‘Where the... hell... were you... Sergeant?’ he rasped.
Bangtail and Archie Give-it-Them came forward with care, picked up the floppy Andy Nixon and tied his hands before him as fast as they could. Then they hefted him up over the lead hobby’s saddle just as he began to mutter and connected his bound hands with a rope under the horse’s belly to his feet.
Sergeant Dodd was grinning inanely. ‘Och, I thought ye were making such a bonny fight of it wi’ Nixon, ya didna need my help.’
If he had had the energy he would have punched Henry Dodd.
‘B... bonny fight...’ he got out. ‘The... bastard... nearly broke my arm.’
‘Ay,’ said Dodd, not at all abashed. ‘Ye did verra well, sir. Andy Nixon won the wrestling last summer for a’ Cumberland, knocked Archie Give-it-Them out cold, and beat three Scots after.’
Carey sat on the edge of the water trough and spat some blood out. Nixon’s punch to his face had cut the inside of his mouth against his teeth.
‘The... the bastard nearly... broke my arm,’ he said to Dodd again, still unable to believe such perfidy.
‘Ay,’ said Dodd. ‘He beat ye right enough. I’ve won half a crown off Bangtail and...’
‘Wait a minute. You... you bet on me to lose?’
‘Ay sir. It were a safe bet.’
‘Jesus Christ! I am going to kill you, Dodd.’
‘In that state? I wouldna bet on it, sir,’ said Dodd with great good humour.
Carey shook his head to clear it and picked up his morion whose chin strap had broken at some stage in the fight. He looked round at his men who were settling bets and nodding approvingly at him, then saw John Nixon who was being held by Red Sandy and Long George.
‘Mr Nixon,’ he croaked. ‘I’m arresting your son Andrew on the charge of conspiracy and premeditated murder. If I have any trouble on the way home, I’ll cut his head off. Understand?
John Nixon nodded.
Weapons were scattered all over the yard. Dodd had already retrieved both of his valuable Tower armoury dags; Carey himself picked up his sword and poignard, sheathed them, went over to Dodd to take his guns and reeled at the smell.
‘Do something about the pigshit, Dodd,’ he said drily. Dodd went to the water trough, picked up a bucket and poured the water over himself, which helped a little.
They mounted up. Red Sandy took the reins of the hobby carrying Andy Nixon because Long George was in the middle of a sneezing fit, and they started back to Carlisle. At the Eden bridge Carey told Dodd to begin the patrol and wait for him at the Gelt ford. He led the hobby himself as he turned the horses in towards Carlisle town with the sun dying in fire behind the Castle and the clouds. He had Archie Give-it-Them Musgrave on the other side to help if Nixon should get free.
Andy Nixon was conscious again, turning his face sideways to keep his graze away from the horse’s flank and wriggling occasionally when the horse jerked. He had already been sick, there were traces of it on the horse’s belly. Carey supposed the head-down position, the motion and the smell would make you sick, come to think of it. Good. Serve the bastard right. Not a scratch on him after fighting fifty-odd Grahams and outlaws that morning—and then he went to arrest one rent-collector and ended up feeling as if he had been run over by a cart and nursed by the Spanish Inquisition. His whole shoulder was aching with pulled muscles, his ribs were griping him again, his hip was sore though his jack had softened some of the force of the kick, and his face was bruised which made him talk out of one side of his mouth. He doubted there was an inch of his body which didn’t have some complaint and he sincerely hoped Nixon was feeling much worse.
Nixon croaked something inaudible.
‘What was that?’ Carey asked.
Nixon lifted his head and yelled, ‘I didna do it.’
Carey rode along in silence for a moment, thinking. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Nixon,’ he said flatly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of man that would let a woman face burning alone.’
The head flopped to hang downwards again. ‘Ah Christ,’ came a muffled groan.
There was no more chat until they got back into Carlisle and tethered their horses at the Keep. Carey had to keep fighting the illusion caused by taking an afternoon nap, that in fact he had fought the Grahams the day before.
A young man called William Barker was keeping the dungeons for Scrope, deputy to his grandfather who was officially the Gaoler. He stared with surprise as they rode into the inner yard and Archie Give-it-Them heaved Andy Nixon down from the horse.
‘Fetch the irons, Barker,’ Carey said.
The youth fetched them out of the little locker. Carey put them on Nixon’s wrists before he cut the ropes binding him. Nixon’s eyes looked like a cow at the slaughter. When he cut the rope, Carey saw the puffiness of Nixon’s right hand.
‘What happened there?’ he asked.
Nixon’s lip lifted. ‘Some whore’s get trod on it in an alley, Sunday night,’ he said. He looked down and shifted his feet; Archie was putting leg irons round his boots.
Carey took the keys from Barker in the passage by the wine cellar, opened up the heavy door to the outer dungeon and Nixon shuffled clankingly inside, sat down on the stone bench. He looked at Carey hopelessly.
‘Where’s Kate?’ he asked.
‘In the Gatehouse prison,’ Carey said as he swung the door shut and locked it. ‘You can’t see her.’
Leaving Barker in charge, Carey and Archie Give-it-Them changed horses and hurried back to the gate which was just closing. They cantered out of Carlisle and over the Eden bridge to catch up with Dodd for the patrol. Carey squinted up at the sky as he rode. The roof of clouds had an ugly grey bulbous look and the sun’s last rays squeezed under its lower fringes.
‘More rain, Archie,’ he said conversationally.
‘Ye’ll not be sleepin’ in yer boots again,’ nagged Dodd’s voice from the door. He was standing there, stinking only slightly now, holding a trencher of bread and cheese and a jug of beer and looking embarrassed.
‘Er... no, Sergeant,’ said Carey, starting to undo his laces slowly.
‘Ay,’ said Dodd dubiously. ‘Well, I brung ye some vittles, seeing ye dinna have the sense of a child that way.’
‘Well, I...’
