The man’s face was sharp as an Edinburgh merchant. “Set ye doon,” he said in passable Scots, “Ah’ve a mind tae speak wi’ ye. What’s yer right name?”
Hughie said nothing and shrugged though his heart was beating hard. The man smiled shyly.
“I’ve an idea yer right name is Hughie Elliot, youngest brother to Wee Colin. Is that right?”
It was the password he’d been given by the man who said he was working for the Earl of Bothwell.
“Ay sir,” he said. So this was the man who was supposed to be his contact in England. A rich hunchback. Well, so be it.
“What were you to do for me?” asked the man.
“Nobbut send ye tidings of Carey’s doings in the West March,” Hughie told him and the rich hunchback nodded gravely. “And then after a year and a day, when I’ve killt him, let ye know so ye can warn the goldsmith to give me ma gold.”
The shadow of something that might have been amusement crossed the hunchback’s face.
“Indeed? Can you cipher, Hughie?”
“I can read and write, if that’s yer meaning, sir?”
The rich hunchback brought out paper and some pieces of graphite and showed him what ciphering meant. It was a way of putting signs or numbers instead of letters in a system which meant you could still read it. Hughie was impressed at the cleverness of it.
“How do I send ye messages, sir? In the dispatch bag to Berwick?”
“Certainly not,” said the hunchback. “Do you know Carlisle at all? No? Well there’s a man there called Thomas the Merchant Hetherington that will do anything at all for money. Go to him when you get to Carlisle and show him this token.”
It was a blood jasper, carved with the image of a snake. A nice piece.
“That’s the Serpent Wisdom. He’ll know then that he’s to take your letters and send them south with his own letters to London. They’ll reach me.”
“Ay, sir.”
“Oh and Hughie, please hold off on killing Carey, would you? Remember your pension stops when he dies.”
“Ma pension?”
“Certainly. I’ll instruct Thomas the Merchant to pay a shilling to you for every letter I receive.”
“Och.” It would take a great many letters to equal the?30 in gold he was owed for Carey’s head. Six hundred in fact. But still…It was money in the hand not the bush, as it were.
“Ay, sir,” said Hughie, carefully tipping his cap to the hunchback. “Thank ye, sir.”
“I’ll look forward to your reports with interest,” said the hunchback.
“Ehm…Who should they be addressed to?”
“Mr. Philpotts at the Belle Sauvage inn, Ludgate Hill.”
“Ay? What shall I do till I get yer money, sir?”
“See if Carey will pay you,” said Mr. Philpotts lightly. “You’d better go now, he wants you to help him with his doublet.”
As Hughie turned the corner and saw the chequered Cumberland flags he thought to himself, “I’ll kill him when I choose, not when ye say so, Mr. Hunchback Philpotts.” It was exciting to be earning money for letters though. He’d come a long way since the bastard Dodds burnt out his whole family when he was but a wean, a long, long way.
Tuesday 19th September 1592, 2 a.m
Captain Leigh struggled awake in the black night before dawn, heart thumping, his sword already grabbed from its usual place by the side of his bed. He stood there, listening for a moment.
A horrific shriek rang out that was neither an owl nor any creature being eaten by a fox. Then there was a thunder of running feet and shouting then horses…
He already had his hose on and he pulled his buff jerkin over the top of his shirt, drew the sword and ran outside into the burned monastery’s cloister. A large shape galloped past him and nearly knocked him over. Another shape cannoned into him in the dark and tried to punch him. The smell of booze told him who it was.
“Goddamn it, I’m the captain!” he shouted at John Arden who sheepishly let him up. A man in a shirt ran past screaming blue murder, another couple of men were scrambling up onto a lookout place like milkmaids chased by a mouse.
The horse in the cloister reared and kicked, another galloped past neighing with panic. Leigh grabbed for its mane and it tried to bite him. Both nags galloped out the gate into the forest.
In the murk, more men appeared groggily, some with their buff jerkins on, most without their boots. One was hopping on one leg with a nasty gash in his toe.
Finally someone got the lantern alight again which only helped a little as the night was so dark.
“It…it’s ghosts, sir. Burnt monks.”
“Al infierno con esos capullos,” hissed somebody behind him. Leigh spun to see Jeronimo stamping across the flagstones with a loaded crossbow clamped under his shortened arm, a torch in the other, his buffcoat and boots on and his morion on his head. At that moment Leigh knew the man was not lying about having been a terceiro of the third Imperial Spanish legion as he boasted.
