A Famine of Horses (37 page)

The small round greasy creature Carey knew as the Carlisle cook was sitting on a stool watching stale bread being turned to crumbs by two kitchen girls. He was the idlest man Carey had ever met outside the Court, rarely out of his bed before eight, but it seemed Lady Widdrington had impressed him with the importance of the occasion…Terrorised was perhaps a better word to describe the way he looked at her.

Carey turned to go, but Elizabeth caught sight of him and came bustling over, wiping her hands on her clean white apron, and smiling.

“How are you, Sir Robert?” she asked. “Is Lady Scrope up yet?”

“I don’t know,” Carey admitted, “I can wake them if you like.”

She nodded. “Scrope’s body-servant has the new livery for the boy and a decent gown for Bell. Any luck with the wine?”

Carey shook his head. “If Barnabus can’t find any, nobody can. I expect Bothwell had all the good vintages in Carlisle.”

“Can’t be helped. I don’t suppose anybody will notice and there’s plenty of beer and ale. I’ll soon need two strong men to help me carry the raised pies into the hall.”

She gestured at the table along one wall where three enormous pies, complete with battlements, stood waiting.

“They’re a little greasy, so don’t send anyone who’s wearing his mourning livery.”

“What happened to the sweetmeats?”

“They’re in Philadelphia’s stillroom, drying out. They can wait though: the less time they spend in the open for flies and boys to get to them, the better. How are your ribs?”

“Well enough…” began Carey, but Goodwife Biltock came up to him with a mug of ale, looking stern.

“You’re as pale as a sheet,” she scolded, “and bags to hide a pig in under your eye. Drink that, it’s spiced and has medicine in it.”

“What sort of medicine?” Carey demanded suspiciously.

“Something to prevent a fever. Let me see your face.”

She reached up, took his face between her rough hands and turned it to the light from the fire.

“Jesus,” she said, “you look a sight. I wish I could have got to your face with a few leeches when that was done…”

“Goodwife…” began Carey.

“And an axe for the man that did it to you.”

“I don’t…”

“Drink your ale.”

He drank.

“What do you think, Lady Widdrington? Will Lady Scrope…?”

“I’m sure,” said Elizabeth, still smiling at him. “Anyway, it can’t be helped and most of Carlisle know what happened.”

“We don’t want anyone laughing.”

“They won’t.”

“When did you last wash behind your ears, Robin?”

For God’s sake, he didn’t have to take this any more. “Last night,” said Carey repressively, “with your verjuice. It’s the best I can do without lemons. I’ll go and wake the Scropes if they’re not up already, my lady.”

As he left Goodwife Biltock tutted and said “Temper! Temper!” but he pretended to be deaf and carried on out the door, up the stairs and through the hall where trestle tables were set up and Scrope’s steward was shouting at a girl who had dropped a large tablecloth in the rushes. She put her apron over her head and howled as Carey slid by, climbed the stairs to the Scrope private apartments. He hid a grin as he knocked: it seemed the preparations for elaborate ceremonial were identical wherever you went. He almost felt homesick for Westminster.

Scrope was already awake and Philadelphia was in her smock and fur-trimmed dressing gown with her hair full of curling papers, her back eloquently turned to her husband.

“Philadelphia, my dear,” said Scrope nervously. Philadelphia sniffed. Carey was irresistibly reminded of a kitten sulking at being refused a second helping of cream, or no, hardly that, perhaps at having her tail trodden on. “Your brother’s here.” Scrope rolled his eyes eloquently at Carey who tried to look sympathetic. Philadelphia came over and kissed him on his good cheek.

“Robin, you’re here, that’s splendid,” she said. “How is Elizabeth doing?”

“I wish we had her supplying the English troops in the Netherlands,” said Carey gallantly, and then balked because Philadelphia was leading him to her dressing table. “What…?”

“Now don’t fuss, didn’t Elizabeth say why I wanted you?”

“No, she…What the devil are you doing? No, I don’t want to sit there, I have seven men to…”

“Oh hush, Robin, this won’t take a moment.” Philadelphia pushed her stool up behind his knees so he sat automatically in front of the mirror. She chewed meditatively on her lip and then darted forward and picked up a little glass pot.

