A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery

by P. F. Chisholm

  Dodd opened his mouth to speak, then paused. “Ah, no, it slipped me mind, what with the heid on a pike and Letty screaming, ye ken.”

  Carey was looking thoughtful. “Well, we’ve read the invisible ink now and it shows, but we haven’t cracked the cipher so we’ve no way of telling who it was addressed to. I wonder if…”

  “Ay,” said Dodd who was well ahead of him. “We should try giving it to her. Only I might get in trouble for not giving it to her before.”

  “She won’t be very pleased, but at least she won’t box your ears and call you clabber-brained,” said Carey with some edge.

  Dodd hid a smile. Carey stood and went out the back to the jakes. He came back with a small purse of gold that he must have been keeping in his codpiece, gave it quietly to Dodd.

  “I’ve taken half out of it and I want you to look after it for me and not give me any of it, understand?” said Carey very seriously. “If we’re going to play in the King of London’s game, I want still to be solvent afterwards.”

  “We’re gonnae go there, are we?”

  Carey blinked at him. “Of course. I’ve been before but we were very clearly invited tonight and I’m going. Only…” He spread his hands and shrugged.

  “Will they be cheating?”

  “Oddly enough, they won’t. Laurence Pickering, the King of London, guarantees his game against all pricksters, card-sharps, and highmen and lowmen, and kicks out anyone who breaks that rule. Which makes it more difficult for me because if I’m playing against crooked players, I can usually guarantee to win whereas if I’m merely playing against good players, I can’t be so certain.”

  Thursday 14th September 1592, evening

  According to Carey, Pickering’s game moved around a lot so you could only find it if you were invited. When the sun started to go down they walked into the city and along the busy wharves until they came to Three Cranes in the Vintry. There the men inside the great treadmills that worked the three enormous cranes were just finishing and jumping down to drink their beer and be paid for a day’s work. The last of the barrels of Rhenish and Gascon wine were being hurried on handcarts into warehouses to be locked up, watched by the Tunnage and Poundage men who put the Queen’s seal on the locks.

  Other brightly dressed young men were standing around in casual ways, so Carey and Dodd took their ease on a bench by the water and Dodd kept his hands away from his tobacco pouch. They saw the lad in cramoisie and tangerine, large ruff, haughty nose, highly coloured, acned and with a target all but pinned to his back.

  Once the Tunnage and Poundage men had gone off in their boat, things changed. At the back of one of the securely sealed warehouses, a part of the wall slid aside and two imposing men in buff coats came to stand stolidly by the opening. Dodd recognised one of them but Carey held Dodd back from going in at once.

  “Let’s see who’s there,” he said, and watched the other well-dressed courtiers and merchants who went in by the entrance after a muttered conversation with one of the men in buff coats.

  At last Carey stood and followed them, trailed by Dodd. At the door he nodded at one of the men. “How’s your wife, Mr. Briscoe?”

  Briscoe smiled and nodded back. “Near her time, Sir Robert,” he said. “It’s a worry. She says she’ll stop wearing herself out about her brother now she knows it was a man called Jackson and it wasn’t him. Which is a relief, you know.”

  Carey smiled. “By the way, did you happen to hear about the veney I played the other night with some Smithfield brawlers working for Topcliffe?”

  Briscoe’s broad face broke into a grin. “Nearly split my sides, sir. And what came after. I heard it was that mad poet Marlowe wot hired ‘em and he’d better be careful if he goes near Smiffield again, cos none of ‘em are ‘appy about it.”

  Carey laughed.“Well if you should happen to hear anything else about it, I’d be grateful if you’d pass it on.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Anything else going on?”

  Briscoe’s brow creased. “Well, Mr. Pickering’s very worried by the plague in the city, though none of the City Aldermen is bovvered. It’s in the Bridewell now, you know?”

  Carey grimaced. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “And I heard tell one of the bearwardens was sick of it yesterday and died and one of his bears run wild for sorrow.”

  “Not Harry Hunks?”

  “No sir, he’s retired now. Gone back to the Kent herds to sire more bears. That was Big John and they ‘ad to shoot him in the end.”

