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.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Bangtail.”
“How did you know so fine that Bessie’s Andrew was lying?”
Carey smiled and looked mysterious. “Never lie to a courtier, Bangtail. We’re all experts at the game.
Dodd grunted to himself. He thought he knew another reason why Carey had been so sure of Andrew Storey’s perfidy. After all, he’d had the chance to take a good look at the corpse, and rings long-worn leave dents on a man’s fingers.
At Carlisle, Carey dismissed them and hurried into the Keep calling for Bell. Once they were safely in the barracks, and Bessie’s Andrew had taken his jack off and put it on a stand, Dodd turned to him and punched him hard in the gut. Bessie’s Andrew sank to the floor mewing and gasping. Dodd kicked him a couple of times for good luck.
“And that’s for keeping the gear from me,” he snarled.
Tuesday, 20th June, afternoon
With Carey gone about some urgent business, Dodd rubbed down his own horse, saw the animals were properly watered, fed and clean, and then wandered, belly rumbling, down towards Bessie’s again. Time enough to eat the garrison rations when he had no more money left. He was still in a bad temper and cursing Bessie’s Andrew: if the ill-starred wean had behaved properly with his windfall and shared it with his sergeant, Dodd could have given Janet a little ring with a ruby in it which she would have liked. On the other hand, he might then have had to ask for it back…
He was sauntering along, thinking about that with his long dour face like the past week’s weather, when he saw something that cheered him at once.
There, astride Shilling his old hobby, rode the splendid sight of his wife Janet, market pannier full of salt and string and a sugar loaf poking out the top, her eyes and the dagger at her waist daring any man to try robbing her. Unlike the Graham women, she felt no need of carrying a gun to keep her safe. Dodd liked his woman to look well and Janet was in her red dress with the black trim, a neat little ruff round her neck, and a fine false front to her petticoat made of part of the old Lord Scrope’s court cloak, which the young lord had disdained since it was out of fashion, Philadelphia had accepted, her maid taken as a perk and Janet snapped up as a bargain the month before. Her white apron was of linen she had woven herself and was a credit to her. The red kirtle suited her high colour and the snapping pale blue eyes and Armstrong sandy hair. If her teeth were a little crooked and her hips broad enough to be fashionable without need of a bumroll (though she wore one of course) and her boots heavy and hobnailed, what of it? He put his hand to the horse’s bridle and Shilling whickered at him and tried to find an apple in the front of his jerkin. Janet smiled at him.
“Now then wife,” said Dodd, grinning lecherously at her.
“I heard you were out on patrol.”
“We were looking at the place where we found a body.”
Janet frowned. “Was that the body of Sweetmilk Graham you’ve not yet told me of?”
“It was.”
“Will Jock raid us, do you think?”
“Why should he?” demanded Dodd, “It wasn’t me that killed his son.”
Janet looked dubious. “What about lying to him at the ford?”
Christ, how did she hear so much? “He’ll know it was because I was not inclined to a fight. And where are you off to?”
“To see my lover,” said Janet with a naughty look. Dodd growled. She slid from the horse and began leading the animal, holding her skirts high above the mud.
“How’s the wheat?” Henry asked, walking beside her and enjoying the view.
Janet began to suck her bottom lip through a gap in her teeth and her brow knitted.
“Sick,” she said. “We might get by with the oats and the barley if there’s no more rain. I’ll leave that field fallow next year.”
“But it’s infield,” protested Dodd.
“Give it time to clean itself. I might run some pigs on it. The beans are doing poorly too.”
“What will you do to replace Mildred?”
“I’ve heard tell there’s one for sale.”
“Not reived?”
Janet shrugged. “Not branded, any road. That’s why I want to buy him.”
“Buy,” said Dodd and shook his head.
Janet giggled. “Will you want to come with me or would it go against your credit to be seen giving money for a beast?”
Dodd considered. Janet was almost as good a judge of horseflesh as he was himself, and knew most of the horses from round about and wasn’t likely to be sold a stolen animal, at least not unknowingly. But she was only a woman. If it had been a cow…
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
They turned down a small wynd leading to one of the many ruined churches of Carlisle: this one had a churchman in it, a book-a-bosom man who spent most of his time travelling about the country catching up with the weddings and christenings.
“Good afternoon, Reverend Turnbull,” said Janet politely, “we’ve come about the horse.”
Now Dodd was no different from any other man. He may have had a longer and more ill-tempered face than most, but he could fall in love. He fell in love immediately, with the elegant long-legged creature that was tethered inside the porch of the church. The colour was unusual, a piebald black, the neck high and arched, the legs strong and firm, hooves as healthy as you could wish and best of all, he still had his stones.
Janet’s face was bland. “Where was he stolen?”
The Reverend Turnbull looked offended. “Mrs Dodd, I would never try to sell you or the Sergeant a…stolen animal. I swear to you on my honour as a man of the cloth, that he was honestly bought. Besides, do you think an animal like that could be reived and the Sergeant not know about it?”
Dodd turned away so the churchman wouldn’t see his face which he knew would be full of ardour. With a horse like that he could win the victor’s bell at any race he chose to enter, he thought, and the fees he could charge at stud…
“Well?” said Janet.
“Eh?” Dodd had his hands on the horse’s rump, running them down the beautiful muscles, feeling the tail which needed grooming to rid it of burrs.
“Have you heard of a horse like that being reived recently?”
“Reived…no, no, I’d have heard for sure. There now, there, I’ve no apples, I’m sorry…”
“Dodd,” growled Janet. Henry paid no attention.
“He’s an English beast, surely,” he said. “Never Scots, not looking like that, unless he’s out of the King’s stable.”
“Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“Is he out of the King’s stable, Reverend?”
The churchman laughed fondly. “No, no, he’s an English horse, from Berwick, I know that from the man that sold him to me.”
Dodd took the reins and swung himself up onto the horse’s back, rode in a tight circle before the church. He had a lovely gait, a mettlesome manner though he might have been short of horsefeed recently, and a mouth as soft as a lady’s glove.