A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Take this,” said Dodd, giving her his veney stick. “Where’s Mrs. Briscoe?”

  “She’s in the cellar. Can’t you hear her?”

  Another earsplitting scream sliced through the building. Enys bent down to the man Dodd had flattened, who was trying to get up again. She pulled his eating knife from his belt and went to stab him in the chest with it.

  “Better slit his throat,” Dodd said, “It’s easier.”

  Enys snarled, caught the man’s hair in her fist and pulled his head back.

  “Mind the blood,” Dodd said to her, deliberately turning away. He felt she had the right. He still heard the soft sound of blade on flesh and the suck of air into a slit windpipe. Then he heard her being sick. The smell of the fire was gaining on him, the rage in him and the smell of blood: he wasn’t angry exactly for there was none of the red mist of it, but he was far out the other side of the particular black rage that took him in situations like this and made him cold and ruthless and evil. He knew he was evil, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Sar’nt,” growled Briscoe from the door, “they’re hooking the thatch off.”

  Outside the street was full of purposeful activity as men with long hooks pulled down the burning thatch and poured Thames water over it. In the courtyard at the front the pig was squalling so loudly and the dog was barking himself hoarse, you couldn’t hear what was going on in the cellar—except there was something loud still happening there too.

  “Mr. Pickering wants you downstairs, Sar’nt,” said Gabriel.

  Dodd was panting for air as not enough of it came through the holes in the roof, and he hadn’t the breath to argue, so he turned, clattered down the stairs, followed by a still retching and swallowing Portia Morgan, through the hall and another door. Somebody erupted from a closet door behind him and found Enys in the way. She managed somehow to back-hand the man in the face with her stick. There was an audible crack as his jaw broke. He fell back as she kicked him hard in the knee and when he went down she grabbed his dagger from his belt and went to cut his throat as well. Dodd grabbed her arm and stopped her with regret.

  “Mr. Enys,” he shouted, “Milady wants us no’ to kill tae many o’ them.”

  She blinked, shook her head and—typical woman—said, “Why?”

  Dodd didn’t have breath nor time to tell her. He just shrugged, broke the man’s knee properly with the hilt of his sword so he couldn’t make trouble after, and carried on down into the cellars which stank badly of blood and shit. Pickering was standing in the middle of the place looking horrified, the heavy iron bound door had been smashed in and when Dodd braced himself to look through into the straw-scattered little cell, he understood why.

  A sigh puffed out of him. There was young Mrs. Briscoe on her hands and knees in the straw squawking and howling. Portia Morgan blinked, took a long shaky breath, blinked again. Then she dropped her veney stick, went over, bent and stroked the girl’s shoulder. “It’s all right, it’s coming.”

  Another horrendous shriek came from the girl as her belly moved. Enys saw Dodd standing staring, stood up, and came to him.

  “Sergeant, can you get me two stools or blocks of wood this high, a big bowl of hot water or some aqua vitae, linen strips and a clean knife.” The girl was howling again, calling for her mum.

  “Now hush,” said Portia Morgan. “You’re not going to die, it’s only a baby. Sergeant!”

  She was lifting the girl’s petticoats to look and Dodd turned quickly and ran up the stairs. Pickering came with him.

  “God’s truth,” he said as Dodd stripped off one of the stunned men’s doublet and hauled his shirt off over his head, then moved to the corner where there was a wood-basket and a promising looking small barrel. Dodd tapped some into a mug, tried it. The aqua vitae was cheap but drinkable, so he drank that to steady him, poured another one and gave it to Pickering to sustain him, and then put the barrel under one arm, picked up the woodbasket after slinging the man’s eating knife into it along with his shirt, and carried the lot down the cellar steps to where Portia Morgan had her hand under the girl’s petticoats and a look of concentration on her face.

  “If you could find a real midwife, Sergeant,” she said, “that would help, I’m having to try and remember what the woman did for…er…my sister.”

  “Ah’ve helped ewes at lambing and dogs wi’ whelping,” Dodd offered. “It’s no’ sae different.”

  At that point the girl squealed angrily again and started to cry. Portia Morgan turned again and looked under the blood-splattered petticoats. “It’s coming, I can see it,” she cried, and dug into the wood basket to pull out two large blocks of wood which she set on the floor. “Come on, Ellie, sit on these.”

