A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Father’s in charge of the Queen’s entertainments at Court,” Carey explained. “They’re hoping he’ll give them a job.”

  “Och.” Dodd shook his head at such folly. “Whit were ye saying…”

  “I was saying that I was hoping to start for Carlisle soon.”

  “Afore ye’ve seen the Queen?” Dodd was surprised.

  “She’s at Oxford which is on the way.”

  “Ah.” Dodd felt the corners of his mouth turning down sourly. Typical Carey, no consideration for anyone else.

  “I’m surprised you’re not delighted, Sergeant.”

  Dodd scowled at him for his ignorance. “Nay sir, I’m in nae hurry.”

  “I thought you hated London.”

  “Ay sir, I do.”

  “And there’s plague about.”

  “Ay sir.” Both of them were quiet for a moment remembering Carey’s servant Barnabus and his family. Hunsdon had indicated he would take Barnabus’ niece into his household until she could be found a good husband, and young Simon, his nephew, was already lording it over the other boys in the stables where he was a great deal more use than he was as Carey’s page.

  “So? Why don’t you want to go home?”

  “I havenae had my satisfaction fra Heneage yet.”

  Carey barked with laughter. Dodd was annoyed again. He wagged a finger at Carey.

  “Say what ye like about Richie Graham of Brackenhill, but he’d know better than to treat a Dodd like that. Wee Colin Elliot might treat me like that if he got the chance, but he wouldnae have the insolence to leave me alive after.”

  Carey grinned. “Jock of the Peartree did something similar to me a few months ago and I’m not planning vengeance.”

  “Ay sir, but ye was spying out his tower and forebye it was in the way of battle and retaliation for the lumps ye gave him yersen. That’s fair, is that, and ye both know it.”

  Carey nodded. Dodd leaned back with his hands on his thighs.

  “So. I canna leave London until I’ve given Heneage back what he gave me.”

  “With interest?”

  “Ay. Wi’ interest.”

  “Trouble is, it might take a while and I really want to talk to the Queen and my lord of Essex.”

  Dodd sighed and looked him in the eye. Carey winced, probably at the horribly sour but valiant viol-scraping in the boat that was now closing on them rapidly.

  “Sir,” said Dodd, “do ye not ken that the Dodds have a bloodfeud wi’ the Elliots that goes back tae the Rough Wooing of Henry VIII, over sixty years. If it takes a while, then it takes a while. Or if he dies afore I’m satisfied, then I’ll do the same to his son.”

  “I don’t think Heneage has a family.”

  Dodd shrugged. “If he dies wi’out issue, then I’ll take it to his cousins or his nephews.” He’d been wondering if Heneage had family to back him as well as the Queen. It was good news that he didn’t.

  Even so, Carey seemed worried.

  Dodd tapped his knee. “Dinna be concerned, sir. It’s no’ a blood feud, only a feud. It might be composed if he offers enough to me or I can burn his tower or the like.”

  “Ah,” said Carey. “Good. I need you back in Carlisle this autumn.”

  “As yer father tells it, I can leave the court case with my lawyer once I’ve made my statements and he’ll take it on for me until he needs me again. Once it’s well begun I’ll come back wi’ye to Carlisle and happy to do it.” Dodd thought wistfully of Janet. He would never have guessed how much he missed her visits to him on market days and his visits back to her in Gilsland when he could.

  “How much would you take to compose your feud?”

  Dodd thought carefully. “Ah dinna ken, sir. Whit would be the London price for twenty kine and ten sheep and five good horses.”

  At that moment they heard a muttered “God’s truth!” from Hunsdon in the prow. He stood and gestured so that the rowers backed water. Then he beckoned the boatful of importunate musicians even closer.

  “How much for your viol?” he roared across to them.

  The musicians elbowed each other and there was a fierce argument. “He doesn’t want to sell, my lord,” shouted a harpist with long hair.

  Hunsdon fished out a purse of silver and hefted it. “This much?”

  There was a scuffle in the boat and one of the flautists brandished the viol in the air while the drummer sat on the viol player. Hunsdon gently threw the purse of silver into the boat and, despite wild protests from the viol player, the instrument was lobbed spinning across the water to be caught by Hunsdon’s man Turner. He handed it to Hunsdon, who took the instrument by the neck and smashed it to pieces against the side of the boat. Carey looked mildly pained, then shrugged.

