A Chorus of Innocents Read online

  A Chorus of Innocents

  A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

  P. F. Chisholm

  Poisoned Pen Press

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2015 by P. F. Chisholm

  First E-book Edition 2015

  ISBN: 9781464204630 ebook

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.

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  Contents

  A Chorus of Innocents

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  List of Characters

  Prologue

  Thursday Afternoon 12th October 1592

  Friday Morning 13th October 1592

  Friday Afternoon 13th October 1592

  Saturday 14th October 1592

  Sunday Morning 15th October 1592

  Saturday 14th to Sunday 15th October 1592

  Sunday 15th October 1592

  Monday 16th October 1592

  Monday 16th October 1592

  Tuesday, Before Dawn, 17th October 1592

  Monday 16th October 1592

  Tuesday 17th October 1592

  Tuesday 17th October 1592

  Wednesday Morning 18th October 1592

  Wednesday 18th October 1592

  Wednesday 18th October 1592

  Wednesday Night 18th October to Thursday 19th October 1592

  Wednesday Night 18th October to Thursday 19th October 1592

  Wednesday Night 18th October and Thursday 19th October 1592

  Thursday 19th October 1592

  Thursday Night 19th October to Friday 20th October 1592

  Thursday Night 19th October to Friday 20th October 1592

  Friday 20th October 1592

  Saturday 21st October 1592

  Thursday Night 19th October to Friday 20th October 1592

  Saturday Night 21st October to Sunday 22nd October 1592

  Friday 20th October 1592

  Sunday 22nd October 1592

  Friday 20th October 1592

  Sunday 22nd October 1592

  Historical Note

  More from this Author

  Contact Us

  Dedication

  To Jane Conway-Gordon, with many thanks

  List of Characters

  Tim, barman at Wendron

  Simon Anricks, barber surgeon who might be a Jesuit

  Clem, alehouse boy

  Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, Carey’s love

  Mr Tully, horse trader

  Blackie (a grey), murderers’ horse

  Pinkie (a chestnut), ditto

  Milky (black), Tully’s horse

  Mouse (dark chestnut), Elizabeth’s horse

  Mary Trevannion, Elizabeth’s cousin, learning huswifery

  Mr Heron, Widdrington reeve

  Poppy (Proserpina) Burn, Minister Jamie Burn’s wife

  Minister Jamie Burn, the dead churchman

  Dandelion, cow with good milk

  Mrs Stirling, midwife

  Young Henry Widdrington, Sir Henry’s eldest son

  Jane, Kat, Elizabeth’s dairymaids

  Prince, Jamie Burn’s horse (hobby)

  Rat, Elizabeth’s horse (half-hobby)

  Sir Robert Carey, Elizabeth’s love

  Johnny Forster, eldest son of Sir John, Marshall of Bamburgh

  John Carey, Sir Robert’s elder brother, Marshall of Berwick

  Lady Agnes Hume, dowager lady

  Jock Burn, Jamie’s uncle

  Ralph o’ the Coates Burn, headman of the Burns, Jamie’s father

  Laird Hughie Hume, heir to cadet Hume estate

  Maitland of Lethington, Scottish Chancellor

  Maria, village girl

  Jemmy Burn, Ralph o’ the Coates’ younger brother

  Archie Burn, his son

  Humphrey Fenwick, Widdrington cousin

  Sergeant Henry Dodd, Land-Sergeant of Gilsland

  Patch, Dodd’s horse (hobby)

  Sorrel, Carey’s horse (hobby)

  Twice, Blackie, other horses (hobbies)

  Young Hutchin, young scoundrel

  Andy Nixon, member of Carlisle castle guard

  Sim’s Will Croser, ditto

  Bessie’s Andrew Storey, ditto

  Red Sandy, Dodd’s younger brother

  Bangtail Graham, member of Carlisle castle guard

  Janet Dodd (nee Armstrong), Dodd’s wife

  Kat Ridley, Lady Hume’s tiring woman

  Jack Crosby, Sim Routledge, Wendron villagers

  Cousin William, Hume byblow

  Jimmy, Hume groom

  Hector (Ekie) Widdrington, Widdrington cousin

  Sim Widdrington, ditto

  Daniel Widdrington, ditto

  Piers Dixon, schoolboy

  Andy Hume, schoolboy

  Cuddy Trotter, schoolboy

  Jimmy Tait, schoolboy

  Jock Tait, Jimmy Tait’s father

  Goodwife Tait, Jimmy Tait’s mother

  Goodwife Trotter, Cuddy’s mother

  Clemmie Pringle, Wendron baker

  Sandy, Eric, dogboys at Carlisle

  Butter, Ekie’s horse (hobby)