  Dodd lent a hand to heave the girl off her hands and knees and sit her down with her legs spread, a buttock to each block, while Portia shoved the petticoats back and the girl grabbed her head and howled. Something black and bloody was showing between her legs. Suddenly he decided this was a lot more frightening than a lambing and ran up the stairs.

  “It’s coming,” he said in explanation to Pickering who was sitting on the master’s seat in the kitchen with his feet on the table, drinking from another barrel he seemed to have found. Dodd helped himself. “We canna move her until her wean’s born now.”

  “I could see that, Sar’nt,” said Pickering. There was a thundering about upstairs and the firebell had stopped ringing. “Fire’s out, fank goodness. I’ve got Briscoe to check for any remaining cinders, keep his mind off things. I’ll blame the fire on on you.”

  Dodd shrugged. What did he care what a lot of Londoners thought of him? His cold black rage had gone now, he felt as happy and relaxed as if he had…well, as if he had just had a pipe of Moroccan incense and tobacco.

  At that moment there was a distant boom and all the shutters rattled. Dodd cocked an ear to it. The shriek from the cellars had almost drowned the noise.

  “So it was mined,” he said.

  “Yer,” said Pickering. “I wonder if that bloke Vent survived.”

  “Best not talk about it,” Dodd said, “Whit do the neighbours say?”

  “Oh they’re all right. They know I’ll pay ‘em for their trouble. And the roof is off and the fire’s out and Gabriel’s tying up the men here in one of the bedrooms. There was only twenty of them and only a couple of dead.”

  “So the maist o’ them will be at Chelsea or the marshes.”

  “Yer,” said Pickering, “waiting for us with not the faintest idea.” He laughed. “Until now, mind.”

  He laughed again and lifted his cup of wine in a toast to them.

  ***

  Perhaps an hour later there was a clattering of a boat at the watersteps, a challenge from the Cornishmen. And then there were mutterings and Mr. Trevasker saying “milady” and “your honour.” Pickering took his feet off the table and sat up warily.

  Into the looted kitchen walked the small sprightly figure of Lady Hunsdon, pink-cheeked and happy. Beside her, dark and lean and bowed over sideways and forwards by the curve of his back, was a man in sober black damask and a white falling band, a fashionable black beaver hat shading a long face. And behind him trotted Shakespeare.

  Dodd came to his feet and so did Pickering.

  “Sergeant, my compliments on a very neat piece of work,” said Lady Hunsdon, with her wonderful roguish smile that had caught Lord Hunsdon, the King’s bastard, in a permanent web. “Sir Robert Cecil, Privy Councillor, asked to meet you at once.”

  Dodd bowed to her and inclined his head to the second son of the most powerful man in the Kingdom. From things Carey had told him, he thought that Burghley, Cecil’s father, and Carey’s lord, the Earl of Essex were at some kind of courtly feud. So why was Cecil so friendly with Carey’s mam, eh?

  “Ay,” said Dodd, “Ehm…” How did you do it properly? “Ah, milady, may I present Mr. Pickering, the…eh…”

  Pickering stepped forward quickly, bowed to Lady Hunsdon and Cecil and too
k his hat off. “Laurence Pickering, milady, your honour,” he said. “Merchant of London.”

  From the half-closed eyelids and the faint smile, Dodd felt that Cecil knew perfectly well who this was. From the expression on Lady Hunsdon’s face it seemed that she wasn’t entirely sure.

  “Ah…Mr. Pickering helped wi’ the raid,” Dodd finished slightly lamely, hoping he hadn’t offended or insulted anyone. “He’s…ah…a friend of Sir Robert’s.”

  “An honour to be of service to you, milady, yer honour,” said Pickering, staring hard at Cecil.

  “Mr. Pickering,” said the hunchback, inclining his body slightly, “I’ve heard a great deal about you from my mentor and friend, Sir Francis Walsingham, God rest his soul. I believe there was an…understanding between you?”

  “Yes there was, yer honour,” said Pickering, “I ‘ad the…ah.. the honour of ‘elping Sir Francis on several occasions. Though never as…ah.. dramatic as this time.”

