“He was also utterly opposed to you, my lord, and your careful diplomacy, had no understanding of the financial situation which was in a desperate state, and was moreover an intemperate man who loved war, although he himself was disastrously untalented as a general.
“You, my Lord Treasurer, were in terror that the Queen would persuade Dudley to leave his wife and scandalously marry her, making himself king. This you saw as likely to drop the realm straight into civil war as the nobility picked their own candidates for the Queen’s husband and called out their tenants. In point of fact, the Northern Earls did revolt a few years later with the Howards at their head. And the Earl of Leicester hated you, my lord, and so with him once crowned, you would have lost your place and the realm gone to rack and ruin even if civil war was somehow avoided.” Somebody was breathing hard and Carey knew it wasn’t him, though his heart was pounding. God, this was fun—should he be enjoying himself so much?
“So, my lord, logic clearly shows that you were the one man who gained most by Amy Dudley’s death in the manner by which it occurred….”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sir Robert,” snapped Burghley. “Amy Dudley’s death cleared Leicester’s way to the throne. However she died, the fact that she was dead made him a widower with no impediment to marriage. When I heard what had happened I was in the worst despair I have ever been in my life because I was sure they would marry immediately and that all would fall out exactly as you have suggested. In fact I started selling land and books so I could move to the Netherlands again if necessary. Amy Dudley was my best bulwark against Leicester’s kingship. I had men placed in her household to guard her, one in the kitchen against poison, one as her under-steward, and I was paying a fortune to one of her women, I forget the name, to keep me informed. I had all the letters to and from Cumnor Place opened and read, I took every precaution to keep Leicester’s wife safe and alive, and the bloody man somehow managed to kill her anyway!” Burghley was shouting by the end. Carey thought from the sound that he was leaning forward, quite possibly prodding the air with a finger as he often did.
“So, who did kill her?”
“Her husband, Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, the obvious suspect, the man who wanted to be king.” Burghley was still shouting and Carey wondered if his face was going purple.
“With respect, no, my lord,” said Carey calmly. “It’s my belief that the Queen would not, could not marry a man who had killed his wife, no matter how, no matter why.”
“Of course she would. She was on heat for him, it was a disgraceful sight.”
“So why didn’t she, my lord?”
“What?”
“You say Leicester must have killed his wife so he could marry the Queen. Once he had done it, why didn’t they marry?”
“God knows, perhaps God managed to drive a particle of common sense into the Queen’s head, because God knows none of the rest of her council could.” Carey was momentarily entranced at the implied idea of Almighty God sitting on the Privy Council presided over by Burghley. “Or perhaps she realised that the scandal would destroy her. It was then only seventy-six years since the Queen’s grandfather ended the civil wars between York and Lancaster by taking the throne. There had been a decade of trouble, religious turns and twists, Queen Mary burning hundreds of good Protestant men and women, the Exchequer exhausted, the currency debased, the…”
“So, my lord, you say that you did not kill Amy Dudley in such a manner that the Earl would be blamed and thus the Queen would refuse to marry him?”
A fist came down on the arm of the chair. “No! That would have been madness! To take such a risk, take away the one thing putting a brake on Leicester’s cursed ambition? Never! Thank God, the Queen realised that a man who would kill one wife might also kill another wife, just as her father had, and that pulled her back from the disastrous marriage, much to Leicester’s disappointment.”
“But you could have done it?” Carey pursued, knowing he was dancing on the lip of a volcano.
“I had and still have the power…the men…to do such things,” said Burghley’s voice, heavy with menace. “As a general rule, I do not use it. As a general rule.”
Carey smiled back at the threat. “You’re sure it was Leicester, not realising that the Queen would react the way she did.”
There was the faint rustle of lifted shoulders. “I said so at the time and have said so since. It was that bloody man she fell in love with, clearing away the main impediment, despite all I could do to protect her.” The chair creaked. Carey wondered for the first time if Burghley might have been a little in love with the Queen all those years ago as well.
The Queen’s first Councillor must have read his mind.
“Of course I loved her, Sir Robert,” he rumbled into his ruff. “We all did. She was a marvel, a joy, a gift from God. She was enraging and magical, every room she entered was suddenly full of sunshine and lightning, a slender pale creature with a war-beacon of hair and the temper of a king and that laugh…God, yes, Sir Robert, I loved your aunt from the time I first saw her in her brother’s reign. I always knew I could never have her as my own. Yes, I hated Dudley because he made her happy and made her laugh and I could not—although I could indeed make her safer. And that was all I wanted. All I still want. All I have ever asked of God is that she should outlive me.”
Carey found that he was wordless. He had never expected cautious dull old Burghley to have such passion hidden in him, much less speak of it.
“The Earl of Leicester killed Amy Robsart, his unfortunate wife, married before he realised he had a chance of a kingdom, while Princess Elizabeth still had two lives between her and the throne and a question over her legitimacy. He killed the woman because he was a stupid but ambitious man and he did it to clear his path to the throne.”
Burghley was creaking to his feet, making it clear that the interview was over. From the sound, Carey thought the still-silent Sir Robert Cecil was helping him. He tried again.
