A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

“My lord, my lady, may I be quite frank with you?”

  Hunsdon nodded while his lady only narrowed her eyes.

  “Obviously, you will be wondering if I am in fact Heneage’s man.”

  Hunsdon smiled; his lady remained grim.

  “Also, obviously, there is very little I can do to convince you that this is not the case since any test of my truthfulness you could think of, Mr. Heneage could circumvent. Here is my tale. Immediately after I was called to the Bar and whilst I was still in pupillage a year ago, I was approached by a man of business, a solicitor of some fame, and asked if I would take some cases in King’s Bench dealing with forfeitures of Papist land and other property dealings. Knowing no more than that Mr. Vice Chamberlain was the principal and that he was high in the counsels of our most worshipful Sovereign Lady, I naturally agreed. I took the cases, drafted the pleadings, and appeared in the initial hearings.”

  He sighed. “At this point I found that all was not as it seemed and that I could not appear for Mr. Heneage without lying to the court and going utterly against mine honour.”

  The Hunsdons exchanged glances and then both scowled at Enys. It was quite admirable that he stayed steady and continued with his rhetorical story.

  “I withdrew, charging no fee, and Mr. Heneage offered me a higher fee to remain, then a cut of the proceeds plus many further tempting blandishments. I still refused and he said he would destroy me since he would not be denied by anyone, especially not a stripling lawyer. He has gone some way to achieving his threat as I have had practically no cases in the past six months and will soon lose my chamber as well. I have no profession but the law and have no family other than my brother …um and sister…to help me, nor any good lord.”

  “So?” asked Lady Hunsdon.

  “So, my lady,” answered Enys, “When I heard two gentlemen discussing their problems regarding Mr. Vice and realised from his speech that one of them must be your son, I thanked Providence that I had stopped by the pool instead of going to sell my cloak, and made haste to offer them my services.”

  Hanging in the air was the wonder of such a stroke of luck. Lady Hunsdon summed it all up by sniffing eloquently.

  Hunsdon smiled on the young man. “Mr. Enys, it could be dangerous to act for Sergeant Dodd. Mr. Heneage has a tendency to attack the smaller fry in a dispute. You could easily wind up in the Tower confessing to Papistry.”

  Enys smiled back bitterly. “The man is a scandal and a tyrant, m’lord. Yes, I could. But I may do so in any case since he is mine enemy in which case…”

  “In which case, Mr. Enys?”

  “In which case I might as well take the fight to the enemy first.”

  Dodd nodded at this piece of good sense. Hunsdon laced his fingers together.

  “Mr. Enys, I shall naturally make enquiries about you. What were the cases?”

  “Matters relating to the estates of Mr. Robert Boscoba, Mr. John Veryan, and Sir Piran Mawes of Trenever.”

  “Cornish lands? You’re Cornish, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, your ladyship. My father was from Penryn and came up to London after Glasney College was put down. My sister…” Enys paused. “…My sister was wed to a Cornishman until the smallpox widowed her.”

  Lady Hunsdon nodded intently. “Do you know a Mr. Richard Tregian who would have come up to London about two or three weeks ago?”

  “No, my lady,” said Enys, his eyes narrowing, “I have never met him.”

  “Assuming my enquiries are satisfactory,” said Hunsdon, “I shall retain you for the amount of a guinea per week plus refreshers for court appearances.”

  The lawyer bowed low. “My lord is very generous,”

  Lady Hunsdon leaned forward confidingly. “Mr. Enys,” she said coaxingly, “what were the cases you withdrew from about?”

  Enys’s eyelids fluttered. “I cannot tell you more, m’lady, I’m very sorry. Client confidentiality.”

  “You withdrew from the cases,” Hunsdon pointed out.

  “I did, m’lord, because they would have gone against my honour.” There was a pause whilst Enys nerved himself. “It would also go against my honour to babble about them like a woman at the conduit to anyone who asked.” Hunsdon nodded.

  “How soon can you draft and lodge the pleadings on Sergeant Dodd’s behalf.”

  “Once I am fee’d and briefed, m’lord, by tomorrow.”

  “Any ideas on the conduct?”