  Carey shook his head as he handed over the price of entry in gold. “The city fathers think all they have to do is shut the theatres and the plague will disappear, even though it never does.”

  Dodd was thinking of what that poor apothecary had said a couple of weeks before—that the plague always started in St Paul’s, not the playhouses. He resolved not to go near the place again, never mind the rats in the crypt gnawing on only God knew what remains from two hundred years before.

  Briscoe tipped his hat and they climbed the wooden stairs to an upper room lit with ranks of candles and glass windows, with fair rush mats on the floors and painted cloths on the walls. It all seemed very wealthy and respectable until you looked more carefully at the cloths which were covered with pictures of shockingly naked people wearing leafy hats and playing cards and dice and drinking. Some of them seemed to be doing…what they shouldn’t have been. Dodd’s eyes stretched as he took in the details. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wondered if he and Janet..? He gulped and turned away, hoping his face hadn’t gone guiltily red.

  Carey had put on the Courtier again and was also wearing a suspiciously knowing look. Dodd was beginning to suspect that the real article was the Berwick man who showed up occasionally when Carey was under pressure, but Carey as Courtier never failed to irritate him with his breeziness and arrogance. As the Courtier sauntered into a group of glaringly-dressed young men and greeted them affably, Dodd found a padded bench to park his padded hose on and felt for his pipe.

  A small bullet-headed man with a smiling face sat down next to him and offered him a light so Dodd passed him the pipe.

  “You’re the northerner, ain’t you,” said the small man, puffing away appreciatively, “what’s come sarf wiv Sir Robert?”

  “Ay,” said Dodd, taking the pipe back.

  “I’ve ‘ad the word out to leave you be and not try to tip you any more lays.”

  Dodd nodded politely at this because he had no idea what the small man was talking about.

  “Fing is,” said the man, “I can’t be seen talking to Sir Robert in public and he knows it, ‘cos that cove over there is one of Cecil’s boys…”

  Dodd followed the man’s glance and saw the pale oblong face of Poley.

  “So when you see ‘im go in the back, I want you to go wiv ‘im. Understand?”

  Dodd bridled slightly at being told what to do but simply nodded. “Ay,” he said.

  The small man smiled, held out his hand. “’Course, I can see you don’t know me. I’m Laurence Pickering.”

  Dodd shook. “Ah…Henry Dodd, sir. Sergeant of Gilsland.” He blinked. Was this the King of London in dark brocades and furs, his balding head bare? Brother-in-law to the London hangman and master of the thieves of the City? He looked like a very prosperous merchant. Which in a way he was, just as Richie Graham of Brackenhill was very much the lord of his manor, never mind where his family came from nor how they got there.

  Pickering winked at him, jumped up, and headed into the throng of players in the corner. The way everyone parted for him told Dodd a lot more than the man’s compact size and modest manner.

  Carey was deep in a game of primero, with the boy in cramoisie and tangerine clearly set out before him like a peacock ready for carving. He drank and smiled and laughed and shouted eighty-five points as he always did and casually tossed an angel—a genuine gold angel this time—into the pot.

  Dodd, shuddering at the idea of a week’
s wages being where you started in this game, stood up and wandered over to the dice players. They were playing with very fine ivory dice with gold pips—perhaps to make them more difficult to palm and swap which had been one of Barnabus’ specialities—the women cheering as one of them threw two sixes and scooped the pot. It was all shillings and crowns there and as Dodd generally played dice for fractions of a penny, he didn’t fancy that game either.

  He hid a yawn. He could have spent the time gazing at the naked women all over the painted cloths, but didn’t want to risk being tempted by one of the girls with her tits peeping over the lace edging of her stays. Although there were musicians in the corner, they were playing quiet complicated music on lutes with no drums at all which was boring to listen to. He had thought that rich folks in London somehow had more fun but as far as he could make out, they did the same things as poor folks only their boredom was more expensive and complicated and took a lot longer. In fact it was worse because with horse-racing you had the excitement of reiving the nags first.

