A Chorus of Innocents (23 page)

Wednesday Night 18th October and Thursday 19th October 1592

Word had come to Carlisle the night before of Elizabeth's kidnapping, word that came by winding ways through the Widdringtons and Burns and Fenwicks, until it ended with Thomas the Merchant. He took the trouble to write a letter reporting it to the man he knew as Mr Philpotts and then he went up to the castle as the Sun went down behind rain clouds and asked to speak to the acting Deputy Warden.

Carey was looking very unwell and had a swollen jaw, and deep bags under his eyes. He had been trying to find a tooth-drawer in Carlisle, but the only one in the area was a Johnstone who was busy in Dumfries.

“How may I help you, Mr Hetherington?” he asked coldly as Thomas the Merchant came into his office in the Queen Mary tower. He also had a teetering pile of complaints and was dictating letters to his new clerk, Mr Tovey, a spotty pale youth that Thomas the Merchant instantly ignored.

“I heard something you may be interested in,” he said. “I won't even charge for it.”

Carey did not return his sly smile. “Well?”

“I heard that Lady Widdrington is taken by Geordie Burn.”

“What?” The tone of voice had gone from merely cold to distinctly wintry, with a howling gale and a blizzard.

“I heard tell that Lady Widdrington has been taken prisoner by Geordie Burn while she was at a funeral in Scotland. Her husband's in Jedburgh and they're talking about the ransom.”

It was very interesting, thought Thomas the Merchant. Carey could be very noisy when he was in a temper but now he was quite silent for a long time. His colour had gone an unhealthy greyish white.

“Are you sure?”

“I had it from a good source.” Why exactly he had it, was of course another matter.

More silence. Then, “Thank you Mr Hetherington.”

Carey started on another letter of complaint about the recent raids from the Kerrs of Cessford well out of their usual area and into the West March. Thomas was surprised.

“Well…” he said, “aren't you going to do something about it?”

“What can I do, Mr Hetherington? Lady Widdrington's husband is doing what he can, I'm sure, and as I am not her husband I don't see exactly how I can help unless Sir Henry asks me to turn out the guard for him.”

Damn. It hadn't worked. He had got too canny for them.

“Oh. Well. I'll be going then.”

“Thank you for the information, Mr Hetherington.”

As soon as he was well gone and out of the castleyard, Carey was on his feet and going down the stairs and up the ones to the Warden's Lodging where he found Scrope noodling his way on his virginals through some complicated Italian music that Carey had brought him from the South.

“What is this I hear about Lady Widdrington?” asked Carey very quietly. Scrope gave him an extraordinary look, up quickly from under his brows, then back to the music.

“I heard the same from Sir John Forster, today,” Scrope admitted. “Geordie Burn's allegedly got her but I'm sure it's not true, that's why I didn't bother you with it because…”

But Carey had already gone.

Red Sandy did his best, wishing his older brother was there to talk some sense into the Courtier. “Ay sir, I heard it but I didnae believe it and forebye…”

“You think it's a trap laid for me, that I'll go roaring out looking for her and Geordie or Sir Henry can put a spear in me while I do it.”

Red Sandy was relieved. “Ay sir, that's exactly what it is, whether it's true or no'…”

“Do you think it's true?”

“Ah, no sir. I think it's a rumour…”

“Then why did Thomas the Merchant bring it to me and my lord Scrope get it from Sir John Forster?”

Och, that's torn it, Red Sandy thought but didn't say. “Ah dinna ken, sir,” was what he said.

Carey went back to his paperwork. At last the worst of it was done, helped by John Tovey's speed at penwork, which was impressive.

“Is that the last letter, Mr Tovey?”

“There's a couple more about the horse fodder…”

“They can wait, I think. Get to bed, Mr Tovey. I'll see you in the morning.”

John Tovey had a straw pallet bed that he kept rolled up in the office while the large and ugly Scot that Carey had employed in Oxford was already asleep on the truckle bed in Carey's chamber. Tovey took himself to bed while Carey went into his bedroom and brought out a cup of aqua vitae.

“Is your tooth still bad, sir?”