  “Quite so.” Sir Robert Cecil smiled and his dark face instantly transformed into a handsome and charming man. “I understand you run the only game that’s worth visiting in London and that Heneage had the impudence to raid it?”

  “Yerss, yer honour, that’s right.”

  “Outrageous. I hope you will be continuing with it…”

  “Of course, yer honour. When I get it set up again, shall I send your honour word of its whereabouts?”

  “How kind, Mr. Pickering,” said Cecil. “I would be delighted to learn to play properly.”

  Pickering bowed. Dodd could almost see the implied handshake between them. “Wiv yer honour’s permission, I think I’ll take my…friends…away now.”

  “Do so, with my thanks,” said Cecil.

  “And mine, of course, Mr. Pickering,” said Lady Hunsdon. “How wonderful to meet another of my son’s more interesting friends.”

  “Yersss, milady,” said Pickering, rocking gently on the balls of his feet with his thumbs in his belt.“Your son has some very good friends.” He turned to Dodd, winked, and left the kitchen, whistling through his teeth.

  Cecil came forwards into the kitchen while Lady Hunsdon went and sat down in the chair with arms. She still had her silver and ebony cane which she leaned on. Cecil sat beside her on a bench, leaned his elbows on his bowed legs, and winced slightly. Shakespeare took up his unobtrusive position with his back to the wall near the door, his hands behind his back, the perfect servingman, listening for all he was worth.

  “Well, Sergeant Dodd,” Cecil said, “why not tell me the story.”

  Dodd told him. He told it as short as he could, not including the tangle over the Enys twins. There was no more shrieking from the cellar but nothing much seemed to be happening there. Dodd really hoped that nobody had died. Somewhere a cat was miaowing.

  At the end of it Cecil smiled his shockingly charming smile again.

  “I will elucidate a couple of points for you, Sergeant, since it seems you have worked out most of it.”

  Dodd tilted his head and prepared to be lied to.

  “The Cornish lands that were hawked about London by Fr. Jackson, were of course, nearly worthless. Certainly there was no gold. Unfortunately…Very unfortunately many courtiers were taken in by his plausibility and bought them. Fr. Jackson was a Jesuit in that he had studied briefly at Rheims—long enough to counterfeit a Catholic priest—but his real name was Harry Dowling, as you surmised. He had offered to work for me against the Catholics but I naturally turned him down as he was not to be trusted.”

  Lady Hunsdon let out a small sniff of disbelief at this. Long practise allowed Dodd to keep his face completely straight. So did Cecil. By God, Burghley’s second son would be very dangerous at primero.

  “Among the spectators was Heneage. Being deeply implicated, he arrested Jackson to find out who he was working for. I engaged James Enys to free him and all did indeed fall out as you said. I heard no more from Enys. Heneage did not know what had happened to Jackson nor his rescuer. Heneage was also desperate to keep the secret of the lands he had bought being worth nothing much so that he could sell them to other innocent barnards. Hence he arrested Richard Tregian and after torture had revealed no information as to the whereabouts of Jackson nor to the source of the lay because of course the whole game was due to Jackson’s greed, substituted him for the priest so that no one would ask questions about the priest.”

  Dodd inclined his head. That was more or less true. Except that he was even more sure that Cecil was the one who had set Jackson on to sell the lands. That coded letter had said most of the wheals were owned by Icarus—presumably Cecil’s target. It still made sense that way. God, the man was twisty.

  “And then you come into the mix and Heneage begins to panic. He knows he has no defence in law to your suits, and so he resorts to force against you.” Cecil smiled and chuckled. “A very foolish man. He should have made you a respectable offer.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd. Perhaps he would have taken it.

  “And it ends here, does it not?” Cecil continued. “Unfortunately it seems that some ill-affected Papists have blown up another property owned by Heneage and that there has been a riot here between the rabble and scum Heneage chose to employ. You fortunately happened to be nearby with my Lady Hunsdon’s men and you were able to quell the riot and out the fire—oh, and rescue a young lawyer and Mr. Briscoe’s wife. You have not been able to kill Topcliffe?”

  “He wisnae here,” Dodd said. It had been a disappointment, that.

