‘Ay sir,’ said Dodd, ‘that’s what I’ve been saying. For the moment, anyway, seeing how well Lowther’s dug in.’
Will the Tod clapped Dodd on his back. ‘I like you, Henry,’ he said expansively, ‘ye think well.’
‘It’s your daughter’s plan,’ Dodd muttered.
‘Of course it is, but you’ve the sense to see the sense in it.’
And I did all the bloody running and crawling through shit pipes, Dodd thought, but didn’t say. Will the Tod stared into space for a moment, and then rubbed his hands together.
‘Off ye go, Dodd,’ he said, ‘up to the tower and ring the bell. I’ll have a horse saddled up for you when ye come back.’
Run up there, thought Dodd, despairingly.
‘Get on, lad, we havenae got all day. Ye dinna want to get to Netherby and find your man swinging in the breeze.’
It was hard going up to the tower now he’d lost the rhythm, but he wasn’t going to give Will the Tod any opportunity to tell him more tales of notable runs by Will the Tod in his youth. It half killed him but he gasped his way up the bank, almost fell through the door, found the rope to the bell and started ringing it.
Perhaps he rang it for longer than he need have done, but when he came back down the hill to the house where Will the Tod normally lived, he saw the sight that still lifted his heart no matter how often it happened: the men were coming in at the run from the fields, the women were rushing from their work to the horse paddock to round up the horses—thank God Will the Tod had not been raided by the Grahams, even if he wasn’t respectable enough to lend horses to Scrope—and some of the boys were already coming out of the stables with the saddles and bridles, the jacks and helmets.
Will the Tod was standing on a high mounting stone, his thumbs in his broad belt, yelling orders as his family ran purposefully past him in all directions. His second wife, the pretty, nervous little creature whose name Dodd could never remember, came running up with a large ugly gelding snorting behind her and then Will the Tod was in the saddle, closely followed by his five sons, two of his sons-in-law, four nearly grown grandsons, and fifteen assorted cousins already riding in with their families from their own farms nearby.
Henry was brought a large Roman-nosed mare he remembered as having an evil temper at odds with her name, which was Rosy, and he mounted up with relief. If God had meant men to run around the countryside he wouldn’t have provided them with horses.
‘Off you go then, Henry,’ shouted Will the Tod, waving his lance. ‘Rouse out the Dodds.’
Dodd brought Rosy up alongside Will the Tod, who was letting his mount sidestep and paw the air and roaring with laughter at his surname crowding up around him, all asking where was the raid and whose cows were gone, and how big was it, to be out in daylight? Rosy tried to nip Will the Tod’s leg.
‘Wait,’ Dodd said, hauling on the reins, ‘we’ve got Netherby to crack. Where will we meet?’
‘Longtownmoor meeting stone,’ said Will the Tod, ‘where we always meet when we’re hitting Liddesdale, ye know that Henry. Shall I send to Kinmont?’
‘Send to anybody ye can think of that would like to see Lowther’s nose rubbed in the shite.’
‘Och God, there’d be no room for them all. I’ll just send to the ones that werena burnt out of house and home by your young Deputy’s father in ’69, eh?’
Dodd nodded impatiently, set his heels to the horse’s flank, and headed on up the road for Gilsland after a sharp tussle with Rosy’s contrariness, which he won. Behind him Will the Tod stood up in his stirrups and addressed his immediate surname in a bellow. Dodd knew when he explained the Deputy Warden’s problem because the laughter rolled after him over the hill like the breaker of a sea.
It occurred to him that perhaps Carey would have preferred to hang rather than be rescued from Bothwell’s clutches in quite this way.
FRIDAY, 23RD JUNE, NOON
Netherby tower was roofed with stone against fire and had a narrow fighting parapet running round it behind the battlements. In the south-east corner was the beacon, a large blackened metal basket raised up on a ten-foot pole with a pile of firewood faggots under tarpaulin at the base. Carey cleared the wood away and tied Jock of the Peartree to the pole in a sitting position, using the rope binding the faggots. The firewood he piled as makeshift barricades across the parapet by the trapdoor.
Every so often he would poke his head over the wall and shoot an arrow at the men with the battering ram, so they’d run for cover. Way down below him, he could see Bothwell, his brocade doublet shining in the sun, foreshortened like a chessman, waving his arms and shouting more orders. He popped his head over and dropped one of the stones kept ready for sieges, close enough to the Earl to make him dive for cover.
Arrows came sailing over and clattered harmlessly onto the roof. That roof could have done with some attention, Carey thought, much of the mortar around the stones was cracked and rotten. On a sudden inspiration, he heaved up a couple of the loosest stones and dragged them over to the trapdoor, piled them on top.
‘Who the hell are ye?’ demanded Jock.
Carey told him.
Jock mulled it over for a bit, then growled: ‘Ye’ll never get out of this.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve got you as a hostage. You’re an important man,’ said Carey, sitting down again and taking a sip of beer from the leather bottle. He wasn’t too worried about thirst since there was a full rainwater butt at the north-western corner, set there to put out besiegers’ fires. On the other hand, his belly was cramping him.
Jock spat. ‘D’ye think the Earl willna shoot to save my skin?’
‘No,’ said Carey agreeably, ‘I think with the mood he’s in, he’d perfectly happily shoot through you to get me, but Wattie’s your brother...’
‘They must be aye sentimental in the south,’ sniffed Jock, ‘Wattie’d shoot as well.’
‘Well, I suppose, so would John,’ admitted Carey, thinking of his pompous whingeing elder brother in a similar situation. ‘Still, he might hesitate. His aim might be off. He might even talk to me, negotiate some arrangement.’
‘Are ye hoping for ransom?’ demanded Jock of the Peartree.
‘No. I hadn’t thought about it.’
Jock laughed shortly.
‘There’s no other way ye’ll get off this tower still breathing, lad, so ye’d best think about it now and right hard.’
It was in fact perfectly true that Carey had no idea how he was going to get off the top of Netherby tower in one piece. When he came to Netherby he had had a vague plan that involved stealing the Dodd and Widdrington horses quietly early in the morning as soon as he knew where Bothwell was planning to raid and making off back to Carlisle as fast as one of them could carry him. Once that was no longer possible, thanks to Lowther’s machinations, he had simply reacted according to instinct.
‘What do you think I’m worth on the hoof?’ Carey asked after a pause.
‘Everyone knows Scrope’s a rich man. A thousand pounds, perhaps,’ said Jock consideringly. Carey whistled.
‘He might not pay that much.’
