‘Burn?’ he said stupidly.
‘Ay. Burn. For petty treason. If you kill a man, Andy Nixon, and ye’re caught, that’s murder and you’ll hang for it. If a woman kills her husband, that’s no’ just murder, it’s petty treason. They hang, draw and quarter you for high treason and they burn ye for petty treason. So now.’
Andy Nixon was not a bad man, but neither was he a very clever one. He was broad and strong and quick in a fight, and he could withstand injuries that would have put a weaker man in bed, which was the only reason he could walk at all that morning. But thinking was not what he was paid to do by Mr Pennycook and, generally speaking, he left that to his betters. He gazed at the corpse and his mind was utterly blank.
‘Well?’ asked Kate Atkinson. ‘We canna leave him there. What shall we do?’
‘I don’t know.’ He blinked and bit the hard skin of his knuckles. ‘I could likely say it was me did it, and ye knew nothing of it and then I’d hang but ye wouldna burn,’ he offered as the best he could come up with.
Kate Atkinson looked at him for a moment with her mouth open. He shrugged and tried to smile.
‘I canna think of anything else,’ he explained sadly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
She suddenly put her arms round him and held him tight. He put his good arm about her shoulders and felt the juddering as she wept into his shoulder, but she was holding him too hard and it hurt his bruises, so he whispered, ‘Mind me ribs, Kate. I’m not feeling myself this morning.’
She lifted her head up and wiped her tears with her apron. ‘You’re Mr Pennycook’s man,’ she said, still sniffling. ‘Would he be a good lord to ye, d’ye think?’
‘He’s no’ bad to work for,’ Andy allowed, trying to think it out. ‘And he’s rich and he has men to do his bidding.’
‘Would he turn you over to the Warden?’
‘I dinna think so.’
‘Could we buy him?’
‘Oh ay,’ said Andy. ‘He’s always ready to be bought, is Mr Pennycook.’
‘Well, I’ll pay him a blackrent of five pounds in silver plate, if he’ll find a way out.’
Andy nodded. ‘He might listen at that. And five pounds would keep him quiet in hopes of getting more. It’s worth trying.’
‘Good,’ she said, and patted at the shoulder of his jerkin with her apron to dry the wet there. She used one of the keys from the bunch at her belt to open the small plate chest under the bed and gave him a couple of chased silver goblets to use as a sweetener. ‘Off you go to Mr Pennycook then, Andy, and say nothing to anyone…’
‘Do you take me for a fool?’ he demanded, and she managed to smile at him demurely.
‘No, Andy.’
Just for a moment he felt a stab of happiness, because if they could only slip clear of the noose and the stake, she was a widow now and he could marry her at last. No more skulking about in the cowshed. He forgot about his ribs and put his good hand on her shoulder, pulled her close and hurt his mouth kissing her.
‘There now, sweetheart. Pennycook will see us right. Dinna fret, Kate.’
Monday 3rd July 1592, dawn
Barnabus Cooke awoke from a dreamless sleep into the belief that someone was beating him over the head with a padded club and kicking him in the ribs. The first was untrue, the second was true. It was Solomon Musgrave waking him into the worst hangover he had had since…Well, since his last hangover.
‘Laddie,’ said Solomon patiently, ‘ye’re blocking the gate.’
‘Urrr…’ said Barnabus self-pityingly, rolled onto his hands and knees and stayed there for a moment with his head about to fall off, his tongue furred with something that tasted of pig manure, and his stomach roiling. He was collecting the courage to stand. His clothes were all damp with dew, as was his cloak, and he had tangled himself up with a javelin.
‘Wha…what ‘appened?’
‘Some enemy o’ yourn must have poured too much beer and aquavita down your poor neck,’ said Solomon drily.
The soft mother-of-pearl light in the sky was stabbing his eyes, his body ached, he needed to piss, and he was shaking.
‘Oh God.’
‘Ay,’ said Solomon. ‘That’ll be him. Will ye get out of my way, Barnabus, or shall I kick ye again?’
‘Give me a minute, will you?’
