Monday 18th September 1592, morning
Dodd waited, forcing himself to breathe slowly in the prickling leaves and stones. There was a crunch of wooden clogs, but quite light, perhaps not a man…The dog was snortling about and came right over to Dodd. He stayed still where he lay, let the animal sniff him all over, heart beating.
A wet nose thrust into his face and started licking his face, chin to forehead, slobbering his beard hairs the wrong way.
“Ach, awa’ wi’ ye!” he complained and shoved the dog off. The dog put his paws on Dodd’s shoulders and panted in his face, so Dodd stayed where he was and reached out to pat the dog’s hairy flank. “Ay, what d’ye want?”
“Goodman,” said a girl’s voice on the other side of the bushes, “Are you all right?”
“Eh…nay, lass, Ah’ve got nae clothes nor gear and yer hound’s droonin’ me…”
Silence. Then: “Are you a foreigner?”
Dodd sighed deeply and said it again more Southern, which hurt his lips and face.
“Oh. Are you very much hurt?”
Considering the battering he’d taken, he’d been very lucky with only a possible busted rib and nose. But…
“Ay, Ah think ma leg is broken.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry. The robbers must have jumped you at the ford, didn’t they?”
“Ay,” Dodd said, thinking fast, “Ah’m no’ a pretty sight for a lass. Ha’ ye any breeks wi’ ye?”
After more tiring translation, a bag was thrown over the bushes and in it Dodd found a rough hemp shirt and woollen breeches. He pulled them on at once, hoping the other man’s lice wouldn’t be too ferocious.
The dog had lain down beside him, watching with his nose between his paws and his eyebrows working as Dodd looked about for a belt. There was none, nor shoes nor clogs neither. He sighed, having a shrewd idea what was going on.
“I’m decent now,” he called and the girl peered around the bushes.
She was a grubby little creature, about seven or eight years old and her greasy brown hair hanging out under a smeared biggin cap. Impossible to say if she would ever be pretty.
“Oh, Goodman,” she said with a polite curtsey, “I’m ever so sorry about the robbers, they’re terrible wicked men. My granny says, would you like to come and stay at our house until you’re recovered?”
“Ah have nae money,” Dodd explained. “I could likely get some in Oxford town but the robbers took a’ I had on me.”
It was a real nuisance having to repeat everything he said more Southern. His right leg was the one more bruised from the kicking so that was the one he decided would be broken.
“It’s all right,” said the child with a smile that seemed hard work for her. It certainly never reached her eyes. “My granny says it’s our duty to help poor travellers attacked by the robbers.”
“Ay,” said Dodd, careful to keep his suspicion off his face and not ask why they didn’t try a bit of warning then. And also how it came about that she had clothes for him. “Would ye…ken…d’ye know the name of the reivers…the robbers’ headman…their captain?”
“No, Goodman,” said the child in a pious way which told Dodd that she did. “They’re wicked men.”
Dodd made a great palaver of getting up, screwing up his face and groaning loudly in a way he never would if his leg actually had been broken. Then he leaned heavily on the child’s shoulder as he hopped along the path with the dog padding quietly ahead of them.
After only a mile or so uphill they came to a tiny little bothy with low walls and a roof of turves and branches, not even respectable thatch like the remains of the monastery. An old lady in blue homespun was sitting on a stone by the door knitting and she looked up and smiled toothlessly as Dodd came hopping along with her granddaughter.
He made the motion of taking off his cap to her but of course he wasn’t even wearing a statute cap which made him feel as if he was still naked.
“Missus,” he said respectfully, “yer grandaughter says I can come and recover ma strength with ye, which I’m grateful for, but I’ll tell ye now I havenae money with me for the…bastards took the lot includin’ ma breeks.”
“They do that so you won’t chase them,” said the old woman. “Can you work, Goodman?”
Dodd made a helpless expression. “A little, missus, but I think I’ve broke me leg.”
That got only an unsympathetic grunt from her and the child left Dodd to wobble on one leg and went to whisper fiercely in the carlin’s ear. Another grunt and a chomping of jaws. Before he fell over or had to put his leg down and give the game away, Dodd grabbed the bush he was standing next to. He had felt unaccountably dizzy for a moment there which was odd. Still maybe not surprising, considering the battering. He had already sworn a mighty internal oath that he would never ever come to the soft safe South again, where people beat you up but didn’t bother to kill you.
The old woman’s eyes were narrowed in their crumpled beds and her jaws worked again. “Who’s yer master?”
Dodd had thought hard about this inevitable question. What would be the best thing to say?
“Missus, I dinna ken…know ye and I’m grateful for the duds ye’ve lent me, but until we’re better friends I’d be happier in my mind not to gi’ ye my master’s name, seeing he’s a courtier.”
The old eyes were narrowing and the child’s as well. You could see they were related.
“Is he rich?”
“Not him, his family,” said Dodd truthfully, “but Ah dinna ken if they’d ransome me…”
That was a dangerous thing to say because there were people on the Border who would just slit your throat if they thought you weren’t worth anything. On the other hand, it was worth it to see the reactions-disappointment, guilt, then…
“We wouldn’t ask for ransome, Goodman, we’re not robbers and you’re not our prisoner,” said the old woman, working hard to look pious. “We only want to help you.”
“I’m sorry, missus,” Dodd said, with as charming a smile as he could get his bruised face to stretch to. “I meant a reward, payment for yer trouble…”
The carlin smiled and nodded, the child continued her very hard stare.
Ay, thought Dodd with some satisfaction, I know ye, missus, and how you’re placed and what you’re up to.
In fact, there was no chance whatever that a little cottage with a garden and…yes…from the smell, goats…could have survived next to a troop of broken men like the bastards who had temporarily bested him, without they paid blackrent of some kind. They were the carrion crows to the wolf pack of the broken men. What did he want the wolves to know? That was the question.
Monday 18th September 1592, noon
Captain Leigh was playing dice with the old Spaniard in the still watertight monastery parlour, when little Kat Layman came trotting in ahead of John Arden who was drunk again. Her grim little face was less tight than usual which meant she had good news. She curtseyed nicely to him and waited to be spoken to, manners he had taught her with the back of his hand.
She took the cup of watered wine he always offered and sipped it, no expression.
It was stupid really, but Edward Leigh found the child unnerving sometimes. She was so unchildlike.
“Now then Kat,” Leigh asked, rubbing the large bruise on his chin where their most recent target had punched him, “What have you found out?”
“His name is Colin Elliot, he’s a Northerner which I knew anyway because you can’t hardly make out what he do say.” Leigh nodded encouragingly. “He was taking a message to his master which is a courtier and one of the Earl of Essex’s men.”
Leigh stopped breathing and looked over at Jeronimo, sitting still with the dice cup still poised between his long fingers. His cadaverous hawk of a face was intent. Was it possible the Spaniard had been right?