Carey laid down his own hand showing sixty points. Everyone, including Philadelphia, sighed and Lowther let out a high little whine. Thought you had me there, did you, you old pillock, Carey thought with savage satisfaction as he scooped in his large pile of cash. There was actually too much to fit in his purse, but Jock Burn was at his elbow with a velvet bag, supplied like magic from under his sister’s kirtle. Elizabeth Widdrington was also receiving a sum of money from John Leigh and smiling triumphantly across at him. Carey smiled back, wanting to laugh.
‘Well,’ said Philadelphia almost truthfully, ‘this has been a very exciting evening.’ She was standing up, shaking out her petticoats and farthingale and smoothing down the back of her kirtle where it had rumpled. Lady Widdrington was doing the same as she rose from her own padded stool. ‘Mr Mayor, Mrs Aglionby, thank you so much for a delightful dinner and some splendid play.’ Tactfully, Philadelphia did not mention the wine which had been terrible. Carey had left all of his, although Philadelphia had finished hers, he noticed. Philly was curtseying to Aglionby and his wife, who curtseyed back in mute distress.
‘Ah, yes, indeed,’ said Scrope benignly. ‘Most excellent. Greatly enjoyed myself.’
Edward Aglionby bowed to both of them and then slightly less deeply to Carey and Lowther. Carey returned the courtesy; Lowther hadn’t noticed since he was staring into space looking very green above his ruff.
It seemed John Leigh was in a hurry to go and had already made his bows while Philadelphia was speaking and left the room, followed by Jock Burn.
Down the stairs and into the darkened street where two yawning, blinking servants were waiting for them with torches to see them back into the Castle. The main gate had long shut but of course Scrope had the key to the postern gate. Carey looked around in irritation.
‘Where’s my man Barnabus?’ he demanded of the oldest torchman.
‘Ah dinna ken, sir,’ came the answer. ‘When we were having our dinners in the kitchen, he said he knew a place he could get better fare and went off, sir.’
‘Blast him,’ said Carey, who had the ingrained caution about walking around with a large sum of money acquired by anyone who had lived in London for any time at all. ‘Oh, well. We should look dangerous enough.’
Lowther said goodnight to Scrope and departed to his home, and the rest of them set off up the side of the market place, past the stocks and into Castle Street. The town was empty so close to midnight, even in summer when the sky never really darkened down to black but hung above, a canopy of deepest royal blue, studded with stars.
All about them the scent of haymaking thrust its way across the usual town smells of horse dung and kitchen refuse and the butchers’ shambles on their right. Carey breathed deep and happily before offering Lady Widdrington his arm.
‘You truly like Carlisle, don’t you, Sir Robert?’ she said.
He paused, looked at her and put his own hand on her firm square one.
‘My lady,’ he said. ‘I have won enough money to pay for my new sword and buy me a suit; I have infuriated Sir Richard Lowther; I am away from London and best, best of all, I have your arm in mine.’
She smiled quickly and then looked down.
‘It would take very little more to make me the happiest man in England,’ he hinted delicately and found himself skewered by a grey glare.
This was sensible; Lowther had almost succeeded in getting Carey killed the week before, although Scrope had insisted on an insincere reconciliation. Lowther had been Deputy Warden under the old Lord Warden and had run the March pretty much as he liked. After the Warden’s death, he had confidently expected old Scrope’s son Thomas to make him Deputy Warden in turn and had been very displeased to find that Scrope had asked his brother-in-law to do the job instead. The five hundred pounds per year that the office was worth was only the beginning of the financial loss this had caused Lowther, never mind the set-down to his prestige and power.
‘I can’t help it,’ said Carey trying to look contrite and failing. ‘He’s so eminently teasable. Blast and damn Barnabus! I was looking forward to returning the money I borrowed off him so Lowther could see that even if he didn’t have a better hand, he only had to raise me again and I’d have had to fold.’
Elizabeth snorted, trying not to laugh.
***
Unlike London, Carlisle was dead at night, most of the crime taking place outside its walls rather than inside. And with the hay harvest even the reivers were working hard. If there was a footpad in Carlisle with more practical experience than Barnabus, then Barnabus thought it would be interesting to meet him. He was like a cat at night, automatically silent and stealthy, even when seriously over-oiled and not actively looking for trouble.
It so happened that he took a shortcut through St Alban’s vennel between Scotch Street and Fisher Street and tripped on a soft bundle that moaned.
Knowing one of the nastier games played in London, he drew his dagger and looked carefully all about him. There were no bulky shadows lurking that he could see. He bent down again and squinted at the man at his feet, whistled softly.
‘You bin done over good and proper, ain’t you?’ he said.
As Carey said later, if Barnabus had ever in his life paid attention to the Gospel on the Sundays when he had to attend church, he might have behaved differently. As it was, he did at least see the door the beaten man was feebly trying to crawl through, and he lifted the latch and pushed it open, even hefted the man through it. Unfortunately, that was an excuse for him to find the man’s purse on his belt and quietly cut it.
Leaving whoever it was in a heap on the other side of his door, Barnabus turned on his heel and hurried back to Madam Hetherington’s bawdy-house.
***
‘What story did John Leigh tell you that persuaded you to let him have his money back?’ Carey asked Elizabeth conversationally as they walked slowly back to the Castle.
‘Oh, a tediously long tale about roof mending and the cost of litigation. He has to pay the thatchers in the morning and a barrister in London is bleeding him dry over a suit in Chancery for some property of his wife’s.’
‘What’s the property?’
‘I really can’t remember the details, Robin, but I think it’s the house next door to his own in Carlisle, which was apparently supposed to be inherited by his wife and instead was somehow wrongly inherited by her half-brother. He wants it because he has five children and another on the way. Also, it’s prime property and he could expand his business conveniently into the shop-front on the ground floor.’
‘What did you say to him?’ Carey led her around a large soft patch where the market beasts were usually tethered near the Cathedral. Ahead of them walked Young Henry Widdrington, being very tactful; before him were Lord and Lady Scrope, and at the tail and head of the little procession, the two torchbearers.’
‘I said there was no substitute for overseeing litigation personally and that when Michaelmas Term begins he should post down to London and deal with it himself.’
‘Have you been in Westminster Hall?’
‘You know I was, Robert. In 1588 I dealt with that problem over the chantry lands Sir Henry was supposed to get from the man who murdered his brother.’
‘What happened?’
‘We won.’
Carey hid a smile.
‘That must have been when I was ill,’ he said.
‘No, you were convalescing by then, but you weren’t very interested.’