They checked the carrels below the monks’ dorter which was in use as their stable. Three of the horses had bolted, leaving only the Northerner’s Whitesock still there, pulling at his tether. Leigh went to him and managed to calm the animal down, gave him some hay to eat. The doors had been broken outwards.
Eventually under Leigh’s bellowing and Jeronimo’s withering scorn, the men gathered together, sheepish and cold. Harry Hunks was there, blinking, looking witless and still in his shirt.
“God’s teeth!” shouted Leigh in disgust, “Christ save us if we ever do find ourselves attacked in the night. None of you will. The only man among you that wouldn’t be dead right now is Don Jeronimo.”
Jeronimo flourished a bow. The men didn’t like being compared unfavourably to a foreigner and one of them muttered rebelliously.
“Speak up, Smithson,” Leigh snapped.
“It was ghosts, sir, I heard ’em singing.”
“I saw one, it was white, sir, and it moaned.”
A gabble of frightened stories broke out. Allegedly the burned monks had been singing the Papist hymn for the dead.
“For God’s sake, it was probably just another one of you idiots, blundering about screaming in the dark.”
“All the watchlights went out, sir, all at the same time. And then there was Papist singing. It’s the burned monks, sir.”
Leigh rolled his eyes. Nothing annoyed him more than superstitious nonsense about ghosts. He should have seen ghosts by now if they existed and he hadn’t. So they didn’t. It was clean contrary to good religion in any case-the dead slept until judgement when most of them would be damned. It didn’t matter whether you buried them or not, they slept. How many piles of bodies from battles or camp fevers had he supervised being burned or buried? If ghosts walked, there should be troops of them following him and following the men he led, ghosts of innocent people they had killed or burned. He shivered for a second. Of course, he would be among the damned.
“Look,” he said, trying to get them to think, “The old monks are dead and gone fifty years ago at least.”
Somebody muttered. “Don’t matter to ghosts.”
“I saw it, sir, it was white and moaning, sir.”
“I expect that was Mr. Arden, hungover, trying to stop you killing each other in your fright.” Arden smiled a little.
Leigh was thinking hard. He sent some men out to catch the bolted horses again, beckoned Smithson over and they walked quickly down to the old witch’s cottage in the ruins of the monastery gatehouse. If that bloody northerner wasn’t in the monk’s pit, he’d flog the bastard.
The dog was snoozing in the yard, lifted an ear and one eyelid at the sound of their feet, gave a short lazy “Woof!” and went back to sleep.
They found the turfed wickerwork roof over the mouth of the pit and peered in.
The man was asleep there, curled up in a rough old blanket and snoring. The light from their lantern woke him and he lifted his head and put up his hand against the dazzle.
“Ay, whit d’ye want?” he snarled. “Can Ah no’ get ma sleep?”
“Was it you causing trouble?” Leigh demanded.
The Northerner propped himself on his elbow and scratched his brown hair vigorously.
“Ay,” he sneered, “Ah’ve wings to fly and Ah flew over ye and shat upon ye for entertainment.”
Leigh let the hurdle drop again. They went back to the old monastery and tried to clear up and sort out the mess. Leigh decided he had to run some proper exercises for his men. They’d got soft sitting around here. In France they would never have let a couple of bolted horses and a few shrieks from an owl spook them so badly.
But nobody was dead. That was what finally convinced Leigh he was only dealing with superstition and stupidity. If the Northerner had done it, surely he’d have slit a few throats, it stood to reason?
It was past sunrise before he was in the Northerner’s respectable suit which was tight at the waist, the Northerner’s fat purse full of gold angels in the crotch and some counted out into the front pocket. Whitesock was in perfectly good health despite the night, though the saddle from one of the other horses didn’t fit him properly. The other three were no doubt out in the forest eating yew and whatever else they could find that would poison them. The men would have to find them, he didn’t want to delay any longer.
The Oxford road was only a mile away, near Cumnor Place. As he prepared to leave he beckoned John Arden to his stirrup. Jeronimo was sitting slumped on a stone bench, his crossbow discharged now, his face grey and unreadable.
“Listen, John,” he hissed at his old friend, “stay sober, stay in charge, make sure nothing else happens. If that Northerner gives trouble, knock him out but don’t kill him. This is our one chance for our pay, you understand?”
Arden was clearly already drunk. He blinked owlishly up at Leigh.
“I know that, Captain,” he slurred, “I won’t get drunk.”
Leigh shook his head and put his heels in.