“My lord, that doesn’t work. Cui bono, remember? How could Leicester have gained from killing Amy that way?”
Burghley paused. “I told you, I had men looking after her. He had no other way.…”
“Had there been any attempts at poisoning her? Any mysterious fevers?”
“She was ill, certainly, she had something wrong with one of her breasts that pained her, but not enough to kill her.”
“But had there been previous attempts to…”
“No.”
“None?”
“No.” Burghley did seem to pause. “I would never have taken the risk of killing Amy Dudley,” he said again, but more thoughtfully this time. For a moment Carey wondered if something new had occurred to him after all this time. But then the door slammed.
However his chamber wasn’t empty. Somebody else was close to the bed and it wasn’t Tovey because the smell was different and the movement even more awkward than Tovey’s.
“Mr. Secretary Cecil,” Carey said politely to Burghley’s hunchback second son whom he had nearly forgotten because the man had said not a word. “What do you think of this?”
Cecil’s voice was higher and a little breathless because of his back. “I think it’s a very interesting problem, Sir Robert, but I believe what my father says. Killing Amy Dudley to lay the murder at Leicester’s door in the hope that it would put the Queen off Leicester…no. Far too great a gamble for him, Sir Robert, and my father never ever bets on anything but a certainty.”
Carey had to admit he had no understanding of this way of thinking. Surely a gamble was the finest thing in the world, the breath of life and excitement even if it did go wrong? As he had to admit, it often did for him. But that made all the sweeter the times when it actually worked.
“While Leicester was married, he couldn’t have the Queen. As soon as he was free, my father was sure the Queen and he would marry. That they didn’t is a mercy he has always attributed to the direct intervention of the Almighty. And that’s t
he beginning and end of it,” Cecil added. “Meantime, I understand that your remarkable Sergeant Dodd has not yet arrived, which is causing you some concern.”
“Yes? Do you have any news of him?” Carey was a little surprised. In the cockpit of the Court, he was in the opposing faction to the Cecils, that of the Earl of Essex. Why was Sir Robert Cecil, secretary to the Privy Council, offering him useful information?
“I do.” Cecil sounded amused. “Sergeant Dodd rode out of the wreckage of one of Heneage’s secret London houses with one of Heneage’s post-horses under him and another as remount. That was on Saturday morning.”
Carey couldn’t help it. He shouted with laughter. “Good God, what happened? He didn’t raid Heneage’s…He did?”
“Yes, Sir Robert, it seems he did, in alliance with the King of London and your extraordinary lady mother and her Cornish…ah…followers.”
Carey was too stunned to speak. Surely to God she hadn’t set Dodd on to conduct a private reprisal raid on Heneage in the middle of London? To teach him a lesson on not plotting against her husband and sons? Had she?
“The official story is a little different. It seems that the rabble Heneage was employing there had kidnapped several people, including your young lawyer, and there was a riot during which Dodd, your mother’s…people, and a few upright men loaned by the King of London freed the prisoners and accidentally set the house on fire.”
That was definitely Dodd. He had a worrying weakness for accidentally setting things on fire.
“Fortunately not much damage was done, only a couple of deaths and peace was restored. Luckily. Oh, and another of Heneage’s houses blew up the same night.”
Carey shook his head in wonder. She had! Did his father know?
“Very fortunately, your lady mother had let me know that the riot was likely and so I was able to be present and help broker peace and so the matter is now, as far as I am concerned, closed.”
“Mr. Recorder Fleetwood?”
“He concurs.”
This was fascinating. Was it possible that his mother had managed to form an alliance with Burghley’s promising second son? His father was always neutral in Court factions and he, of course, was the Earl of Essex’s man who was also Heneage’s notional lord, unfortunately. His mother had deliberately reached out to involve Burghley’s politic son in Dodd’s revenge against Heneage, it seemed. And it looked as if she had got away with it.
However it was very worrying now that Dodd hadn’t made it to Oxford. With a post-horse and remount, Dodd should have arrived on the Saturday evening, around the time Carey was puking his guts up to get rid of the poison, or early on Sunday morning. So long as he hadn’t been stupid or ignorant enough to stay the night at one of the regular post-inns along the Oxford road, of course…Ah.
“I don’t suppose…” Carey began cautiously. “You didn’t notice any post-inns on fire as you came from London yourself?”
Cecil paused before he answered. “Curiously enough, there was one we passed this morning that was still smoking and had half its roof burnt off, but fortunately no one died.” Carey said nothing. “We didn’t inquire about it. I’ll send a man down to talk to the innkeeper.”
“Thank you Mr. Secretary. For…er…everything.”
“Please don’t mention it. I was delighted to make a better acquaintance of my Lady Hunsdon and Sergeant Dodd.”
Again the door banged, more quietly this time, and Carey frowned, absentmindedly pulled the annoying scarf off his eyes, only to find his eyes still pained by the candles Tovey was using. “Mr. Tovey,” he said, “did you note down what Mr. Secretary Cecil said?”
Tovey’s voice was struggling to sound unmoved. “Yes, sir.”
“Please burn that page.” He waited until the crackle of paper and the smell of smoke reached him and Tovey pounded the ashes in the fireplace where a fire had been laid but not lit.