  “That’s better,” shouted Hunsdon, “and don’t for God’s sake let the man buy another bloody instrument.”

  The Hunsdon liverymen bent grinning to their oars again and they left the musicians well behind.

  Carey and his father were uncharacteristically quiet as the boat sped downriver, helped by the current. As they rounded the bend and came in sight of Somerset House, both men gasped and stood up in the boat, nearly upsetting it.

  Another boat was tied up at Somerset steps, a long gig from a ship, also sporting the Swan Rampant that was Hunsdon’s badge. Men were standing on the boatlanding who were clearly not Londoners, being barrel-shaped, mainly red-haired and short, and sporting long pigtails down their backs.

  Dodd stared with interest at the play of expressions on Carey’s face—absolute horror predominating. Strangely Hunsdon was grinning with delight from ear to ear and let out a bellow of laughter.

  “Good God, it can’t be,” groaned Carey.

  “It is!” laughed Hunsdon, slapping his son on the back and taking him unawares so he nearly went in the Thames. “I’d recognise that crew of Cornish wreckers and pirates anywhere. Ho, Trevasker!”

  The most evil-looking of the men touched his cap to Hunsdon and said something to one of the others.

  “Oh Jesus, this is all I need,” said Carey, sitting down and putting his head in his hands.

  His father stayed standing all the way to the steps and jumped off onto the jetty before the boat was even tied up. The crew of Cornish wreckers and pirates touched their foreheads respectfully to Hunsdon as he hurried past them, through the gate in the wall, and up through the gardens. Carey followed nearly as quickly with a face of thunder while Dodd scrambled after, near to dying of curiosity. He caught up with Carey in the orchard.

  “Is it one o’ yer creditors?”

  “No, much worse. You saw the badge, didn’t you? It’s much, much worse.”

  Dodd shook his head, loosened his sword just in case Carey wasn’t exaggerating again, and followed up to the house which was blazing with candles in the grey afternoon.

  In the magnificent entrance hall stood more short, broad, pigtailed men with hands like hams and a strong smell of the sea on them. Hunsdon hurried through to the parlour where a smallish woman in her sixties with very bright blue eyes was just taking off a large sealskin cloak and handing it to a pink-cheeked girl.

  She turned, smiled, and curtseyed to Lord Hunsdon who bowed formally, then opened his arms and bellowed “Annie!” as he scooped her up and swing her round in a delighted hug.

  “Put me down, Harry, you old fool!” shouted the woman as she hugged him back with just as much violence, laughing with an infectious gurgle in her throat. “You’ll knock my hat off.”

  Although she otherwise spoke like Hunsdon there was a strong flavour in her voice. It was the sound of the Cornish sailors who plied up and down the Irish Sea in appalling weather, trading tin, hides, wood, and contraband in all directions.

  Hunsdon put her down gently and she straightened her smart French hood and smiled lovingly at Carey. “Where’s my little man to, then, eh?” she demanded.

  Real pain crossed Carey’s face. Dodd’s mouth dropped open as he finally worked out who he was looking at.
Carey stepped past him, swept a very fine Court bow, and bent over the lady’s hand with unimpeachable respect.

  “My lady mother,” murmured Carey in a resigned tone of voice. “What a delightful surprise.”

  She laughed a gravelly laugh and thumped him in the ribs. “No it ain’t, Robin.” she said, “Don’t try that Court soft soap with me. You’re shaking in your fine boots.”

  Carey smiled wanly.

  “Er…”

  “You’re worried I know what you’ve been at, boy, and you’re right. I do.”

  “Ah…”

  “Meanwhile, who’s this henchman of yours?”

  Guts cramping, ribs aching, and his face stiff with the effort not to laugh, Dodd stepped forward and made the best bow he could manage.

  “Ma’am, may I present Land-Sergeant Henry Dodd of Gilsland, presently serving under me in Carlisle,” said Carey in the tones of one going to his execution.

  Dodd found himself being looked sharply up and down.

  “Hm. So you’re the Dodd headman that came out for my son with your kin when he got himself in trouble at Netherby,” she said.

  “Ay, my lady. Wi’ the English Armstrongs o’ course.”