‘Ye see, laddie, I would, but there’s a powerful number of people waiting for the gates to open and it’s no’ my place to keep them waiting, so…’
Solomon’s foot drew back and Barnabus scuttled out of range, hurting his hands and knees on the cobbles and stones. He reached the corner of the wall and used it to climb himself to his feet, then stood there swaying while Solomon completed his duties.
‘Ye’d best go see after your master,’ suggested Solomon kindly. ‘Ah heard him roaring for ye a minute or two back, now.’
Very carefully and gently Barnabus walked to the Queen Mary Tower. He was still climbing the stairs like an old man, one tread at a time, when he was almost knocked flying by Carey trotting down them. Carey was one of those appalling people who wake refreshed and ready for anything every morning about an hour before everyone else, and then bounce around whistling happily, avoiding death only because they move faster than the people who want to kill them. This morning he wasn’t whistling and was looking very bad-tempered, but otherwise he was his usual horribly active self.
Barnabus flailed helplessly on the step until Carey’s long hand caught his doublet-front and steadied him.
‘Where the devil were you last night…?’ Carey began, and then caught the reek of Barnabus’s breath. He looked critically at his shaking, swallowing pockmarked, servant and shook his head. ‘By rights I should give you a thrashing,’ he said conversationally, ‘for drunkenness, venery and abscondment.’
‘Wha…’
‘And it’s evident I don’t work you hard enough.’
‘But, sir…’
‘Shut up!’ Barnabus winced, though Carey hadn’t shouted very loudly. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you are? If I had wanted some idle beer-sodden fool without the wits of a caterpillar, who hasn’t even the sense to be where he’s ordered to be, when he’s ordered to be there, I could have hired me some brainless wonder from the Court. Couldn’t I?’
‘Sir.’ Briefly Barnabus wondered if a thrashing would be half as painful as Carey’s loud voice in the confines of the stairwell, and then decided it would. Definitely. He swallowed hard. Puking on Carey’s boots would not be a tactful thing to do, even if he hadn’t much left in his stomach to do it with.
‘And where the hell did you sleep last night? You’re soaking wet.’
‘I…er…I think I slept by the gate, sir.’
‘Passed out there?’
‘No, I…’
‘Get upstairs. I want my chambers immaculate; I want my clothes in order; I want my jack and fighting hose ready to wear, and I want my spare boots cleaned.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Barnabus despairingly. ‘I’m not very well, sir. I’m sorry sir…’
‘And,’ added Carey venomously, using Barnabus’s doublet front to pull him nose to nose, ‘if I find you snoring in bed when I come back, I’ll bloody well kick you out of it. Understand?’
Barnabus nodded, scurried past, up the stairs and through the door. Carey scowled and was heading for the stables when his sister caught sight of him.
‘Robin,’ she called. ‘Robin, can I talk to you for a moment?’
Carey wanted only to get in the saddle and ride out of the city so he could be away from crowds of people and do some thinking. He pretended not to hear.
‘Robin! I know you heard me.’
He stopped and sighed. ‘What can I do for you, Philadelphia?’ he asked politely. Philly came up to him looking very businesslike in a claret-coloured wool kirtle and bodice of black velvet, a lace-trimmed linen apron skewed halfway under her arm. She wrinkled her brow at him.
‘What’s wrong with you this morning?’ she demanded, clearl
y in no very good temper herself. ‘You didn’t drink enough to have a hangover, and you wrung Lowther dry as well. Why aren’t you happy?’
He wasn’t going to answer that question, which he saw too late was as good as a complete exposition to his sister.
‘Oh,’ she said, a little regretfully. ‘I see. I hoped Elizabeth might…Well, serve you right. I’ve got a great big bruise on my shin. You’ll be wanting something to take your mind off things. Come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘I want you to help me…do some persuading. You used to be fairly persuasive, as I recall.’
Carey harumphed, which almost made his sister grin despite her sore leg and sorer head, because it was so exactly the noise their father made.
Perhaps because he had a long list of muster-letters to write to gentlemen of the county, and a teetering pile of complaints from Scotland about the recent large raid on Falkland Palace, Carey went along with her meekly enough, until she took him round the back of the Keep into the scurry of sheds and old buildings there. Finally he protested.