  “How unfortunate,” said Cecil with that charming smile again. “So both myself and my worshipful father owe you thanks for preventing worse bloodshed here. I shall be writing a report to him to that end and quite possibly, Her Majesty may choose to reward you as well.”

  From Carey’s constant complaints on the subject, Dodd suspected that he would find a nest high in a tree that was full of suckling pigs before that happened, but still it was a nice thought. And it meant he was free to go?

  “Ay, sir,” he said, “Ah…I heard Mr. Heneage had a warrant for me on a charge of high treason.”

  Cecil tutted. “I am quite sure that is not the case, or if it was, in the heat of the moment, it will no longer be the case after I have spoken to the gentleman. Which I intend to do immediately at his home in Chelsea.”

  Dodd stood as Cecil levered himself to his feet and so did Lady Hunsdon. “Ay,” said Dodd, feeling inadequate to the task of taking his leave properly from Carey’s amazing mother. “Yer Cornishmen are fine fighters,” he said lamely. “And…ah…it wis an honour to serve ye, my lady.”

  Lady Hunsdon beamed and held out her hand to him. Dodd knew what he was supposed to do, frantically thought back to what Carey normally did, dismissed it as impossibly complicated, and just took her hand and bowed over it.

  He found her arms around him in a surprisingly fierce hug. “Sergeant,” she said as she let him go, “like my husband, I’m honoured to have you with me. Give Robin my love when you see him.” She paused and her dimples showed again. “If you can, my handsome.”

  Dodd coughed, “Ay. Thank ye yer honour. God speed, my lady.”

  ***

  Dodd wandered out to the grey courtyard where he found a wounded and bleeding pig lying exhausted in its blood while the dog barked hoarsely on the end of his chain. Thoughtfully Dodd stepped up behind the pig and slit its throat quickly to put it out of its pain, then found a bone in the trough which he threw to the dog. In the way of dogs, the animal barked a couple more times and then starting gnawing on the bone.

  There was something kicking and pounding at the stable door and neighing in panic, so Dodd went to the stable door and opened it, dodged the wild-eyed head that immediately tried to bite him, then looked hard at the animal. It was the nice one with the white sock he’d noticed at Chelsea, one of the regular dispatch horses no doubt which meant he’d be fast and probably quite strong.

  Dodd unbolted the bottom door and slid into the stall quickly, then up close to the horse
and speaking to him in his ear, stroking his neck and shoulder, gently fending off the teeth. “It’s all done wi’, ye stupid jade,” he said since it didn’t matter what he said, “And ye’re coming with me,”

  The saddle was hanging up and the bridle with it, so Dodd spent a little longer gentling the animal until it snorted and lowered its head for him, and then he brushed the coat down with a whisp of hay and put the bridle on and the saddle. Both were very nice, good leather and not too fierce a bit.

  He had forty miles at least and wanted to be able to go quickly, so he checked the other stalls and found another perfectly good horse, not a gelding this time, but a chestnut mare also upset and relieved to see a man who patted her neck and called her a bastard in a soft and friendly voice. He put her bridle on as well and took the reins forward over her head, then led both horses out into the courtyard.

  Gabriel was standing there, watching with interest. “Where are you going?”

  “Och,” said Dodd, “Mr. Pickering’s a man o’ parts here, but Ah’m not and I dinna wantae be in London when Heneage finds out whit happened.”

  “S’all right,” said Gabriel looking offended. “There won’t be any witnesses. Mr. Pickering and his honour said so.”

  “My lady Hunsdon said she didnae want killing.”

  “No, they just won’t remember. Any of ’em.”

  “Ay, well. Ah’m tired o’ London and now Ah’ve had ma satisfaction for the insult Heneage put on me, Ah’ve nae reason to stay.”

  “I’d stay for Molly, she likes you.”

  “Molly?”

  “The mort wiv the big tits wot gave you the eye,” said Gabriel, grinning. “She says her and Nick the Gent tried to tip you the marrying lay a few weeks back but it went wrong. She says you was fun, though.”

  Dodd could feel his face prickling with embarassment. So that’s where he’d seen her before. “Ay, but that woman were blonde,” was all he could say.