  “And as I heard it, you convinced the Johnston to back you and ran a nice little ambush on the Maxwell to bring the handguns back from Dumfries in the summer.”

  Dodd could only nod. How the hell could she know so much? Carey had his eyes shut and his hands clasped firmly behind his back like a boy reciting a lesson.

  Lady Hunsdon swung on her husband. “I take a little trip to Dumfries in summer with Captain Trevasker and the Judith of Penryn in Irish whiskey and some vittles for the Scottish court and what do I hear? My youngest son’s doings all over the town although the King’s gone back to Edinburgh and his mangy pack of lordlings with him.”

  “Did you sell the cargo?” asked Hunsdon.

  “Of course I did, husband, that’s why I went. I knew the Court would have eaten and drunk the place bare. Triple prices for the whisky from my Lord Maxwell, no less.”

  She was advancing on Carey now who backed before her with his shoulders up like a boy expecting to have his ears boxed for scrumping apples. Dodd held his breath in mingled hope and fascination.

  “Now one of the things I heard was not at all to my liking,” she said, prodding Carey in his well-velveted chest which was as high as she could reach. He flinched. “Not at all. What’s this about Lord Spynie and Sir Henry Widdrington, eh?”

  Carey smiled placatingly and spread his hands. “I couldn’t possibly say, ma’am, are they in bed together?”

  “All but.” Pouncing like a cat, Lady Hunsdon grabbed her son’s left hand and pulled off his embroidered glove. After a moment when it seemed Carey would snatch his hand away and possibly run for it, he stood and let her look, towering over her and yet somehow gangling like the lad he must have been fifteen years before.

  In silence Lady Hunsdon reached for his other hand. Carey sighed and pulled the glove off for her. More thunderous silence. Dodd saw tears rising to Lady Hunsdon’s eyes and suddenly she pulled Carey to her and hugged him.

  “Mother!” protested the muffled voice of Carey. She let go at once and turned to her husband.

  “We shall set a price of five thousand crowns on Spynie’s head and the same on Widdrington’s,” she said coldly.

  “Er…no, my lady,” said Hunsdon, “I think not. Spynie’s still the King’s Minion, though there are hopes of Robert Kerr, and John needs the Widdrington surname to help him rule the East March.”

  Their eyes locked and Dodd could see the tussle and then the agreement between them flying clear as a bird. “At least, not yet,” amended his lordship.

  “Of course, my lord,” said Lady Hunsdon with the dangerous meekness Dodd had learned to fear in Janet.

  Carey was pulling his gloves back on with fingers that trembled slightly.

  “Have you seen Edmund?” Hunsdon asked to break the silence. “Doctor Nunez is very pleased with him.”

  Lady Hunsdon sat herself down in a carved chair as Hunsdon sat as well. “I talked to him while I was waiting for you, my lord.”

  At Hunsdon’s gesture, Carey and Dodd sat on a bench. Hunsdon’s majordomo was bringing in a light supper and spiced wine for them. Carey spoke quietly to him and Dodd saw a small cup of brandy brought and added to his wine. He looked like he needed it and drank gratefully while Dodd helped himself to a mutton pasty.

  “Did you plan to put a price on Heneage’s head as well, wife?” asked Hunsdon teasingly as he carved a plump breast of duck with a sauce of raspberries and laid it on her plate. Lady Hunsdon sniffed and pulled the dish of sallet herbs towards her.

  “Your sister wouldn’t like it.”

  “She wouldn’t,” agreed Hunsdon.

  “He mistreated you too, Sergeant Dodd?” Lady Hunsdon said suddenly to Dodd, who had to swallow quickly.

  “Ay, my lady.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Ay well, milady, if I was at home the bell’d be ringing and the Dodds and Armstrongs would be riding and the man would ha’ lost a few flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and some horses if we could find them and likely a tower or two burned.”

  Lady Hunsdon nodded. “Of course. Powerful long way for your surname to come though, isn’t it?”

  “Ay, it is. Your good lord has offered to back a court case for me but…ah…”

  “The lawyers won’t take the brief, ma’am,” explained Carey. “None of them will.”

  Lady Hunsdon nodded at this.

  “Except that pocky young man we met the day,” put in Dodd. “He said he’d dae it since Heneage disnae like him in any case.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Hunsdon.

