Carey’s lips were parted at this brand new angle on the story. “But…” he began.
“Convocation would have granted it—they’d been plumped specially. Parliament would have granted it if Amy petitioned because they were desperate for Her Majesty to marry and get an heir even though they hated the Earl. She was getting old, after all, she was 27 in 1560. Amy would be given a nice pension and some property and be free to marry again while she could still have children and my lord of Leicester would become King.”
Now that made a lot of sense. A lot more sense than the notion of the Queen being so insane as to murder her lover’s wife.
“So perhaps Burghley did the…”
“Fooey,” said Lettice unexpectedly, “I don’t think Burghley did anything because he didn’t know. Nobody knew. Just the Queen, Amy, and Robert Dudley. Nobody else at all. They made sure the musicians played loudly when they were planning it and they didn’t speak in English and sometimes they wrote to each other but then they burnt the letters. It was a secret. Amy was still at Cumnor Place but she sent letters saying that she was willing to talk about bringing a petition for divorce. She was just dickering for more money and a nicer manor house and more land. She wouldn’t come to Court; she didn’t like it, said she didn’t want to be bullied out of her money.”
Lettice pursed her lips again and leaned forward confidingly. “She was a dreadful girl, dull, twitter-headed, greedy, obstinate. I never liked her and I certainly didn’t know anything about all this at the time. And she was so pious. Robert laughed about how worried she was about having to swear in court that they hadn’t consummated their marriage because they had, she just never quickened, no matter what she did, she was barren. But she was terrified about hell and damnation for swearing it falsely. That drove the Queen mad.”
Carey kept to himself his immediate thought that the Queen, whose indecisiveness drove every one of her servants crazy with impatience, had well-deserved to face the thing herself.
“And then…the stupid girl fell down the stairs or somebody pushed her and the whole thing fell apart. Poor Dudley was the one everybody thought did it so he couldn’t even marry the Queen though he was free.” Carey nodded and Lettice smiled smugly. “Of course, it was lucky for me because then I could marry him, not the Queen.” A shadow passed over her face. “I wish she would let me come back to Court now he’s dead. It’s not fair of her, is it?”
Carey shook his head sympathetically.
“I so love to see all the new fashions and hear the new music. My son tells me the news of course and I advise him and his wife. Poor Frances. She’s so brainy for a pretty girl. It’s terrible for her really. She’s pregnant again, you know?”
Lettice finished the last wafer and sat back as far as she could in the gaudy cage of her dress.
“Hmm. What did my Lady Essex think about the Cornish lands?”
“Oh, she has no idea. She wouldn’t let poor Robin so much as ride down to look at them, said her father taught her that anything that looked too good to be true probably wasn’t true, the boring old creep. So he missed out on them.”
Carey nodded again, thinking better of Lady Essex. He, too, had learned that maxim from Walsingham.
“She’ll be sorry when the gold starts to flow,” said Lettice brightly, nodding her head so her feather bobbed. “I’ll tell my lord son I’ve told you about the Queen’s divorce and he can tell you anything else he learned from his stepfather. You know, my lord of Leicester was a wonderful father, he taught Robin to hunt and ride—even after his own poor little boy died, he was kind to his stepson. I remember once when…”
Carey smiled and nodded at a very fond tale about the young Earl of Essex’s first pony. He had forgotten how boring Lettice Knollys could be but he now had to get rid of her urgently because Dr. Lopez’s potions were summoning him.
“My lady cousin,” he said with as much unctuous sincerity as he could ladle into his voice, “I am so grateful to you for coming all this way and telling me this extremely important secret. I am truly amazed at it.”
Not really, more amazed he hadn’t thought of it before. Lady Blount looked pink-cheeked and happy and creaked obediently to her feet as Carey offered his hand to help her up.
“Please don’t tell anyone at all what you’ve told me,” he warned.
“Oh don’t worry, Robin, not even my lord Treasurer Burghley, though he’s such an old friend and he was asking me the other day. You know he was the one who introduced me to my lord of Leicester after my lord realised the Queen would never really marry him?”
