‘…I’ll kill you, I’ll rip your head off and shit…blrggggle ggrrrg…’
Carey lifted the head out of the water again. ‘You awake yet, Greene?’ he asked conversationally.
‘Herrrck, herccck…’ said Greene, eyes popping and water streaming down his beard which still managed to glow like a beacon. He sat on the edge of the planks and whooped and spat for several minutes and then grabbed for his sword hilt.
Carey dunked him once more. ‘Get his sword, Dodd,’ he said.
Dodd got his sword, which was another of those nasty foreign rapiers the Londoners seemed to like so well, though the blade was dull and didn’t look like it had been sharpened or oiled for a long time. He tutted at such carelessness, collected the man’s poignard dagger as well and waited for Carey to let Greene breathe again.
‘Huyuhhhh…herrrr…huyhhhh…’
‘Are you awake?’ bellowed Carey right in Greene’s horribly stinking face. ‘Do you know me?’
‘Huuuuyuuh…I’ll…herrrgh.…I’ll kill you. Where’s my sword…hugggh…’
‘I’ll fight you any time, Greene, but first I want to talk to you. Do you understand me?’
Greene pushed him away and lurched to his feet, wiping his eyes and coughing fit to crack his chest. ‘You shit…’ he gasped. ‘You fucking bastard…’
Carey was standing too, with Dodd at his back. ‘My father gave you five pounds for information about my brother Edmund. Now I want to know what you’ve discovered…’
Greene flailed a fist at Carey, which he ducked, shouldered Dodd into the riverwall and stumbled up the alleyway. They went after him and caught up quickly because he was rolling from side to side so much.
‘Tell me what you’ve learned,’ demanded Carey.
‘Go to hell, you bastard.’
‘No,’ said Carey with a dangerous glint in his eye. ‘My father’s the bastard, I’m the bastard’s get.’
Greene blinked at him cross-eyed for a second. ‘Oh yes,’ he slurred. ‘So you are. Well, you can go to hell, you cocksucking bastard’s get and your whore of a mother with…’
Carey punched Greene in the face. He stood swaying like a maypole for fully thirty seconds, then said something that sounded like ‘Whuffle’ and collapsed.
‘Och, sir,’ said Dodd wearily. ‘Now we’ll have tae carry him.’
‘Sir, sir,’ Barnabus was calling from the boatlanding behind them. Dodd looked over his shoulder and saw that Barnabus had had the sense to call a boat. The boatman was backing his oars against the tide’s ebb and Barnabus had the painter in his hand, was wrapping it round one of the posts.
‘Our friend’s been taken sick,’ said Barnabus and the boatman nodded understandingly.
Carey shook his hand from the wrist and flexed his fingers, rubbing at his knuckles in their elegant kid gloves. He had the grace to look embarrassed, though not very.
Between them they hauled Greene back down the alley and got him into the boat, where the boatman solicitously arranged his head so it flopped over the gunwale. He was at least still breathing. At a nod from Barnabus, Simon jumped out and collected Greene’s ironmongery.
‘Mermaid Steps,’ said Carey.
‘That’ll be a shilling then, sirs, to include the baggage.’
Dodd opened his mouth to protest at this wicked overcharging but Carey just nodded. Well, it was his money but you could see how he got through so much of it.
Mermaid Steps were slippery and dangerous. It took all four of them including Simon to haul Greene up, and when they stood at the top, Carey growled, ‘Bugger this for a game of soldiers, we’ll take him in there.’
It looked like a reasonably respectable place, despite having a scandalous bare-breasted mermaid in pink and green on its sign, so Dodd bent his back to the burden again and they managed to get Greene through the door and lay him down on one of the benches just inside.
The innkeeper came bustling over. ‘I’m sorry, sir, he can’t come in. He’s banned.’
‘What?’ said Carey, who was looking frazzled by now and had a small smear of blood and snot from Greene on his shoulder.
‘On account of the damage what he hasn’t paid for.’
‘He’s a poet. You let poets drink in here, don’t you?’
‘I do, sir,’ allowed the innkeeper. ‘When they behave in a respectable fashion. Which he don’t. So he’s banned.’
‘Well, he’s not going to do any damage now, he’s been cold-cocked.’
