2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (26 page)

‘No, I want to find out what was going on at the Atkinsons’ place.’

And the Deputy Warden swallowed down his beer at a sinful pace seeing how good it was and that it was on the house, came to his feet again. ‘Come on Dodd, unless you want to sit there supping.’

Sighing deeply Dodd finished his quart and followed Carey on his self-imposed mission to prevent the Deputy getting a knife in the ribs before he had a chance to do for Lowther.

***

They went straight to Maggie Mulcaster’s house, across the road from the shut-up Atkinsons’ place, and found Kate’s little girl Mary sitting by the door very slowly shelling peas. She had her tongue stuck out and she held her breath every time she pressed open a peapod which made her gasp occasionally when she forgot to breathe again.

Mary looked up at Carey and immediately flinched back. Her face crumpled up and she started to cry. The bowl slipped off her knees and Dodd bent down just in time to catch it from going into the mud.

Dodd squatted in front of her and put the bowl down on the doorstep.

‘Mary, Mary,’ he said gently, ‘D’ye know me?’

She nodded, very big-eyed. ‘You’re Mrs Dodd’s bad-tempered husband.’

Carey who had looked glum at finding the little maid frightened of him, grinned at this, though Dodd failed to see what was funny.

‘I’m her husband, ay,’ he said. ‘Now, Mary, is Mrs Mulcaster in?’

She nodded and then shook her head. ‘She’s gone to fetch in Clover. She said it wis soft to leave her in our garden since there’s nobody there and she’s need of the milk as well for the extra pack of weans the Deputy put to her, the southern bugger, and what was he thinkin’ of arresting Kate and her a poor widow and us poor orphans. And I’m shelling peas,’ she finished with a sunny smile.

It faded and she shrank back again because the Deputy Warden had sat himself down on the step beside her. He took off his hat, put it beside him and scratched vigorously at his head. There wasn’t room for Dodd so he leaned against the wall.

‘Do you mind if I sit here and wait for her?’ said Carey politely to the small girl. She shook her head. She was staring at him wide-eyed. What was the mad Courtier playing at now? For a few moments there was a silence until curiosity got the better of Mary’s fear.

‘Is it true you know the Queen, sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Carey simply. ‘She’s my aunt.’

Mary’s mouth opened, revealing a gap where she had lost one of her teeth.

‘What does she look like?’

Carey took a penny out of his belt-pouch, tossed it up and showed her the head.

‘She looks like that only her skin is pink and white and her hair is red.’

‘Does she really have a hundred smocks and kirtles and petticoats?’

‘More like a thousand.’

Mary’s mouth opened wider. ‘Why?’

‘People give them to her because they know she likes to look pretty.’

‘What colours are they?’

‘Most of them are black and white with some different coloured trimming, but some of them are cloth of gold or cloth of silver and a lot of them have pearls sewn on them loose enough to drop off when she walks.’

‘Why?’

‘So people will pick them up and keep them and remember her by them.’

‘Will she come here?’

‘It’s very unlikely. She doesn’t travel so much now she’s…er…a little older.’

Dodd had learnt enough about the Queen from Carey by now to know that mentioning her age was skimming dangerously close to treason as far as Her Majesty was concerned.

‘Is she very old?’

‘She was already a grown woman and Queen when I was born. But she’s still beautiful,’ said Carey diplomatically.

‘Will she die soon?’

‘It isn’t polite to talk about it.’

‘How many gowns has she got?’

‘A couple of hundred, most of them made of velvet.’

‘Like your doublet?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like your clothes. They’re pretty. Do you have lots of pretty clothes like the Queen?’

‘Not nearly as many,’ said Carey straightfaced. ‘And not a tenth as pretty.’

‘Why are your hose so fat?’

‘Because it’s fashionable.’

‘Does it no’ make it hard to walk?’

Carey grinned. ‘A bit. But you get used to it.’

‘Do you like pretty clothes?’

‘Yes, very much.’

Now there’s the truth, thought Dodd.

