The man on the other side, who had been digging his elbows into Carey’s ribs as he struggled with a tough piece of bacon, nodded politely.
‘Old Scrope’s dead,’ began Carey.
‘Ay, so I heard, Devil keep him. His son’s the Warden now, I heard tell. How’s Lowther?’
‘The Warden’s got a new Deputy,’ said Carey.
‘Not Lowther?’ One-Lug found that very funny and beckoned over two friends of his who’d been playing football. ‘Listen to this, Jemmie, the man’s saying Lowther’s not Deputy Warden.’
‘Who is it then?’ demanded Jemmie.
Carey coughed. ‘Some courtier the Queen’s sent up from London,’ he said modestly, ‘they say he willna last the year out.’
‘Nor the month.’ All three of them were hysterical with laughter at the idea. ‘Och save me,’ said One-Lug, in what he thought was a London accent, ‘Please don’t stick that lance in me, Mr Graham, it hurts.’
‘A cow?’ added Jemmie. ‘Why, what on earth’s a cow?’
‘Och, my lord Warden, the rude men have stolen my horses...’
Carey laughed with them until Old Wat’s Clemmie finished chewing on his lump of bacon, swallowed what he could, spat out what he couldn’t onto the floor and grunted, ‘He faced down Sergeant Dodd at the castle yesterday, I saw him.’
Ice trickling down his spine, Carey looked as interested as he could.
‘What with, a cannon?’ asked One-Lug.
‘A sword. Mind you, it was to stop Dodd going out after his horses, when Jock of the Peartree was all set to catch him at the Strength of Liddesdale, lying out in the cold wood all night for nothing, thanks to the damned Courtier. They say he’s a sodomite...’
‘Ye canna be a courtier without ye sell your bum,’ agreed Jemmie wisely. ‘He must have annoyed the old Queen something powerful.’
‘If ye ask me,’ said Old Wat’s Clemmie, ‘he was short of money to pay his tailor’s bills, if ye looked at him with his great fat hose and his little doublet, ye never saw such a pretty suit.’
‘Ye canna pay a London tailor with a cow.’
‘What do ye know about it, the Edinburgh tailors take horses.’
While the argument raged across him, Carey scraped the last of the porridge off his bowl with his finger and put it away in his pack. He looked around the room idly and froze still.
Bothwell was talking to one of the lesser Grahams who had acted as servants to bring in the meal, gesturing in Carey’s direction. The boy came struggling down to Carey just as he was helping to clear the trestle tables. The middle of the floor was being swept clean of rushes and sprinkled with sand.
Bothwell had moved: he had the laird’s own carved armchair, was drinking wine from a goblet and beside him sat a sinewy grey-bearded man with a broken nose. The Graham boy who had come for Carey threaded past the men who were now rearranging the benches ready for the evening’s entertainment, which was a cockfight. Carey saw the combatants being brought in, still in their cages, crowing defiance and fluttering aggressively and concluded that at least one of them had been got at.
Remembering Bothwell’s vanity, when he came up onto the dais, he bobbed his knee to the Earl and stood holding his cap and successfully looking scared.
‘There’s the man, Jock,’ said Bothwell, ‘he must have left Carlisle but a few hours gone.’
Jock of the Peartree spent a good minute examining Carey, who smiled ingratiatingly and hoped the walnut juice wouldn’t dissolve in his sweat. The keep was infernally hot with all the bodies packed into it.
‘I heard,’ said Jock of the Peartree in a very level voice, ‘that you was the man sold Sergeant Dodd’s wife Sweetmilk’s horse.’
With a swooping in his gut, Carey remembered that she had in fact bought it from the Reverend Turnbull and that some sort of Reverend had said grace. He wanted to turn and look for him but didn’t. In any case, he didn’t know what Turnbull looked like.
‘No, master,’ he said, bringing his voice down from a squeak, ‘I didnae.’
‘That’s the word,’ said Jock. ‘You say you know nothing about it?’
‘Nowt, sir.’
Jock watched him at his leisure for a while. Carey thought frantically. Surely to God, if Turnbull was here, he wouldn’t have admitted to his part in the trafficking in that thrice-damned nag. Had he? Had he bought his own safety by selling them an intruder? Turnbull was the book-a-bosom priest Daniel sometimes travelled with, he must have known Carey wasn’t Daniel Swanders... Why should he? Carey had given the name only to Wat of Harden... Don’t speculate, ask.
‘Sir, who was it said it was me had the animal?’
Jock and the Earl exchanged glances. ‘That was the word in Carlisle, last we heard,’ said the Earl. ‘Do ye tell me on your honour that you never had the horse?’
‘Never clapped eyes on him, on my honour, my lord,’ said Carey, only slightly mendaciously.
Jock snorted slightly. ‘Do ye know aught ye could tell us about Sweetmilk’s killing?’ he asked.
‘No sir,’ said Carey, ‘but it wasnae Sergeant Dodd.’
‘How do ye know that?’
‘If what I’ve heard is right, sir, he wouldna make such a bodge of it.’
The Earl laughed. ‘Any other news out of Carlisle?’
‘Er... they postponed the funeral of the old lord.’
‘I know that. They think we’re riding into England,’ said Bothwell.
