4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (28 page)

Carey didn’t sit down under a tree, but leaned against the smooth trunk of an elm and blinked up at the blue sky between the leaves. Dodd hitched up the back of his hose and sat down on one of the roots. Neither of them said anything for a while, but they listened to the birds singing in the trees for all the world as if there were no such things as sickness and death.

‘I didn’t realise the plague was so bad in London,’ Carey said, voice remote. ‘Was that Barnabus’s little secret?’

Dodd sighed, loath to explain what he knew. Best get on with it, he thought, and weather the storm.

He told Carey what had happened to Simon Barnet’s family and Carey simply took in the information.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Henry?’

Dodd felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have. But Barnabus begged me and so I didnae.’

‘I see now why you’re so anxious to leave London.’

‘Ay, sir. Will we go and find your brother now?’

‘It has got a bit more urgent, hasn’t it?’ drawled Carey. ‘I mean, either one of us or both of us could be dead of plague tomorrow, couldn’t we?’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘I wish you’d told me earlier.’

‘Ay, sir. So do I.’

Carey shrugged. ‘We’ll try Peter Cheke again,’ he said, and strode between trees to a small passageway running round the back of a magnificent hall facing a courtyard with a handsome round church in it. He went up the side of the church, past the railings, past some chickens and a small midden heap and came to another gate that gave onto Fleet Street. There he waited for Dodd to catch up, peered out onto Fleet Street and Dodd scouted ahead. The street was filling with people, handcarts, beggars, pigs going to market driven by children, and the shops opening up on either side. As far as you could tell with so many strangers, it seemed safe enough.

They had passed the conduit at the end of Shoe Lane, heading for Fleet Bridge, when it happened. Dodd was a little ahead of Carey, keeping his eyes peeled for men in buff coats, but unable to stop his mind wandering back to speculating on what was happening in their lodgings.

A man in a wool suit tapped his shoulder. ‘Sir Robert Carey?’

‘Nay,’ said Dodd as loudly as he could. ‘I’m not him.’

The man smiled cynically, and held Dodd’s left arm above the elbow in a very painful grip. ‘No, sir, of course you’re not.’

‘Will ye let me go?’ Dodd demanded belligerently. Two other men smartly dressed in grey wool and lace trimmed falling-bands were suddenly on the other side of him. One of them had a cosh in his hand, the other had his sword drawn.

‘Please sir, let’s not make a scene,’ said the man who had hold of Dodd’s arm. ‘Sir Robert Carey, I must hereby serve you with a warrant for a debt of four hundred and twenty pounds, five shillings.’

‘Ye’ve made a mistake. Ah’m no’ Sir Robert.’

The bailiff smiled kindly. ‘Nice try, sir. We was warned you’d let on you was someone else.’

Dodd’s hand was on his swordhilt, but a fourth heavyset man had joined the party surrounding him. This one briskly caught his right arm and twisted it up behind his back while the one who had first spoken to him held a knife under Dodd’s chin and tucked the piece of paper he had read from into Dodd’s doublet.

‘I’m not Sir Robert Carey,’ shouted Dodd, furiously. ‘If ye want him he’s over there.’

The bailiff looked casually over his shoulder in the direction Dodd was pointing and smiled again. ‘Yes, sir. An old one but a good one. Please come along now. We don’t want to ’ave to ’urt you.’

Admittedly there was absolutely no trace of Carey anywhere on the crowded street. The slimy toad must have run for it as soon as Dodd was surrounded, God damn him for a lily-livered sodomite…

Boiling with rage at such betrayal, Dodd let himself be hustled along in the direction he and Carey had been travelling, over Fleet Bridge, under the overgrown houses that made a vault above the alley, and up the lane beside the little stinking river to a large double gatehouse. The postern gate opened at once to the bailiff’s knock and Dodd was hustled inside, blinking at the sudden darkness.

‘Sir Robert Carey,’ announced one of the bailiffs. ‘On a warrant for debt, Mr Newton.’

A wide beetle-browed man with a heavily pock-marked face came hurrying out of the gatehouse lodgings, rubbing his hands and bowing lavishly.