  Geordie Burn, Ralph o’ the Coate’s eldest son, Jamie’s eldest brother

  Young Geordie, Geordie Burn’s son

  Nick Smithson, leader of Essex’s soldiers

  Denham, leader of one of the Carlisle trained bands

  Blennerhasset, ditto

  Beverly, ditto

  Jack, young lymer dog

  Teazle, older lymer dog

  Lady Philadelphia Scrope, Carey’s younger sister

  Lord Scrope, Warden of the English West March

  John Tovey, Carey’s secretary

  Brother Aurelius, Austin friar at Jedburgh abbey

  Brother Constantine, ditto

  Brother Justinian, ditto

  Brother Ignatius, ditto

  Lord Abbot Ninian, Lord Abbot of Jedburgh

  Lord Spynie, Royal favourite

  James VI, King of Scotland

  Prologue

  It was a small chapel, stone built and once dedicated to some Papist saint. Since then it had been whitewashed, had its superstitious coloured windows broken with stones and the head knocked off the saint, although her cow was left in peace. The old altar had been broken up as the reign of the King’s scandalous mother came to its riotous end, the relics hidden in it levered out and thrown on a bonfire to burn as superstitious trash. By the early 1570s there was a respectably plain altar table, well away from the eastern end so as not to be idolatrous and a very well-made plain and solid high pulpit for preaching. Mostly by visiting preachers, though, because who would choose to live in the village so close to the Border with England and the bastard English raiders?

  Once upon a time, memorably, the Reverend Gilpin had come there after the mermaid Queen was safely locked up in England. This was very u
nusual. The reverend’s summer journeys kept him on the southern side of the Faery Wall, among the God-cursed English, but a laird had heard him there and invited him to come and preach and paid his expenses forebye, and everyone for miles about had gone to listen. They still tutted about it.

  They had heard some very strange things from the pulpit that day. For a start, Gilpin didn’t read the Bible texts they knew and liked, the good ones about smiting the Philistines or the book of Joshua or an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which was good sense they wholeheartedly agreed with. Nor did he talk about the wickedness of starched ruffs, or vestments, even.

  He read them some unfamiliar parts of the Gospels: nothing useful about Jesus bringing a sword, no. Strange unaccustomed things he read them about making peace with your brother before you laid your sacrifice on the altar and some outrageous stuff about loving your enemy.

  The men and women shifted their feet where they stood and looked at each other sidelong. Did Christ really say that? Really? Loving your enemy? Was the English reverend sure? It sounded…well, it sounded Papistical.

  Love everybody? What? The English, too? Jesus never said that, did he?

  And the Reverend had smiled with a twinkle in his small grey eyes and closed the Bible with a snap, then leaned his arms familiarly on the rail of the pulpit as if he was leaning on a fence.

  “Did you ever in all your lives hear anything so mad?” he asked in reasonable Scotch and they all laughed with relief.

  He must have been reading one of those wicked Papistical Bibles the Jesuits spread about, that must be it. Jesus couldn’t have said that about enemies. What you did with enemies was you hunted them down and killed them and all their kin, which made far better sense. Honestly, the idea!

  But as the Reverend had spoken on, they felt uneasy again. It seemed Jesus had said those mad things. He had actually said, right out, that they must love each other, not just their own surnames—which was just about doable, mostly—but everybody. Even the English.

  It seemed Jesus had said the thing about enemies too; he really had. There it was, in the Bible, which was as true and good as gold, golden words from God, incorruptible, like blasts of the trumpet against the ungodly. The foolish Papists had hidden the glorious words of Jesus in Latin black as pitch so only priests could know them; now the words were Englished and turned to Scotch as well, so anybody could read them, yes, even women.

  So what were they to think? What should they think—that Jesus was mad? Crazy?

  Everyone had goggled at such…surely it was blasphemy?

  A stout woman spoke up from the back of the church where she was standing with the other women. “That’s blasphemy!” she shouted. “You can’t say Our Lord was mad…”

  The English Reverend’s long finger stabbed the air as he pointed at her.

  “That’s right, goodwife!” he bellowed. “You are the truest Christian here! It’s blasphemy to say or even to think that Jesus Christ was mad because he was the Son of God!”

  He was standing up straight now, leaning over the rail. “And if he was the Son of God, then how dare we listen to his words in the Bible and not follow his orders? How dare we hate our enemies? How dare we feud and kill and raid and burn? For if we do, shall we not burn in Hell?”

  And from there the sermon had turned both familiar and frightening. Familiar in the loud words and gestures, but frightening in the meaning. For the Reverend was not inveighing against the Papists nor the French nor the courtiers. He was preaching against themselves. Against any of them who went up against an enemy to fight him, steal his cows and sheep and burn his steadings—which meant pretty much every man there of fighting age. He bellowed against those who cooked and brewed ale for the fighting men or quilted their jacks in the old surname patterns—which meant every woman and girl there.

  He told them that they were wrong and damned, that keeping a boychild’s right hand covered with a cloth at baptism so it was unblessed and could kill without sin was a wicked Papist superstition. That the whole of them, body and soul, was blessed in baptism, so that they could rise up, soul and body both, at the Judgement Day—which might be very soon.

  Yet because they had not obeyed their true headman, Jesus Christ, then they would be damned just as infallibly as the Papists or the wicked Anabaptists.