Which put Burghley squarely back in the dock for the murder of Amy Robsart, despite all his protestations. If Amy had agreed to petition for divorce that would ultimately make Dudley king and Burghley would have been out of a job the same week. Desperate men do desperate things. In 1560, the then-Sir William Cecil had not yet made his fortune from the Treasury and the Court of Wards. It was all very clear. The Queen wouldn’t like it coming out at all though and what about Mr. Secretary Cecil? Speaking of which, why on earth had she set all this in motion anyway? Why hadn’t his father warned him?
Carey bowed Lettice, Lady Blount out of Cumberland’s pavilion, blinked longingly at the men playing veneys in the central area of the camp while Sergeant Ross ran the sword class with his usual combination of wit and bullying. Unfortunately he had an urgent and probably unpleasant appointment with the jakes.
Tuesday 19th September 1592
Some time later, Carey ambled into town again to see if he could spot the musician he had been following the previous night. His eyes did seem to be getting better—he had to squint and things were a bit blurry but at least he didn’t have to tie a scarf across them. He was in search of a good tailor in case he could find a better doublet for ordinary wear than his green one and perhaps one of the short embroidered capes that were all the rage and possibly one of the new high-crowned hats…Passing Carfax he heard a great deal of shouting as a short puffy man was arrested for coining and horse-theft. The man’s face was purple; he kept shouting that he was Captain Leigh on urgent business. His henchman, a big louring thug, suddenly broke free of the two lads holding him, knocked down a third and took to his heels down the London road. A few people gave chase but didn’t try too hard on account of his size and ugliness. Carey didn’t fancy it himself. Meanwhile, the horsethief had been cold-cocked on general principles and hauled off to the Oxford lockup.
The first tailor he found on the High Street, was showing some very good samples of fine wool and Flemish silk brocades in his window, so he wandered in and asked questions. Alas, the prices were even more inflated than in London and the man explained smugly that he couldn’t be expected to produce anything in time for the Queen’s Entry on Friday as all his journeymen were working flat out already. And there were only two other tailors in Oxford town.
Carey picked up one of the little wax dolls showing the latest French fashions in women’s kirtles, looked deeper into the shop which was full of men sitting cross-legged stitching at speed. “Who is the oldest man here?” he asked idly.
The harassed man in thick spectacles frowned. “I am.”
“When did you do your prentice piece?”
“In 1562. I cry you pardon, sir,” he added with the sharp voice of someone who spends his days sitting down, worrying. “I have fully worked my time as an apprentice and journeyman and I am simply not able to fill any more orders at all at any price…
Carey smiled. “I was just wondering if I could ask you a question or two, Mr. Frole.”
It was a pity, he would have liked to order a couple of alterations to his Court suit to make it a little more in fashion, but never mind. Hughie could do it when he was better.
“I’m looking for the tailor who made gowns and kirtles for Lady Leicester,” he said. “Not Lettice Knollys, but Amy Robsart, his first wife. Did you work for her?”
The man went pale and his eyes flickered. Suddenly he was sweating.
/> “No sir,” said Frole shortly, “I didn’t. I have only been in business as Master Tailor these last ten years and…
“Do you know who was her tailor?”
“It was Master William Edney in London.” The man shut his mouth like a trap. Carey watched him, wondering how to get him to open up.
“Mr. Frole, I know this is a sensitive matter despite being as old in years as I am myself. Were you prenticed in Oxford?” The master tailor nodded. “I know gossip travels around the ’prentices. Is there anything at all you can tell me about the end of August 1560, anything about Lady Dudley…? I have been asked by the Queen herself to make enquiries.”
The man was looking narrow-eyed and suspicious. Carey sighed. “I believe she set another man, by name Richard Topcliffe, to find something out about it only six years after Lady Dudley’s death, while Her Majesty was on progress in Oxford the last time. But the man has an ill-reputation and I’m certain he…
“He had a warrant,” said Frole. “Do you?”
Carey took it out of his doublet pocket, his heartbeat quickening.
“Did Topcliffe offer money which he didn’t pay or did he grab people and beat them up until they told him what he wanted to hear?”
“Both,” said Frole, thin-lipped, and held out his hand. Carey handed over the warrant which Frole read quickly and gave back.
