‘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.
‘Tell me. If only to pass the time while you wait for your enemies to give up.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said to himself. ‘I know he was wearing one of my old suits, but still…Mother, if you were looking for a popinjay courtier and you saw one man in a woollen suit and one man tricked out like me, which would you pick?’
Nan smiled and pointed at him.
‘Quite. But I distinctly heard them address him as Sir Robert…by my name, and ignore his denials.’
‘Perhaps a friend of yours pointed out the wrong man.’
‘Yes, but…why? Why not have them arrest somebody completely different. Why Dodd? It doesn’t make…’ He stopped and stared at her without seeing her at all. ‘I wonder. Would he do that? Why?’
Nan said nothing, only addressed an heretical prayer to St Bride and also St Jude to do something to help the young man. It seemed her prayer was answered for he suddenly smiled at her radiantly.
‘I’m a fool. I’ve treed myself again. He’s probably waiting outside with a good force of pursuivants. When is the Sunday Service?’
‘In about an hour, at nine of the clock.’
‘Excellent. Mother, would you run an errand for me?’
She smiled impishly. ‘Walk, certainly. Run—no.’
***
Kit Marlowe waited for his henchmen, sitting perched languidly on the churchyard wall of St Bride’s. He was annoyed with himself and with Carey. He hadn’t thought the man so dense, had in fact considered him not far off his own intellectual equal, for all the Courtier’s lack of the classics. And you could see what King James of Scotland saw in him; such a pity Carey only liked women.
Marlowe had one man to cover the side door and was himself watching the main door. It was possible of course that the Courtier had found another way of escape, but Marlowe doubted it because his men were scattered strategically around the various alleys and he would have heard the noise if Carey tried to get past them.
Londoners dressed in their best clothes were arriving in the courtyard, the women gathering in bright knots to chatter, the men talking and nodding among themselves. Oh now, that was annoying. He had forgotten that Sunday Service would be starting soon, but it meant he couldn’t search the place, even after his men had arrived. He should have gone straight in.
A little old woman came out of the church, trotted past with her hat on, as short and round as a chesspiece. He moved to block her path.
‘Goodwife, a word please.’
‘Yes, sir?’ She curtseyed and smiled at him.
‘I am looking for a Papist gentleman, very well dressed in cramoisie velvet, lilies on his hose, dark red hair, blue eyes, a little the look of Her Majesty the Queen. Have you seen such a man?’
Her round wrinkled face blinked up at him. ‘A Papist gentleman, sir? Fancy!’
‘Yes, a very dangerous man. Did he come into your church?’
‘Why would a Papist go into our church?’
‘To hide from me.’
‘Oh, sir. I’ve not seen any dangerous Papists.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To fetch vestments. Why, sir?’ she said. ‘Are you waiting for the service to begin?’
‘Yes, goodwife,’ he said shortly.
She nodded her head inanely. ‘Isn’t St Bride’s beautiful in the sunshine?’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a work of God to see it. We have a well of miraculous water, you know? Did you know that Our Lord drank from the well, our very own well?’
‘Did He?’
‘Oh, He did sir, it’s quite certain.’
Marlowe rolled his eyes. ‘Thank you, goodwife.’
‘Then I’ll see you at prayer, sir.’
‘No doubt.’
‘Well, God be with you, sir.’
Marlowe didn’t give the normal reply, only turned his face and stared pointedly at the beheaded saints on the church wall. ‘I very much doubt it,’ he muttered, and ignored her curtsey as she trotted past.
The church was definitely filling up fast now, mothers with their children in clean caps, arguing and being threatened with beatings and bribes if they made as much noise as last time, elderly men with long beards and fine gowns…All of Fleet Street was there, and Fleet Lane and Ludgate Hill.
‘There you are again, sir,’ said a perky cracked voice beside him, and the cleaner was simpering up at him again, puffing hard with a heavy cloth bag in her hand. ‘Well, would you care to see the vestments? Very beautiful, made of silk, you know, as beautiful as a rainbow.’
‘No thank you, goodwife,’ said Marlowe impatiently, watching hard for anyone going against the throng. If he was there, Carey would almost certainly wait through the Service and then try to slip out with the crowds of folk as cover—it was the obvious thing to do.
One of Marlowe’s men came over for orders as the church cleaner went in at the sacristy door, and Marlowe disposed them as best he could. He was a hunter, and his fox had gone to earth. What he really needed were terriers and an ecclesiastical warrant
. Unfortunately, it took at least three days to get one from the argumentative church courts. But Carey had to leave the church at some stage if he was going to do anything now he had no men to his back, and that’s when Marlowe would nip him out. Then they could talk.
Marlowe sighed. Somebody had to go into the church, to be ready by the door, but not him. Carey knew his face too well.
Divine Service had never seemed so long before. Marlowe presumed the vicar was preaching the evils of atheism and the essential nature of God’s church, with no doubt some lurid and dubious tales of Hell to keep the congregation in awe. It passed his understanding why anyone ever believed anything a priest said: how the Devil could anyone know what happened in Hell, since nobody was ever going to come back and describe it?
The church itself was nothing but a vast playhouse for instructing the people in subjection to their betters. He supposed it was good enough for the general run of men and for all women, of course, but anyone with a real brain must see through the mummery. However, hardly anyone did. They repeated meaningless words and yearned towards the void like the sheep they were.
At last the congregation was coming out. Marlowe stood straight and paid attention as the men took their leave of the vicar and the women started their ceaseless starling chatter again.
He waited, beginning to grow concerned. Leaving one man to watch the main door he went round to the side door but found it still locked. His man confirmed that none had come out.
He hurried back again and asked the man he had left there who had come out. An important family, some country bumpkins visiting London, another family, children, serving men.
‘Any courtiers?’
‘I’d have stopped him if I’d seen him, sir,’ said the man, looking offended. ‘I know what we’re looking for. Tall, dark red hair, blue eyes, lilies on his hose. Right?’
‘Nobody like that has come out?’
‘No, sir. Nor anything even similar.’
The crowds were thinning, a few boys were being shouted at by their mother for tightrope-walking along the church wall. Marlowe folded his arms and his lips thinned with anger. Surely Carey hadn’t given them the slip. His men weren’t bright but their job involved watching carefully for men described to them and they were good at it. Also they were afraid of him and his power from Heneage. They wouldn’t have missed Carey. He must still be skulking inside.
4 A Plague of Angels Page 21