Carey pounced on him at once, bashed him a couple more times with the dagger hilt, then straightened and caught his breath for a moment. He started dragging the large man over to his mate who was still heaving and coughing by the conduit. Dodd glanced at Enys who was staring at the swordsman as the blood came gouting out of his nose and down his face from the nasty cut on his forehead caused by one of the jewels in Carey’s poinard hilt. So that’s what they were for, eh? That made sense of why anyone would want a pretty dagger hilt.
Dodd sheathed his sword which was still clean and gave the puffing Carey a hand to carry the man to his mate and lay him down in a suggestive position behind Dodd’s victim. Carey grinned and pulled off both men’s belts, then tied them tightly together with the swordsman’s wrists in front of Dodd’s man and that man’s hands belted behind him as far around the bulk of the swordsman as his arms would go. The swordsman started to struggle and mutter so Carey bashed him a couple more times, while Dodd tied their feet in a tangle.
It was a cosy sight and would give the Fleet Street wives a good laugh when they came to fetch water at the conduit in the morning.
“Ay,” said Dodd, deeply satisfied at justice done. He unbuttoned his sleeve cuffs because they felt tight.
Enys still seemed upset for some reason and was saying nothing. Dodd took his sword from his unresisting left hand and put it back in his scabbard, then examined the man’s wrist which was unusually thin and seemed mildly sprained.
“Caught a blow awkwardly, did ye?” he asked with not much sympathy. Enys nodded. It was hard to tell colour in the flickering light from the Gatehouse Inn torch and the one on the linen shop, but it looked as if Enys had gone beetroot-cheeked and so he should.
“Sergeant, I apologise, I’m…well…I’m no good as a swordsman. I only wear one because the Inn regulations say I have to.”
“Ay.” Dodd nodded with dignity at this apology, “When yer wrist is well, would ye like me to teach ye a few moves?”
Enys blinked rapidly. “Ah…yes…if you don’t mind.”
“Ah dinna care one way or the other, I just dinnae want the trouble of finding a new lawyer to take my case. Why did ye no’ kick him in the cods, he was open for it?
Enys smiled shakily. “I didn’t think of it.”
Dodd sucked his teeth. “Ye’ve never fought before?”
“My brother.”
Dodd nodded sourly. “Ay but he wasnae trying to kill ye. Generally.”
“Come on, gentlemen!” called Carey from up the street where he was heading briskly towards the Blackfriars again. “He’s an arrogant bugger is Marlowe, there’s a chance he might still be there.”
Dodd speeded to a sprint to catch up with Carey, followed slowly by Enys who seemed to run in a lumbering fashion that boded ill for his sword-fighting. He seemed remarkably tired by the short sprint of a few hundred yards as well. He walked behind them, hunched, breathing hard, and pressing at his ribcage.
“You should consider going to your home, Mr. Enys?” Carey said to him, “This might get nasty.”
Enys shook his head. “I’m afraid I shall be…no use to you gentlemen…at all,” he panted, “but I would prefer to stay with you, if I may.”
Carey raised his brows at Dodd for his opinion and Dodd shrugged.
“If it a’ goes wrong, we wilnae protect ye,” he warned Enys. Looking at Carey he thought it was quite likely to go wrong. Carey’s lips were compressed in a thin line and the light of battle gleamed in his eye.
“D’ye think he’ll be there?” Dodd asked.
“Oh yes. He’ll want to know what happened. His calculation will be either…”
“We got a beating and think better of it, or we kill someone and wind up in gaol wi’ yer friend Hughes measuring a rope for us,” said Dodd.
“Or, in my case, sharpening an axe, of course,” pointed out Carey the aristocrat. “I am more sick than I can say of Marlowe’s stupid plotting…bloody idiot. What does he think he’s playing at?”
“Trying hard to get back in Heneage’s good opinion.”
“A week ago he convinced me that he wanted to switch to my lord of Essex’s affinity.”
“Ay, but that was a week ago. He’s changed his mind, nae doubt.”
“Though I did have his head buried in a pile of the Queen’s old bumrolls at the time so he may not have been telling me the whole truth.”
Dodd hid a smile at the picture this presented. “Did ye now?” he said still glum, “Why did ye not slit his throat then and save us all trouble?”