  “Yes, m’lord.” The young man took a deep breath and clasped the lapels of his gown tightly. “I would recommend a writ of pillatus against Mr. Heneage for the criminal assault and wrongful imprisonment, to be served immediately.”

  Both Hunsdon and his lady stared at the young man for a second, transfixed, before Hunsdon bellowed with laughter and his lady gurgled. Carey too had a wicked grin on his face. “What’s that?” hissed Dodd to him, knowing he was missing something important here.

  “He’s saying we should get a warrant to arrest Heneage immediately on the criminal charges,” whispered Carey, still grinning.

  “He’ll surely wriggle out…”

  “Of course he will, but he’ll spend at least a night in prison if we time it right.”

  Dodd’s lips parted in delight. “Och,” he said, “I like this lawyer.”

  “While he’s in prison,” added Enys, “we should serve writs of subpoena on all potential witnesses and put any that are…frightened…into protective custody.”

  Hunsdon let out another bark. Dodd understood this. “Mr. Enys,” he called across the tiled floor, “one o’them’s the Gaoler o’the Fleet.”

  Enys’s pock-marked brow wrinkled. “Then I think he needs to be named on the originating warrant as a confederate and also arrested, or he’ll never testify.”

  ***

  Barnabus Cooke’s funeral was later that afternoon and a respectable affair, attended naturally by Carey, Dodd, and the young Simon Barnet, though not Barnabus’ sister’s family which was still locked up in their house with plague. No more of them had died apart from the mother. Hunsdon had paid for Barnabus’s coffin and the burial fees and also four pauper mourners, one of whom seemed to be genuinely upset. The Church of St Bride’s was convenient and the vicar glad of the shroud money, but had the sense to keep his eulogy of Barnabus short and tactful. Carey had pointedly invited Shakespeare to come as well, but had received an elegantly phrased letter of regret. Apart from a remarkable number of upright men who turned up hoping to be paid mourners too, there were several women in veils and striped petticoats and a round-faced man in a fine wool suit with a snowy falling band whom Dodd felt he had seen somewhere before. Carey seemed to know him and once the small coffin had been lowered into the plot in the crowded graveyard, strode over to greet him.

  “Mr. Hughes,” he said, “how kind of you to attend.”

  The man took his hat off and bowed. “Thank you, sir,” he said easily, “I try to attend them as gets away.”

  Carey smiled. “Still smarting?”

  Hughes smiled back. “No sir, though I’ll allow as I had a rope measured and properly stretched for him. I’m also here to bring the compliments of my brother-in-law and his thanks to your worshipful father for his support of Barnabus Cooke’s family.”

  Carey seemed surprised by this for he paused, and then bowed shallowly. “My father is proud of his good lordship and feels it is the least he could do.”

  “Nonetheless, sir, there’s not many would bother nowadays. My brother-in-law would like you to know that he is obliged to your honours and at your father’s service.”

  With a dignified tip of his hat, Mr. Hughes moved quietly away and through the gate. Carey blinked after him. “Well well,” he said, “that’s interesting.”

  Dodd was irritated that again he didn’t know what was going on here. “Ay?” he complained.

  Carey smiled and led the way to a boozing ken on Fleet Street, filled with a raucous flock of hard-drinking black-robed lawyers and their pamphlet-writing hangers
on.

  “That, Sergeant,” he said as he drank brandywine with satisfaction, “is the London hangman. You saw him performing his office yesterday.”

  “Jesu,” said Dodd, feeling slightly queasy.

  “He is also, and this is where it gets interesting, the brother-in-law of the King of London, Mr. Laurence Pickering himself. Who has just as good as offered an alliance to my father for some reason.”

  “The King of London?”

  “Mr. Laurence Pickering, King of the London thieves, chief controller of the London footpads and upright men, main profiter by the labours of the London whores, coming second only to his Grace the Bishop of Winchester who collects their rents.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd with respect. “Is there only the one King of London, then?”

  “Oh yes,” said Carey drily, “Only the one. Now.”

  Wednesday 13th September 1592, morning.

