A Famine of Horses (9 page)

Tuesday, 20th June, morning

The men left the castle in a rabble, jingling their purses and planning extensive wanderings among the town’s alehouses that night. Naturally they decided to have a magnificent breakfast at Bessie Storey’s and they marched into the common room in a bunch, called for quarts and steak for their meals. Oddly enough she seemed to be expecting them and as soon as the last order was in, Bessie’s cousin Nancy Storey barred the door. Bessie herself shuttered the windows and rang her bell.

Janet Dodd, broad and resplendent in her red wool market gown, led the wives of Bangtail, Archie, Red Sandy and Long George into the common room. Grim determination on their faces, they split up and moved in on their husbands. At last Dodd cracked. He laughed and laughed until the tears were dripping in his beer, while Janet marched up to him, sat down beside him and held her hand out. Still snorting feebly, Dodd took five shillings beermoney out of his pay and gave the rest into her hard upturned palm.

“I hear he’s a fine man, your new Deputy Warden,” she said smugly. All around them arose whining and protests, while Bessie stood by with a broad grin on her face, ready to calm marital discord with a cudgel. Her son Andrew had already given her his pay.

“You’ve met him?” said Dodd in astonishment.

“No, no, Lady Scrope sent her girl Joan with Young Hutchin yesterday to tell me what was afoot. I told the others.”

Privately deciding to tan Young Hutchin’s arse for him next time they met, Henry drank his beer without comment.

Janet put hers down with a sigh of satisfaction. “Lord, Bessie knows how to brew, I wish I had her skill. Is he married, the new Deputy?” she asked.

“No.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Come on, Henry,” she said, “what’s the difference? By tomorrow you’d be in the same state, only you would have drunk and gambled the money and I would be after you with a broom handle.”

“That fine Courtier found out about my faggots.”

Janet made a face. “I minded me that was what he was after, I even brought in three of my brothers, only I saw we couldna get them into the castle in time, so I sent them home. The Borders are very tickle at the moment, the Middle March was hit yesterday, but only four horses stolen and they lost a man because they hadna paid the Warden first. Did he leave you any faggots?”

“Two. He said that’s all I’m to take the pay off.”

“It’s not so bad, then. Dinna be so glum.”

“Ha. Yon Courtier had us cleaning ourselves like bloody Dutch housewives yesterday, you wouldna ken the barracks now, and even Archie’s gun is gleaming bright,” Dodd said grudgingly.

Janet seemed to find this funny.

“I heard he took on that Turk Lowther too, and bought you new bows. Ay well, think upon it, Dodd. He has to make his mark which he’s now done. He’s paid you cash and where he got it, I don’t know for I’m certain there’s been no Queen’s paychest come into the city for the last six months. Would Lowther have paid cash?”

Dodd laughed at the idea and started to unbend a little. “How’s the farm?”

“Mildred died.”

His good humour promptly dried up again. “What was wrong with her?”

Janet looked worried. “I had the knacker’s man take her and he didn’t know either. At least Shilling’s well enough. What’s this I hear about us getting raided?”

“Was that from Young Hutchin?”

“He said I might want to have some of my brothers to stay with me and a couple of men to go out to the summer pastures for a week or so, just in case. There’s a lot of broken men about, he said.”

Mostly Hutchin’s relations, but it was kindly of the boy, Dodd thought, deciding to let him live. Henry found himself close to wishing Lowther had got the deputyship after all. A comfortable if unprofitable life was now all back to front and looked likely to get worse and for lack of rest and unaccustomed labour he was falling asleep where he sat.

“At least we can afford to buy a new horse,” Janet said, after counting the money.

“Now there’s a novel idea,” said Henry Dodd, blinking into his leather beaker. “
Buy
a horse with
money
instead of me having to ride about the countryside at dead of night with your brothers…?”

Janet grinned at him. “I’ll keep it to meself if you will.”

Tuesday, 20th June, morning

The inquest, such as it was, took half an hour. Scrope sat in his capacity as Warden at the courtroom in the town hall; Bangtail came forward, identified himself as Cuthbert Graham, known as Bangtail, identified the corpse as his second cousin by marriage George Graham, known as Sweetmilk, youngest son of John Graham of the Peartree. Dodd explained of his own knowing that the man had been shot in the back by person or persons unknown and Scrope adjourned the case to the next Warden’s Day.

A black-haired ill-favoured man at the back of the court came forward to claim the body, and took a long hard stare at Dodd as he passed by. Dodd thought it was Francis Graham of Moat, one of Sweetmilk’s cousins, and his nearest available relative that wasn’t outlawed and at risk of arrest in England.

By the time the clouds had cleared and the sun shone down for the first time in a week, Carey, Dodd and all six of his men were out on the road to Longtown ford where the Esk began spreading itself like a blowzy wife on the way to Rockcliffe Marsh and the Solway Firth.

At the ford Carey stopped and looked around.

“This is where you met Jock?”

“Ay,” said Dodd, not relishing the moment, “they had us neatly.”

Carey said nothing but chirruped to his horse, let him find his own way down into the water and splashed across and up the muddy bank. The rest of them followed. Unseasonable rain had washed away most of the traces, but there were still a few old prints in sheltered spots.

When Dodd gestured wordlessly at Sweetmilk’s bushes Carey stopped, leaned on his crupper and looked all around him. A gust of wind nearly took his hat off, but he rammed it down again and slid from the saddle.

“Tell me the tale, Sergeant.”

Dodd told it and Carey followed his movements exactly, then beckoned for Bessie’s Andrew and Bangtail to follow him into the gorse. Bangtail rolled his eyeballs but obeyed: it was remarkable how gold could sweeten a man’s disposition. After a struggle with his worst nature, Sergeant Dodd also dismounted and followed them. The springy branch which had caught Bessie’s Andrew nearly took his cap off and he swore.