‘That’s as may be, sir. But he’s banned.’
‘How much was the damage?’
‘Two pounds, one shilling and eightpence. Sir.’
Carey handed it over, while Dodd shook his head and Barnabus sighed.
‘I’ll get us all a drink and a bite to eat, shall I, sir?’ he said after a suitable pause.
Carey nodded and sat down next to Greene who had rolled on his side and started to snore.
‘I suppose we’ll just have to wait for him to recover again,’ he said. ‘Damn it, Greene, you’re a bloody nuisance.’
Dodd rested his weary frame on the opposite bench, peered around the gloom. It seemed like a nice place, this time, fresh sawdust on the floor and some tallow candles in sconces on the walls to light up the dim places. Even the tables were clean. Barnabus came over with two trays laden with a light second breakfast of bacon, sausage, fried onions, cheese and pease pudding, beer and some bread.
They ate in tactful silence while Carey cracked his joints and rubbed his knuckles every so often. Dodd hoped his hand was really hurting him. At last Barnabus belched softly, wiped his mouth on a napkin and coughed.
‘Well, sir, since you’ve found him, I was wondering if you could excuse me for the rest of the day, like you said, sir?’
Carey shrugged. ‘Well, I shouldn’t think Greene’s going to wake for a while yet, so why not? I can’t give you the whole day, I’ll probably need you later, but you can have the rest of the morning off until dinnertime. Will that do?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Barnabus and Simon finished their beer and bustled out of the Mermaid. Five minutes after they had gone, Will Shakespeare came hurrying in, looking around him and waved when he saw Dodd and Carey, who had started a game of primero.
‘Sir Robert,’ he gasped nasally. ‘I’ve got a message for you from your father, sir. He says he’s going down to Hampstead with Mr Recorder Fleetwood to investigate the footpads who tried to ambush you there. He said he’d be grateful if you and Sergeant Dodd could join him, identify them perhaps, and I’ve brought two horses for you.’
Carey sighed and put away his cards, which Dodd felt only showed that the man had the luck of the devil since Dodd had a flush.
‘That’s an infernal nuisance,’ he said, looking down at the body of Greene, prone on the bench beside him and snoring a fanfare. ‘What am I going to do with this? I daren’t leave it behind in case it bloody wanders off again.’
Shakespeare blinked at the man on the bench, caught sight of the carroty beard and twitched. Then he said thoughtfully, ‘Well, I could look after him for you, sir.’
Carey smiled. ‘Would you do that? I’d be most grateful.’
‘Certainly I could do it.’
‘If he wakes up and starts causing trouble, don’t mess about. Just call the innkeeper to help, all right?’
Shakespeare went pink at this patronage but he only nodded humbly. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Splendid. Where did you say the horses were?’
‘Hitched outside.’
‘Come on then, Sergeant. You’ll have to beggar me some other time.’
‘Ay, sir.’
Friday, 1st September 1952, morning
Carey led the way through the clutter and crowding of the London streets, through the City wall at Ludgate and up the Old Bailey, across the wide expanse of Smithfield which was full of men practising horsemanship and swordplay, some of whom shouted drunken challenges at Dodd and Carey, up Turnmill Street to the li
ttle village of Clerkenwell which seemed to be amazingly full of dazzlingly fine women, and then westwards along country lanes until they joined the Gray’s Inn Road again. There at last Carey put his heels in and went to a canter and Dodd followed, instantly feeling happy to be away from the constant press of humanity. With fresh horses out of Lord Hunsdon’s stables they were there well within the hour, and found Carey’s father, the Recorder of London and a large number of buff-coated men. Hunsdon was leaning on his saddlehorn as Carey and Dodd came up, their horses blowing and panting after the long hill. Carey flourished off his hat in a splendid bow from the saddle taking in his father and the Recorder while Dodd touched his cap.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Hunsdon. ‘About time. Where have you been? I sent Shakespeare out to find you this morning.’
‘Talking to Susannah.’
‘Hmf. How are the children?’
‘Kate forgot to comb her hair this morning and Eddie lost his third hornbook in a month, otherwise they’re well.’