“We told him all we knew which was that Lady Dudley was in a hurry to have a new gown although she already had plenty of the best quality. She had ordered a new one from London but it hadn’t come. This was the first week of Spetember and she sent her best bodice, kirtle, and gown into Oxford by her woman Mrs. Odingsells to have the collar changed to stand up and have gold lace put on it, very costly. We did the work while she waited, for Lady Dudley intended to wear it in a few days.”
“Who did the work?” Carey asked, “you?”
Frole shook his head. “One of the journeymen, she was too important a customer to risk an apprentice’s work. He died of plague in ’66. Mrs. Odingsells paid for it in gold at once. Just as well, really.”
“How about her headdress? Did that need altering?”
Frole shook his head. “Her headtires all came from London as she didn’t like the shop here. I believe they were very old-fashioned, from the boy-King’s reign. I never met Lady Dudley, you know, she was always at Cumnor Place, waiting for her husband.”
“Did Topcliffe let slip anything interesting?”
Frole gave a cautious look. “He was an evil man, broke my best friend’s fingers so he couldn’t continue in the trade. He went off to Cumnor Place after he spoke to us and I heard him boasting in an alehouse that night that he had found something that would make him a great man at Court—he was the Earl of Shrewsbury’s man then—and comfortable for the rest of his life. He said other things that I can’t repeat about the Queen, terrible obscene things. But at least he had lost interest in us prentices and took himself off back to London the next day, following the Court.”
Carey nodded. Terrible obscene things—Topcliffe was notorious for the way he spoke of the Queen and yet nothing was ever done about him. Generally the Queen rightly had a short way with anyone who was offensive about her in way that often made them shorter by a head or another important limb. So what gave Topcliffe his extraordinary immunity? Blackmail, surely. But with what?
“Mr. Frole,” he said to the unhappy looking tailor, “I am very grateful to you. If you have any further memories or ideas, please tell me—you can find me with the Earl of Cumberland while the Queen is here or by means of the Lord Chamberlain if I am gone north again. He will make it worth your while.”
Frole bowed Carey out of the shop who stood in the street and havered between heading off down the London road to look for Dodd and continuing his sweep of Oxford. He even had five pounds from the Earl of Cumberland won on a bet as he left. George Clifford had been loudly offering to take Carey on as a permanent general purpose gleeman and fool if he got tired of soldiering in the starveling and dangerous Debateable land. George had explained how Carey would only have to wear a cap and bells on Saturdays and would have his very own kennel with the dogs…Carey had thrown a pennyloaf at the Earl on this point and challenged him to a veney which he had narrowly won.
Did he want to spend it on overpriced ale and beer? Well, yes, he did and he could kill two birds with one stone if he went round the multitude of Oxford taverns. So that was settled. He would do that and then he’d take a horse and ride down the road, see if he could spot where Dodd had gone. Or find his body, which was starting to look more and more likely.
Tuesday 19th September 1592
It took a lot of work to wait in that pit without doing anything. Dodd drank the rest of the drugged ale and dozed, filling his head with lurid pictures of the welcome his wife would give him when he got back to Gilsland and what he would do and…Well, it passed the time, didn’t it? He had heard little Kat coming in, her clogs slow and tired and her stout lie that she had climbed a tree to avoid a pig in the forest when she was looking for more cobnuts and then got stuck in the tree. Her Grandam shouted at her and sent her to card wool in the cottage with no dinner, which made Dodd feel sorry for the little maid. His guts were churning with nerves about what he would do that night. After all, a mere night raid, a bit of fun running about shrieking and spooking horses, that was easy. His plan for this night was a lot more ticklish.
Still. He couldn’t go back to Carey without at least his sword and his boots. So there was no help for it and if everything went well he’d be bringing a lot more than just his sword and his boots. He might be able to make something of a show. He dozed off again, smiling to himself.
There was a clatter at the lip of the pit and Dodd jumped to his feet. Jeronimo was there, letting down the ladder, smiling enigmatically in the dusk. “Captain Leigh and his bullyboy have not come back from Oxford as they said they would, John Arden is drunk, and the men are afraid they have been tricked again. I spoke with your pequenita when I carry her the last mile, she was much tired, she said she had been questioned but then went away. She says it is sure Captain Leigh was taken because she heard him shouting.”
