2 A Season of Knives

by P. F. Chisholm

‘Then I shall ride beside you in silence, my lady.’

  ‘Hmf.’

  He did manage to stay silent for several miles, so they could hear the shouts from the hayfields. They got stuck for a while behind a haywagon screeling along behind two yoke of oxen, so Carey trotted ahead and asked the driver to stop while they squeezed past at a wider place. With the road clear ahead of them he let Thunder have a run and then came back to the Widdringtons. Young Henry looked as if he was trying to decide whether to say anything to the scandalous Deputy Warden but, as Carey knew, Young Henry was a likeable young man and far more sympathetic to his step-mother than he was to his unpleasant father. On the other hand, he took his responsibilities as heir very seriously.

  Carey took Thunder alongside Henry and tipped his hat in courtesy. Henry bent his head a little and flushed.

  ‘How badly tired are the horses, Mr Widdrington?’ he asked and Young Henry frowned.

  ‘We shouldn’t be travelling at all, Sir Robert,’ he said. ‘If none of the horses goes lame, it’ll be a miracle. We should have rested for two more days.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ Carey said. ‘Did you explain this to Lady Widdrington?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry unhappily. ‘I did, and she said my father had ordered us home and so home we would go.’

  ‘It’s a pity none of the horses went lame in Carlisle,’ said Carey innocently. Young Henry looked at him sideways and then quietly swore.

  ‘I never thought of that,’ he admitted.

  ‘Nor did I until this minute,’ Carey said candidly. ‘Never mind, we’ll know better next time.’

  ‘And she would spot it,’ Henry added.

  ‘Of course she would. But what could she do about it?’

  Young Henry sighed.

  ‘I daren’t try it now,’ he said. ‘She’d know.’

  ‘I’m not happy about you travelling at the moment, with the Debateable Land so stirred up,’ Carey went on. ‘I wish you could stay in Carlisle.’

  ‘If I turned back to the Castle now, I wouldn’t put it past her to carry on by herself. And my cousins would obey her, I think, not me. So might the Castle men.’

  Carey looked at the two large Widdrington menservants critically. He knew the other two slightly, both Carlislers and often used for dispatches. They would take Lady Widdrington to Newcastle and then wait there for the next dispatch bag from Burghley down in London.

  ‘Well, they look dangerous enough to keep off any chancers,’ he admitted. ‘And so do you. But what happens if a horse goes lame while you’re in the middle of some waste?’

  ‘Have you heard anything, Sir Robert?’

  ‘No. But I’m not happy.’

  Henry looked at him with his jaw set square. ‘There could be another reason for that,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Well, there is,’ said Carey lightly. ‘But I’m making allowances for selfishness and I’m still not happy.’

  Henry gestured with his lance. ‘Go and talk to Lady Widdrington. You know my opinion; I’d willingly turn back to Carlisle and stay there, but my lady…’

  ‘Your father’s letter was certainly very…peremptory.’

  Henry set his jaw again and suddenly looked like the man he would be in a few years’ time. Then he swallowed and broke the illusion of maturity.

  ‘I wish you were a reiver, Sir Robert,’ he burst out. ‘I wish you could sweep down on us with all your men and carry her back to your peel tower.’

  Then he shut his lips very firmly and looked as if he expected Carey to laugh at him for his romantic notions.

  ‘I won’t deny the thought had crossed my mind,’ Carey said slowly. ‘But why do you wish that? Is she so unhappy with Sir Henry?’

  Henry had the peculiar expression of someone who is longing to explain a great deal but can’t bring himself to the necessary disloyalty.

  ‘What’s she going back to, and why is she in such a hurry about it?’ Carey hadn’t meant to sound so peremptory but his heart had gone cold.

  Young Henry stared ahead for a few moments longer and then said, in a rush, ‘Well, Sir Robert, you know if someone has to have a tooth pulled, they’re either one way or the other. Some people put it off for as long as possible, and others get it over with as quick as possible.’

  For a moment Carey didn’t understand. ‘But she…Oh.’

  Even Henry’s spots were glowing red and he looked quite wretched.

  ‘It’s his right,’ he mumbled. ‘And he’s a very suspicious man. It took him a long time to…to calm down when she came back from Court. And now…’

  Carey understood perfectly. His voice became remote.

