4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (4 page)

‘Don’t kill anybody, Sergeant,’ Carey said. ‘Even if there’s a fight.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ve no idea what a bloody nuisance it is to fix juries in London,’ Carey snapped. ‘So don’t get yourself hanged.’

Their horses’ hooves slipped and scuffed on the dusty clay as they negotiated a whole fine litter of red piglets plugged into their dam across the middle of the lane. There was a stone water conduit at the end of the lane, where city women stood waiting to draw water—fine ladies too, by the looks of their velvet trimmed kirtles and outrageously feathered hats. The Strand was wide and choking with dust, the biggest houses Dodd had ever seen in his life rearing up like cliffs on either side of it.

‘Hell’s teeth,’ said Carey, catching sight of the decorative gathering at the conduit. ‘The wives are out to watch.’

Dodd gestured at an impressive house opposite the conduit. ‘Is that yer father’s house…?’ he asked. Carey shook his head and pointed at the gatehouse of a towering elaboration of a palace that Dodd had taken for the Queen’s court itself.

‘And here they come,’ said Barnabus, as a crowd of large men in buff coats, waving pieces of paper and clubs and coshes, moved suddenly in their direction.

Just for a second, Dodd saw Carey on the verge of running like a rabbit. If he hadn’t known why Carey was so afraid of arrest, he would have thought it funny, but since he did, he decided that he wasn’t going to allow it and the hell with London juries, they had to catch him first.

Dodd drew his sword and drove his horse into the thick of the shouting crowd of men. As he’d thought, they wanted their bounties for arresting Carey, but not at the expense of their heads, and they fell back in front of him. At least Carey, Barnabus and Simon had the sense to stick close behind him. The boom of Carey’s second dag rang out by Dodd’s ear as he discharged it into the air. A couple of bailiffs clutched desperately for Carey’s reins and stirrup leathers. One fell back with a broken nose from a vicious kick from Carey’s boot, and Barnabus’s horse co-operatively trod on another one’s foot, making him howl.

And then they were through, the whole bunch scattering at the edges, the other people in the street staring, a couple of children laughing and pointing and the women round the conduit clapping.

They clattered inside the shelter of the gatehouse, Dodd turning at the opening with his sword ready and his teeth bared. The bailiffs had followed them, though at a safe distance. A hubbub rose from them in which the words ‘writs’, ‘warrants’ and ‘Westminster Hall’ could be heard and more papers were waved.

‘Och,’ said Dodd, spitting deliberately at the feet of the biggest one. ‘If ye think ye can take a Dodd fra Tynedale, come on and try it.’

Carey was shouting at the gatekeeper in his lodge. Surely to God they weren’t at the wrong place? Was Carey’s father not there? What was going on? Dodd had his horse placed sideways on to block any rushes, but he didn’t think the bailiffs had the stomach for a real fight.

‘Ay tell you what,’ he said conversationally, and trying hard to talk as much like Barnabus as he could so they would understand him. ‘Since ye’re all a bunch o’ catamites wi’ nae bollocks at all, I’ll take three o’ ye at once so I dinnae outnumber ye.’

The biggest bailiff stopped and frowned in puzzlement. How much longer would it take Carey to get into his father’s house? If this had been anywhere in Cumberland, they would all have been dead by now. A coach bowled past like the Devil himself.

Surely somebody would have a go soon? Even Londoners couldn’t be that soft. Dodd gripped his sword more tightly and wished again for his nice comfortable jack and helmet, and a lance as well while he was at it. He looked about in case the bailiffs had sent for reinforcements. How far did a messenger have to go to find men? How long would Carey be chatting in the gatehouse…?

The postern gate opened finally and Carey beckoned. Instinctively Dodd sent the boy in first leading the horses, then Barnabus, before backing his own horse through the gate. That was the bailiffs’ last chance to hit him but by that time his already low opinion of southerners was at rock bottom.

‘Off ye go, lads,’ he sneered at the bewildered bunch. ‘Ye’ve lost us. Best get back to yer mams and yer fancy-boys.’ He gave a hard final stare at the biggest bailiff as the postern gate shut and Carey barred it.