“Wait a minute, Sergeant,” said Carey, examining the branch as if it was the first he’d ever seen. “No,” he said, disappointed. “Pity.”

In the centre was a flattened place and some broken branches.

“Tell me what you saw.”

Bessie’s Andrew looked bewildered.

“I saw a corpse, sir.”

“Yes, but how did you see it? How was it lying?”

The lad swallowed. “The crows had pecked it.”

Carey was patient with him. “I know, but which way was it lying? Was it on its back, or…”

“On his side.”

“Which side?”

“God, I don’t know, right side I think.”

“Then the right cheek was to the ground.”

“Ay.”

“Was it stiff?”

“Stiff as a board, sir.”

“Well, how did you get it on a horse to bring it back then?”

“Sir?”

“If the body was stiff, how did you put it over a horse? Did you have to break him…”

“Och no sir, nothing like that.”

“Then how…”

“It was bent over already,” snapped Dodd. “Like this.” He showed the mad Courtier and the mad Courtier grinned like a Bedlamite.

“Would you say he’d been brought here on a horse?”

“Well, of course, he was, sir,” said Dodd. “I told ye, I followed the tracks of two nags from the ford…”

“But he was dead when he was put on the horse and then brought here; not, for instance, alive when he came and dead when his killer left him?”

What was the man driving at? “Ay sir. I’d say so, the tracks of one of the horses didn’t look like a beast was being ridden, more a beast burdened.”

“Excellent. So he was killed somewhere else and dumped here, on an old battlefield in the hope that after a few months anyone who came on the bones would think they died fifty years ago.”

“I suppose so, sir,” said Dodd who couldn’t see any point in this expedition at all. “There weren’t any traces of blood or suchlike around about here either.”

Carey nodded. “What did he have on him?”

Bessie’s Andrew blushed. Dodd saw it and hoped Carey wouldn’t. Unfortunately he did.

“So what did you take off him, Bessie’s Andrew?” Carey asked ominously.

“Nothing sir, I…”

Carey folded his arms and waited. Dodd was glaring at Storey who looked terrified.

“Well, nothing much, sir…”

“What did you take off him?” Carey didn’t raise his voice.

Bessie’s Andrew muttered something.

“Speak up, boy,” growled Dodd.

“He…er…he had a ring.”

“
A
ring?” Carey’s eyebrows were very sarcastic. Dodd wondered if it was the eyebrows that broke Bessie’s Andrew’s spirit.

“Well, he had three rings, gold and silver and one with a little ruby in it,” stammered the boy in a rush, “and he had a purse with some Scots silver in it, about five shillings worth and he had a dagger with a good hilt…”

“By God,” said Bangtail admiringly, “that was quick work picking him clean, lad.”

Bessie’s Andrew stared at the ground miserably. “And that’s all, sir.”

“
All
?”

Dodd was impressed for the first time. Bessie’s Andrew’s face twisted. “He had a good jewel on his cap. No more, I swear it.”

Carey reached out and patted Storey’s shoulder comfortingly.

“The Papists say that confession makes a man’s soul easier in his body. Don’t you feel better?”

“No sir. Me mam’ll kill me.”

“Why?”

“I only gave her the rings sir, but I took a liking to the jewel and the dagger and the silver…”

“Of course you did,” said Carey softly. “Now, Storey, look at me. Do I look like a man of my word?”

“Ay sir.”

“Then you believe me if I swear on my honour that if you ever rob a corpse while you’re in my service, I will personally flog you.”

Bessie’s Andrew went white. His large Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he nodded.

“And,” Carey continued, “if there’s a second offence, I will hang you. For March treason. Do you understand?”

Bessie’s Andrew squeaked something.

“What?”

“Y–yes sir.”

“Which applies to any man in my service whatsoever,” said Carey, glaring at Bangtail and then at Dodd. “You’ll see the men know that.”

“Yes sir,” said Dodd. “When did you want to flog him?”

“It depends if he’s told the truth this time and if he hands over what he took.”

Bessie’s Andrew’s face was the colour of mildewed parchment. “But my mother…”

“Blame it on me.” Carey was inflexible.

“Och God…”

“You can bring me what you took after we get back. I might be merciful this time, since you were not, after all, in my service when you stole Sweetmilk’s jewels.”

Carey seemed to dismiss the wretched Bessie’s Andrew from his mind completely. He was pulling at the branches near where the corpse had lain, turning them about. One of the spines stabbed him through the leather of his glove and he cursed.

“What are you looking for, sir?” asked Bangtail. “More gold?”

“That or bits of cloth. Anything that shouldn’t be in a gorse bush.”

They all looked. It was Bessie’s Andrew who found the only thing that Carey found interesting, which was a long shining thread of gold. Carey put it away in his belt pouch and they searched fruitlessly for a little while before struggling back out of the bushes again to find the men also wandering about, checking hopefully for plunder from the old battlefield. There was none of course, the field had been picked clean for fifty years by crows and men. And nobody had bothered to set a watch, which caused Carey to lecture them again.

It was sad to think of all the fighting and the men who had died fifty years before, among them a couple of great-uncles of his, Dodd thought. Some of them were sucked into the mosses round about, quagmires they knew well enough but could not avoid in a pitched battle. That was a bad death—to go looking for a fight and end up with a mouthful of mud and foul water. Those would be angry ghosts. Nothing short of a loaded dag would have persuaded Dodd to venture near the place after dark, and he might have taken his chances with a bullet. He was relieved when Carey gave the signal to mount and they rode away, back to the ford.

Bessie’s Andrew was sent ahead to scout and prevent ugly surprises like the last one and the ever-venturesome Bangtail took the chance to ride alongside the Deputy Warden.