Monday 10th July 1592, early morning
Carey’s sister refused to let Barnabus travel with them, which was deeply annoying since it meant Carey would have to do without a manservant at the Scottish court. Still, Barnabus was clearly very unwell, looking yellow, feverish and tightlipped. Philadelphia had put him back to bed in the little sickroom next to her stillroom with a brazier burning sweet herbs and a pile of blankets to help the fever. Carey, who had miraculously avoided ever catching a dose himself, hoped devoutly that he would stay lucky: Barnabus had been adenoidally eloquent on the trouble he had passing water and a number of intimate medical details that Carey could have done without. Philadelphia had also been firm on the subject of money.
“I haven’t a penny,” she sighed, busily stirring a steaming little pot over a dish of hot coals on her stillroom table. Putty-coloured and unnaturally still in the sickroom’s other bed, Walter Ridley snored heavily in the background. “I can’t even afford to buy embroidery silks, thanks to you and that big lolloping horse of yours,” she added accusingly. “And my lord’s no help; he says I should have known better than to wager on anything with Sir Simon Musgrave, let alone horse-races. Why don’t you take Thunder with you and sell him at the Scottish court? King James likes good horseflesh, and he’s probably a bit short at the moment, what with the raid on Falkland Palace and everything.”
Carey looked at her with annoyance, because he hadn’t thought of that himself.
“Isn’t it illegal to trade horses into Scotland?”
Philadelphia sniffed. “Don’t be silly, Robin, that law’s for peasants and their hobbies, not proper tournament chargers.”
It would be a wrench to sell Thunder. George, Earl of Cumberland had offered him forty pounds for the animal before he left London, and he had been too sentimental to take it. Besides, at the time he had just wheedled a loan out of the Queen and was feeling rich. But there was no denying that Thunder was eating his head off in Carlisle, was too big-boned and heavy for Border-riding and was very unlikely to win him any tournaments at the moment. He might make something in covering fees but not enough to earn his keep.
“Hm,” Carey said, thinking it over. “Perhaps it would be worth taking him. But in any case, I need travelling money now and some for bribing the Scots courtiers as well.”
Philadelphia shrugged and stopped mixing the tisane she was making for Barnabus. “Well then, you’ll have to hock some rings, Robin, I’m sorry.” She cautiously sipped the brown liquid in the pot over her chafing dish with a silver spoon and shuddered. She began carefully decanting it into a silver goblet through a muslin strainer.
“What’s in that?”
“Hm? Oh, wild lettuce, camomile, dried rosehips. That kind of thing. It should make him a bit less sore, but I’m afraid if Barnabus is going to go on catching the clap every year, he’ll need to see a surgeon. Have a word with him about it when he’s better.”
And so Carey delayed their departure for an hour while he did his business with Hetherington. This gave Dodd time to find his brother and tell him he was going into Scotland with them. Both Dodds were appalled at the thought of only themselves and Sim’s Will Croser crossing the land between Carlisle and Dumfries with the Courtier, who was plainly insane and tired of life, and the Graham water-bailiff who was not to be trusted.
“It’s no’ the going there I’m so worried about,” Red Sandy said, chewing a bit off his fingernail. “It’s the coming back. D’ye mind that raid a few years ago where the Johnstones jumped us by Gretna?”
“Ay,” said Dodd, who had a scar on his leg for a souvenir. “We could take every man in the garrison wi’ us and still not be more than halfway safe.”
“He’s mad,” said Red Sandy, positively. “Run woodwild.”
“Are ye coming or no’?”
Red Sandy sighed heavily and bit down on his thumbnail. “Ay, of course I am, brother. God help us.”
Sim’s Will Croser was a stocky and phlegmatic man who saddled up without complaint as if he were doing no more than taking a dispatch to Newcastle. Carey had left orders that they were to bring a week’s supply of hard-tack and horse fodder with them, and so they also had to load up four pack ponies with food and a fifth with blankets and a bag that clanked when shaken.
Carey chose that moment to come striding into the yard, followed by the English Graham water-bailiff. Dodd noticed that the Courtier was broader by the thickness of a money belt around his middle under his jack and black velvet doublet and that he had two rings fewer on his long fingers. “Are we running a raid intae the fair Highlands?” Red Sandy wondered, shaking his head at the preparations. Carey smiled at him.
“Plagues of locusts and looting Tartar hordes have nothing on a Court for stripping a place bare,” he said. “And that’s only the English court I’m thinking about; God alone knows what King James’s gentle followers are doing to Dumfries.”
He went over to the stables and led out Thunder, who was already tacked up, hitched him to the big horse called Sorrel that was Carey’s normal Border mount. Thunder whickered in protest at the indignity of being led, and pulled at the reins as Carey swung into the saddle.
He led them at a brisk pace out of the crowded town, nodding to some of the local gentry he had met at the old Lord’s funeral, and headed north towards the Border. They would have about five miles of the southern end of the Debateable Land to cross in order to go over the Border and Carey obviously needed to do it as quickly as possible, before word could get to any broken men about Thunder and their packponies.
He was in a hurry but to Dodd’s surprise, Carey did not immediately take the route across the Esk and past Solway Field that led mostly directly to the Dumfries road. Instead, after a conversation with the Graham water-bailiff, he turned aside to Lanercost, until he came to the little huddle of huts where Long George’s family lived. The half-tanned hide across the entrance of the living hut still hung down unwelcomingly, although there was movement within. There was also a fresh grave a little way from the place, under an apple tree. Dodd looked at it and wondered nervously about ghosts.
Carey dismounted, went over and knocked on the wattle wall and poked his head around the leather, immediately to start coughing at the smell of woodsmoke and porridge. All the four children he had seen before were piled up asleep like puppies in the bundle of bracken and skins and blankets where Long George had died and Goodwife Little was stirring at the pot hanging over the central fire.
To Goody Little the Deputy’s sudden appearance like that was a nightmare come true again, and she shrieked softly at the horned appearance of his morion before recognising the face.
“Cuddy,” she shouted. “Get up and stir the pot.”
The boy fell blinking out of bed, scratching himself under his shirt and shambled obediently over to the pot. Goodwife Little wiped her hands on her apron and came to the Deputy, where she curtseyed.
“Ay, sir?” she said, looking up at him, her hard thin face steely with hope firmly squashed and sat upon so it could not sour on disappointment.
“May I come in, Goodwife?”
She gestured and Carey stepped around the hide.
“Long George was owed sixty shillings and sevenpence back pay, of which I have fifteen shillings and sevenpence here.” Goody Little took breath to speak but subsided when Carey raised his hand, palm towards her. “I have also arranged a pension which is only threepence a day, but which I have the word of the Lord Warden will be paid on any day of the month that you choose to collect it. You may collect the rest of his back pay at the same time, in instalments, or as a lump sum, and you must present yourself in person with this paper here at the Carlisle Keep.”
Goody Little had gone pale and put her hand against the wall. She smelled sourly female and as well-smoked as a bacon haunch, and as far as Carey could make out she had no breasts and no hips to speak of.