‘At first I misunderstood. I had seen the window to the Atkinsons’ bedchamber and I thought it impossible for a man to squeeze through it unless he were very slim. John Leigh is not a small man, though Jock Burn is. Was. On the other hand, Leigh couldn’t trust a servant to do the killing for him without laying himself open to blackmail. Another thing you no doubt already know is that the Leighs’ house is next door to the Atkinsons’ and as alike as two peas. Certainly the upper windows are the same size. You can see them over there and inspect them later, if you wish.
‘This morning I climbed the scaffolding on the Leighs’ house and dug about in the thatch. My Sergeant had found a knife hidden there the previous afternoon.’
Dodd stepped forwards smartly and held out the knife so the jurymen could see it. Thomas Lowther took it and passed it along, and Archibald Bell rubbed his thumb on the crumbs of brown at the place where the blade met the hilt.
‘We found a bloody shirt,’ said Carey, gestured. Dodd took the shirt out of a small bag and handed it to Thomas Lowther. He passed it on with the combination of distaste and prurience that seemed right for a bloody shirt. Nobody argued about the identity of the stiff brown stains on it, although Captain Carleton sniffed at them sceptically.
‘As you can see,’ Carey continued, ‘it’s a gentleman’s shirt, fine linen and well-stitched. There were no other clothes. At first I thought he might have put it over his clothes to protect them from the blood, but I admit I was still puzzled. Then when I saw John Leigh through his own upper window attempting to kill Julia Coldale, I kicked the shutters and glass in and tried to get through. I couldn’t, my shoulders wouldn’t fit. I was reduced to throwing bits of window glass at him and I don’t mind telling you, gentlemen, I was very annoyed.’
The barrel-like Captain Carleton was leaned back and smiling understandingly at him.
‘Sergeant Dodd went round by the stairs and managed to distract John Leigh. By that time God had inspired me to the answer. I took off my doublet and Venetians and so lost an inch or two from each shoulder and a couple of inches around my girth. In my shirt I climbed through the window, just as John Leigh had done to kill Jemmy Atkinson, and so I was able to arrest him.’
‘The only problem he had—how to make sure the shutters were open to Jemmy Atkinson’s bedchamber—we have just heard how he solved it. At the cost of Julia Coldale’s life, she has told us the truth of what she did that morning. And so the mystery is solved. John Leigh waited until he heard Julia opening the shutters and going down the stairs again, and then climbed out of his own window onto the scaffolding and across. There was some risk he would be seen from the street, but it was early in the morning and not light yet. He climbed in through the window, cut Jemmy Atkinson’s throat, climbed out again, took off his shirt and hid it with the knife in the thatch, and then climbed back in by his own window. He could have done it in five minutes, washed and dressed and gone downstairs. Then all he had to do was sit back and wait for someone to find the body.
‘He must have been worried when Andy Nixon and Mrs Atkinson conspired to move the body and blame the killing on me. In fact, they were trying to pervert the course of justice, which is in itself a crime, although I hope his honour the Coroner will be lenient with them on that score. However, in the end, he must have been sure he would gain all he wished after the Lammastide assizes, when Mrs Atkinson surely would have been convicted of petty treason and executed. Perhaps Andy Nixon would have died with her, as her accomplice, perhaps not. Evidently, he didn’t care one way or the other.’
He wondered if he should mention the fact that the Atkinson children would thus be left fatherless, motherless and homeless, but he didn’t. The jury could work it out for themselves. Mary herself had been allowed to cling amongst her mother’s skirts, sucking her thumb and watching.
‘There you have your verdict, gentlemen of the jury: Jemmy Atkinson was murdered most foully; his throat was cut by John Leigh and the reason was only so that John Leigh and his wife could eventually inherit his property as the nearest relatives of the victim. That is what you must find.’
Aglionby summed up briskly and the jurymen went up the steps into the hall in order to deliberate. A few of them went over to look at the houses in question. A short sharp argument between Thomas Lowther and Archibald Bell floated out at the windows which ended in Thomas Lowther’s sullen agreement. They filed back down the steps again.
Without looking straight at his brother, Thomas Lowther delivered himself of the jury’s majority verdict in a loud chant, like an old Mass priest.
‘The jury finds that Jemmy Atkinson was murdered by John Leigh his brother-in-law.’
