Read 2 A Season of Knives: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery for Free Online

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    ‘I’m sorry you think so little of me,’ Carey managed to say to Elizabeth, without sounding as bad as he felt.
    ‘Be sensible. I think very well of you, too well to think you’d let yourself be carried away by romantic nonsense.’ She hadn’t been looking at him, but now she did. ‘How much do you owe?’ He didn’t answer because he wasn’t quite sure himself. ‘Thousands, I’ll be bound. You’re neither rich enough nor poor enough to marry for love, and it’s a very fickle foundation for a proper marriage anyway. You’ve been at Court listening to silly poets vapouring about their goddesses for too long.’
    Now they were facing each other, suddenly turned to adversaries, wasting a still summer night designed for dalliance. Elizabeth no longer had her arm in his.
    For a moment Carey couldn’t think of anything to say, since she was completely right about his finances, and what she said was no more than what all his friends and his father had told him often. He didn’t care.
    ‘You haven’t told me you don’t love me,’ he said stubbornly.
    ‘That’s got nothing to do with anything,’ she said. ‘I’m married. Not to you, but to a…a rightful husband called Sir Henry Widdrington. That’s the beginning and end of it.’
    She turned away, to follow the Scropes up to the Keep. Carey thought of his bed, with its musty curtains and its expanse of emptiness, and put his hand on her arm to hold her, turn her to him and kiss her until he relit the passion in her…She slapped his hand away and hissed, ‘Will you stop?’
    She picked up her skirts and ran.
    Carey went blindly after her through the covered way, through the Captain’s gate and under the starclad night to the Queen Mary Tower. He climbed the stairs feeling heavy and tired, found his bedchamber dark and empty. He lit a rush-dip from the one lighting the stair, poured himself some wine and sat looking at the pewter tankard for a long time. He had never seen tears on Elizabeth Widdrington’s face before.
    ***
    At the Red Bull, Jemmy Atkinson counted out the money in front of the men he had employed to beat up his wife’s lover. Billy Little’s brother Long George had somehow come into the matter as well. Never mind, they weren’t asking any more for him.
    ‘You told him, Sergeant?’
    ‘Ay,’ said Ill-Willit Daniel Nixon.
    Atkinson’s thin lips pursed with satisfaction.
    ‘Mr Atkinson?’ said Long George. ‘What happens if Andy Nixon remembers who we are and sues for assault and battery?’
    ‘You didn’t let him get a look at you?’
    ‘Not much of one. But he heard Sergeant Nixon’s voice at least.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Atkinson. ‘All of this has been arranged through Sir Richard Lowther. If there’s a court case Sir Richard will be your good lord and see to the jury, and Nixon knows he’ll not get off so lightly next time.’
    They looked at each other and nodded, but Long George was still frowning worriedly. He wiped his runny nose on his sleeve again.
    ‘Well, but, master,’ he said, ‘Sir Richard’s not Deputy Warden any more.’
    Atkinson’s face grew pinched and mean. The actual Deputy Warden, Sir Robert Carey, had wanted to sack him from his office as Armoury Clerk on discovering that most of the weapons in the Carlisle armoury had disappeared, to be replaced with wooden dummies. The Warden had been Atkinson’s good lord on that occasion, protesting that they didn’t have anyone else in Carlisle capable of dealing with the armoury. Carey had in fact sacked Atkinson from his other, even more lucrative, office of Paymaster to the Garrison, after somehow getting hold of and reading the garrison account books.
    ‘I have every confidence in Sir Richard’s ability to send that nosy long-shanked prick of a courtier running back to London crying for his mother,’ he said venomously.
    ‘Mm,’ said Long George. He started to say something and then thought better of it.
    ‘And in addition no