‘Sir Robert Carey, eh?’ he said delightedly. ‘Pleased to meet you at last, sir.’

‘I tell ye,’ growled Dodd, ‘I am not Sir Robert Carey. I’m Henry Dodd, Land Sergeant of Gilsland, and I dinna owe onybody a penny.’

Mr Newton tutted gently. ‘Dear me, sir, that won’t wash ’ere, we know your little game. Now come along and let’s do the paperwork, there’s a good gentleman.’

‘Ye’ve got the wrong man,’ Dodd ground out between his teeth. ‘I’m no’ the one ye want. There’s nae point in putting me in gaol, I’m no’ Sir Robert…’

‘So you say. But we was warned you’d come it the northerner once we caught you, so we know all about that. So why don’t you give it up, eh? It’s not dignified.’

Dodd gave a mighty heave and tried to trip the bailiff who was still wrenching his arm. Newton moved in close and rammed the end of his cosh into Dodd’s stomach a couple of times. Dodd bent and whooped and saw stars for a few seconds. A horny thumb and forefinger gripped his ear.

‘I don’t want to have to give you a hiding, Sir Robert, I know the proper respect for me betters, but I will have order in my gaol, do you understand me? If I have to, I’ll chain you, Queen’s cousin or no, so don’t make trouble. Now let’s go and do the paperwork, eh? Get you settled in.’

Unable to do more than stay on his feet and wheeze, Dodd went where they pushed him into the guardchamber of the gatehouse.

***

It so happened that Nan was down on her hands and knees polishing one of the brasses, the one with the knight in armour and his lady wearing long flowing robes, when the handsome gentleman in the lily-embroidered trunk hose came sliding quickly and softly into the empty church, breathing a little hard. He paused as he shut the door to squint through the narrow gap for a minute, then let it close. He looked all around him at the brightly coloured tombs, the whitewashed walls that writhed with carved vine-leaves and fat bunches of grapes, the headless saints, and the high altar with its beautiful cloth and its empty candlesticks with no sanctuary lamp burning. He took a long stride to come up the aisle, but then paused as he remembered himself, took his hat off reverently. Nan began to warm to him, despite the lurid high fashion of his clothes, as she peered around one of the box pews, to see him walking up to the altar rails where he knelt, sighed and bent his chestnut head in prayer, although she was disappointed to see he didn’t cross himself.

Her sight wasn’t good enough to make out his face clearly, though he seemed a well-made gentleman, very tall and long-legged, but Nan felt she approved of him. She finished polishing the lady’s face and thought about slipping out the sacristy door to find the vicar.

‘Goodwife, I’d be grateful if you didn’t fetch anybody. I won’t be here long,’ said the gentleman, without looking round.

She heaved herself up from the floor, folding her duster, and rubbing her creaking knees, then waddled round the box pew to curtsey to him.

He was standing by the altar rails now, bowed in return, smiled faintly down at her.

‘I promise I’m not after the candlesticks, goodwife.’

‘And much good they would do you if you were, sir,’ she said tartly, ‘since they’re chained to the wall.’

‘Ah.’

She blinked critically at him. He looked pale and there was a sheen of sweat on him which wasn’t totally explained by his velvet doublet since the church was cool and dim. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, with another little curtsey.

‘I very much doubt it.’

Nan shook her head. People always thought that because she was round, short and old, she was useless. ‘Well, if you’re here for a rest from the sun, which is certainly powerful for September, come into the pew and sit down, sir.’

He hesitated, then shrugged and let her open the door of the churchwarden’s pew, usher him into it. His clothes were too fashionable to let him sit comfortably, so he leaned diagonally on the bench.

‘Can I fetch you anything, sir?’ she asked. ‘Would you like some wine?’

‘Communion wine?’ he asked, sceptically. She grinned at him.

‘I always replace it.’

‘Ah.’ He passed his tongue over his lower lip which did look dry. ‘Well, why not?’

She trotted out into the aisle and went into the sacristy where she had a spare key to the locked cupboard where the vicar kept the wine. She came back with two plain silver goblets on a tray which held mixed water and wine since she believed in the curative properties of wine but could not afford to replace too much. ‘The water is from St Bride’s well itself,’ she said, as she gave one of the goblets to the gentleman. ‘It’s clear and pure as dew, sir, and sovereign against all kinds of troubles: shingles, the falling sickness, leprosy, and scrofula too.’