  Many of the men were scowling and putting their hands on their knives or swords. The women were gasping with outrage while the children stared in astonishment at the small man’s daring. What was an Anabaptist? Did it have a tail?

  He quieted for a while, playing them like a violin. It was all right. Jesus was a just and kindly headman, unlike many of the lairds hereabouts (that got a small titter). They could make things right anytime they wanted: All they had to do was love their enemies, make peace with those they were at feud with, and…

  “Die?” sneered the laird at the front, who had his arms folded across his barrel chest and his henchmen in a tight knot around him. As he was the one who had paid for the Reverend to preach he was understandably angry. “That’s what will happen if we make peace with the bastard English. We’ll die and our families with us!”

  “You will not die,” said the Reverend Gilpin, pointing at the laird. “You will receive eternal life.”

  The headman spat on the stones. “I didna pay your expenses for ye to preach this shite,” said the headman. “Get on wi’ yer job and curse the ungodly, man!”

  “I am,” said Gilpin, seeming blithely unaware that every man there was on the point of drawing steel. Or perhaps he believed God would protect him. Or perhaps he didn’t care. “If you fail to do what our Lord Jesus ordered—love God and love each other—you are the ungodly! You and the English both. All of you, both sides of the Border, are the ungodly.”

  The laird drew his sword and shouldered to the front. “I paid ye!” he bellowed. “Now do whit I paid ye to do!”

  A purse full of money flew through the air and bounced off the headman’s doublet with a thump.

  “I don’t need yer money,” said Gilpin. “Thanks to God and mine own weakness, I am a wealthy man. Ye’ve got a free sermon here. Now will ye listen to the Word of God, or not?”

  There was a moment of total silence. Then the woman who had spoken before (against all scripture) started laughing.

  “Och,” she shouted, “he’s a brave man at least, not an arselicker like the last one. You let him preach, Jock o’ the Coates.”

  “So,” said Gilpin after a pause, with a friendly smile to all of them as some hands relaxed from the hilts of their weapons, “we have a problem. If the Lord Jesus wisnae a madman, then ye all are mad for ignoring his orders.”

  There was a growl from some of the men and more laughter from the women, sniggers from the children. You had to say this: It was a more exciting sermon than the last preacher who had had a lot to say about the wickedness of vestments, whatever they were.

  Over the next hour the Reverend Gilpin proved that Jesus had actually said they should love their enemies and that He had actually done that very thing when the Romans had nailed Him to a cross, which must have hurt. And then, to show them all what they were dealing with, hadn’t He risen from the dead, come back to life, not like a ghost or the curs’d knight in the ballad, but as a living, breathing man who ate grilled fish and drank with his friends?

  There was no possible question that He had said it and meant it and done it.

  Now they had to forgive their enemies, too, and live in peace with them. That was all there was to it. And once they set their minds to it, they would find it easier than they expected; for wouldn’t the Lord Jesus be right there at their side, helping them all the way?

  By the end of the sermon some of the more impressionable had been weeping. One of the Burn grandsons was staring transfixed into space, as if he could see something marvellous there instead of just a smashed Papist window.
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br />   Gilpin left them all with the blessing, the full blessing from the evening service: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

  Then he went calmly to his horse that was tethered outside and, with his servant behind him, mounted up and trotted slowly away so the laird could catch him if he wanted.

  It was so memorable a sermon that the laird sent a message to an Edinburgh minister, in case Jesus really had said that about enemies.

  He had, apparently. He really had, though according to the Edinburgh minister, that didn’t count for Papists and a number of other people—including, of course, the English.

  So that was all right then.

  Strangely, the laird invited Reverend Gilpin again and, even more strangely, he came, riding a solid ordinary hobby with his silent deacon behind him on a long-legged mare.

  However as he came to unlock the wooden chapel door, he found a gauntlet nailed to it with a badly penned paper that said whoever took it down would be the Burns’ blood-enemy for life.

  Gilpin looked at it for a moment and then ripped it down. He carried the gauntlet into the church with him where he explained to the assembled people why feud was wrong, challenges to single combat were wrong, and the headman who had challenged him was not only wrong but stupid. He was risking not only a lightning bolt, not only the wrath of God, but also an eternity in Hell, which was no laughing matter.

  Foolishly, the headman wouldn’t leave it be. He sent to Gilpin to ask where he proposed to meet and what his weapon would be. Gilpin replied that it would be at the tower of his Lord with the sword and shield of God.

  The headman arrived at the chapel the next day with his sword and buckler and a crowd of his surname who came to see him beat up the preacher who had defied him, or to laugh at him when he didn’t arrive.

  They found Gilpin standing there in his plain cassock, holding a large Bible.

  “Och,” Jock o’ the Coates said disgustedly. That wasn’t fair. The book looked heavy enough to do some damage if he threw it, but what if he made a lightning bolt come out of it?

  “Well?” said Gilpin, coming forward with the Bible open and his thumb set in one of the end chapters. “Will you draw and strike, Jock Burn?”