‘
I
have a yellow kirtle with rose velvet trimmings,’ said Mary proudly. ‘
And
a going-to-church petticoat with a false-front like your hose.’

‘What, made of brocade?’

‘Yes, only it’s purple. Mrs Dodd gave the bits to me mam when she made hers. It’s very beautiful.’

‘It sounds it. You’re a lucky girl.’

For God’s sake, Dodd thought to himself, what is the Courtier on about, prattling over clothes with a child?

‘And I am learning to sew. I made a purse for money.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Will ye give me the penny to remember the Queen by to put in my new purse?’ asked the dimpled child artlessly.

Carey made a small choking sound which he turned into a cough and then smiled.

‘I’ll give you two pennies if you can show me you have a good memory.’

Eh? thought Dodd.

‘I have a very good memory,’ said Mary. ‘Me mam says so. She says she canna speak her mind without I’ll repeat it after.’ Her face clouded over momentarily as she remembered how the Deputy had come and taken her mam away.

‘I thought so. But I bet you can’t remember what happened on Monday.’

What? Dodd stood up straight with outrage. This was going too far, questioning a little girl about her mother’s crime. He took breath to speak and found himself on the receiving end of a very blue glare from Carey. He scowled back but held his peace.

‘That was the day before me dad died?’ said Mary anxiously.

‘Yes,’ said Carey simply. ‘And I’m sorry for your dad dying.’

Mary blinked at him for a moment. ‘Why? Ye didnae like him, ye sacked him.’

‘Er…yes.’

‘I didna like him neither,’ Mary pronounced. ‘Is he no’ in heaven now?’

‘I…expect so,’ said Carey cautiously, who doubted it.

‘Well, then, it’s no’ sad, is it? Because we dinna have to be sae quiet when he’s about wi’ a sore head and there’s no sore heads in heaven. That’s happy, is that.’ Her face clouded and threatened rain. ‘It’s me mam I’m sad for,’ she whispered.

‘Do you think you can remember such a long time ago as the day before yesterday?’ Carey prompted hurriedly.

Mary paused, thought for a moment. ‘I can so,’ she said complacently. ‘Will ye gi’ me the pennies now?’

‘No. Prove it to me. What happened on Monday? Start with when you got up.’

She took a deep breath, frowned, closed her eyes and began. She had come downstairs when her mother called with her kirtle and petticoat already on, but her mother had to do up her laces because she couldn’t do bows yet. Did the Deputy Warden think bows were pretty? He did; Her Majesty had a kirtle all covered over with them made in blue satin. What happened next? Well, the boys came down in a hurry and ran off to school with the reverend and she ate her porridge and Julia came in late and she went hurrying up the stairs to find a ribbon she lost and then she came down again and her mother told her to start making the butter before the day got too hot and where had she been and Julia said nowhere and her mother was kneading bread and she said oh ay, then ye’d best be at the butter. So Julia said humph and went to the dairy for the yesterday’s cream to pour it in the churn and her mam said…

‘What colour was Julia’s ribbon?’ asked Carey inanely.

‘Oh,’ said Mary, frowning. ‘I dinna remember.’

‘Never mind. What happened after you ate your porridge?’

Mary had got out her sewing and started making some stitches and her mam had promised to show her a new one when she came down from taking her dad’s porridge and beer up to him and she went up with a full tray.

Mary paused here and frowned. ‘She was up a long time,’ she said. ‘And she came down and she’d forgot all about my sewing and wouldnae teach me the stitch but she sent me with a Message to fetch Andy Nixon.’

Carey nodded. ‘What was she wearing?’

‘Och, what she allus wears, her blue kirtle and petticoat, with the black bodice, nothing fine.’

‘What about her apron.’

‘Ay, she allus has her apron.’

‘Was it…was there anything different about her when she came down the stairs?’

Mary frowned again and shook her head. ‘Nay, only her voice was soft, like a whisper.’

