by Phil Rickman
‘He came tonight, didn’t he? You told him you might help him in his search for a man who was called John Smart.’
‘You’re at the wrong house.’
‘Is Master Roberts in there still?’
‘Must needs we break down the door?’ Forest said.
‘Holy Mother, do you want me to shout for a constable?’ She turned her back to the window, speaking to someone in the room, not bothering to lower her voice. ‘You… show them your face… another half hour if you show them your face.’
The face that came eventually to the window was plumpen, white-haired and stayed there not long. I looked at Forest. I thought we could take it that Dudley would not be in there with another man in her bed.
‘Was he here earlier?’ I asked. ‘The man we’re seeking.’
‘I swear I know not what you’re—’
‘This house, mistress. Was it once the property of the Abbey of Wigmore?’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘To whom do you pay a portion of your earnings for its use?’
‘I bid you goodnight, masters,’ the woman who was not called Amy said.
And the window slammed and rattled.
‘Amy?’ Forest said.
‘Dudley told me that was what she called herself, when he… when he spoke with her. She was lying, of course. She knew who we meant.’
It all seemed less innocent now. For the first time this night, I began to fear for Dudley’s welfare. We came out into the alley, Forest resting a hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘Where now?’
I was not confident about this, but saw no other way.
‘I think… the abbot himself.’
XL
Paper Kites
WITH THE YOUNGER men out on the hills, the main parlour of the Bull was only half full, but the power behind the new Presteigne was here, its red-veined faces flushed in the creamy light of stubby candles on a round board.
Many a sideways glance for Forest and me, as we drank small beer served by the innkeeper, Jeremy Martin, whose agreeable manner was, for once, muted. For I, too, had journeyed here with the judge’s company and my name would, by now, have been well blackened by my cousin, Nicholas Meredith, who sat amongst his elders and did not acknowledge me.
Half a dozen of them, all well dressed and drinking French wine.
Forest and I took stools at the serving board and drank silently, listening, but our entry had dampened their discussion. Then the urgency of the situation broke upon me and I gave Forest a nod.
He stood up.
‘I come from Hereford with a letter for Master Roberts, the antiquary. I’m unable to find him. Does anyone here know where he might have gone?’
Nobody replied. None of them said a word. As if we might simply disappear if they made no response to us.
I looked at the innkeeper.
‘Martin?’
‘En’t seen Master Roberts since he broke his fast. Off to the court, he reckoned.’
‘Looks to me like the court’s over,’ John Forest said.
‘With a unfortunate verdict for this town,’ I said to the company at the candlelit board.
A heavy-set man with crinkled grey hair set down his goblet, his voice a reluctant, weighted drawl.
‘An unfortunate verdict, one might say, for the superstitious.’
‘By which you mean the local people?’
‘We,’ he said, ‘are the local people.’
‘My name is John Dee,’ I said. ‘And you are?’
‘Bradshaw.’
I nodded. The wealthiest wool merchant in Presteigne, the owner of many of the one-time abbey properties.
‘Half the townsmen are out on the hills,’ I said, ‘thinking to recapture Prys Gethin. What think you of that… as a magistrate?’
‘What I’m thinking, Master Dee, is that while we may not agree with the verdict, no one can deny that the trial was good for the town. Never done better trade. More lawyers than we’ve ever seen. Guards, attendants. Every room taken at every inn.’
‘Better than a visit by the Queen.’
‘The lawyers,’ he said sourly, ‘pay for their accommodation.’
‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘As a man of stature here, did you know how it might end? Did you have a meeting with Sir Christopher Legge before the trial?’
Bradshaw sniffed.
‘Your knowledge of the processes of the law seems somewhat lacking, Master Dee.’
My cousin, Nicholas Meredith, stirred, his beard jutting, anger deepening the lines of wear on his otherwise bland face.
‘You accuse his worship of irregular conduct?’
‘Is that what it sounds like, cousin?’
He rose.
‘Why don’t you just go back to London? You’ve seen your father’s place of birth, what else is here for you?’
‘I’d hoped,’ I said, ‘before I left, to meet the former abbot of Wigmore, of whom I wrote in my letter to you.’
‘And I told you I knew not where he was.’
I placed both hands on the round board.
‘And I don’t believe you. Cousin.’
Meredith turned to Jeremy Martin.
‘Innkeeper, this man offends me. Perhaps you might summon a constable.’
I smothered laughter.
‘Now I know,’ I said, ‘that my mention of John Smart was the main reason you were less than joyous at my arrival…’
Only gossip, Anna Ceddol had said, but the same gossip from different ends of town. Taking me back to the guarded words of Bishop John Scory as we walked by the Wye. The abbey owned most of it at one time. And Meredith… owned the rest. And now appears to own even more. Oh, yes, he might be a very good man to talk to.
‘Having done business with Smart,’ I said. ‘Around the time of the dissolution of the abbey.’
‘Have a care, Dr Dee,’ Bradshaw said.
‘Who does own this inn,’ I asked Meredith. ‘Is it you?’
‘Of course it’s me.’