‘A pity I don’t suffer from any of those things.’

‘Now you never will, sir.’

He toasted her, and drank. ‘How does it do against plague, cowardice and debt?’

She sat herself down on the bench with a sigh at the ache in her old bones, and drank from her own goblet.

‘Oh, and idiocy,’ added the gentleman.

‘Who was chasing you, sir?’ Nan asked. Well, if an old woman couldn’t ask nosy questions, who could?

The gentleman shut his eyes briefly. Up close, Nan could see they were bright blue and also rather bloodshot. Something about his face was familiar, the beak of his nose, the high cheekbones, but she couldn’t place it. She was quite sure she had never met him before.

‘Bailiffs,’ he said. ‘Waving warrants for debt.’ He sighed again, rubbed elegantly gloved fingers into his eyesockets. ‘I let them arrest a friend of mine, one of the most decent and loyal men I’ve ever met, and I ran like a bloody rabbit to get away. Nice, eh?’

‘And the plague?’

‘My servants have it and my lodgings have been sealed.’

Nan tutted sympathetically and poured him more of the watered wine from the flagon. ‘And the idiocy, sir? You don’t look like an idiot.’

He raised winged eyebrows at this cheekiness and smiled shortly. ‘I’ve been acting like a damned idiot ever since I got to London, goodwife. Looks aren’t everything.’

‘No indeed, sir. What will you do now?’

He puffed out a breath. ‘I haven’t the faintest bloody idea.’

She leaned forward and patted his arm. ‘Please, sir,’ she said. ‘This is God’s house. Don’t swear.’

‘Sorry.’

Despite her opportunities, Nan drank very little, preferring the life-giving water of the well. The wine was beginning to go to her head slightly and she waved her plump work-hardened hand at the church above and around them. ‘I know it doesn’t look like it any more,’ she confided. ‘You should have seen the church before the change in the boy-King’s reign, when it was all painted with bright colours and the roof beams were gilded and stars painted there. Oh, it was beautiful, with the light through the glass. Noah’s Ark was on that wall, before they whitewashed it, with elephants and striped horses too, and on this wall was the marriage at Cana and St Bride at the well, giving the child Jesus a drink. The same water from this very well, sir, Our Saviour drank from it, almost where we’re standing.’

‘When did Jesus Christ do that?’ asked the gentleman.

‘When he flew here as a child and got lost, and St Bride gave him her water and so he could fly back home to Our Lady in Palestine.’

The gentleman blinked a couple of times, but didn’t laugh as one over-educated Divine had in the past. ‘Oh?’ he said.

‘And certainly, if he didn’t, he could have, so perhaps he did.’

‘Ah. It’s not mentioned in the Bible, though.’

‘No, well, sir, if you read it, you’ll find many things not mentioned there.’

The gentleman coughed. ‘Er…yes.’

‘The New World, for instance. Though I heard once that St Bride travelled there herself, in a silver boat.’

‘Did she?’

She smiled sunnily at him. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’

He nodded abstractedly, clearly humouring her which was at least polite of him. His attention had wandered again, though, his wide shoulders were sagging with worry.

‘Let me help, sir,’ she coaxed, putting her hand on his velvet clad forearm. ‘Tell me your troubles and perhaps you’ll see a way through them.’

‘I don’t really see how you could…’

‘Not me, sir,’ she said simply. ‘You. If you give yourself time to think, it’s wonderful what notions God will put in your head.’

‘He hasn’t yet, and I can’t say I blame Him, the way I’ve been behaving.’

She patted the arm, which felt very tense. ‘We’re all sinners, sir. If Our Saviour was walking in London town today, we would be the first he’d invite to dinner.’

Now that was better. What a charming smile the gentleman had to be sure.

‘Well now, mother,’ he said. ‘That’s certainly true.’

He stared at the high altar for a moment, his bright eyes flicking unseeingly between the wonderful painted glass of the workers in the vineyard and the scarred wooden saints of the altar-screen.