“Didn’t want to get her Majesty’s linen all dirty,” said Carey very prim. “Also, despite his faults, Marlowe’s a remarkably fine poet and it would be a pity…”
Dodd shook his head at such an irrelevance.
Wednesday 13th September 1592, night
Carey paused as he turned towards the Mermaid Inn, checking round the corner. “God, I wish Barnabus was here,” he said, “this is the perfect job for him.”
Dodd said nothing, never having much liked Carey’s thieving manservant. Before they came to the Mermaid, Carey ducked into an alley that wound its way between the old walls of the monastery and the new shacks of incomers, to the sturdy wall at the back of the inn’s yard. An unmistakeable reek of malt came from it. Carey looked thoughtful then climbed up on a shed roof and thence to a wall. Dodd boosted Enys onto the shed, then climbed up himself. Carey was peering down into the courtyard which was empty apart from a couple of goats tethered near a wall.
“Stay here,” he whispered, and climbed quietly down from the wall, using a hen house as a step.
There were sounds of activity in the common room and the noise of somebody playing a lute much less expertly than he thought he could.
“Mr. Enys,” breathed Dodd in his ear, “can ye understand me?” Enys nodded. “If it a’ goes wrong I want ye to leg it for Somerset House fast as ye can. Dinna fight, dinna stop to wait for us, get to Somerset House and roust out my lord Hunsdon’s kin. D’ye follow?”
Enys took a breath, possibly to argue, then nodded firmly. “How will I know?” he whispered. Dodd thought.
“Ye’ll know if ye hear fighting or me yowling like a cat as a signal.”
In Tynedale they gave a yell but Dodd didn’t want to give too much away. Meanwhile Carey had crossed the yard without waking the chickens or the goats and got to the horn-paned window of the scullery. He knocked on it. Out came the sleepy-eyed potboy with wet hands red raw from lye. After quiet conversation and the transfer of a coin in the normal direction—away from Carey—the boy ducked back inside and a few minutes later, the innkeeper came out. He was carrying an empty barrel. Another quiet conversation and another transfer of coin.
Meanwhile Dodd had been thinking and none of what he thought pleased him at all. Even he was wishing for Barnabus now who would have been the ideal man for what he needed done.
The innkeeper went back inside, Carey crossed the yard again and used the henhouse to climb back up onto the wall. This time the hens inside clucked anxiously.
“The innkeeper tells me Marlowe is on his own and I’ve bribed him to get Marlowe out into the yard and…”
“Nay sir,” said Dodd, coming to a decision. “I dinna think so.”
“I beg your pardon, Sergeant?” Carey’s voice was cold. He always hated being contradicted. No help for it, Dodd was not about to stand by and watch Carey run headfirst into an ambush again.
“Sir, did ye never run a raid on someone wi’ but a few men and have the rest lying out in a valley to ambush them when they rode in on the hot trod?” It was so obvious, it was painful.
“This isn’t the Borders, Sergeant,” sniffed Carey, “and I’ve seen that…”
“Sir, ye’ve seen nothing, ye’ve been told.” With decision, Dodd moved to the end of the wall and climbed quietly down into the alley again, helping Enys down as he went. “It’s a’ too bloody convenient,” he muttered to himself.
“Where are you going Ser
geant?” hissed Carey from the wall.
“I’m gonnae see for meself,” Dodd told him, trotting quietly down the alley and then into another one on a sudden thought. Aggravatingly the alley suddenly twisted on itself and ended up at some riversteps, so Dodd moved along the bank to another alley and then jogged along it back to the main road.
There he saw exactly what he had suspected: a large group of large men in jacks carrying loaded crossbows. They were filing down the alley he had just accidentally avoided coming out of.
“Och,” thought Dodd with fury, “Will I niver get to ma bed?”
He opened his mouth and let out what he thought was quite a good caterwaul, heard running feet stumbling down Fleet Street for the Strand. Two urchins who had been asleep on a dungheap for its warmth were sitting up and staring at him. Dodd nodded at them and beckoned them over, gave each of them sixpence which was all he could bear to part with, and told them what they were to do.