‘What am I doing?’ repeated Philadelphia with fine rhetoric. ‘Why, nothing, Robin. Except assisting my husband in his duties,’ she said over her shoulder as she stalked ahead of him through the cool dim dairy to the cheese store at the back. Out of a corner she got a cheese that was never of her making, being stamped with a large C. Carey recognised it at once.
‘That one’s got weevils in it,’ he told her helpfully. ‘All the Castle ration cheeses have weevils, or worse. Why don’t you…’
She glared at him, hauled it onto the cutting board and gave him a knife.
‘You cut it, then. I want about half a pound.’
‘But, Philly…’
‘Go on, if you want to find out what I’m doing. I hate the way they wriggle even after you’ve cut their heads off.’
Carey did too, but he manfully cut the required piece and lifted it gingerly onto a platter. Philadelphia arranged nasturtium leaves and dill around it and looked about for somebody to carry it. One of her maidens hurried past in the passage, carrying a newly scoured butterchurn.
‘Nelly,’ she shouted. The girl was a round-faced doe-eyed creature with a wonderful crop of spots and the faint cheesy odour of all dairymaids. She blenched at the sight of what she was supposed to hold.
‘Don’t drop it,’ Philly ordered the horrified girl, as she swept into the wet larder by the Castle wall. She went purposefully to a barrel of salt beef in the corner of the room, this one with a no less ominous JP for James Pennycook on it, and used the tongs to fish up a piece of meat that managed to be as hard as wood and still stank, with a decorative light green sheen. Slicing it with great effort and her breath held, she arranged the whole on another platter, with some loaves of gritty bread and a dish of rancid butter, grabbed Carey’s youngest servant Simon Barnet as he wandered past still rubbing straw off his hose, and had him form a procession up to the Keep. She herself took a pewter jug, dived into the buttery, and filled it from the ale barrel that was shunned by anyone with a nose.
‘Robin,’ she said brightly as they walked back to the draughty Keep. ‘Do you remember what you were telling me the other day about victualling contracts?’
‘Er…yes.’
‘Good,’ she said, tweaking Simon’s blue cap straight. ‘I’ll go first. Then Simon and Nelly, then you, Robin. Then agree with everything I say and back me up.’
Eyebrows raised dubiously, Carey followed them all up the narrow stone stairs. Scrope was in the dining chamber that doubled as a council chamber, sitting in a meeting with a long-nosed high-nostrilled Scot by the name of James Pennycook and a couple of his employees. Scrope smiled as they processed in with the repast.
‘A little refreshment for you, gentlemen,’ said Philadelphia, with a grave curtsey to her husband and his guests and a dazzling smile. Simon was grinning. He laid his platter on the table between them, bowed and went to fetch the goblets and plates. Nelly did the same and backed away, picking nervously at a blackhead.
‘Philadelphia…’ began Scrope in a strained voice as the combined smells hit him.
‘Yes, my lord?’ said Philadelphia sweetly, turning back.
‘My lady, we can’t serve this to our guests…’
Her face crumpled with concern. ‘Oh my lord, I’m so sorry. It’s their own supplies. I thought they’d be interested to see the quality of them. But if the food’s too rotten to eat, I’ll go down and fetch something better…’
Carey coughed with the effort of keeping a straight face. Four pairs of male eyes were glaring at his sister.
‘Madam,’ intoned Michael Kerr, Pennycook’s factor and son-in-law, ‘surely these gentlemen should not be expected to eat the same food as the common soldiers of the garrison?’
‘No?’ asked Philadelphia, greatly surprised. ‘Why not? It costs as much as our own food from our estates. More, in fact. And my brother eats it, don’t you, Sir Robert?’
‘Yes, yes, I do.’ Carey had his face under control now. ‘When it’s edible.’
‘Ye eat with the men?’ asked Pennycook, disbelievingly. ‘But Ah thocht ye were the Deputy Warden.’
‘It’s good practice for a Captain to do so sometimes,’ said Carey blandly. ‘That way, he and his men get to know each other better, which is important in a fight.’
This was certainly true, as far as it went. However, he generally ate with them at one of the many Carlisle inns, not in the Keep hall where this rubbish was served up to those of the garrison who had spent or gambled all their pay.