  ‘Is he likely to kill her?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Widdrington, I want to know what she’s facing.’

  ‘Well…I don’t think he’d kill her. You see, he needs her to nurse him when he’s having one of his attacks of the gravel in his bladder.’

  ‘Couldn’t he marry again?’

  ‘I don’t think any of the families near us would give him one of their daughters. And none of the widows would take him either,’ Henry explained damningly. ‘He had to send all the way to Cornwall to get her, remember.’

  With some part of his mind, Carey planned to have a great many words with his father the next time they met. But for Lord Hunsdon, Elizabeth would never have married Sir Henry. On the other hand, then they might never have met.

  ‘How did your mother die?’ Carey demanded, too angry to be tactful.

  Young Henry said nothing which was much worse than an answer. Carey took a deep breath, looked back over his shoulder at Elizabeth riding sedately along. Her face was perfectly normal, though she still looked thoroughly annoyed.

  He now understood another reason why she was so coy, for all his sister’s machinations. At Court, surrounded by temptation, he had not been a seducer—but he had certainly been very easy to seduce. Like any sensible man, he had avoided the unmarried girls whom the Queen guarded with the ferocity of an Ancient Greek dragon, although occasionally he made mistakes. Married women were much safer, unless their husbands were no longer fit for the marriage bed. In which case the green venom of jealousy was inflamed by the black bile of envy and the whole enterprise became too dangerous for the woman to be fun. Poor Elizabeth.

  Certainly Philadelphia could have no idea. It hadn’t really occurred to him, although he had no quarrel with a man exercising proper authority over his wife. Obviously, what Young Henry was alluding to was more than that. Coldness trickled down his spine as he wondered if Sir Henry had the brainsickness he knew that Walsingham’s inquisitor Topcliffe certainly had. He couldn’t ask Young Henry, he wouldn’t understand.

  Henry was speaking again, in a low mumble.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘I was saying, my father might make her do penance if she’s… er…if he thinks she’s committed adultery.’

  ‘What, spend Sunday standing outside the church in a white sheet with a candle?’

  Henry nodded. Carey looked over his shoulder again. Elizabeth was watching him now, so he turned back in case she saw his face. Considering her pride, he suspected she would prefer to be beaten.

  Young Henry was screwing up his face as if he was trying to find the courage to ask something insolent. Carey knew immediately what that was and pre-empted it.

  ‘Your stepmother, Mr Widdrington,’ he said coldly and clearly, ‘is the most virtuous woman I have ever met. I won’t deny I’ve been laying siege to her with every…every device I have, and I have got nowhere. Nowhere at all.’

  Despite the beetroot colour of Henry’s face he seemed happier. He nodded.

  ‘But I suppose, given Sir Henry’s nature, he isn’t likely to believe it, even without Lowther to poison the well for us.’

  Henry nodded again. Carey rode along for a moment.

  ‘Christ, what a bloody mess.’

  Abruptly he swung Thunder away from Henry’s horse and put his heels in again. Thunder exp
loded straight into a gallop, catching his rider’s mood. Carey let him have his head, though he got no pleasure from it now, and then brought him to a stop under a shady tree where he dismounted and walked Thunder up and down to let him cool more slowly, and waited for the Widdringtons. He stood watching them as they came up and cursed himself for being so obtuse, for thinking he was playing a game with Elizabeth when she was in fact gambling with her life. She reined in beside him and he came to her stirrup and looked up at her.

  ‘My lady,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll leave you here.’

  ‘What were you talking about with Henry?’

  He also wondered how much she knew of what was in his mind, but she wasn’t a witch, only a woman.

  ‘We were agreeing with each other about the dangers of travelling in this March with horses that need more rest,’ he lied bluntly. It wasn’t a lie. He was worried about it.

  ‘We shall be well enough,’ said Elizabeth sedately. ‘Thank you for your concern, Sir Robert.’

  ‘Good day to you, Lady Widdrington,’ said Carey, uncovering to her as they continued past. ‘God speed.’

  ***

  Barnabus knew better than to say anything to his master when Carey slammed into his chambers with a face as dark as ditchwater and went straight to the smaller room he used as an office. He sat down at the desk, opened the penner and took out pens and ink. Summer sunlight like honey streamed in through the window and he looked up at it once and sighed, then drew paper towards him and dipped his pen.

