with most of it. He trotted about the churned up paddock, carrying buckets of water and bales of hay while his stomach groaned and rumbled. It was empty because his conversation with Mary Graham had meant he was late for breakfast and all that was left of the porridge was the grey scrapings at the bottom of the pot.

The man in charge of caring for the horses was called Jock Hepburn, a by-blow cousin of Bothwell’s, who claimed to have Mary Queen of Scot’s second husband the fourth Earl of Bothwell for his father. He explained this to Carey and the sixteen other men who had been set to do the work, told them to call him ‘sir’ or ‘your honour’ since he was noble and they weren’t, and then sat on the paddock fence, played with the rings on his long noble fingers and shouted orders all morning.

Some surname men were in the paddock too, seeing after favourite animals, but since most of the horses were stolen, the work fell to Carey and his fellows. At least it gave him the chance to mark out Dodd’s horses, which he did by the brands. They were standing together, heads down, as horses often did when they were miserable.

Once the feed and water had been brought in, Hepburn took it into his head that the horses needed grooming, since most of them still had mud caked in their coats from when they were reived. In fact, Carey thought, as he worked away with a straw wisp and a brush at the warm rough coat in front of him, Hepburn was perfectly right, but he could have called in some of the idlers playing football in the next field to help: at this rate they’d be at it all day. He was getting a headache and his arms were tiring from unaccustomed work. If Dodd could see me now, he’d surely die laughing, thought Carey grimly as he scrubbed at the hobby’s legs, and there’s still been no word from Bothwell where we’re supposed to be going.

The next horse he went to seemed very skittish, prancing with his front hooves, away from Carey. Carey chucked and gentled the animal, saw a tremor when he put his hoof to the ground. After much backing and shying, he’d calmed the horse enough so he could lift up his leg. What he saw there was thoroughly nasty: white growths and an inflamed reddened frog, and the other forehoof was quite as bad.

Without even thinking, Carey led the horse gently to the side of the paddock, took a halter off the fence and slipped it over the twitching nervous head.

“There now, there now.” he murmured, “We’ll have it sorted, there now, poor fellow…”

Somebody thumped him between the shoulder blades, hard enough to knock him down. Carey rolled over in the mud, came to his feet with his hand clutching the void at his left hip where his sword should have been.

Jock Hepburn was standing there, flushed and angry.

“Where do ye think ye’re going with that horse?”

“He’s got footrot and he needs to see a farrier,” said Carey, in no mood for an argument.

Jock Hepburn stepped up close and slapped him backhanded. “Sir,” he said. “Ye call me sir, ye insolent bastard.”

Carey hadn’t taken a blow like that since he was a boy. He started forwards with his fists bunched, saw Hepburn back up hurriedly and reach for his sword. He stopped. Rage was making a roaring in his ears and his breath come short, he was about to call the man out there and then, when he caught sight of the Earl of Bothwell hurrying over from his football game and remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.