Off went Mary in her memory to fetch Mr Nixon, with a long digression on Susan Talyer and how fine she thought herself because she had black velvet trim on her everyday kirtle, found him in the street with his arm in a sling and brought him back and he almost forgot to give her a penny, but then he did, and he went up the stairs to see her dad.

‘What did he say about your dad?’

‘Och,’ said Mary, frowning again. ‘He said he didnae want to see him at all and me mam said it didna matter, he’d see anyway and up he went and I had the buttermilk from Julia in the kitchen while she washed the butter and she asked what was happening and I said I didnae ken. I like Mr Nixon,’ she added.

‘And then what happened?’

Andy Nixon had come running down the stairs and out the door.

‘Ahah,’ said Carey grimly. ‘What did he look like? Was he dirty?’

Mary gave him a sidelong look of pity. ‘A bit. He was in his working clothes, but he doesnae labour, he’s a rent collector.’

‘Was there anything on them? Like mud or…er…blood?’

Mary shook her head.

‘Did you hear anything, a shout or a call?’

‘Nay, they was talking quietly.’

‘Can you remember seeing blood anywhere around?’

‘Oh ay,’ said Mary seriously. ‘There was blood all over the sheets to me mam’s bed, for she said she’d lost a wean in the night, and she was in a state about washing them before it could set worse.’

Carey frowned at this. ‘Was the blood dry?’

‘Ay, mostly.’

‘When did she strip the bed?’

‘While I wis running for Mr Nixon, see, she had them in the basket by the door when I come back with him. It took all day to wash them sheets, ye should have seen them, all stiff they were…’ The ghoulish child sighed at the thought. ‘Me mam gave me a penny for grating the soap for it.’

‘And then what happened?’

The day was overwhelmed with sheet and blanket washing and Mary was sent out to play with Susan Talyer which she didn’t want to do but went because her mother gave her another penny and they skipped and played at Queens and princesses and then Susan Talyer wanted to be the mam and have Mary as the child and Mary wanted to be the mam and when Susan Talyer pinched her she only tapped her a very little with her hand, hardly at all, and accidentally pulled a little of her hair and is wisnae fair…

‘When did you go to bed?’

She had eaten her bread and milk with the boys when they came back from school and then they had all gone up to bed though it was still light and they had seen Andy Nixon coming out the back wynd from Clover’s byre with a handcart with a whole lot of hay on it. And their mam had come in and told them a long story about Tam Lin and how the Queen of the Elves had taken him and Janet and gone to fetch him back—not Janet Dodd, another Janet—and how he changed into all different things by magic…Did the Deputy Warden know the Queen of the Elves too?

‘No,’ said Carey thoughtfully. ‘I’ve not met that Queen at all. Perhaps I will one day.’

‘Ye mustnae eat nothing they give ye in Elfland,’ said Mary seriously. ‘If ye do ye’ll be bound to serve for seven years and when ye come back all your kin will be dead and gone for they’ll be seven hundred years here.’

‘That’s good advice,’ said Carey.

‘Can I have my pennies now?’ said Mary and Carey handed them over. ‘I’ve got five pennies to my dowry,’ she said happily.

‘Mary Atkinson, what are you doing there?’ demanded the voice of Maggie Mulcaster. She was holding a very obstinate-looking cow by a halter and breathing hard. Carey unfolded himself to stand up, put his hat back on.

‘We were waiting for you, Mrs Mulcaster,’ he said mildly. ‘I was telling Mary about the Queen’s gowns.’

Maggie Mulcaster snorted and gave a mighty tug at the cow’s halter.

‘Give me five minutes and I’ll have this thrawn beast into our yard. You get on wi’ those peas, Mary; we’re eating them tonight.’

‘Ay, Aunt Maggie.’

‘Get
on
wi’ ye, Clover!
Will
ye get on…’

‘Er…Sergeant,’ said Carey with a meaningful look at the cow. Dodd sighed, slapped the beast’s bony hindquarters and helped Maggie Mulcaster drive her round by the wynd and shut her up in their own small byre for the night. There was just room for Clover and Maggie Mulcaster’s cow to stand in there.