  There was silence as the pile of muster letters grew steadily on one side of the desk. Barnabus finished mending netherstocks that had gone at the heels and canion-hose that had been unequal to the strain of being worn by Carey. For all he liked to look so fine, he was terribly hard on his clothes—one reason why he was so heavily in debt—and it had got a great deal worse since they moved north.

  Somewhere around noon they had a visitor. James Pennycook and his son-in-law knocked tentatively at the door and, after wine had been brought, Barnabus and Michael Kerr were told to leave and shut the door.

  ‘What’s Mr Pennycook after?’ Barnabus asked Kerr as they sat on the stairs, waiting to be called back. Michael Kerr fiddled with one of the tassels on his purse, looked up at the arched roof and said, ‘Och, it’s the usual. Mr Pennycook wants to know his price.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For not interfering with the victualling contracts.’

  Barnabus sucked his teeth. ‘What a pity Mr Pennycook didn’t send you to me first,’ he said meaningfully.

  Kerr looked knowing. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Expensive, is he?’

  ‘Very,’ said Barnabus. ‘And very unpredictable. He’s got to be approached just right, has Sir Robert.’

  The low muttering inside had stopped suddenly. Barnabus braced himself.

  ‘Barnabu-u-us,’ came the roar.

  Barnabus opened the door and went in. Mr Pennycook was standing in the middle of the floor, looking pinched about the nostrils.

  Carey was by the fireplace with his back turned.

  ‘Barnabus, escort Mr Pennycook to the gate, if you please.’

  ‘Yessir,’ said Barnabus briskly and came forward. ‘This way sir,’ he said confidingly. ‘Best to leave now.’

  ‘But…’ said Pennycook.

  ‘Good day to you, Mr Pennycook,’ said Carey curtly and walked through into his office, where he sat down.

  Barnabus sighed heavily at more riches unnecessarily thrown away—after all, it wasn’t as if Carey had yet seen a penny of his legendary five hundred pounds per annum.

  ‘See,’ he said to Michael Kerr, as he led the two of them down the stairs again. ‘He’s a bit touchy, is my master.’

  Pennycook was looking ill as he walked unseeing through the gate and into Carlisle town. Barnabus made no haste on his way back and by the time he got up the stairs again, Carey had finished the pile of muster letters and put them to one side. He paused, wiped and put down the pen, stretched his fingers and brushed stray sand from the desk in front of him. He looked as if he was fighting a battle with his conscience again, then he sighed and turned to the pile of complaints that were flooding in about the horses reived in the previous weeks—both those that Jock of the Peartree Graham had stolen as his remounts, and those he and the other Grahams had successfully lifted from the King’s stables at Falkland. Carey considered for a moment and then started painstakingly compiling two lists of victims, booty, victims’ surnames or affiliations, value of horse stolen (generally very high, by their owners’ accounts) and area. The pen whispered softly across the paper, with the occasional rhythmic dip and tap on the ink bottle while the light coloured into the slow afternoon of high summer.

  Barnabus finished polishing Carey’s helmet and sword, his boots and other tack, then gathered up yesterday’s shirt and moved to the door. He suddenly thought of something and coughed. What was the betting Carey hadn’t eaten all day? Perhaps some vittles might mend his mood.

  Barnabus coughed again gently and when that got no response said, ‘Sir, shall I bring up something to eat?’

  ‘What?’ The voice was irritable. Carey was recutting the nib of his pen which had worn down.

  ‘Food sir. For you, sir?’

  Carey waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’m not hungry. Get me some beer.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Barnabus, confirmed in his suspicions.

  The shirt went into the Castle laundry with the other linen and Barnabus wandered to the kitchens where the idle little cook had his domain. He had gathered together a tray of bread, cheese, raised oxtongue pie, sallet and pickle and was going to the buttery for beer, when a boy stopped him in the corridor.

  It was Young Hutchin Graham, his boots and jerkin dusty and his blond hair plastered to his head with sweat.

  ‘Mr Cooke,’ said Young Hutchin in an urgent hiss. ‘I wantae speak to the Deputy.’