There was a scattered cheering and an approving buzz of talk from the stoutly watching public. Barnabus, Andy Nixon and Kate Atkinson were released immediately. Carey felt too wrung out to be triumphant, although he shook Barnabus’s hand and congratulated him on a fine shot. The next inquest would be for Julia Coldale and Jock Burn. No doubt Jock had been paid to kill her by Mrs Leigh herself, but they could never prove it now unless Mrs Leigh confessed.
The procession formed itself again to travel back to the Castle and some of the crowd booed at John Leigh. Mrs Croser the midwife stood in his doorway to see him. He lifted his head at the muffled sound of shrieking from within, and then shook it despairingly and plodded on.
Relief and fatigue made Carey’s perceptions unnaturally sharp, like glass. He had glimpsed Kate Atkinson weeping over the red marks the manacles had left on Andy Nixon’s wrists and Nixon stroking her neck awkwardly as they walked. He had also seen Mary Atkinson swept up in her mother’s arms and covered with kisses. Barnabus had disappeared in a hurry behind the hall and come out fastening his codpiece and looking green about the gills. John Leigh kept trying to take longer strides than his ankle chains allowed, almost pitching forwards on his nose. Philadelphia Lady Scrope was nowhere to be seen—perhaps she had slipped away to visit Julia Coldale. Carey wondered if he should go, and thought perhaps he shouldn’t. It was partly cowardice: he didn’t want to see a pretty girl in such suffering.
Lord, what a waste. To Jock Burn he gave no further thought, except a mild regret that the man could not be hanged.
A happy idea suddenly struck him. He had a quick word with Dodd and then strode over to where Andy Nixon was still scandalously entwined with Kate Atkinson by her own front door.
‘Andy Nixon,’ he said and Nixon let go and looked worried. ‘I’ve a proposition to put to you.’
Nixon looked even more worried. ‘Ay sir?’ he said warily.
‘I need another man for my troop of men in the garrison. Would you be interested in the place?’
‘Och,’ said Andy, thunderstruck. ‘But d’ye not mind the trouble we put ye to, sir?’
‘I’m blaming James Pennycook for that,’ Carey smiled. ‘I hardly think you came up with the idea, did you?’
‘Nay sir. Well…’
‘I doubt very much if Pennycook will be coming back south of the Border again. He’ll certainly not be purveying to the garrison any more.’ Why Scrope didn’t have his victuals supplied by a powerful local man like Aglionby was a mystery to Carey, which he intended to put right as soon as he could. ‘And so you’re in need of a new master.’
In his delight at Kate’s freedom and his relief at his own, Andy hadn’t thought of that and his square face clouded.
‘Ay, sir, you’re right.’
‘Well, then? I want good fighters, which you are, and you’ve shown yourself faithful, at least to your woman. The pay’s one shilling and thruppence a day and perks, including some of what we get in fees for rescuing cattle and such. And it’s steady work based in the Castle.’
‘But is there not a fee for the place?’ Andy asked with puzzlement.
‘You can owe it.’
Andy whispered quickly to Kate and then turned back to Carey.
‘I’ll do it, sir.’
‘Excellent. Talk to Sergeant Dodd in the mor
ning.’
He left them wrapping themselves round each other again, and tried to suppress his burning envy of them as he hurried back to the Castle.
Thursday 6th July 1592, afternoon
Carey’s feet were heavy on the stairs to his chambers in the Queen Mary Tower. When he opened the door he found Simon Barnet there with Young Hutchin Graham, playing dice. Young Hutchin scooped up the dice guiltily but Carey couldn’t be bothered to tell him off for gambling, especially as he was so heartily relieved to see him. Young Hutchin gave him a sidelong look. The boy was very dirty and dusty and looked tired, so Carey sent Simon off to fetch small beer and food for both of them, plus water and soap so he could wash his hands properly. Barnabus had said that perhaps his suit could be rescued by taking out the slashed panel of velvet and replacing it with another whole one which had cheered him a little. The shallow gash in his skin would mend with much less trouble, despite Philadelphia’s insistence on putting green ointment in it and bandaging it. It was burning sore now but not throbbing.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked Young Hutchin.
Young Hutchin grinned. ‘It was verra interesting.’
‘No doubt.’ Carey looked around for Barnabus, remembered he was in the Keep, waiting for Philadelphia to give him a draught of something cleansing and foul from her stillroom. He took his sword belt off and leant it against the wall, opened up the top buttons of his black velvet doublet in the approved melancholy style, so he could at last breathe properly. He gestured at the still-curtained bed.
‘Have you seen the pups?’ he asked Young Hutchin.
‘Ay. The kennelman came and moved Buttercup and all down to the pupping kennel where she should ha’ been to start with,’ said Hutchin. ‘But your counterpane’s in a terrible state.’
