Terrified of being spitted like an animal in a trap, Dodd looked around for something to wedge it with, pulled one of the rotten planks towards him and jammed it in the groove.
The passage was tiny and slimy and horrible. He didn’t want to go in. On the other hand, he couldn’t climb back up either.
“Carey, you bastard,” he moaned, pushed his sword in its scabbard in front, put his head in and scraped his shoulders through. There was an ominous creak and whine from the iron gate. Dodd whimpered and crawled forwards on his elbows as fast as he could, heard the rattle and cracking as the rusty chain broke and the wood splintered, and brought his feet up under him just in time, scraping a long hole in his hose and grazing his knees. The iron grill slammed into the holes behind him, and he wanted to be sick.
He didn’t, it was too unpleasant a thought, having to crawl through it. The passage was bad enough as it was, slimy and stinking of rats and excrement, with little spines of limestone sticking up and hurting his hands and spines of limestone hanging down to bang his head. Why the hell was he doing this for Carey, he didn’t even like the man, what the devil did he care…
The passage opened out a bit after a few yards of eeling along on his belly, so he could crawl on hands and knees, feeling ahead of himself with his sword, in terror that the roof might have fallen in. There was one place where some stones had fallen down, but he managed to slither through there as well, to find a puddle on the other side.
He splashed through that, crawled for another age, cursing Carey, Lowther and both Scropes comprehensively, and then the point of his sword rammed into solid stone blocking the way. Not knowing whether his eyes were open or shut, except by the way his sweat was stinging them, he felt the stones. Masonry, tightly packed. He must be at the Tile Tower by now, surely. And surely to God, there was a way out. He felt around, found a small slimy drain that was producing a stink to fell an ox. He thought he must suffocate from it and his head was starting to spin.
The wall in front of him stayed obstinately immovable. Dodd pushed and heaved with his neck muscles cramping and his knees giving him hell, almost weeping with frustration. He finally lay down flat to rest, and happened to look upwards.
Either something was wrong with his eyes or there was a tiny squeeze of daylight up there. Above him was no tunnel roof, only a shaft and beside him, now he had calmed down, he could feel some more metal rungs. He sniffed. He thought at last that he knew where he was: this was the garderobe shaft for the Tile Tower, which was one of the lookout towers on the north wall of Carlisle. It was still in use, clearly, by sentries. God, no wonder the tunnel stank and what exactly was it he’d crawled through…
“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” he muttered in a litany of ill-usage, as he strapped his sword on again and set himself to climb. The rungs were slippery but they seemed firmer than the ones in the well. At last he found the light coming from a little window above a small stone platform. At that point, he could get his bearings. He was in the outer wall where it was at its thickest, seven or eight yards thick, he thought and couldn’t remember. There must be a way to the outside, or why bother with a passage?
There was. Part of the wall swivelled and he passed through it. The passage was as narrow as the one from the well, but this one was at least dry. At the end it dipped down where it joined a gutter and when Dodd lowered himself experimentally, he found himself sitting on a ledge about ten feet off the ground to the north of Carlisle, looking out on the Sauceries and the racetrack and the Eden bridge.
Now afraid of twisting his ankle when he had ten miles to run, Dodd lowered himself down on his arms and fingers, dropped into the soft earth and brambles of the ditch and then sat there for five minutes, gasping and shuddering and swearing all sorts of desperate reformations if God would never make him do that again. At last, with his knees killing him and his legs still rubbery, he scrambled up the other side of the ditch and walked across the rough grass to the river.
Once he got to the Eden he mopped off some of the green streaks and filth that covered him from head to foot. There were a few curious stares from some of the women washing linen at the rapids, but none of them saw fit to comment. Then he set off along the old Roman road at a fast jog trot, past the banks and ditch of the old Pict’s Wall, heading for Brampton nine miles away where Janet’s father lived with his kin, the first of the men on Carey’s list of those who disliked Lowther. Nobody enjoyed paying blackrent for protection against raiders Lowther brought in himself, but some resented it more than others. Will the Tod Armstrong, Janet’s father, had bent his ear often enough on the subject, God knew.
The day was hot for the first time in weeks, and Dodd thought seriously about hiding his jack in a bush and coming back for it later. In the end he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it and risk losing an old friend.
As he loped along, he kept watching for horses though he knew there was less than no hope of finding a loose horse to steal this close to the marauders denned up at Netherby. Most of the men were at the shielings anyway, so not even cows were visible, and the womenfolk hard at work in the fields and gardens near their houses. Some of them unbent their backs to look at him, a couple recognised him, but as they could hear no tolling of the Carlisle bell, they were puzzled to know what to do and simply stood watching. He ignored the ones who called out.
Perhaps his father-in-law would take pity on him and lend him a horse to carry him the further seven miles to Gilsland where he could rouse out his own surname.
God help Carey if he’s had the bad taste to get himself hanged before I can bring help to Netherby, was all Dodd could think, as he pounded along the rutted gravel of the Roman road. I’ll hunt him down and beat his brains out in Hell itself.
Friday, 23rd June, morning
Elizabeth Widdrington roused her stepson Henry from his lodgings at Bessie’s and told him the tale as he ate his bread and cheese. He laughed aloud at the thought of Dodd being banged up in his own jail, until he saw his young stepmother tapping her foot and swallowed his amusement. She’s a handsome woman, he thought, a little shocked at himself. What shreds of filial piety Henry had ever felt had been long destroyed by his father’s ill-temper and complex doings with the Fenwicks, the Kerrs and every gang of ruffians that chose to terrorise the East March when Sir John Carey’s back was turned. As a boy of ten Henry had been prudishly shocked when his father chose to marry again, and found himself a young Cornish girl through the good offices of Lord Hunsdon. But Elizabeth Trevannion had won him over in the end by treating him as a brother, rather than a son.
She was talking again.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, not sure he had heard it right.
“You and I are going to Thomas the Merchant and we’re going to get the full story he’s hiding about what he knows of Sweetmilk. And then, depending on what we find, you might go straight to Netherby to tell Jock of the Peartree of it.”
Henry chocked on a lump of cheese. “But I haven’t got a pass to go into Scotland.”
“You will by the time you need one, Philadelphia Scrope is seeing to it. Now come along.”
Thomas the Merchant had a very fine wooden town house on English Street, solidly built of Irish timber and the walls coloured faint pink with a bull’s blood wash. Elizabeth Widdrington swept in, with the top of her high-crowned hat brushing the door lintel and servants scattering behind her like chaff. Henry knew his job for this kind of thing, at least, having collected rents with his stepmother in the past. When an ugly man his own height dared to bar their path, he drew his sword, put it on the man’s chest and walked straight on so he had the choice of giving way or being spitted. The man gave way.