‘In your own right… or as his guise? What I’m told is that the good abbot, knowing what fate was to befall the abbey at the hands of Lord Cromwell might have sought to dispose of certain abbey property—’
‘Get yourself off my property,’ Meredith said. ‘Conjurer.’
‘—by sale or rent, before the axe, as it were… fell.’
Bradshaw grunted.
‘What drivel is this? Nothing got past Cromwell.’
‘Divers deals were done in the confusion of Reform,’ I said. ‘Deeds of property discreetly transferred, oft-times with the cooperation of the local gentry who told themselves they were only helping the true Church from being plundered by the Protestants. The word is that Abbot Smart was already proficient in… matters of finance. After a while, I’d guess, it would not always be easy for the agents of the Crown to work out precisely what the abbey owned. Especially out here.’
‘Where’s your proof of that?’ Bradshaw said. ‘For if you don’t want to spend the night in the sheriff’s dungeon—’
‘The sheriff’s gone home to sulk. Now listen to me. Although I’m good with numbers, the fiscal side of them is not my country. But I’m sure the office of Sir William Cecil, scenting riches which should be in the Queen’s treasury, would waste no time in appointing accountants to unravel what we might call the discrepancies in Presteigne.’
There was a long silence, tense as a bowstring. What the hell kind of place was this, where a disgraced former abbot could be running whores and collecting money for the tenure of houses he’d corruptly removed from the ownership of the Church? I was aware that John Forest had his hand upon his sword. I had, in truth, never thought it might come to this.
‘I don’t believe,’ Bradshaw said to Meredith, ‘that this man knows anything. I think he flies paper kites.’
‘You’ll have noticed,’ I said, ‘that I put my questions to you, rather than the abbot himself. Knowing of his obvious need to walk in stealth in order
to live a full life. Which, for the lascivious former abbot, must needs include a ready supply of woman’s crack.’
Throwing down the vulgarity like a stone into a placid garden pond, watching Bradshaw wince.
‘While deriving a little extra income from whorehouse takings,’ I said.
‘What do you want?’
I turned slowly, the question having come from the serving board behind me.
‘Where’s my friend?’
‘I’ve already told you. I know not where he’s gone.’
But I’d not previously seen the plumpen, brown-faced innkeeper, Jeremy Martin, so far from a smile.
‘Earlier, he was with – I think I have this right – Branwen Laetitia Swift? One of your whores?’
‘Letty? Keeps her own affairs, Dr Dee. A clever woman, whom men pay for more than her body.’
‘Which men?’
‘Not my affair,’ Martin said.
Had I misheard, or was his cheerful border-country accent fallen away?
No matter, this was going not as well as I’d hoped. What if these knaves truly had no knowledge of Dudley? I moved myself further away from the innkeeper, so that I might see every man in the well-lit parlour.
My cousin watched me in silence, his face in collapse. What must his thoughts have been when he’d received my letter asking if he knew the whereabouts of the former Abbot of Wigmore? And then, when I arrived without warning, a man with links at the highest level of government, who might shatter his little world like poor glass.
But how dare the bastard point the finger at my father for the foolish and desperate sale of church plate in a time of dire need?
I stood up.
‘Think on it,’ I said. ‘If anything useful occurs to you, we’ll be in my chamber.’
On the way out, I looked at the hands of Jeremy Martin – hands too plump and smooth to have spent years hefting barrels from a cellar.
Thought of those hands on Anna Ceddol.
Turned away.
XLI
Personal Dressmaker
‘OH, THAT WAS a mistake,’ Forest said. ‘And coming up here was an even worse one.’
He went to the window, pushed open the shutters to look down into the moonwashed mews.
No one there, not even the ostler.
‘We can get out this way, if needs be. Not much of a drop. Grab hold of the ivy, you’ll be—’
‘They’re merchants and dealers,’ I said, ‘not men of violence.’
Forest swung round to face me.
‘Such men live only for money. And you’ve threatened their life’s income, Dr Dee. Not to say their freedom. Even their necks. You’re alone in a strange town in the midst of nowhere. If you fail to arrive back in London… well, anything could’ve happened along the road. That’s what they’ll say when nobody even finds your body.’
He went to make sure the door of the bedchamber was bolted. I recalled the parting words of John Scory.
… worth remembering that Presteigne still has its share of dark alleys.
Was all this well known? Or only to a circumspect and pragmatic bishop.
Forest slumped back on to the truckle bed, rubbing his eyes. Cold in here, but he was sweating.
‘Did I understand that aright? It’s your opinion that the fat innkeeper is the former Abbot of Wigmore?’
‘He didn’t deny it, did he?’
‘God’s blood.’ Forest was shaking his head. ‘How’s he got away with it for so long? It’s not as if he’s invisible.’
‘No better place to hide than in full view. And if a man’s added immeasurably to the prosperity of a town and all who live there, a wall of silence will be erected about him.’
‘A whoremaster, too?’
‘Well qualified,’ I said, recalling Bonner in the Marshalsea.
Poking maids and goodwives over quite a wide area.
‘If even half of what you came out with down there is true,’ Forest said, ‘it’s clear you can’t lie here tonight. Nor anywhere in this town. You have to get out, and soon. And I mean soon. Might be the best thing if you were to ride back with me to Hereford, after—’
‘What about Dudley?’
