‘Now Jock,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to do this to you, but you’re my hostage.’
Jock struggled feebly at the indignity, so Carey cut off his air again and half-dragged him up the spiral stair to the next floor. An iron barred gate was pegged open there, so Carey unpegged it one-handed and it clanged shut, having been recently oiled. He didn’t have the key to the lock but he managed to jam it with a chest standing in the corner.
Jock was thrashing about under his arm again, so Carey squeezed until the man’s eyes crossed. He could hear a lot more shouting outside. It seemed Wattie Graham was still objecting to his door being bashed in.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ he said reasonably, panting a little as he hauled Jock up the next flight of stairs and past the next iron gate.
Something moved in the corner of his eye: he ducked his head and held his hostage up as a shield and the swinging bolt of wood landed on Jock’s skull not Carey’s. Carey dropped him and the longbow, dived sideways, glimpsed Alison Graham in a whirl of skirts with a club in one hand and a dagger in the other, her eyes wild.
He charged into her with his shoulder, knocked her against the wall so the breath came out of her, still got a glancing blow about the head with the club and pricked in his arm by the dagger, tried a knee in her groin to no effect and then punched her stomach and bruised his knuckles on her whalebone stays. Christ, where weren’t women naturally armoured? No help for it. He punched her on the mouth, and she finally went down, bleeding badly. Please God, he hadn’t killed her. No, she was breathing. One of her teeth looked crooked, which was fine since he’d taken the skin off his knuckles on them. He found the bunch of keys on her belt, ripped them off, picked her up under the armpits—Jesus, the weight of her—and hauled her into the linen room where she had been at some wifely pursuit. He locked the door on her, turned back to Jock and found him still googly-eyed from Mrs Graham’s blow.
Gasping for breath he shut the gate, tried six of the massive bunch of keys and at last found the one that locked it. He turned and looked for the final flight of stairs up to the roof. There was no staircase, spiral or otherwise, just a ladder at the end of a passage. He could think of only one possible way he could get Jock and himself up there. He choked Jock off again to make sure, trapped his head with a bench from one of the rooms, climbed the ladder and heaved the trapdoor up. Blinking at the sunlight on the roof, he put down the longbow which was miraculously unbroken, the bottle and the two quivers, only half of whose arrows had fallen out. Then he went down the ladder again, heard a deep ominous boom from all the way downstairs. Clearly Bothwell had prevailed on Wattie Graham to let his tower be broken into. Carey picked up Jock by the front of his red velvet doublet. At least he was still stunned.
A treacherous voice inside said perhaps he didn’t need Jock of the Peartree on top of his other troubles, and another voice said it was too late now and he might as well be hanged for a sheep.
‘Right,’ he said more to himself for encouragement, than to Jock who couldn’t hear yet, ‘you’re coming with me.’
He slid Jock up to a sitting position, got hold of his shoulders and hefted Jock onto his back with his legs hanging down in front. There was about thirteen stone of solid muscle and bone to the man and it took two heaves for Carey to stagger to his feet. The ladder looked as if it stretched halfway to the moon.
He climbed one tread at a time, gasping through his teeth, with the sweat making a marsh of his shirt. Halfway up, Jock came to and started to struggle and swear: they swayed dangerously and the ladder creaked.
‘STAY STILL!’ roared Carey. ‘Or I’ll dump you on your head.’
Jock threshed once more, then saw how far they were from the floor and stayed still. Carey went the rest of the way up the ladder, heaved Jock onto the roof.
He kicked Jock in the stomach again to slow him down, turned, pulled up the ladder with his abused arm muscles shrieking at him, heaved the trapdoor into its hole and bolted it, then sat with his back against the parapet and waited until he had stopped crowing for breath and the spots had gone from his vision.
Jock glared at him, sprawled like a trussed chicken on the roof flags, bleeding from his nose and a nasty lump on his head.
‘That’s better,’ said Carey and coughed. He didn’t think he’d ruptured anything, which was a miracle. His heartbeat seemed to be slowing at last. ‘Now we can talk, Jock.’
