Did he want to spend it on overpriced ale and beer? Well, yes, he did and he could kill two birds with one stone if he went round the multitude of Oxford taverns. So that was settled. He would do that and then he’d take a horse and ride down the road, see if he could spot where Dodd had gone. Or find his body, which was starting to look more and more likely.
Tuesday 19th September 1592
It took a lot of work to wait in that pit without doing anything. Dodd drank the rest of the drugged ale and dozed, filling his head with lurid pictures of the welcome his wife would give him when he got back to Gilsland and what he would do and…Well, it passed the time, didn’t it? He had heard little Kat coming in, her clogs slow and tired and her stout lie that she had climbed a tree to avoid a pig in the forest when she was looking for more cobnuts and then got stuck in the tree. Her Grandam shouted at her and sent her to card wool in the cottage with no dinner, which made Dodd feel sorry for the little maid. His guts were churning with nerves about what he would do that night. After all, a mere night raid, a bit of fun running about shrieking and spooking horses, that was easy. His plan for this night was a lot more ticklish.
Still. He couldn’t go back to Carey without at least his sword and his boots. So there was no help for it and if everything went well he’d be bringing a lot more than just his sword and his boots. He might be able to make something of a show. He dozed off again, smiling to himself.
There was a clatter at the lip of the pit and Dodd jumped to his feet. Jeronimo was there, letting down the ladder, smiling enigmatically in the dusk. “Captain Leigh and his bullyboy have not come back from Oxford as they said they would, John Arden is drunk, and the men are afraid they have been tricked again. I spoke with your pequenita when I carry her the last mile, she was much tired, she said she had been questioned but then went away. She says it is sure Captain Leigh was taken because she heard him shouting.”
Dodd allowed himself a grim smile as he stepped onto the cobbles of the yard. For all the odds against it, that part had worked, at least.
“Where’s the old woman?”
“I said her stay in her cottage with the child. She has the dog beside her and barred the door.”
“Ay.” She’d come to no harm from him, but who knew what might happen? “She fears Harry Hunks might try again to seduce her granddaughter.”
“Good God,” said Dodd, disgusted, “She’s nobbut a child.”
Jeronimo shrugged. “They have no man for protect them.”
Dodd had the stolen knife in a belt he had woven himself from the bracken fibres. He bent and scraped up mud, swiped it over himself. “Who’s got ma sword?”
“Garron has it, he won it at dice.”
“Tch,” said Dodd. “Big, small?”
“Young,” said Jeronimo with a wolfish smile, “and frightened.”
***
With Jeronimo and his loaded crossbow at his back, Dodd quietly climbed the tumbledown monastery wall and padded forward to where the lad who had his sword was supposed to be on guard. He was leaning against a tree, dozing.
Jeronimo said something that sounded rude in foreign. Dodd paced quietly to the tree, put his arm softly round the lad’s neck from behind and squeezed. There was only a brief struggle before he went heavy against Dodd’s arm.
Dodd let him down gently, turned him, put his knee into the back and used the lad’s scarf to tie his hands and feet together like a deer carcass. Then he unstrapped his sword belt from the lad, put it back on at a notch tighter than normal and drew his weapon. That was when he found that the stupid child hadn’t cleaned it or oiled it or even sharpened it since he got it. So he used the boy’s lank greasy hair to oil the blade again which woke him up with a squawk and a smooth cobble to sharpen it as best he could. Dodd had already taken the boy’s boots off and chucked them into the undergrowth since they were far too small for him, and so he stuffed the boy’s mouth with one of his own tattered socks.
“Ah’ve let ye live since ye’re nobbut a lad,” Dodd told him conversationally. “Ithers may no’ be sae lucky, dinna push it.”
From the wild eyes the boy hadn’t understood a word of this but Dodd didn’t have time to strain his larynx talking Southron. The lad should be able to work his way free by which time it would all be over, please God.
Dodd straightened, with his sword warm and comfortable in its rightful place on his hip, and headed for the monastery parlour where there was a fire in the hearth and a powerful smell of booze.
There was the second in command, John Arden, slumped in a chair with an empty horn beaker in his hand and a barrel of brandy before him.
It went against Dodd’s grain to slit a man’s throat sleeping, which forebye would be messy. Instead he removed the man’s sword and poinard, put the long narrow poinard blade to the thick neck and grabbed a sticky doublet-front to shake him awake. He was reminded of Robert Greene a few weeks ago, for it took some doing.
“Arah, wuffle,” said the man at last, focussing blearily on the long shine of his own dagger at his throat.
“Ay,” said Dodd sympathetically, “Ye’ve a choice. Ye could allus surrender and gi’me yer word. Or not.”
There was a pause while the man’s drink-sozzled brain fought to understand. Then his body gave slightly.
“Quarter,” said the man. “I surrender. My name’s John Arden.”
“Good man,” said Dodd with the friendliest face he could manage. “Pit yer hands behind ye.”
They tied Arden to his seat and Dodd took the sword and knife. He liked the poinard which was clearly of good Italian make, so he slid it on the back of his own belt, where Carey wore his. He would have nothing to do with a nasty long pig-sticker of a rapier so Jeronimo took the sword.
They walked into the monastery’s cloister with its central yard and Dodd went up the stairs to the dorter. These lads weren’t used to setting any kind of proper guard. They were drinking and dicing. Those that were still asleep, he tied up. Those that were awake he asked politely if they would prefer to surrender or die on his sword. Most of them were sensible. One arrogant young man thought he ought to fight for honour’s sake and died honourably with Dodd’s sword down through the centre of his skull while he was still struggling to pull his unoiled blade out of its scabbard.
The others stared wide-eyed as Dodd wrenched his sword out of the bone and grease with his foot and cleaned it again. Jeronimo crossed himself awkwardly and muttered something Latin over the young man as his heels drummed., Of course, all Spaniards were Papists, they couldn’t help it, but he didn’t see the point in praying for someone you’d just sent to Hell. It felt as it always did when he killed someone: hard labour and a sense of satisfaction that it was the other man and not Dodd that was dead.
“Ay,” he said, “anybody else?”
They all shook their heads. “Come down to the yard and I’ll talk to ye,” he said, turned on his heel and walked back down the worn stairs with the painted pictures on the walls. His back prickled. He was showing he had no fear of them, though of course he did. That was the moment when they might have rushed him if they’d been Borderers. Which they clearly weren’t, but still, you never knew. That was the thing about fighting. You never knew.
He methodically went from the lookout place to the rickety watch tower, taking more surrenders. Finally he stood in the yard with his sword still in his hand. He faced eighteen frightened young men with only Jeronimo to back him, smoking his goddamned tobacco again, face shadowed and intent and the crossbow dead steady in his good hand. Only two of them had their buff coats on and had lit torches.