  He could see there were special arrangements to make sure none of the games were crooked. For a start the floormats were clean and white and obviously changed often, while the light from the banks of candles made the room quite bright if very warm. There were no handy shadows where you could hide things or drop inconvenient cards. Young men in tight jerkins with tight sleeves moved about, picking up packs of cards and dice between games and inspecting them. One player had his cards taken and then he was grabbed by three of the burly men standing near the door. Two of them upended him while the other searched him and pulled out several high-ranking cards. He was removed, squawking, down the stairs and some of the gamers peered out the window to wait for the splash as he was thrown in the Thames. There were cheers and catcalls and Pickering leaned out of a window.

  “Don’t come back. If you do, I’ll give you to my brother-in-law.”

  Much obsequious clapping from the young men in jerkins and the women in very low-cut bodices. That was when Dodd spotted him. He frowned. What was Enys doing here—he didn’t gamble? Or he said he didn’t. As casually as he could, Dodd got up and sauntered over to the table where he had seen the heavily pock-marked lawyer.

  They were playing primero, the play tense and close and the pot large. Dodd couldn’t quite make out Enys’s face because he was sitting well back in a corner so he waited until the man had lost and got up to get a drink.

  “Mr. Enys,” said Dodd as breezy as he could, “fancy meeting you here…”

  The man seemed to jump, but then bowed shallowly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “I fear you mistake me, my name is Vent, not Enys.” Dodd blinked at him, puzzled. Certainly the voice was different, but the face…The face was definitely familiar though not really Enys’s.

  “Ay?” said Dodd, “ye’re nocht ma lawyer?”

  “Er…no,” said the man, Vent, “though I have heard I have a double practising law in the Temple at the moment.” He coughed or perhaps hid a laugh. “Possibly I should sue him for defamation of character.”

  “Good Lord, Ah’m sorry, sir, I was sure it was ye.”

  “No matter,” said Vent, “Perhaps you would give your lawyer my compliments, and tell him I would be delighted to meet him over a hand of cards.”

  “I will,” Dodd answered, now feeling awkward. After all, he never liked it when people thought he was the legal type of Serjeant as opposed to a Land-Sergeant. They bowed to each other and Dodd turned back to watch Carey at his game. Several others were watching the game, including Pickering and three of his bully-boys.

  Carey nodded and laid his cards down. “Prime,” he said. The boy in cramoisie and tangerine stared fixedly and then laid his own cards facedown without another word. Carey smiled sweetly at the lad and pulled the pot towards him. As he pocketed his haul, two of Pickering’s men came and stood behind him, one murmured in his ear. Carey looked surprised and then stood up, headed for the door at the back of the room.

  After a moment of concern, Dodd quietly followed them and into a small parlour with a bright fireplace where Laurence Pickering was standing blinking at the flames.

  “Well, Sir Robert?”

  Carey smiled. “Well, Mr. Pickering?”

  “How’s ‘e doing it? Young Mr. Newton?”

  “He’s not cheating in any way I can see,” said Carey thoughtfully, “although he’s not as good a player as he thinks he is.”

  “So why does he win?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Carey spreading his hands. “He might simply be lucky.”

  “Or ‘e’s got a magic ring.”

  Carey’s eyebrows went up. “Hm. I’ve heard of them and a number of astrologers and magicians and whatnot have tried to sell them to me but I’ve never heard of one that actually worked. It’s like alchemy. It’s always going to work, or it would have worked if you hadn’t scratched your nose at that particular moment, or tomorrow when the stars are conjunct with Jupiter it will work, but today, right now, when you want them to, in my experience, they never work.”

  Pickering had his head on one side, exactly like a blackbird eyeing up a worm. He looked sceptical. Carey smiled his sunny, lazy smile. “Besides, if you had a ring like that which actually did work, would you sell it?”

  Pickering hesitated and then burst into laughter, slapping his knee. He poured Carey brandywine and offered some to Dodd who shook his head. He wanted to keep a clear head for whatever was going on here. That was why he hadn’t had another pipe since the first one he had shared with Pickering.

  “So that’s a relief,” said Pickering. “None of my boys could understand it. We actually let him win a night wiv Desiree de Paris so we could check his clothes properly, but nothing. ‘E’s just lucky and one day ‘is luck will run out.”

  “I expect so,” said Carey easily. “Comes to us all, I’m afraid.”

