A Chorus of Innocents by P. F. Chisholm Read Free Book Online

Henry had overreached himself at Court in his attempt to kill Carey. The Scottish king liked Carey and had said some things privately to Sir Henry that he hadn’t seen fit to tell his wife but which seemed to give him pause sometimes. There had only been one really bad beating since then. He always kept away from her face because he didn’t want the rumours to start going round as they had with his first wife, but now he didn’t use his belt so much. It was something.
    Carey would love to have an excuse to kill him but wouldn’t get it. Sir Henry was not a young man to be inveigled into a duel; if Sir Robert challenged him, he’d use a champion. And probably cheat. Nobody stayed headman of an English riding surname like the Widdringtons without being canny and clever and hard to kill. However Sir Henry had gout which didn’t usually kill you but was very painful when he had an attack. She tried to think of him charitably as a creature in pain who wanted to lash out, rather than a man who enjoyed hurting her and humiliating her, but it was hard.
    They clattered through the gate at Bamburgh just before it shut at dusk and up to the keep where Sir John Forster’s unfortunate son, also called John, held sway. He was drunk as he usually was and explained the rotten state of the rushes and the filth of the solar as the consequence of there being no woman there. Elizabeth had seen worse, though not much worse, and accepted Johnny Forster’s offer of the main bedroom which at least had a four-poster, though no clean sheets. Or blankets. In the end she rolled out the truckle bed and slept fully clothed on that because it seemed to have fewer fleas and much less dog hair. Johnny Forster was no threat to her virtue, not as drunk as he was, and with Young Henry endearingly sleeping on a pallet across the doorway with his knife in his hand.
    She was up before dawn and saw no reason to awaken the marshal of the castle who had passed out in the hall while explaining how heavy his responsibilities were to his two lovely hunting dogs, both of whom listened carefully and were as sympathetic as they could be. From the state of the blankets in the four-poster they normally slept there with him when he went to bed. Not one of the servants in the place had changed the bedclothes since last Christmas at the latest.
    She shook her head at it. Men were very strange creatures. Surely even if you were drunk it was uncomfortable to sleep in a dirty bed full of dog hair and an old bit of mince pie turned to rock?

Saturday 14th October 1592
    They were out of a postern gate, opened by a heavy-eyed Forster cousin, and back on the Great North Road before the gate usually opened. The fifteen miles to Berwick were gone in a flash because the road was very good here, where the town council of Berwick maintained it, with hardly any potholes.
    At the Widdrington house in Berwick they found that Sir Henry wasn’t there. The steward explained to Elizabeth that Sir Henry had gone north of the Border two days before and was suppposed to be meeting the opposite Warden and somebody from the Scottish Court, in a secret matter. Yes, John Carey was in town and they could see him tomorrow but not today because he was busy, which she suspected meant he was hungover. That suited her perfectly and meant she got out of hearing John’s perennial complaints about the town council and mayor of Berwick, as well as not having to deal with her husband. She, Young Henry, and the four Widdringtons stayed only long enough for breakfast, with Sir Henry’s steward tutting because she expected bread and ale for six.
    They were out the northward gate against the flow of people, crossing the Tweed on the narrow rickety Scotch bridge into the Merse, with Elizabeth now on Mouse with Rat behind. Everyone else had got hobbies from the stables. The hobbies needed a lot of persuasion to set foot on the bridge which was in a bad condition. This was one