Hunsdon smiled. ‘Mr Recorder Fleetwood and I have been considering, and we’ve decided not to interview the locals yet. We’re going to start by searching for fresh graves.’
‘Good idea, my lord,’ said Carey. ‘Who have you brought?’
‘Who do you think? Here he is. His paw shouldn’t take any harm from a little light sniffing around, eh boy?’
Jimmy the dog-page was holding Hunsdon’s yellow lymer on a long leash and the dog went sniffing delightedly up to Carey’s horse, who put down his head and snorted in welcome.
‘Hasn’t been fed this morning so he should be fairly sharp.’
‘Oh, poor fellow,’ said Carey sympathetically to the dog, who panted and looked hopeful for a while. ‘Well, let’s see what you can find.’
Watched warily by the Hampstead villagers, they left most of the buff-coated men by the horsepond and went into the Cut so that Bellman could sniff the traces left by the deaths of the footpads. Dodd and Carey both went to look for any other traces and found hoofprints and dragmarks in the dust. Then Dodd took Bellman’s leash and went up the little path that led up to the Hanging Elm and had the dog sniff around its base for a while. As expected, the body was no longer there.
‘Why do you think they bothered to put poor old Michael up on the Elm in the first place?’ asked Hunsdon.
Dodd shrugged. ‘They knew our nags might smell the corpse and hid him in plain view. And to give a reason for them spooking if they smelled the ambush too.’
‘That’s what I thought. Barbarous. All right, Bellman. Find. There’s a good boy. Find.’
Wagging his tail happily the lymer pottered around the Elm, snorting rhythmically through his large blunt yellow nose. He found a trail, followed it enthusiastically and eventually stood barking in triumph by a large sandy bank full of rabbitholes.
‘No, Bellman,’ said Hunsdon patiently, and produced a blue velvet cap from a bag by his saddle, handed it down to Dodd to show the dog. ‘Find.’
It took several tries but eventually the lymer found another trail and went off down into the village, snorting and sniffing as he went. Out the other side, the southern flank of Hampstead Hill was covered with market gardens being worked by more of the villagers, who stopped and leaned on their hoes as Dodd trotted by, pulled by the lymer, followed by the dog-page and then Carey, his father, the Recorder and two of the Recorder’s men. Halfway down, a thick wood began and the lymer bounded into its eaves and stopped in a clearing.
There was an unmistakeable bank of newly disturbed earth where Bellman started digging and barking, so Dodd pulled the dog off in case he ate something he shouldn’t. Lord Hunsdon patted the lymer and praised him extravagantly, then produced a large marrowbone from another bag hanging behind his saddle and gave it to the dog who wagged his tail ecstatically, took the bone and lay down with his paws over it, growling if one of the horses or men came too near his treasure. The Recorder sent up the hill for more men and his attendants began working with their spades. After a while they struck something that thudded.
‘Four bodies,’ announced the Recorder eventually. ‘Sirs, would you care to identify them…?’
It wasn’t difficult and not even very smelly—the bodies had been in the earth for only a day and their bellies were just beginning to swell. Looked at closely, you could tell that Michael’s face had been destroyed by a gun put close to it and fired, though whether that was what had killed him was anybody’s guess. He was stripped down to his shirt, as were the dead footpads.
Recorder Fleetwood was talking to his men. Dodd thought it was all very orderly and efficient. Michael was put on a horselitter, decently covered, while the footpads’ bodies were loaded on packponies to go back up to the Hanging Elm for display.
‘Could we search the village houses for that suit of Michael’s?’ Carey asked.
Hunsdon and Fleetwood exchanged cynical looks. ‘I’m afraid I would need search warrants for each house,’ said the Recorder.
‘Why?’ asked Carey. ‘Her Majesty’s pursuivants regularly tear London apart looking for priests.’
‘Ah yes, but that is a matter of high policy and treason. This is only a murder.’
‘Besides, they’ll have sold the suit, I should think,’ said Hunsdon. ‘Surely even Hampstead peasants would have more sense than to wear a suit from a murdered man. Never mind, Robin. I’m going to try something else. Mr Fleetwood, would you and your men kindly assemble the villagers by the horsepond?’
Hunsdon addressed the assembled people from horseback.