“It's awful, John. I want to bang my head against a wall to stop it throbbing but that won't help. I'll drink this and take a turn outside and then I'll try and get some sleep.”

“Cloves help, sir. Oil of cloves is best but if you can just get some cloves and chew them, they really do help—until you can get it drawn, of course.”

“Thank you, I'll go down to the kitchen and see if I can find any cloves.”

John Tovey was soon snoring and Carey did go down to the kitchen and found that the spices were locked in the spice cupboard. He woke one of the kitchen boys, learned that his sister had the key, and went up to the Warden's Lodging to find her sewing next to the fire in the bedroom.

“Cloves? Yes, I've heard that too.” Bless her, she put her sewing by and they went downstairs to the strains of Italian music and she produced the key to the cupboard on the large bunch of keys on her belt and opened it up. Carey tried one clove gingerly, but when he found it genuinely did help, he took a handful and put them in his doublet pocket.

“When are you going back to the Queen?” he asked his sister and she flushed and looked down.

“I'm sorry, Robin,” she said, “I just can't stand it in Carlisle anymore. And Young Thomas is in trouble again…”

As far as Robin could tell, Young Thomas was doing exactly what you expected wealthy young aristocrats to do at Oxford and he hoped the boy hadn't managed to pox himself.

He nodded. “Before Christmas?”

She locked up the spice cupboard again and nodded. “Scrope's estates need him to look at them, we've had to dismiss the steward for a ridiculous amount of cheating and padding of bills.”

Robin said nothing to that, kissed her quite formally at the door of her bedchamber and went down the stairs again.

An hour later the whole castle was snoring and Carey was still sitting by the embers of the fire in the great hall. He looked around at the place, stood up and went purposefully across to the Queen Mary tower and up to his dressing room where his jack stood on its stand. He changed his clothes for the old woolen doublet he wore under his jack, transferred the cloves carefully, put the jack on and said “Uff” very quietly as the weight went onto his shoulders and his hips. He put his morion helmet on, loosened the straps so they wouldn't hurt his right jaw and strapped on his swordbelt again.

He went quietly down the stairs and out into the stableyard, where he woke two of the strongest hobbies, one of them his own beast, Sorrel, and put bridles on both of them, a saddle on one. They weren't happy, although they ought to have been used to doings in the middle of the night. Perhaps they didn't like it that the bell wasn't tolling.

He left them tied up in the yard and went to the dog kennels where he shushed the excited yelps and wuffs and took Scrope's best lymer, Teazle, on a long leash.

It took time and a bit of doing but he led the horses and the dog down the covered path to the gate and along the wall to the postern gate where he took the horses through one at a time and then gave Solomon Musgrave a substantial tip. He was preoccupied or perhaps he would have noticed who was following him.

He walked the horses down through the town, had another expensive conversation with the guard on the Scotch gate and then was out into the drizzling night. He mounted Sorrel, who he had saddled, put his heels in and went to a steady canter to warm up the horses and the dog before he speeded up to a hand gallop. He assumed Geordie Burn was in cahoots with Sir Henry. He already knew that Sir Henry and Lord Spynie were bosom pals. It was simply obvious what was going on and Carey planned to disrupt it as best he could. It was a pity he didn't have Sergeant Dodd swinging rangily along behind him and moaning about how it would be better to bring all the men, but he didn't. Dodd had taken himself off into the East March in search of a tooth-drawer he'd heard of and Carey didn't expect to see him again until he'd found one, given how Dodd generally was.

And he knew perfectly well that this was probably all an elaborate trap specially for him; he knew perfectly well that Elizabeth Lady Widdrington was perhaps tucked up in her bed….No. The rumour had come from too many directions. Chances were that she had been kidnapped and by Geordie Burn, one of the cruelest and worst raiders in the Middle March after Kerr of Cessford himself. Still, it was probably also a trap.

He didn't care. So it was a trap. Fine. He'd spring it by himself and maybe God would help him get away with Lady Widdrington and maybe he would end cold and staring on somebody's spear. Anything was better than hanging around Carlisle while his bad tooth tried to drill itself through his skull. And he would not have gotten any sleep even if he had stayed tucked up safe in Carlisle castle.