Carey wandered over, looked at it, and closed the curtains again. He went restlessly to the flagon standing on one of his clothes chests and found that without Barnabus about, nobody had refilled it. Curbing the impulse to throw it at the wall, he sat down on the chest and blinked at Young Hutchin.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘I couldnae get through to Thirlwall Castle, sir, for my uncle had put too many men about it, and they had dogs forbye. So I slept under a bush and when she came out on the road, I went along wi’ her, to the north a bit.’
‘I thought you’d been caught by your relatives.’
‘Nay sir,’ said Hutchin, cheekily. ‘Not me, sir.’
At the end of that day’s travelling, Lady Widdrington and her small party had come in sight of Hexham without any incident, which had rather surprised Hutchin.
‘I stopped your uncle at the Irthing ford,’ Carey said shortly. ‘Sent him back to Netherby with his tail between his legs.’
‘Ay, I thought something like that had happened. So I rode down and joined Lady Widdrington and told her all about it and she went red but she didnae say nothing. Then she had me ride behind, and when she got to Hexham, there was the Middle March Warden and he had…’
‘Sir John Forster?’
‘Ay sir.’
‘How is he?’
‘Very old and a mite forgetful, but well enough. Anyway, he was there and so was her husband.’
‘What?’
‘Ay, Sir Henry Widdrington.’
Carey’s mouth had gone dry. ‘How did he greet her?’
Young Hutchin shrugged. ‘She curtseyed, he nodded at her. They went in. A while later, I was called for and gi’en a letter for ye. Then I come back wi’ the dispatch rider from Newcastle. The ordnance carts from Newcastle was there too, sir, and we passed a powerful lot of packtrains by the road. The Newcastle man said that Sir Henry was for Scotland, although he didna ken why.’
Silently Carey put out his hand and Hutchin laid the letter on it. If I don’t open it, he found himself thinking, then I won’t know what it says and can ignore it.
Meanwhile his fingers were breaking the seal and unfolding the paper. It was Lady Widdrington’s handwriting, her spelling as wild as most women’s.
‘From Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, to Sir Robert Carey.
Sir, I must ask you to have no more dealings with me in any shape or form and what friendship we may have had is now at an end.
Please honour my request as a knight of the Queen should.’
That was simple enough. Impossible to tell whose brain had framed the words: was it Elizabeth herself, or had she written at her husband’s dictation? She had made it plain enough she thought his courtship of her was foolish.
Carey looked up unseeingly. He was amazed to find he could not feel anything. Perhaps it wasn’t so amazing: after a fight or a football match he often found bruises and grazes he had not felt at the time.
‘Sir,’ came a boy’s alien voice.
‘What? You still there, Young Hutchin?’
‘Ay sir. She had a verbal message. She whispered it to me when she give me the letter, sir, under cover of straightening my jerkin.’
Young Hutchin shut his eyes tight and frowned. ‘It was in foreign, sir. She said to tell ye, ah mow tay, Robin, ah mah bow simper.’
Carey thought hard to rearrange the sounds. ‘Amo te, Robin, amabo semper?’ he asked.
Young Hutchin nodded vigorously. ‘Ay,’ he said. ‘That was it. Is it French?’
‘No. Latin. Please forget it, if you like Lady Widdrington.’
Young Hutchin nodded again, a mixture of cunning and an attempt at forthright honesty on his face.
Simon came back with the small beer and some pieces of ox-tongue pie. Carey had lost his appetite. He told the boys to strip the ruined counterpane off the bed and see if they could find Goodwife Biltock to get another one for him. Then he wandered unseeingly down the stairs again.
By a kind of habit, he found himself in the stable yard where the Head Groom was at evening stables with Scrope. Carey went to Thunder’s stall, went in and started picking up Thunder’s feet to see how the farrier had done his work. Not bad. Not bad at all. But Thunder should go back to London. He had no use for a tournament charger here in the West March.
Amo te, Robin, amabo semper. She didn’t know much Latin. Perhaps she had persuaded Young Henry to tell her the words, or a tiny bit of schooling had stuck as it had with him. She had obediently written her letter cutting off their friendship at her husband’s dictation and then, being as honest as she was, she had quietly defied him. The words were curt but sufficient.
I love you, Robin, she had said, promising no more than that, risking God knew what kind of persecution, I will love you always.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication
Author Note
Foreword
Introduction
A Season of Knives
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2 A Season of Knives Page 28