“What the blazes…”

She started dabbing the cream onto his bruised cheek. Carey caught her wrist.

“Philadelphia, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to cover up all the black bruising so you don’t look like a Court jester, now let go.”

“I’m not wearing bloody face-paint at a funeral…”

“Yes, you are. Come on, Robin, did you never wear anything at Court?”

“I most certainly did not, who do you think I am, the Earl of bloody Oxford? I never heard anything so ridiculous in my…Ouch!”

“Don’t move then. Honestly, I’ve seen horses easier to deal with than you. Nobody will know if you let me…”

“Goddamn it,” growled Carey, looking round for moral support. Scrope had disappeared into his little dressing room.

“There now. A bit of red lead, I think, just a bit…Your skin’s hard to match, Robin, it’s lucky you’re not a woman. At least you got most of the walnut juice off, what did you use?”

“Verjuice, but…”

“No wonder you smell like a meat pickle. Smear a bit of this on, it’s a musk perfume, might hide the worst of it. Now then, perhaps a little…Yes, that’s better. Hm. Much better. Look in the mirror.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t do it round your eye because it’ll get sore. We’d better set it…”

She picked up a feather pad and dabbed it in powder, brushed it over his face. He sneezed.

“Now,” said Philadelphia with satisfaction. “Don’t touch your face, don’t rub your eyes, and when Barnabus cuts your hair, put a towel round your head so you don’t get clippings on it, but I think you’ll do. And be careful if you change your shirt as well. There, lovely. You look as if you’ve been in a fight, but you don’t look as if you lost it any more.”

“Philly, I…”

“That’s all right, you don’t have to thank me. Now I expect you’ve got a great deal to do,” she added with emphasis, “I certainly have.”

Barnabus had the sense not to make any comments when Carey climbed back up the stairs of the Queen Mary Tower to his room. Carey conscientiously protected his face with a towel while Barnabus snipped at his curls.

Once the sky began lightening he examined his face very carefully in the mirror while Barnabus was tying his doublet points and there was no denying the fact that he looked a great deal less like someone who had recently been given a kicking by an expert. His skin felt stiff and odd and he wondered how people like Oxford and even Essex stood it day after day. The Queen wore triple the thickness but women were used to it, he supposed, as he put on his rings.

He complimented Barnabus on his boots which were gleaming and slipped on a pair of wooden pattens to keep them decent until he could mount his horse. He had forgotten to give orders about his sword, but Barnabus had seen to it anyway, and it was glittering and polished. He left the lace-edged ruff off until after he had eaten the breakfast of bread and beer Simon brought him, knowing the magnetic attraction white linen had for crumbs and brown stains, and once that was on and his hat on his head, he was ready. Looking in the mirror again brought a private unadmitted lift to his heart. Not even the Queen could find fault with his elegance, though no doubt she would shriek and throw slippers at the smell of verjuice disguised with perfume. Otherwise he could have attended her in the Privy Chamber with no worries at all.

When he ventured out into the courtyard again the chaos had given place to a semblance of order. There was a row of men pissing against one of the stable walls, and Dodd and Carleton were already mounted. Simon ran to the row of horses, brought out Carey’s best horse, Thunder, and led him over. Carey thought about it, joined the row of men to relieve himself, refastened himself carefully because one of his recurring nightmares while serving at Court had been attending the Queen with his codpiece untied, then went over to his horse, slipped off the pattens and mounted up carefully. Dodd lifted his cap to him, replaced it with his helmet and followed him as he rode down the short row of his own six men.

Carey went all round them in silence, eyes narrowed, while the horses shifted nervously and their riders did their best to stare stolidly ahead.

Bell was also waiting, watching out of the side of his eyes as he held Henry Lord Scrope’s old horse. It had been the work of two minutes to make the younger Scrope thoroughly ashamed of forgetting Richard Bell and secure him the position of honour, leading the riderless charger behind the bier. Carey approved of the fact that Bell had groomed the animal himself. He came round in front of the men again.

“Archie Give-it-Them,” he said gently.