‘—after we make full sure that Lord Dudley is not here.’ Forest wiped sweat from his brow with a sleeve. ‘Jesu, how can he be away from here without a horse? This looks not good, Dr Dee. Is he robbed? Is he beaten? Is he…? What can we do? You know this shithole better than me. Where’ve we failed to search?’
‘I think, for a start, we might open his letter.’
‘No. Never. I’m entrusted to bring it to him.’
‘I say this not lightly. What if it offers some possible reason for his disappearance? Or suggests something we might do… somewhere we might look?’
‘I’ve never opened my lord’s correspondence.’
‘Then I’ll open it,’ I said.
I took a candle on a tray, went out and fired it from the sconce on the landing, glancing down the oaken stairs to the lower hall, where another single sconce lit an oak pillar.
All was quiet down there.
Too quiet, maybe.
It made little sense at first.
There was a letter within a letter, the outer and shorter of which was to Dudley from his steward, evidently written in haste and signed TB.
May it please your lordship, I enclose correspondence recently discovered by Sir Anthony Forster between the pages of a book in his library but not disclosed to the coroner whose inquiries were deemed to be completed.
I broke the inner seal and uncovered a bill of work from Lady Dudley’s London dressmaker, William Edney, for the alteration of two gowns.
Well, I knew of this from Dudley. One of the best indications that Amy had been in relatively good heart within days of her death was her continuing interest in fashionable apparel. The only other possible explanation was that she’d wanted her corpse to be found well and elegantly clad.
Attached to the bill was a note from Edney on which some lines had been underscored in thick ink strokes, presumably by Blount.
My lady’s personal dressmaker will attend upon her, as arranged, on the first Friday of next month, September 6.
It was dated August 27.
This, to me, was new. There had been no suggestion of Amy receiving any visitors on that last weekend.
There was another short note to Dudley from Blount which I read twice before passing the bill to Forest, who stared at it for some moments as if it might break into flames. I opened my hands, helpless.
‘I think you should read it. All of it.’ Pushing the candle towards him. ‘Did Lord Dudley have any idea that his wife was to be visited by a dressmaker two days before she died?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Can that be true?’
I passed him the small paper attached to the bill.
My Lord, Edney tells me that the personal dressmaker was unable to visit Lady Dudley, being ill with a fever during the week of the appointment. You will know of my Lady’s fondness for the Spanish styles and it seems the personal dressmaker was a well qualified Spaniard who had been in Edney’s employ these past five months and made other apparel for Lady Dudley but has since returned to Spain. I was therefore not able to establish the severity of his fever, if fever there was, during the first week of September.
Forest, looked up, squeezing his dark-bearded jaw. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Dressmaking is… a regrettable gap in my knowledge. What think you of Blount’s final sentence? “If fever there was”. It seems Blount may have had cause to think that the dressmaker might have lied about his fever to cover the fact that he made that journey to Cumnor after all. Perchance arriving…’ I broke off to read the note yet again, to be quite certain ‘…two days later than arranged.’
Forest thought on it longer than was necessary.
‘No one would know, if that were the case,’ he said at last. ‘The entire household having gone to the local fair.’
‘The
entire household having been virtually dispatched to the fair. By Lady Dudley.’
Closing my eyes upon a hollow expulsion of breath. It was all too clear that Amy had gone to some considerable effort to make sure that she’d be alone in the house that day.
For the visit of a Spanish dressmaker? For the purpose of him measuring her for a gown?
‘Listen, I—’ Forest was coughing from a parched throat. ‘I can’t… can’t discuss this any further. We should never have opened it.’
‘Was Edney deceived by the Spaniard? We must needs consider the possibility of the Spaniard acting independently of Edney, having feigned a sickness to cover his movements.’
But maybe not independently of his country, its king… or his ambassador, la Quadra. And others I could think of who were not Spanish. The implications were like to a blade in the gut, and each name that arose in my mind was another savage twist.
Forest’s face was yet a mask of bewilderment as I gave voice to the unspeakable.
‘Why would Amy have gone to so much effort to make sure she was alone in the house for the visit of a Spanish dressmaker? Because, as Blount’s letter says, she knew him. He’d made gowns for her before. She was fond of the Spanish styles. So… how well did she know him?’
‘Stop!’ Forest cried out. ‘For Christ’s sake, Dr Dee, go no further with this madness until we find Lord Dudley. There’s true darkness here. Darkness on every side.’
‘Well enough to wish to be alone with him?’
‘We must needs leave this place. Without delay. Those bastards downstairs, they’d rather burn it down with us inside—’
‘A woman alone in someone else’s house?’ I couldn’t stop now. ‘A woman who’d not seen her husband for a year, only heard the persistent rumour about him siring the Queen’s child?’
‘I pray you, Dr Dee, get out of here.’
Even as Forest snatched up the letter and the bill, bundled them together and thrust the packet inside his doublet, a knock came on the door of the bedchamber.
One knock. Truly, no more than a tap but in our present mood it had the impact of a mace. A hiss issued from Forest.