What was the time? Somewhere near midnight? Damn, damn, damn it. Where the hell was Dodd? What had happened to him? The man always seemed to be made of boiled leather and very sharp steel but he was only human.
Carey pushed the covers back and got out of bed, intending to get dressed and roust out some men to canter down along the Oxford road and find out what had happened at that post-inn.
Then he fell over the chair Burghley had sat in, blundered into the chest by the wall, and stubbed his toes painfully. While he was still cursing that, there was another knock at the door. Tovey moved to open it a little and there was a murmur of argument. Tovey turned his head, his voice even more nervous than usual.
“It’s Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage to see you, sir.”
Sunday 17th September 1592, night
Carey was standing on one leg, holding his toes. Jesu! Heneage! Come to make a complaint, no doubt, damn damn.
He hopped to the bed with the dressing gown flapping, knocking over the little table by the bed as he went and climbed in gratefully.
“I’m resting, Mr. Tovey,” he hissed. “Tell him to go away.”
More conversation. “Sir, Mr. Vice Chamberlain says that Her Majesty has sent him and he must speak with you.”
Heart thumping with annoyance and tension, Carey sat up again, wrapped the dressing gown tighter round him. His knuckles had recovered from breaking Heneage’s nose at the beginning of September, but still…Had the man come to demand satisfaction? Was that why Cecil had told him the bare bones of what Dodd and Lady Hunsdon had been up to while he had been riding for Oxford and snoring in the post-inn on the way? It sounded as if Dodd had introduced some of the Borderers’ ways of settling disputes to London, and as an officer of the Queen’s law, he could not possibly approve of it. Officially.
“Mr. Tovey,” he said loudly, “I am at a disadvantage here. Please make notes and if Mr. Heneage does not behave himself as a gentleman should, would you be so good as to tell Mr. Henshawe to remove him and then fetch my father?
Heneage came through the door with the predictable clerk at his back. Carey couldn’t make him out either.
“I think you are hardly in a position to lecture me on the behaviour of a gentleman, Sir Robert,” he sneered nasally.
“Quite true, Mr. Vice,” Carey said. “I find the presence of the man who tried to use my older brother against my father and then beat up my henchman does annoy me enough to make me forget my manners. What do you want?”
Heneage plumped himself down in the chair that Carey had just tripped over.
“You wished to speak to me, Sir Robert,” he said sourly. “Her Majesty told me to come and so here I am.”
“I don’t believe I did. You weren’t a Privy Councillor in 1560 were you?”
“I was far too young. I didn’t even come to Court until 1563.”
“Why are you here then?”
“Mrs. de Paris insisted as well.”
“Why?”
A pause. Heneage’s voice when he spoke again was full of compressed fury. “I know very well that you set your man Dodd to burn my Southwark house in complete defiance of Her Majesty’s peace and…”
Carey managed a laugh, carefully measured for maximum insult. “I certainly did not, Mr. Vice. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the balls. If, which is not admitted, Sergeant Dodd had anything to do with quelling the riot at your house caused by your negligent employment of deserted ex-soldiers and other riffraff, I’m sure he did it in order to preserve the Queen’s peace, not break it.”
“Make him drop his lawsuit.”
Carey laughed again. “Mr. Vice, you wildly overestimate my control over Sergeant Dodd. If he chooses to drop the lawsuit, he will and if not, then not. My interference would certainly not convince him to stop and may well provoke him to continue. I think you discovered what a stubborn independent man he is for yourself, didn’t you?”
“The thumbscrews would have worked eventually,” said Heneage.
Carey paused because he was too furious to speak for a moment, though he kept the smile on his face. It might h
ave become a little fixed.
“I doubt it, sir. Mr. Tovey, see Mr. Vice out…”
“I’m not going until I’ve told you what I need to.”
“Then perhaps you could come to the point? Hmm?”
Carey’s fists were bunched in the sheets and if he hadn’t been blind he might well have punched the bastard again. It was taking him an immense amount of effort not to jump out of bed and try anyway. Speaking in a voice lower than a shout was actually making his throat hurt.
“I wasn’t at Court in 1560 but I…know someone. Someone the Queen set on to investigate the Robsart death before you, when she was in Oxford last time.”
It had been in 1566. Who had that been? Carey wondered at the back of his anger.
“So, give me Dodd and I’ll tell you about him.”
Christ almighty, Carey realised distantly, is he just trying to provoke me or is he serious?
“Dodd is riding a stolen horse with the Queen’s brand on him and no warrant. He shouldn’t be hard to find. Tell me where you’ve told him to hide out and I’ll do the rest.”
Carey’s jaw was hurting from the way his teeth were clenched. Dear God, it was hard to sit still.
“Goodbye, Mr. Heneage,” he managed to say at last. “I know you’re accustomed to cheapening over men’s lives. I am not.”
“He found out a lot, this man,” Heneage pursued. “He’s very good at it. He found out something he’s never told.”
“What?”
The sound of a shrug. “Give me Dodd and I’ll give you him.”
Air of Treason, An: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (Sir Robert Carey Mysteries) Page 14