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ said Barnabus pompously. ‘He’s very busy.’

  ‘I must, it’s verra important.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Young Hutchin looked furtive and unhappy and then shook his head. ‘Ah’ll tell it to the Deputy and naebody else.’

  ‘You can give me the message and I will ask the Deputy if he wants…’

  ‘Mr Cooke, Ah can tell ye, he’ll wantae hear what I have to say, but I’ll say it to him only.’

  Barnabus looked shrewdly at the boy’s anxious face and could see no more dishonesty than usual in the long-lashed blue eyes.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Come up to the Queen Mary Tower with me and you can…’

  ‘Nay, I’ll not go there. Ask him if he’ll please come down here so I’m not seen wi’ him.’

  Barnabus gave Hutchin a very hard stare and then shrugged.

  ‘I’ll pass it on, my son, but I doubt he’ll…’

  Young Hutchin bit his lip and then whispered, ‘It’s concernin’ Lady Widdrington.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Barnabus. ‘I’ll tell him.’

  In fact he let Carey eat what he wanted of the food he’d brought before he mentioned Young Hutchin’s anxiety. Carey was preoccupied and it took Lady Widdrington’s name to get him to leave his careful list-making and go down the stairs and across the yard to the buttery beside the keep, Barnabus following behind him out of plain nosiness.

  Once in privacy by the huge casks of beer and the ample sweet smell of the malt, Young Hutchin gabbled out his tale.

  Young Hutchin had seen Mick the Crow Salkeld at dawn in the Castle stables, taking one of the hobbies and asking about the best route to Netherby that avoided the road. When somebody wanted to know why he was sneaking into the Debateable Land, he had tapped his nose and said something about Lady Widdrington.

  ‘What did he say?’ demanded Carey.

  ‘Ah dinna like to repeat it, sir, it were…rude,’ answered Hutchin primly. ‘It were along the lines o’ my uncle…er…takin’ your place, so to speak.’

  Carey breathed d
eeply through his nose for a moment and then nodded. ‘Go on.’

  Young Hutchin had been greatly taken with Lady Widdrington, so he had decided to go to Netherby himself and see what was up.

  ‘Ah dinna trust Uncle Wattie, see,’ explained his treacherous nephew. ‘It’s costing him a fortune to mend Netherby an’ there isnae a man he’s met since it happened that isnae jestin’ ower the way ye pulled the wool over his eyes and got the better of him.’

  Carey’s eyes had narrowed down to slits.

  ‘You didn’t run all the way there and back again? It’s ten miles.’

  Young Hutchin coloured. ‘Nay sir. Ah ran a couple of miles to the further horse paddock and…er…borrowed a hobby and a remount. I brung ‘em back too,’ he added with proud rectitude.

  Carey nodded.

  ‘So, anyway, sir, I got to Netherby an’ it were full up wi’ me cousins and the like, and Skinabake Armstrong and his gang. Ah couldnae get close enough to hear what Mick the Crow’s message was, but half an hour after he arrived he was back on the road south again and the place was boiling out like an overturned beeskep.’

  ‘Which way did they go?’

  ‘South east. Across the Bewcastle Waste, sir.’

  ‘How many?’

  Young Hutchin squinted at the roofbeams and thought hard. ‘By my guess he’d have fifty men or thereabouts, fra the look of them.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘Oh aye, sir. Well armed.’

  ‘Who was leading them?’

  ‘My Uncle Wattie, sir, nae mistaking it. Only, Ah wouldnae tell ye if it were nobbut a raid, but my thinking is that Mick’s tellt Wattie which way my Lady Widdrington’s gone an’ he’s intending to lift her and ransome her to ye. He’ll have heard by now how she helped ye.’

  Carey said nothing for a moment and looked as if he was thinking furiously, which surprised Barnabus who had expected immediate fireworks. He was thinking regretfully about all the hard cleaning work he had put in on Carey’s fighting harness which would now no doubt be wasted.

  ‘Barnabus,’ said Carey eventually. ‘I know you’re there, skulking in the corner. Go and find Long George and Bessie’s Andrew and tell them to come to my chambers in an hour. Young Hutchin, thank you for telling me this. I’m indebted to you. Only I’d like to know why you did it.’