Scrope was watching hypnotised as a maggot broke from the safety of the cheese and began exploring the rest of the platter. No doubt it was in search of its friends still hiding in the meat. Perhaps they could have a little party…Get a grip on yourself, man, Carey told himself, as he sat down beside Michael Kerr and drew his eating knife to cut the bread. Simon came rushing back with the goblets and plates, laid them out and Philadelphia served them all from the jug, curtseyed again and swept from the room, followed by Simon and Nelly.
Carey was enjoying the row of stunned expressions. Lord Scrope had been told often enough about the appalling quality of the garrison rations and he had in fact carried out a short inspection. But clearly it had taken the sight of the muck laid out on plates ready to eat to bring home to him just how badly he and the Queen were being cheated.
The junior clerk swallowed stickily. With a flourish straight from the Queen’s Court, Carey offered the platter to James Pennycook, who flinched back.
Scrope coughed. ‘I think we’re in agreement then, gentlemen,’ he said lamely. ‘The old contract is renewed for the following year. I’ll have Bell draw up the notice…’
‘Excuse me, my lord,’ said Carey very politely. ‘I was wondering if you’d had a chance to sort out the question of wastage?’
‘Wastage?’
‘Yes, my lord. When I was in the Netherlands…’
‘My brother-in-law has served with the Earl of Essex in the Low Countries,’ explained Scrope. ‘He’s an experienced soldier.’
‘The Earl of Essex, eh?’ said Pennycook. ‘Is he the Queen’s minion…er…favourite?’
‘Yes,’ said Carey pleasantly. ‘I received my knighthood from him. The Queen was very put out; she said she had wanted to knight me herself since I’m her cousin.’
There, you Scotch bastard, he though. Chew on that.
‘Do have some of this meat, sir,’ he added. Pennycook smiled feebly, held up his hand and Carey, deliberately misinterpreting, gave him two generous slices. Oh dear, he’d got some severed weevils as well.
‘While I was fighting the Spaniards, I learned a great deal,’ he continued, taking some of the food onto his own plate. No help for it, he had to do it, thanks to Philadelphia. ‘Particularly from Sir Roger Williams, a most reverent and experienced soldier.’ They weren’t really listening; they were watching him cut a slice of cheese that was veined with blue mould, tap out the foreigners
. ‘He always got on very well with his purveyors.’ He ate the cheese while the men who had supplied it watched in fascination, realising to their dismay that if he ate their food, common courtesy dictated that they must too. There was an acrid musty tang to the cheese, not too bad, really, he thought to himself. It was actually better than the frightful stuff they’d eaten on board ship when fighting the Armada. He swallowed and continued. ‘The contracts were generous—as yours are—but always included a clause stipulating that any food that was unfit to eat was sent back to the purveyors and its price subtracted from the next payment.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Scrope, with an air of pleased surprise. Pennycook picked up a piece of bread, nibbled on it. Carey could hear his teeth grating on the grit, sand, sawdust, ground bones and God knew what else these thieves adulterated the flour with. Pennycook put it down. Michael Kerr had eaten a piece of cheese and was blinking unhappily at the crock of butter. The junior clerk looked at the meat and wisely decided to nibble on some bread. Thank the Lord, Philadelphia hadn’t seen fit to offer them any of the salt herring as well; Carey had recognised the barrels as ones that had been condemned as unfit for the English fleet in the Armada year, four years ago.
Scrope put down his knife with a bright smile. ‘You’d have no objection to a clause like that in our agreement, would you, gentlemen?’
Carey thought about braving the meat, but decided to stick with the cheese since the bellyache you got from that rarely killed you.
‘But the food we supply is of the verra highest quality,’ protested Pennycook automatically, falling straight into the trap. Michael Kerr choked on his ale.
‘Of course it is,’ said Carey smoothly. ‘I’m sure that, as with Sir Roger, we will hardly need to use the wastage clause. The Queen will approve as well. She was very concerned at some of the troubles my brother has had with his victuallers in Berwick. Can I offer you some cheese, Mr Pennycook?’ Mr Pennycook, who was, as Carey knew, one of the victuallers to the Berwick garrison, shut his eyes, shook his head.
2 A Season of Knives Page 5
