‘He’ll have known we’d have paid good money for the animal,’ Lady Scrope went on. ‘Seven or eight pounds, likely enough, if he was good; God knows we’ve been searching out decent horses ever since the old Lord got sick.’
Lady Widdrington put down her goblet. ‘Shall we ask him?’
WEDNESDAY, 21ST JUNE, 12 NOON
Thomas the Merchant Hetherington happened to be completing his accounts for some important clients when his servant came in to announce that the Ladies Scrope and Widdrington would like to see him. He was honoured and a little puzzled. He was a man who could see a way to make money at anything: the kind of man who bought up and forestalled barley when there was going to be a bad harvest, who paid cash down in advance for the entire shearing of the West March sheep and then joyfully twisted the cods of the Lancashire woolbuyers who came to do business with him and him alone because there was nobody else. However, stay laces and pots of red lead for improving ladies’ appearances he left strictly to the common cadgers and pedlars, since they were small, retail items and invariably low profit. He dabbled in horses but only because he loved them.
The ladies came in and he bowed low.
‘How may I serve you, your ladyships?’ he said in a voice as unctuous as he could make it.
‘We are here on the same errand,’ said Lady Scrope, ‘in search of good horses.’
You and me both, thought Thomas the Merchant.
‘We heard that Mrs Dodd had bought a beautiful animal from the Reverend Turnbull and we were wondering if you knew where it came from?’ said Lady Scrope blithely. Lady Widdrington frowned at her across the room.
‘Surely,’ said Thomas the Merchant with a warm smile, ‘this is really a matter I should discuss with your husband, my lady Scrope, since...’
‘Of course,’ said Lady Scrope, nodding vigorously, ‘I would never dream of buying a horse without his advice and permission.’ Lady Widdrington made what sounded like a repressed snort.
‘But I do so want to help him find the right horses for his father’s funeral and he’s so busy with other matters, I thought I could save him a little time.’
‘But it’s just been postponed to Sunday.’
‘We’ll still need horses.’
Suddenly Thomas the Merchant was alert. He was as sensitive and shy of trouble as a fallow deer and could sense it on the wind in much the same way. He looked from Lady Scrope to Lady Widdrington and back again. Damn me, if Janet Dodd isn’t outside, waiting on them, he thought suddenly.
Thomas the Merchant normally backed his hunches, to great effect, but that was only because he meticulously checked on them first. He turned from the high desk he used standing up, as if he were a mere clerk which was what he had been twenty years before.
‘It’s a little close in here, mesdames,’ he said, to cover the move. As he opened the little diamond-paned window, he looked down in the street, and there, of course, was Sergeant Dodd’s wild-looking Armstrong wife.
‘Alas,’ he said smoothly, ‘I canna help ye ladies. I know nothing of Turnbull’s horse save that he bought him, perhaps unwisely, from Swanders the Pedlar.’
‘Do you know where Swanders got it?’
‘Presumably,’ said Thomas the Merchant, steepling his fingers and smiling kindly at their womanly obtuseness, ‘presumably he stole it from the Grahams, or so it seems.’
‘He might have another source of horses.’
‘He might,’ allowed Thomas the Merchant, ‘but I doubt it.’
‘Why?’ asked Lady Widdrington suddenly.
‘Er...’
‘Why do you doubt it, you seem very sure.’
Thomas the Merchant was nettled. ‘Because, madam, I ken verra well where every single nag in this March was born, raised, and who it was sold to and stolen from, I make it my business to know.’
‘Do you?’ said Lady Widdrington kindly. ‘Then you knew when Swanders showed you the animal in question that he belonged to Sweetmilk Graham. Why didn’t you buy him to give back to the Grahams—surely they’d like that?’
Thomas the Merchant moved with dignity to the door and opened it.
‘I verra much regret that some ill-affected fellow has been telling you ladies the old scandal about the Grahams and myself, but that was tried and I was cleared of the charge at the last but one Warden’s Day.’
‘Oh,’ said Lady Widdrington, not moving, ‘and what scandal was that? I live in Northumberland and I’m not familiar with the gossip in this town.’
Give ye two days and ye’ll know the lot, madam, Thomas the Merchant thought to himself, but didn’t say.
‘He was accused of collecting blackmail money for the Grahams,’ explained Lady Scrope.
Thomas the Merchant found himself being examined at leisure by Lady Widdrington’s steely grey eyes. He examined her in return. Her face was too long and her chin too pronounced for beauty but she was a striking-looking woman, with soft pale brown hair showing under her white cap and feathered hat. He disliked tall women, being a little on the short side himself.
‘I fear I canna give you ladies the information you’re seeking,’ he said humbly, ‘as I have not the faintest idea what you’re talking about. If ye will excuse me now, I have a great deal to do.’
Lady Scrope moved to the door, but Lady Widdrington stayed still for a moment. Then she smiled suddenly, not a particularly sweet smile.
WEDNESDAY, 21ST JUNE, AFTERNOON
Barnabus brought his master bread and cheese to eat immediately after he came out of the castle jail. Carey, to his surprise, gave him the afternoon off. While Carey and Richard Bell disappeared into the Queen Mary Tower to attack the tottering pile of papers and the arrangements for the postponed funeral, Barnabus hung around the castle twiddling his thumbs. He found a young lad with shining fair hair sitting in the stables, polishing some horse tack and borrowed him from the stablemaster to act as his guide. Then Young Hutchin and he wandered down to the market place.
At noon the town crier made the announcement at the Market Cross that his lordship, Henry Lord Scrope, quondam Warden of this March, would be buried on Sunday and not the next day which caused Young Hutchin to blink and raise his eyebrows.
‘He’s lying in state at the cathedral,’ explained Young Hutchin slowly and carefully so Barnabus could understand him, ‘so anybody that wants can be sure the old bugger’s dead as a doorpost and not as sweet.’
‘Not much liked hereabouts, eh?’ asked Barnabus, munching on a flat pennyloaf (referred to by Hutchin as a stottiecake) with salt herring in it, since it was a fishday. Young Hutchin grinned and shook his head, but didn’t add any information.