The cloves were helping, though, he thought as he chewed carefully on the pungent spice in his mouth; he was definitely able to think now.

He crossed the Bewcastle waste carefully because it was horribly tricky ground, rocky and treacherous and full of sudden marshy spots, changing horses frequently so they wouldn't get tired. The sliver of Moon dodged in and out of the clouds but by a couple of hours before dawn, the rain had clamped down properly, his jack was wet on the outside, though not on the inside yet, thanks to a lot of beeswax rubbed into it, and he was having to lead the horses over an even more tricky bit. He planned to stay south of the Border until he had to cross into the Burns' lands and he had brought a kerchief of Elizabeth's he had quietly purloined when she came to Carlisle for the funeral of the old Lord Scrope. He'd forgotten he'd done it too, and then found it a few days before in the drawer of his desk.

That was when he heard a snuffling whimpering noise and stopped still. It came again and then a little yelp. It couldn't be?

“Jack?” he said and heard a wuff in the night.

He followed the sound and found the half-grown lymer pup completely covered in mud and stuck in a marsh. He wagged his tail wearily at Carey and gave another yelp.

“Good God, did you follow me all the way here?”

It was a stupid question, obviously he had because here he was. Carey sighed deeply, went and found a long sapling, cut it and prodded it toward Jack who barked at it, and finally held the sapling in his mouth so Carey could pull him out of the marsh. He took the dog to a slightly cleaner pool and washed the worst off and then squatted beside him and hugged his shoulders where they weren't too wet.

The pup was utterly exhausted, could hardly move his paws, but still licked Carey painfully exactly where his jaw was hurting worst.

“I appreciate the faithfulness,” Carey said, “but what am I going to do with you?”

The half-grown pup wriggled with joy and panted open-mouthed at Carey. “You can't ride a horse, so you'll have to do the best you can and run,” he said. “I'll rest a bit and then we'll take the last part as quick as we can and get to them on a surprise.”

It wasn't a very good plan, he knew that, but it was the best he'd been able to come up with. Sometimes simple plans were good because they caught your enemies unawares. He hoped. He arranged the two hobbies on either side of himself and got them to lie down so he could prop himself against one of them and get some kind of rest. Jack came and plopped himself down next to him, and Teazle, the older lymer, took a dignified place on the other side.

At first Carey couldn't sleep although the pain from his tooth had gone down to a sinister drone. He was too wrought up thinking about Elizabeth, wondering if she was sleeping, wondering how she was, wondering what else he could do. Was this how she had felt when he got into trouble in Dumfries in the summer? Perhaps. It hadn't occurred to him how bad she might have felt.

He dozed off and dreamed of being roundly scolded by an elderly Jewish woman he didn't know at all, only she looked a bit like his mother.

He woke at dawn, stiff and aching with the nervous feeling he was late for something, he should get moving. The lymer pup was curled against him and looking up at him adoringly. One of the hobbies had wandered off while he was asleep. He cursed himself for not hobbling them, but he didn't have time to go looking for the animal and he would be perfectly all right for the moment, since he had a clear Carlisle brand. Whoever found him would keep him for a while and then bring him into Carlisle for the reward.

So he mounted up on Sorrel and rode on his way, followed by the dogs loping behind him, and he couldn't help himself, he rode faster and faster, until he was galloping dangerously along the high Cheviots, along the treacherous paths there that wound in and out among the rocks with the dogs strung out, Teazle before and Jack behind and he was late, he knew he was and…

There were two more horses there, one behind the other, over on the other side of summer pasture belonging to the Kerrs, or so they claimed, or the Collingwoods, or so they claimed, bitten down short and rank now from the rain. The leader was a broad tall man in an English jack and a morion helmet, the follower was…

Was a woman. Clearly a woman though riding astride, she had a black velvet gown on, her hat was pinned to her head and she was riding like the devil down toward him, riding like the Queen of Elfland though on a hobby not a milkwhite mare, taking ditches and low drystone walls as if the hobby was Pegasus and…

She lifted her face and the Sun poked a spear out from under the rocky piles of cloud and lit her for a second and then he had his own horse round and he was riding toward her while his heart beat itself out of his chest with joy and relief and joy.