  “James…Enys?”

  “Enys?” said Lady Hunsdon, “That’s a Cornish name. Where’s he from?”

  “No idea. We were worried he might be Heneage’s man so we asked him to come here tomorrow so you could look at him, my lord.” Lord and Lady Hunsdon both nodded.

  “Heneage isn’t going to give up just because his last attempt blew up in his face,” said Hunsdon, “and Edmund…”

  “…has horse-clabber for brains,” snapped Lady Hunsdon. “At least you did well there, Robin, from what he said.”

  Carey inclined his head politely while still studying the floor.

  Dodd watched as Lady Hunsdon polished off her wine and nodded at the Steward to replenish it. “So what I’m hearing from you, my lord, is that there’s not a thing we can do to pay back Spynie and Widdrington, and Heneage is more than likely going to have another try at pulling you down just as soon as he can think of something twisted enough.”

  Hunsdon inclined his head in a gesture just like his son’s.

  “God damn the lot of them,” swore Lady Hunsdon, tapping her fragile Venetian wine glass decisively. “Do you need money, Robin?”

  Carey coloured. “Ah…well…”

  “Of course you do, look at your fancy duds. Cost a couple of farms just for your hose, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, I had a lucky voyage coming up the Channel, so here you are…”

  She threw a bulging leather purse at Carey who caught it and whistled soundlessly when he looked inside.

  “Pieces of eight?”

  Lady Hunsdon smiled and wiggled her fingers. “We caught a Flemish trader off the Carrick Roads as we came out of Penryn. And you’re not to spend it on clothes,” she added, setting off another near-hernia in Dodd’s abused diaphragm. “Sergeant, don’t you let him go near that devil Bullard and his doublets.”

  “No, milady,” Dodd managed somehow.

  “Invest it, Robin,” said Lady Hunsdon. “As I’ve told you before, George Cumberland has the right idea…”

  Hunsdon was standing again, leaning over to his wife and proffering his arm.

  “My lady wife,” he said softly. Lady Hunsdon swallowed the last of her spiced wine, put her hand on her husband’s arm, and allo
wed him to help her up. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed Lord Hunsdon’s ear as they turned towards the door to the stairs.

  Carey put his fists on his knees, stood up and hurried after his parents, caught up with his mother at the foot of the stairs and started whispering to her urgently. Dodd followed them. He didn’t need to hear Carey’s question as he knew exactly what it would be about—the woman Carey was disastrously in love with. She was still married to Sir Henry Widdrington, a jealous husband who had clearly seized the chance to mistreat Carey in Dumfries.

  “Mother, how is Elizabeth Widdrington?” asked Carey, “I’m anxious for her. Sir Henry might…”

  “I think she’s well enough, all things considered,” said Lady Hunsdon with a worried frown. “She’s very strong. Sybilla’s still furious with me for the ill match I made for her daughter.”

  Carey’s inaudible next murmur sounded angry and Lady Hunsdon put up her hand to his shoulder and gripped. “Robin,” she said, “I know, I know. You must be patient.” Carey’s response was a characteristic growl. Lady Hunsdon smiled fondly at him, pulled his chestnut head down to hers and kissed his cheek. This time Carey didn’t bridle like a youth but kissed her back and put his arm around her shoulders.

  They parted as Hunsdon led his lady up the stairs. Carey avoided Dodd’s eye as they made for their respective bedchambers.

  “Now you see why my Lady Mother doesn’t often come to Court,” he said. “She prefers to stay in Cornwall with her sister Sybilla Trevannion and her friends the Killigrews.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd.

  “It wasn’t my mother’s fault that I first met my cousin Elizabeth when I went to Scotland with the message for King James from the Queen about his mother’s execution,” added Carey. “Which was after she had been married off to Sir Henry.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, not much interested in the complicated tale of Carey’s love-life. If the woman was willing and her husband odious, why did Carey not simply gather a nice raiding party, hit the man’s tower by surprise, kill him and take the woman? Dodd would be perfectly happy to be best man at that rough wedding and it would at least end Carey’s perpetual mooning over her, alternating with an occasional seduction of some even more dangerous female. “Ah…Does yer mam hold a letter of marque from the Queen?”