There was no sign of alarm from the men at arms who had paused at Dodd’s imitation cat. Moving quietly and deftly through the shadows, Dodd came round by a different direction to the front of the Mermaid where the sign hung over a coach waiting outside, with the horses half asleep, their hooves tipped. Dodd recognised the damned thing, and crept up to it on the other side with his heart thundering.
The coach itself was empty. Dodd peered round and saw one man standing by the door to the tavern, who was probably the coachman, looking in with interest.
Suddenly there was a shouting and yelling followed by the loud twang of a discharged crossbow. Then a grumble of voices.
Dodd sighed. Instead of waiting for Dodd to come back with his report, the daft Courtier had got himself captured and he hoped that he hadn’t got in the way of that crossbow bolt.
“Thish ish an outrage!” came Carey’s voice at its loudest and most affected. “How dare you, shir, unhand me!”
Dodd nearly smiled, it was all so theatrical. Had he done it on purpose, perhaps? Peeping around the coach he could see Carey through the diamond paned windows, lit up by candles and menaced by several crossbows, dusting mud off his hat.
Dodd skulked back behind the coach and very quietly, using the point of his dagger and a fingernail which broke, pulled out two of the axle pins in the coach wheels. He then went back down the alleys, past the two urchins who were bent over a tinderbox, and climbed onto the wall of the courtyard again. The goats were up, giving occasional excited bleats, the chickens were complaining to each other but not daring to come out of their hutch, which in any case was bolted against alleycats. With infinite care, Dodd climbed down from the wall and crossed the yard. In front of him was the usual shamble of kitchen sheds and storesheds and the entrance of the cellar. A gabble of talk came from the commonroom.
Holding his breath, Dodd tried the back door to the kitchen which was latched on the inside. Very carefully he put his dagger through the hole and jiggled. For a wonder the bar was not pegged and came up. He went into the scullery where the pots and pans were piled up and into the kitchen where the boy was fast asleep by the fire, wrapped in his cloak with the spit dog huddled in his arms.
A loud growling came from the spit dog. In any case, Dodd needed to talk to the boy. He went over, gripped the dog’s nose with one hand and clamped the other one over the boy’s mouth. The boy woke and squeaked with fright.
“Can ye understand me?” Dodd said patiently, and told the boy what he had come to say. The boy shivered and stared at him, so Dodd hoped he had got the message, tapped the dog on the nose, and padded on to the serving passage, closing the door behind him as he went. He heard a scramble of feet and excited yipping.
There was a second door to the commonroom and Dodd put his ear to it.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” came Carey’s pained tones, “Jusht…on my way home from an evening’sh cardplay with my friendsh and I am shurrounded…shurrounded, sir!…by Smithfield bullyboys who threaten me with croshbows and make me come in here, no idea why, sure it’s illegal. Eh?”
There was a quiet ugly murmer which Dodd could not make out. He was sure it didn’t come from Marlowe, being too deep and not nearly cocky enough. It contained rather a dull certainty. The owner of the coach, then? But Heneage’s voice was lighter than that.
“Yesh, I wash, marrer of fact, wiv him, your friend and mine, Mr. Kit Marlowe, playwright. Got lorsht.”
More muttering. “Mr. Topcliffe,” said Carey’s voice with magnificent boozy arrogance, “my friendsh have all gone home and I would like to ash well. What…ish the problem?”
More murmering. Carey laughed theatrically. “Don’t be ridiculoush,” he said, “I can’t turn Papist. I’m the Queen’sh bloody nephew. And her coush…cousin. If I so much as think about it, which I wouldn’t because it’sh evil and treashon as well, I’d already be in the Tower with my head chopped off. So to shpeak.”
Dodd risked a peek round the door. Carey had sat himself down on one of the settles by the fading fire with his right leg propped on his left knee and a mannered right hand placed just so on it. Standing nearby with a strange expression of mixed fear and amusement on his face was Marlowe. In front of Carey at an angle from the door, arms folded, dark gown with hanging sleeves trailing off his shoulders and men behind him, was an old man with a sword. At odds with the lines on his face was his hair and beard which was a sooty black colour. Dodd didn’t know him.
Marlowe was staring straight at Dodd and must have seen him. Infinitesimally he moved his head to right and left at Dodd, then lifted his brows and his gaze went over Dodd’s shoulder. He turned back to the black-bearded man.