  “’Course the only ovver one I’ve known win so often wivvout cheating, is you, Sir Robert.”

  Carey bowed a little. “Since my love-life is a catastrophe, this is only to be expected.”

  Pickering smiled shortly. “All right, then, you’ve done what I asked. Now. How can I help you, Sir Robert? Or your worshipful father, of course?”

  “Both really. Firstly information about Heneage.”

  “Hmf.” Pickering was rubbing his lower lip. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you feel may be of interest, Mr. Pickering.”

  “He’s short of money,”

  Carey’s eyes went up. “You’d think with all his loot from catching Catholics and so on that he’d be rich.”

  “Well, he’s short enough that he’s wanting me to pay him rental for him leaving me and my people alone.”

  “Oh really?”

  Dodd was surprised. Heneage claiming blackmail money from someone like Pickering? Was the man mad?

  Pickering’s lips thinned. “Yes, really.”

  “You had an arrangement with Mr. Secretary Walsingham…”

  “Yes I did, Sir Robert. He left me in peace. I made sure that there was reasonable peace in London and if he needed to know anything, he knew it, no questions asked.”

  “And Heneage…?”

  “Wants paying.”

  Carey tutted quietly.

  “And sends Topcliffe to collect.” Pickering spat deliberately into the fire.

  “Dear oh dear. He certainly seems in a hurry at the moment, Mr. Pickering. Are you aware of the problems my father and brother had with him a week or two ago.”

  “I’d ‘eard somefing,” said Pickering cautiously. “You was in a good stand-off in the Fleet’s Beggar’s Ward, I ‘eard all about that.”

  “Mm. And you’ll be aware that Sergeant Dodd here has been trying to bring Heneage to court over his maltreatment.”

  Pickering snorted quietly at this, an opinion Dodd shared.

  “Now there’s something afoot over Cornish land,” Carey said. “I asked your brother-in-law about the hanging, drawing, an
d quartering of a purported priest named Fr. Jackson.” Pickering’s small bright eyes narrowed and sharpened at that. “The man whose head ended up on London Bridge was in fact a Mr. Richard Tregian, a respected Cornish gentleman and a…an acquaintance of my mother’s.”

  Pickering nodded.

  “He had been involved in the selling of Cornish lands that had gold in them, working with a surveyor and assayer, who was the priest Fr. Jackson under whose name Tregian ended being executed—if that was actually the man’s name. In fact my mother came up to town herself to talk to him—although I don’t yet know why. His daughter is in my mother’s service and came with her—bringing a copy of a survey of the areas in question.”

  Carey paused to take a drink of brandywine. “She had it in her purse under her kirtle—she’s a Cornish girl and nobody there would steal it from her so she had no idea…Anyway, she comes up to town with my mother in the Judith of Penryn, she cannot find her father where he is supposed to be lodging, she goes with my mother shopping on London Bridge, and there she sees her father’s head on a spike.”

  Now it was Pickering’s turn to tut.

  “Understandably she screamed the place down, spooked her horse and gave Sergeant Dodd here some trouble to control the nag. In the flurry she thinks her purse with the survey in it was stolen, or at any rate, she didn’t have it any more when she got home and the cord had been cut.”

  Pickering nodded. “If it was any of my people wot nipped that bung, I’ll have the survey back in your hands by tomorrow, Sir Robert,” he said in measured tones. “There’s no chance she might of sold the survey and then…”

  Carey smiled and shook his head.

  “Who would she sell it to? She knows no one in London, she’s only a country maid. Besides she has been with my mother the whole time she’s spent in London.”

  “Hm.”

  “And one other matter. A corpse fetched up against the Queen’s Privy Stair a few days ago, but in a state that showed it had been in the water considerably longer. The man had been stabbed but died of drowning—perhaps because he was wearing leg-irons at the time he fell in the Thames. It fell into my father’s jurisdiction, and at the inquest today a woman turned up calling herself Mrs. Sophia Merry, claimed the body as Mr. Jackson, and then almost held an illegal Requiem Mass for him this same afternoon. I want to know if any of the watermen saw him going into the water? He had the top joint missing from his left index finger.”