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

Janet was in her red dress with the black trim, a neat little ruff round her neck, and a fine false front to her petticoat made of part of the old Lord Scrope’s court cloak, which the young lord had disdained since it was out of fashion, Philadelphia had accepted, her maid taken as a perk and Janet snapped up as a bargain the month before. Her white apron was of linen she had woven herself and was a credit to her. The red kirtle suited her high colour and the snapping pale blue eyes and Armstrong sandy hair. If her teeth were a little crooked and her hips broad enough to be fashionable without need of a bumroll (though she wore one of course) and her boots heavy and hobnailed, what of it? He put his hand to the horse’s bridle and Shilling whickered at him and tried to find an apple in the front of his jerkin. Janet smiled at him.
    “Now then wife,” said Dodd, grinning lecherously at her.
    “I heard you were out on patrol.”
    “We were looking at the place where we found a body.”
    Janet frowned. “Was that the body of Sweetmilk Graham you’ve not yet told me of?”
    “It was.”
    “Will Jock raid us, do you think?”
    “Why should he?” demanded Dodd, “It wasn’t me that killed his son.”
    Janet looked dubious. “What about lying to him at the ford?”
    Christ, how did she hear so much? “He’ll know it was because I was not inclined to a fight. And where are you off to?”
    “To see my lover,” said Janet with a naughty look. Dodd growled. She slid from the horse and began leading the animal, holding her skirts high above the mud.
    “How’s the wheat?” Henry asked, walking beside her and enjoying the view.
    Janet began to suck her bottom lip through a gap in her teeth and her brow knitted.
    “Sick,” she said. “We might get by with the oats and the barley if there’s no more rain. I’ll leave that field fallow next year.”
    “But it’s infield,” protested Dodd.
    “Give it time to clean itself. I might run some pigs on it. The beans are doing poorly too.”
    “What will you do to replace Mildred?”
    “I’ve heard tell there’s one for sale.”
    “Not reived?”
    Janet shrugged. “Not branded, any road. That’s why I want to buy him.”
    “Buy,” said Dodd and shook his head.
    Janet giggled. “Will you want to come with me or would it go against your credit to be seen giving money for a beast?”
    Dodd considered. Janet was almost as good a judge of horseflesh as he was himself, and knew most of the horses from round about and wasn’t likely to be sold a stolen animal, at least not unknowingly. But she was only a woman. If it had been a cow…
    “I’ll come with you,” he said.
    They turned down a small wynd leading to one of the many ruined churches of Carlisle: this one had a churchman in it, a book-a-bosom man who spent most of his time travelling about the country catching up with the weddings and christenings.
    “Good afternoon, Reverend Turnbull,” said Janet politely, “we’ve come about the horse.”
    Now Dodd was no different from any other man. He may have had a longer and more ill-tempered face than most, but he could fall in love. He fell in love immediately, with the elegant long-legged creature that was tethered inside the porch of the church. The colour was unusual, a piebald black, the neck high and arched, the legs strong and firm, hooves as healthy as you could wish and best of all, he still had his stones.
    Janet’s face was bland. “Where was he stolen?”
    The Reverend Turnbull looked offended. “Mrs Dodd, I would never try to sell you or the Sergeant a…stolen animal. I swear to you on my honour as a man of the cloth, that he was honestly bought. Besides, do you think an animal like that could be reived and the Sergeant not know about it?”
    Dodd turned away so the churchman wouldn’t see his face which he knew would be full of ardour. With a horse like that he could win the victor’s bell at any race he chose to enter, he thought, and the