Dodd allowed himself a grim smile as he stepped onto the cobbles of the yard. For all the odds against it, that part had worked, at least.
“Where’s the old woman?”
“I said her stay in her cottage with the child. She has the dog beside her and barred the door.”
“Ay.” She’d come to no harm from him, but who knew what might happen? “She fears Harry Hunks might try again to seduce her granddaughter.”
“Good God,” said Dodd, disgusted, “She’s nobbut a child.”
Jeronimo shrugged. “They have no man for protect them.”
Dodd had the stolen knife in a belt he had woven himself from the bracken fibres. He bent and scraped up mud, swiped it over himself. “Who’s got ma sword?”
“Garron has it, he won it at dice.”
“Tch,” said Dodd. “Big, small?”
“Young,” said Jeronimo with a wolfish smile, “and frightened.”
***
With Jeronimo and his loaded crossbow at his back, Dodd quietly climbed the tumbledown monastery wall and padded forward to where the lad who had his sword was supposed to be on guard. He was leaning against a tree, dozing.
Jeronimo said something that sounded rude in foreign. Dodd paced quietly to the tree, put his arm softly round the lad’s neck from behind and squeezed. There was only a brief struggle before he went heavy against Dodd’s arm.
Dodd let him down gently, turned him, put his knee into the back and used the lad’s scarf to tie his hands and feet together like a deer carcass. Then he unstrapped his sword belt from the lad, put it back on at a notch tighter than normal and drew his weapon. That was when he found that the stupid child hadn’t cleaned it or oiled it or even sharpened it since he got it. So he used the boy’s lank greasy hair to oil the blade again which woke him up with a squawk and
a smooth cobble to sharpen it as best he could. Dodd had already taken the boy’s boots off and chucked them into the undergrowth since they were far too small for him, and so he stuffed the boy’s mouth with one of his own tattered socks.
“Ah’ve let ye live since ye’re nobbut a lad,” Dodd told him conversationally. “Ithers may no’ be sae lucky, dinna push it.”
From the wild eyes the boy hadn’t understood a word of this but Dodd didn’t have time to strain his larynx talking Southron. The lad should be able to work his way free by which time it would all be over, please God.
Dodd straightened, with his sword warm and comfortable in its rightful place on his hip, and headed for the monastery parlour where there was a fire in the hearth and a powerful smell of booze.
There was the second in command, John Arden, slumped in a chair with an empty horn beaker in his hand and a barrel of brandy before him.
It went against Dodd’s grain to slit a man’s throat sleeping, which forebye would be messy. Instead he removed the man’s sword and poinard, put the long narrow poinard blade to the thick neck and grabbed a sticky doublet-front to shake him awake. He was reminded of Robert Greene a few weeks ago, for it took some doing.
“Arah, wuffle,” said the man at last, focussing blearily on the long shine of his own dagger at his throat.
“Ay,” said Dodd sympathetically, “Ye’ve a choice. Ye could allus surrender and gi’me yer word. Or not.”
There was a pause while the man’s drink-sozzled brain fought to understand. Then his body gave slightly.
“Quarter,” said the man. “I surrender. My name’s John Arden.”
“Good man,” said Dodd with the friendliest face he could manage. “Pit yer hands behind ye.”
They tied Arden to his seat and Dodd took the sword and knife. He liked the poinard which was clearly of good Italian make, so he slid it on the back of his own belt, where Carey wore his. He would have nothing to do with a nasty long pig-sticker of a rapier so Jeronimo took the sword.
They walked into the monastery’s cloister with its central yard and Dodd went up the stairs to the dorter. These lads weren’t used to setting any kind of proper guard. They were drinking and dicing. Those that were still asleep, he tied up. Those that were awake he asked politely if they would prefer to surrender or die on his sword. Most of them were sensible. One arrogant young man thought he ought to fight for honour’s sake and died honourably with Dodd’s sword down through the centre of his skull while he was still struggling to pull his unoiled blade out of its scabbard.
Air of Treason, An: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (Sir Robert Carey Mysteries) Page 25