  At dawn the next day, itching in tight wool and with a new highcrowned beaver hat on his head, Dodd went with Carey to take a boat at Temple steps with Enys for Westminster Hall. Enys was carrying a sheaf of papers in a blue brocade bag and looked tired with bags under his eyes. He pulled his black robe around him and held his hat tight to his head. It was hard to tell the expression on his face, so thick were the scars from the smallpox, but he looked tense.

  “Sir Robert, is your father providing bailiffs to back up the court staff?” he asked Carey.

  Carey was busy smiling and taking his hat off to a boatload of attractive women heading downstream for London Bridge.

  “Hm? Oh yes, the steward’s arranging for it and they’ll meet us at Westminster once you have the warrant.”

  “Ay, but we’ll niver arrest him, will we?” Dodd said, thinking of Richie Graham of Brackenhill’s likely reaction to any such attempt, never mind Jock o’the Peartree’s. Jock would still be roaring with laughter at the joke as he slit your throat.

  The Hunsdon boat was butting up against the boat landing. Carey and Dodd hopped in, while Enys seemed very nervous of the water and nearly fell as he stepped across. He sat himself down and gripped the seat hard with his hands, swallowing.

  “I rather think we will, Sergeant,” said Enys, “although I’m sure not for long. And as there is no doubt at all that as soon as he’s bailed he’ll be trying to intimidate the witnesses, I have drafted a writ against him for maintenance to keep in reserve.”

  Carey blinked as if puzzled for a moment and then shouted with laughter. “That old Statute against henchmen?”

  “Old and from Her Majesty’s grandfather’s time, but still on the books. It’s not the oldest statute I shall be citing.”

  “What is?” asked Dodd fascinated, although he had no idea that henchmen were illegal.

  “Edward III 1368,” said Enys. Dodd used his fingers to work it out.

  “It’s two hundred and twenty-four years old,” he said. “What good is that?”

  “It’s a highly important principle,” said Enys, looking annoyed. “You might say it is the foundation of our English liberty. It says that no man may be put to the question or tortured privily without trial or warrant. In effect, habeas corpus.”

  Once again Dodd struggled with foreign language. He supposed they meant something about dead bodies.

  “I don’t recall Mr. Secretary Walsingham paying that much attention to the statute when he was questioning some Papist,” Carey pointed out.

  Enys looked at him distantly. “Sir Robert, it is a fact that a man who murders another for his money may pay no attention to the statutes against murder. It is in the nature of sinful men that they break the law. It is a very different thing to hold that there is no such law to be broken, which Heneage does by his actions.”

  “And if the law be changed in parliament?” asked Carey.

  “If it be changed, then we must abide by the new law,” said Enys. “But this law has not been changed nor repealed. It was excluded from matters of treason and the Henry VIII statute of Praemunire made many religious matters into treason. Therefore Mr. Secretary Walsingham could and did rightly ignore the statute since he was seeking out Papist traitors against Her Majesty and the Commonweal of England.”

  Carey nodded while Dodd stared in fascination to hear such a young man speak in such long and complicated sentences, using such pompous words. Now the lawyer lifted one finger in a lecturing manner. “However, this is not a matter of treason at all. Sergeant Dodd was neither guilty of nor accused of any crime whatsoever when Mr. Vice falsely imprisoned and assaulted him. There was a fortiori no trial and no warrant. I have seldom heard of such a clear case.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, catching up with most of the last part of the speech, “that’s right.” His head was buzzing with the legal talk.

  “Perhaps Mr. Vice will simply claim that he was looking for me and laid hold of my henchman to track me down,” said Carey.

  “I’m sure he will,” said Enys. “However the fact remains that you were not accused of treason either, Sir Robert. Even your brother was accused only of coining, which may indeed come under the treason laws as petty treason…”

  Dodd stretched his eyes at that. Was coining treason? Did Richie Graham with his busy unofficial mint know about it? Did he care?

  “…but it is not a direct attack upon her Majesty nor upon the Commonweal of England. And in point of fact, if what you have told me is correct, I believe that Mr. Heneage may be vulnerable to a charge of coining and uttering false coin himself, with your brother and the apothecary Mr. Cheke as witnesses against him.”

  Carey whistled through his teeth. “I thought we couldn’t prove that?”

