3 A Surfeit of Guns: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery Read Online Free PDF

side of it was a mess of cuts and burns that had laid his face open to the gleaming white bone.
    “Can you ride as far as Carlisle?”
    “Nay, sir, take me home. My farm’s by the Wall, not far fra Lanercost.”
    “Of course. Red Sandy, do you know where?”
    “I know,” he said sombrely.
    “Good. Red Sandy, you take the Elliots’ horses and help Long George get to his home.”
    “Ah wantae go home, sir.” George didn’t seem able to register anything except his injury. Tears were running down his face as he spoke.
    “Of course you do.”
    “Only, there’ll be the harvest to get in and all…”
    “Don’t worry about it. Here.” Carey found his flask of mixed wine and water and helped Long George to drink it. He choked and his teeth rattled on the bottlemouth. “Red Sandy, a word with you.”
    “Ay, sir.”
    Carey drew him a little aside. “If his wife’s got her hands full with sick children, stay and help. When it’s getting on for morning, take the horses into Carlisle castle, find the surgeon and send him back to George’s place. Tell him I’ll pay his fee.”
    Red Sandy looked alarmed at that but only nodded.
    “You’re in charge.”
    Something very cynical crossed Red Sandy’s face and disappeared, though he nodded again.
    “Ay, sir. Dinna be concerned, I’ll see him right. I’ll bring my own wife to nurse him if need be.”
    “Good man.”
    They rode off at a sedate pace southwards. Carey noted that the other men were letting the deer down from its tree. Dodd had seen to the rounding up of the sheep and, no doubt, the stripping of the two dead bodies. Carey had no intention of burying them: let Wee Colin Elliot see to it, if he wanted.
    Saturday 8th July 1592, early morning
    It was an enraging business, taking the sheep back to the Routledge farm they had been raided from. Carey was an innocent about sheep and was astonished at how stupid they were, wiry and rough-coated creatures though these were, in contrast to the smug rotund animals that milled their way through London to Smithfield market every week. Dodd and the others worked around them making odd yipping and barking noises, like sheepdogs, and the whole process took hours. It was past dawn when the sheep poured over another hill and began baaing excitedly at the smell of home and at last moved sensibly in a flock in one direction.
    The farmer, who owned his own small rough two-storey peletower, already had a group of men around him, all talking excitedly, while the women saddled the horses.
    Carey, who had left the experts to their business, said to Dodd, “Looks like we’re just in time to stop a reprisal raid.”
    “Ay,” grunted Dodd. “It’s a pity.”
    “Not if you have to deal with the resulting paperwork, it isn’t. This is simpler.”
    It was, but not much. Jock Routledge seemed very offended that Carey had caught his sheep for him, no doubt because he had been planning to lift a few extra when he retrieved his own from the Elliots. He was also scandalised at the thought of paying the Wardenry fee.
    “Ye canna take one sheep in twelve, ye’ll ruin me,” he shouted.
    “I can in fact take one sheep for every ten, so you owe me an extra lamb,” Carey said. “I might remit the lamb if I get my rights quickly.”
    “Oh ay, yer rights,” sneered Routledge. “Why did ye not stop them at the Border then, eh? Dinnae trouble to tell me, I know well enough. Well, ye’ll not…”
    “Sir,” called Dodd from a few paces away. Carey looked round and saw he was slouching on his horse which was eating its way methodically through the pea-vines of a vegetable garden. In his hand was a lit torch. “Will I fire the thatch?”
    Carey held up his hand in acknowledgement.
    “Good man,” said Carey through gritted teeth. While messing about with the sheep he had had time to notice the burning ache in his side from the knifecut he had got the day before yesterday. Furthermore, his head hurt, his eyes were sandy, the ant