He turned to see a small yard beetled over by high stone and brick walls. A groom came to take the horses. Someone else in yellow and black livery, wearing a badge that looked like a duck in the throes of delirium, came hurrying out, bowing to Carey who greeted the plump little man with a familiar clap on the shoulder. The servant led them through a stunning marble entrance hall and into a small parlour lined with painted cloths and dotted with benches and stools padded in primrose yellow. In a corner was a virginals, painted with enamel people, mostly naked and winged, with the cover on. Another man in glaring livery brought wine which Dodd tasted with habitual suspicion before finding it quite smooth and hardly sour at all. Carey knocked his back in one and held out the silver goblet for a refill. Then he threw himself onto a bench, stretched his long legs in front of him, crossed them at the ankles and grinned.

‘Can’t think what I was so worried about,’ he said to Dodd.

Dodd himself was still worried. Magnificent and palatial though Carey’s family house was, it didn’t look very defensible, with no proper pele tower, no battlements, no moat, no mound, no visible ordnance. There didn’t seem many men around either.

‘Ay,’ he said. ‘But how long before we have your…creditors around our ears like flies?’

Carey laughed. ‘Well, they won’t have pikes and muskets like the Grahams’ debt-collectors.’

‘Oh? What then?’ asked Dodd, interested to know what weapons Londoners preferred.

‘Writs,’ said Carey. ‘Blizzards of paper.’

Dodd began wondering irritably what all the fuss had been about. Barnabus took Simon off with him to see to the small amount of luggage they had brought with them in their saddlebags and Carey wandered familiarly round the room with another goblet of wine in his hand.

‘Place seems deserted,’ he commented. ‘Where the devil’s Father gone?’

On that instant there was the sound of a female voice raised in argument outside the door which opened to let the owner of the voice come in. It was a young woman trailed by a maidservant and a young man in Hunsdon’s livery who was still arguing with her back.

‘Mistress, this is unwise, this is very very foolish, my lord Hunsdon will…’ droned the servingman in a voice that sounded as if it had been flattened with a hot iron. The maidservant elbowed him and he finally fell silent, looking crestfallen.

Dodd gawked. For all the cunning cut of her green velvet English gown, it was quite obvious the lady was pregnant. She was also tall, lushly built with a haughty expression on her face, light hazel eyes, skin creamy and hardly painted at all, and magnificent rich glossy black hair tumbling down her back in a proudly maidenlike display, only slightly controlled by a rope of pearls and emeralds wound about it.

Dodd felt quite pleased to see something so restful to the eye, especially as her neckline was cut temptingly low. He heard Carey’s breath check infinitesimally beside him. A second later Carey was on his feet, sweeping a tremendous bow. Dodd’s eyes were trapped by the velvet valley above the short bodice as she curtseyed in response. Then the lovely view was cut off because the lady had opened her arms, put her head on one side and Carey had folded her to his chest with a most disrespectfully thorough kiss on her mouth.

‘Mistress Bassano,’ he said caressingly when he had come up for air. ‘What a splendid joy to see you again.’

Mistress Bassano laughed, put up a hand to stroke Carey’s cheek. ‘Whatever are you doing in London, Robin?’ she asked. ‘I thought you’d run away from me forever.’

Good God, thought Dodd in despair, not another loose bitch, and then bitterly, and not for the first time, how the devil does he draw the women to him like that?

‘I could say that my despair at being parted from you so poisoned my meat and drink that in order to survive I was forced to return,’ Carey suggested.

Mistress Bassano tossed her head haughtily. ‘And I would say you were lying to me.’

‘Well, I am,’ Carey admitted, his blue eyes sparkling. ‘My blasted father ordered me south.’ A worrying thought obviously struck him. ‘It isn’t…er…He hasn’t…er…?’

Mistress Bassano shook her head. ‘No, no. I’m sure he doesn’t know.’

Dodd caught the knowing glance from the maidservant to the servingman and felt his heart sink even further. What the hell was going on here?

‘His lordship was in Chelsea this afternoon,’ put in the manservant. ‘We expect him at any minute. He…er…didn’t leave any orders about you, sir.’

‘Mm,’ Carey smiled kindly on the man. ‘How is it with you, Will, any luck?’

Will shook his head, looking doleful. ‘No, sir. If it weren’t for your father giving me his livery, I’d be in the Fleet.’

‘Bit of a comedown, isn’t it, after this spring?’