  Enys shrugged. “Heneage will bring oath-swearers to disagree but it will depend on the judge. It’s arguable. At this stage it doesn’t have to be provable.”

  They came to Westminster steps and jumped out—Enys seemed clumsy again and hesitant as he stepped onto the boat landing at just the wrong time. He might have wound up in the Thames without a quick shove from Dodd.

  “Thank you, sir,” he muttered, looking embarassed. “I am still weakened by my sickness.”

  “Ay, but your face is healed?” said Dodd, immediately worried because he had never had smallpox in his life.

  “Oh it is, I am no longer sick of it. But the pocks attacked my eyes as well and my sight and balance are not what they were,” said the man, rubbing his hand on his face and jaw. Dodd could see the pits on the backs of his hands going up his wrist. Jesu, that was an ugly disease as well, worse than plague in some ways. Of course you were far more likely to die of the plague, but that was relatively quick and if your buboes burst you’d probably get better with no more than a couple of scars on your neck and groin and never be afraid of getting it again. You weren’t going to be hideous for the rest of your life. As for pocks on your eyes…Jesus God. At least there wasn’t much smallpox on the Borders, though Dodd had had a terrible fright when he was nine when his hands had got blistered from a cow with a blistered udder. Both his parents were alive then; it hadn’t been anything, and the blisters on both him and the cow got better soon enough.

  They walked up through the muddy crowded alleys to the great old Hall of Westminster, hard by the Cathedral. The place was teeming with a flock in black robes, some wearing silk with soft flat square hats on their heads and followed by large numbers of young men carrying bags and papers.

  “Lord above,” murmured Carey, “It gets worse every year. Michaelmas term hasn’t even started yet and look at them.”

  Enys took a deep breath at the doorway into Westminster Hall, gripped his sword hilt lefthanded, and forged ahead into the crowd of lawyers around a desk who were shouting at the listing officers.

  He came threading out again, his hat sideways. Just in time he grabbed it and clamped it back on his head.

  “Sirs, we shall go before Mr. Justice Whitehead in an hour to swear out the pleadings and have the warrant granted.”

  Dodd nodded as if this were all quite normal bu
t he thought that it surely couldn’t be so simple. Normally it took months for a bill to be heard in Carlisle and years if it was a Border matter. Hunsdon had handed Carey a purseful of silver that morning to be sure the matter was well up the list which he had passed to Enys. Perhaps that had worked.

  They ventured into Westminster Hall which was split into a dozen smaller sections by wooden partitions while the old fashioned ceiling full of angels and stone icicles echoed with the noise. You couldn’t see the floor at all because it was covered in straw and dung from the streets. Dodd rubbed with his boot and saw some pretty tiles under the muck.

  It was indescribably noisy. Not all the partitions had judges sitting behind a wooden bench, but in the ones that did, red-faced men in black gowns were shouting at each other and waving papers. Bailiffs and court servants shouted at each other for the next cases to come to whichever court. There was a hurrying to and fro and an arguing and shouting between lawyers, between litigants, between lawyers and litigants. At every pillar it seemed, there was a huddle of mainly black-robed men engaged in some kind of argument at the top of their voices. It was exactly like a rookery.

  Dodd was already starting to get a headache. Although lacking the clang of metal and the snort of horses, the row was as loud as a battlefield, or even louder.

  Enys seemed to have spotted his judge and was beckoning them over to stand next to him by the partition.

  “I wanted to see what kind of mood his honour is in.”

  Dodd peered around the high wooden boards. The judge, sitting with his coif on his head and a pen in his fist, pince nez perched on his nose, was scowling at a shivering young lawyer in a rather new stuff gown.

  This judge seemed a little different from the others: an astonishingly luxuriant but carefully barbered grey beard decorated his face and his grey eyes glittered with wintry distaste.

  “Mr. Burnett,” he was saying witheringly, “have you in fact read your brief?”

  The young lawyer facing him trembled like a leaf and gulped. Judge Whitehead threw his pen down.

  “This matter, Mr. Burnett, clearly comes under the purview of the Court of Requests, not King’s Bench. Why you have seen fit to plead it in front of me is a mystery. Well?”