“Ay sir,” said Archie nervously. Somebody had put him under the pump: his hair was still wet.

“You look fine. You could attend the Queen herself.” He addressed them generally. “In fact you all could.” This was stretching the truth slightly as the Queen insisted on handsome men about her at all times, and these looked like the thugs they were, but never mind. “I’m very pleased with your turn-out. You look like what you are, the best men of the garrison.” He paused to let that sink in. “Now a few words about processions. Firstly, don’t be in any hurry, especially as you’re near the front. For some reason, the natural tendency of a procession is to spread itself out and the rear is always in a hurry to catch up. So keep your horses down to as slow a walk as you can. Secondly, be alert because something always goes wrong.” There went Philadelphia and Elizabeth in their black finery, followed by half a dozen servants almost hidden under the weight of gowns for the paid mourners waiting by the gate. And Lowther had arrived. He ignored the man and continued.

“Dogs get tangled up in them, horses take a dislike to each other, people fall off their horses, women faint, children make rude remarks. With luck we won’t find a nightsoil wagon with a broken axle barring our path as we did at an Accession Day parade I took part in once.” Most of them sniggered at that. “It doesn’t matter. If it concerns you directly, sort it out quietly. If it doesn’t, ignore it and try not to laugh. If some idiot child gets himself trampled, and his mother is having blue screaming hysterics in the middle of the road, Red Sandy, Bangtail and Long George are to clear the path and join the tail end if they can.”

He smiled and caught young Simon’s eye: he was carrying the big drum. “Let me hear you give the double-pace beat, Simon.”

Simon blushed, dropped a drumstick, picked it up and banged a couple of times.

“Can you count?” asked Carey patiently. The sun was up, the Carlisle gate was open, the crowd of mourners, some of them drunk, were putting on their gowns, and the draft horses were hitched to the empty bier. In about two minutes the Carlisle bell would start tolling.

“Y–yes sir.” said Simon.

“Try again. Count one, two, one, two.”

“One, t–two, one, two…”

“Bang on the one.” Simon did so. “Better, much better.”

Two more boys with drums came running up and looked at him. One of them had his cap over his ear. Carey sighed.

“Can you remember that, Simon?”

Over in the corner Lowther was trying to shine the trumpeter’s instrument with his hankerchief.

“Don’t think of anything else. Say it to yourself: bang, two, bang, two.”

“A–ay sir.”

“And keep it slow. We’re not going into battle.”

That got a laugh. High overhead the bell at the top of the keep made its upswing and came down with a deep solid note. Normally sounded in the middle of the night when raiders came over the border, it was eery to hear it in the morning. The trumpeter snatched back his trumpet, made an accidental raspberry and began blowing an abysmally untuneful fanfare.

As they waited their turn to go out the gate, Carey nodded to himself. Dodd had done as he asked, though he suspected wheels within wheels, since one of Lowther’s men had a burst lip and Dodd had fresh grazes on his knuckles. His men were clearly smarter than Lowther’s and while he doubted anyone except himself really noticed that, still it pleased him…Oh Lord, he’d forgotten to put on his gloves.

Just as he finished drawing them on, it came his turn: he let Lowther and his men have precedence, followed with his horse on a tight rein. Thunder had been ridden in plenty of processions before but was apt to get overexcited at drumbeats and bells. Normally Carey was wearing full tilting armour and the extra eighty pounds on his back kept Thunder subdued. This time…

Somebody waved a wooden rattle right by Thunder’s head. Carey used the whip to stop the crow-hopping which jarred him painfully, and caught Lowther’s face turned over his shoulder expectantly. Damn, the man was a complete pillock.

Like all processions that one became a blur of sunlight, faces of crowds, drumbeats, horse tails, creaking and a jam of bodies waiting at narrow places like the gate. All the time the trumpeter valiantly kept up his corncrake blowing and the Carlisle keep bell tolled, to be joined in counterpoint by the Cathedral bells, telling out the age, sex and rank of the deceased. The bell-ringers knew their business, which they should do with the amount of practice they got. And somehow Simon and the two other drummer boys, kept the beat firmly so it was easy to match paces to it.