Will shrugged. ‘Can’t be helped, sir.’

Mistress Bassano had swept a glance at Dodd which instantly dismissed him, moved to the virginals in the corner and lifted the cover. She sat down and pressed some of the notes, tilted her head consideringly and then leaned down to find the tuning key. Dodd tried to stop himself from staring at those milky plump breasts that seemed fashionably on the point of bursting out of the bodice. Would they? Could they?

She caught him at it and gave him a coldly knowing glare as she twiddled one of the pegs that was not to her satisfaction. Then she put the key back on its hook and placed her fingers to play.

Carey stood over her, no doubt getting a leisurely eyeful of the view and she smiled over her shoulder at the manservant.

‘Will,’ she said. ‘Would you fetch me the Italian songsheets?’

Will’s pointed face went pink. ‘Yes, mistress,’ he said and hurried over to delve in a chest by the wall, bringing out sheafs of paper dotted over with music. When he brought them to her, Dodd saw his hands shake as he arranged them on the music stand. He too seemed to be fighting the urge to stare and then Dodd was shocked to see one of Mistress Bassano’s slim hands lift from the keyboard and briefly brush his leg. Carey was craning over, ostensibly to read the music, and Mistress Bassano’s other hand went quietly out of sight somewhere in the vicinity of Carey’s trunkhose.

Dodd’s mouth had to be shut consciously. It turned down in stern disapproval of the whole proceedings.

‘Sir,’ said Mistress Bassano, turning from between her two admirers and finally favouring him with a dazzling smile that seemed to promise worlds of pleasure. ‘Robin has been very rude to you, not introducing you.’

Dodd coughed, pulled off his hat, did the best bow he could muster which he knew, to his despair, was a lumpen misshapen thing in comparison to Carey’s grace.

‘Sergeant Henry Dodd,’ he growled. ‘Land Sergeant of Gilsland.’

The pointed chin on its proudly held neck tilted a little in acknowledgement. ‘Can you sing, Sergeant Dodd?’

‘Ay I can, a bit,’ he allowed.

‘And what is your voice?’

Her own voice was deeper than most women’s but as velvet as the rest of her. Dodd’s mouth had gone dry as the old Adam in him went skipping off into sinful daydreams. He licked his lips.

‘Ah. I dinna ken. It’s just a voice.’

Carey was smiling knowingly at him, over the top of Mistress Bassano’s gleaming head. ‘I’ve never heard you sing, Dodd?’

You bastard, thought Dodd. ‘Ay, well, I wouldnae claim to be a gleeman, see,’ he said. ‘But I can hold ma own wi’ a lay.’

Delicate frown lines appeared on Mistress Bassano’s smooth forehead. ‘What is he saying, Robin?’ she asked. ‘Is he a northerner?’

Carey bent and whispered in her ear and her magnetic smile dimmed a little to become patronising. ‘Well, but I am disappointed. Robin and Will are both tenors, and it would be good if we had a basso. Do you have a deep voice, Sergeant?’

Dodd coughed again, suppressing the wistful wish that she would call him Henry. ‘Ay, I reckon. But I cannae read music, mistress. Words, ay, but not notes.’

The full pink lips pouted in disappointment as Carey whispered his translation. ‘Oh what a pity. Never mind. You can be our audience and make useful criticisms.’

I could criticise you, mistress
, Dodd thought, as he watched a blush going all the way up into what was left of the manservant’s hair under his cap,
I could criticise you with a will, ay, criticise you till ye squealed for more, but it doesnae suit me to take thirds
. Mistress Bassano’s hands reappeared to place on the keyboards and she launched into the beginning of one of Carey’s favourite Court songs, a ditty that had all the pointless complexity of a lace ruff.

Carey’s voice rang out, taking the main part and Mistress Bassano’s voice rose with his. Somewhere in the background Will was adding his own voice, in a key that was awkward for him so he growled in the deeps.

It was very good. Even Dodd had to admit that Carey’s voice was far better than ordinary and Mistress Bassano’s was a marvel of poured cream, while the ruthlessly pre-empted Will still seemed to know what he was about. Personally, Dodd had no taste for foreign songs, preferring familiar tunes like the Ballad of Chevy Chase, but you could tell it was a clever thing they were doing even if you couldn’t understand a word of it and the shape of the music was strange.