A Famine of Horses by P. F. Chisholm Page A

battle was?”
    “You come on old skulls and helmets now and then,” Dodd allowed. “It’s aye rough ground.”
    “We’ll go tomorrow then, when we’re more respectable, after the inquest.”
    “Ay sir.”
    “And now, while we’re at the whited sepulchres, shall we have a look at the stables and the barracks?”
    God, did the man never stop? Dodd’s belly was growling heroically.
    “Ay sir,” he said sullenly.
    Carey smiled. “After dinner.”
    At least the stables were clean, which was a mercy because Carey poked about in a way that Lowther never had, digging deep into feed bins, lifting hooves for signs of footrot, tutting at the miserable stocks of hay and oats which was all they had left and agreeing that the harness was old but in reasonably good condition.
    The barracks Carey pronounced as no worse than many he had seen and better than some. Even so, he had two of Scrope’s women servants come in with brooms to sweep the ancient rushes from Dodd’s section out into the courtyard so the jacks could be sponged and dried and oiled.
    When Dodd asked him why on earth he cared about the huswifery of the barracks he told a long story about the Netherlands, how the Dutch seldom got the plague and that he was convinced it was because they kept foul airs out of their houses by cleaning them. Dodd had never heard such a ridiculous story, since everyone knew that plague was the sword of God’s wrath, but he decided he could humour a man who would face down Richard Lowther so entertainingly.
    The wind helped them to dry off the cleaned jacks and weaponry, and they worked on through the long evening and by torchlight after sunset, while Carey wandered by occasionally, making helpful suggestions and supplying harness oil. He also went down to Carlisle town and bought six longbows and quivers of arrows with his own money, which he announced he would see tried the next day.
    At last, dog-tired, with sore hands, worrying over the Graham corpse which had not yet turned up, and beginning to hate Carey, Dodd went to his bed in the tiny chamber that was one of his perks as Sergeant. He would have to be up out of it again in about five hours, he knew.
    When he pulled back the curtain, he stopped. A less dour man would have howled at the waxy face with the star-shaped peck in the right cheek that glared up at him from his pillow, but Dodd had no more indignation left in him. He was simply glad to have found the damned thing, rolled it off onto the floor and was asleep three minutes later. At least the bastard Courtier had wrapped it in its cloak again.
    Monday, 19th June, evening
    Barnabus Cooke had seen his master in action in a new command before and so knew what to expect. By dint of making up to Goodwife Biltock, the only other southerner in the place, he had found an ancient desk in one of the storerooms, and acquired it. After cleaning and polishing and eviction of mice it went into Carey’s second chamber in the Queen Mary Tower, followed by a high stool and a rickety little table. Richard Bell, Scrope’s nervous elderly clerk, was astonished when he was asked for paper, pens and ink and had none to spare. In the end they made an expedition to the one stationer in town, where they bought paper and ink and some uncut goose feathers on credit.
    By evening the pens had been cured in sandbaths and cut by Bell the way Carey liked them, the floor of his bedroom had been swept again and was newly strewn with fresh rushes. They had decided to sell the mildewed bedcurtains and stained counterpane. Goodwife Biltock brought wormwood and rue to try and clear the place of fleas, but she said there was nothing really to be done about them, other than burning the place out and putting new woodwork in. She brought a large quilt and some of Scrope’s hangings to replace the old curtains and announced that Lady Scrope had begun work on a completely new set for her brother. Next on Barnabus’s mental list was a fresh palliasse for him