FRIDAY 23RD JUNE, LATE MORNING
It so happened that Will the Tod Armstrong was out in the horse paddock of his tower with a young horse that he was breaking on the lungeing rein. His youngest grandson was watching admiringly from the gate. Dodd came at a fast jog trot to the fence, ducked under it and walked up close to his father-in-law, who took one look at his battered sweaty face and became serious.
‘Is Janet all right?’ he asked at once. ‘Where’s the raid?’
Never mind Janet, Dodd thought, what about me, I’m half dead of thirst.
‘Sit down, rest yourself. What happened to your horse? Did ye come on foot from Carlisle, ay well, ye’re young. Little Will, run down to the house and bring back some beer for your uncle. No, you may not ride the horse, use your legs.’
Both Dodd’s calves chose that moment to start cramping. He swore and tried rubbing them.
‘Walk about a bit,’ advised Will the Tod, ‘I mind I ran twenty miles to fetch Kinmont’s father once when I was a lad, and if ye stop too suddenly, ye cramp.’
Twenty miles, was it? thought Dodd bitterly, ay it would be. Nine and a half miles over rough country and mostly uphill in much less than two hours, and Will the Tod will have done twice that in half the time in his youth.
‘Well, what’s the news?’
Dodd told him. Will the Tod found the whole thing hilariously funny. His broad red face under its grey-streaked bush of red hair shone with the joke, he slapped his knee, he slapped Dodd’s back, he slapped the fence.
‘Ye ran from Carlisle to save the Deputy Warden?’ hooted Will the Tod. ‘Jesus save me. Why didn’t ye run to fetch his dad? There’s a man that has a quick way with a tower.’
‘He never burnt yours,’ Dodd pointed out. There were still bitter memories on the border of Lord Hunsdon’s reprisals after the Rising of the Northern Earls.
‘Only because I paid him.’
‘He could have taken the money and still burnt you out.’
‘Ay well, that’s true. So his boy’s in trouble, eh?’
Dodd explained, as patiently as he could, that he was.
‘What do ye expect me to do about it?’
Dodd suggested, still patiently, that if he could really put sixty men in the saddle at an hour’s notice as he’d boasted the last time they met, then he might give the Deputy Warden cause to be grateful to him. Not to mention pleasing his daughter Janet, who was in such a taking about the blasted man, it might have worried a husband less trusting than himself.
‘Oh ay, call out my men for the Deputy Warden.’ Will the Tod found that funny too. Dodd, who had blisters on both his feet and his shoulders, not to mention the damage he’d taken struggling through the secret passage, failed to see the joke. He waited for the bellowing stupid laugh to stop and then said, ‘Well, sir, if ye’ve come over to loving Richard Lowther in your old age, I’ll be on my way to the Dodds at Gilsland.’
Will the Tod’s laugh stopped in mid-chuckle. He glowered at his son-in-law.
‘Lowther’s the man the old lord Warden would have made Deputy Warden. Carey’s the young Lord Scrope’s friend,’ explained Dodd through his teeth. ‘Carey may be a fool of a courtier who’s too big for his boots, but he’s not Lowther. According to Janet he snuck into Netherby to try and steal back our reived horses because he knew a proper hot trod would be cut to pieces. Now Lowther’s let out some raiders Carey took that can identify him to Bothwell, who’ll likely string him up.’
At least Will the Tod was listening. He nodded and Dodd continued.
‘Lowther doesna want to lose his hold over the West March and Carey’s bent on taking the power from him. If he can get Carey killed it’ll clear the way for him and we’ll have him back in the saddle, taking blackrent off us, favouring his kin and bringing in the Grahams and the Johnstones and the Elliots every time any one of us dares to make a squeak about it. There’ll be nae chance of justice in this March with Carey gone, believe me. But as it seems ye’ve made your peace with the Lowthers...’
Will the Tod’s face darkened. ‘Make peace with the Lowthers? Never!’ he growled. ‘You’re saying, if I bring out my men and save Carey’s skin as you ask, we’ll stop Richard Lowther from becoming Deputy Warden under the new lord?’