Dodd’s stomach froze twice. First when he knew Marlowe had seen him, once again when he realised what Marlowe was urgently trying to tell him.
A click of the safety hook coming off a crossbow trigger. Dodd sighed softly, let the door shut, and turned with his hands up.
One of the henchmen was standing there grinning gaptoothed, a beer mug in one hand and a crossbow in the other. That was the nuisance of crossbows. Unlike firearms you couldn’t hear them because there was no match to hiss.
“Ha ha!” said the henchman, “Got yer.” He took a pull of beer from his mug and waved the crossbow slightly. “Wotchoo doin ‘ere, yor sposed to be watchin ve coach.”
Dodd paused for a moment, completely mystified then said as near to London-talk as he could get, “Ah wis ‘opin to find booze.”
It didn’t work. The man’s eyes narrowed so Dodd gave up on subtlety and kicked him as hard as he could in balls, hoping he wasn’t aiming the crossbow straight. The man’s eyes crossed, he slowly started to crumple up. Dodd’s hand closed on the crossbow and took it off him to find the thing wasn’t properly loaded and the bolt had stuck fast. There were too many men backing the black-bearded man in the common room, so Dodd changed his plan.
He ran back through the kitchen where the kitchen boy was methodically helping himself to meat hanging up in a larder while the spit dog yipped excitedly. He grabbed the boy by the ear. “Ah tellt ye to run, now run!” he growled and propelled the boy out the door in front of him, followed by the spit dog, still yelping.
The boy ran across the courtyard, slammed open the gate, and disappeared into the alley. The tied-up goats set up a loud bleating and the chickens clucked. Dodd sprinted round the side of the lean-to, found a water barrel, and climbed up it onto the slippery wooden-shingled roof.
He watched with interest, counting under his breath, as a stream of broad men in jacks came rushing into the yard, across it and through the gate, followed by the black bearded man who was pointing with his sword and shouting furiously as he hobbled after.
Wishing again, pointlessly, for Barnabus who would have been very useful with his throwing daggers, Dodd stayed as flat as he could and listened for the sounds to die down. Then he climbed up a little to a balcony, hearing the whispering and giggling of the urchins down in the yard.
It was a struggle to get over the ra
il thanks to the stupid stuffed hose he was wearing. He tried the door to the best bedroom but it was locked. He used his dagger to attack the hinges of the window shutters where the wood was old and a moment later after some stealthy cracking, managed to lever the shutter back and off, leaving a space large enough for him to climb through and into the empty bedroom. He hoped. He held the useless crossbow out and waited for the shout and scrape of steel but there was no sound of breathing in the room.
The corridor was also empty. Dodd clattered down the stairs with his sword in his right and the crossbow in his left, and came upon a fascinating picture.
Two men must have been left to guard Carey but they were both in crumpled heaps on the floor. Marlowe and Carey were standing over them. Carey looked up as Dodd came down the stairs, slightly breathless no doubt because of the tightness of his doublet.
Carey beamed at Dodd. “Excellent, Sergeant, I told Kit you wouldn’t be long.”
Dodd crushed the impulse to grin back like some court ninny. They were very far from being safe and in fact he could smell smoke already. He went over and checked the men on the floor and was happy to find a pouch of quarrels on one of them, which he took. He then carefully discharged the crossbow in his hands which popped the bent bolt out onto the floor, put his toe in the stirrup, rebent the bow and hooked it so he could slot in a new bolt. Much happier, he shook his head at Carey and Marlowe’s move for the kitchen and instead went straight for the main entrance to the inn where the coachman was sitting on the coach driving seat, looking worried.
Dodd pointed the crossbow at him and he froze and sat back down again.
“Ay,” said Dodd. “Ye didna see nothing.”
The coachman nodded wildly. Carey and Marlowe looked at each other.
“Shall we steal the coach?” asked Marlowe, giggling slightly.
Dodd sighed. This was a serious business, not a boy’s escapade. “Ah wouldnae advise it,” he said coldly.
Carey looked over his shoulder. “Somerset House,” he said.
They bunched together and headed up to Ludgate and then left into Fleet Street over the Fleet Bridge that stank to high heaven. Dodd’s eyes were itching with tiredness.
A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery Page 11