‘Now, as you know, goodmen and goodwives of Hampstead, three wicked footpads were killed by my son and his followers the day before yesterday when they tried an ambush at the Cut. I would not dream of suggesting that any of you would be concealing such criminals, which is of course a crime in itself.’
Some of the villagers shifted their feet. Dodd wondered if he recognised a couple of them.
‘However, earlier that day, those same wicked footpads had probably killed my servant, Michael Lang, a good decent married man, that leaves a wife and three children. He had served me since he was a boy.’ Hunsdon paused impressively. ‘I will pay three pounds sterling for any genuine information about that murder. Three pounds in gold. No questions asked. Understand? You may find me at Somerset House in the Strand and I will receive any such informer personally.’
***
Carey seemed subdued as they rode back down Haverstock Hill and followed a roundabout route to return to the Mermaid Inn while avoiding the dangers of the Strand. They found Shakespeare sitting quietly next to Greene, reading a book. He had covered Greene with a solicitous if rancid blanket and put his head on a greasy bench cushion and Greene looked comfortable and happy. Carey tipped Shakespeare and sent him back to Somerset House with the horses.
After they had eaten, Dodd had no further luck with the cards and was led into a couple of very rash bets by sheer irritation with the Courtier’s breeziness—as Carey sternly lectured him after each game.
Carey resorted to tossing a coin over and over.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve had two heads in a row. What are the chances the next time it will be tails?’
‘A bit higher, I’d say, sir,’ Dodd opined.
‘No, no, no!’ said Carey, who had not been intended by Nature for a schoolmaster. ‘The chances are exactly the same.’
‘Why?’ Dodd was frowning at the offending coin, lying innocently on the blackened table. Barnabus and Simon had come in while Carey was at his tutoring and now Barnabus gave a delicate cough.
‘Only there’s nothing doing in the Mediterranean, sir, and I was wondering if you’d mind if I took Simon off to see his mum, see if she’s got any news, you know.’
‘Of course, it doesn’t work if the coins are heavier one side than the other. What’s that, Barnabus? Is that the woman with the fighting cock?’
‘Tamburlain the Great, sir. Yes. I wouldn’t mind seeing how he’s shaping now
he’s finished his moult.’
Dodd, who was desperate to get away from Carey and his notions about cards and the like, stared hard at Barnabus.
‘Sergeant Dodd could come too. I could teach him ’ow to navigate ’is way around a city.’
‘Ay, sir,’ said Dodd quickly, heartily sick of card-playing. ‘I wouldnae mind a breath of fresh air.’
It was certainly true that Greene had been farting with the creativity of the very drunk, but mainly Dodd’s head was hurting from adding up his points and then comparing the score with Carey’s numbers.
Carey looked disappointed. ‘Oh, very well.’
‘Ye willnae have any trouble wi’ bailiffs, sitting here alone, sir?’
‘No, no. The Mermaid’s in the Blackfriars Liberty, I should be safe enough. I might meet some old friends here as well if I stay long enough for them to wake up and venture out of their pits.’
Barnabus led the way up Water Lane, under the Blackfriars Gateway and into the broadest street Dodd had seen in the city, where the cobbles were worn with deep ruts. They walked eastwards along it with St Paul’s looming over the houses north of them and Barnabus dinning Dodd’s ears with a continuous stream of reminiscence, anecdote and the occasional history lesson attached to some landmark or other that they passed. It seemed that navigating in the city was less a matter of knowing where you were going, than remembering landmarks and turning left or right at them. Barnabus took them up a long narrow street and out at a big old-fashioned market cross that he claimed was called Eleanor Cross after some Queen or other. Dodd blinked around himself. They were in a dazzlingly wealthy shopping street lined with barred windows where gold and silver plate and magnificent jewels studded with pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds glinted tantalisingly. Large buff-coated men with swords stood at every door, giving Dodd considering looks when he went up to gawp at the displays. He knew he was gawping and it annoyed him, but he couldn’t help it. Never in all his life had he seen so much money laid out before him, so many vast golden cups and bowls, so much wrought jewellery. It made your mouth water, truly it did.
‘This is Cheapside,’ said Simon Barnet at Dodd’s elbow. ‘Good, innit?’
4 A Plague of Angels Page 11