4 A Plague of Angels

by P. F. Chisholm

  ‘The sick man that you are standing in front of is Edmund Carey and I want him,’ said Heneage impatiently. ‘I’m going to take him, so get out of my way. I won’t tell you twice.’

  ‘You’re going to take him, are you? Who? You personally? I don’t think so. You haven’t the stomach and you haven’t the strength for it. So who’s going to do it?’ Again Julie could hear the smile in his voice as he moved his head to look lazily round at the men-at-arms crowding the stinking cellar and making it even more airless. ‘Are you?’ he asked the nearest one. ‘Or you? Or you, over there? Or the two of you? I think that’s all you could get in on me at once, given the way this cellar’s built. Such inconvenient pillars, aren’t they? Whyever did they build it like that? So you see, it isn’t really very easy for your men, Heneage. They’ve got clubs and knives and I’ve got a sword and I’m sure they’ll knock me down eventually, but in the process I should be able to kill at least one, maybe even two of them. Maybe I’ll maim a few more of them, you never know. This is a broadsword: it’s not perfect for close-quarters work but it’s quite sharp and it has two edges as well as a point and I’m in excellent practice with it.’

  He looked round again, balancing on his toes and looking quite relaxed. ‘So who’s it to be? Which of your men love you, Heneage, which ones would follow you into battle?’

  You could feel the tension in the air and also the way uncertainty spread among the men around Heneage. They were looking at each other, assessing Robin’s stance, deciding whether he was telling the truth, wondering why he was talking so much. Julie knew. He was acting, playing for time. Edmund’s bony fingers were gripping hers tight enough to hurt.

  ‘Maybe we could just fight it out, Heneage, eh?’ Robin was moving now, waving his sword in elaborate arcs and making it flash hypnotically in the sunlight filtering down through the window, shifting his feet like a tennis player. ‘You and me, sword to sword, or knife to knife. That would be fun, very chivalric, very old-fashioned. Or use guns. I can see you’re not a fighting man, more of a desk man really, aren’t you? Standing back while other men do your dirty work, get themselves killed in your service? But you could probably fire a gun, couldn’t you, something light like a dag, only weighs a couple of pounds, you could do that. Maybe you could even aim it straight? I’m not as good a shot as I should be, you’d have a chance.’

  Heneage’s mouth tightened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. In the name of the Queen I order…’

  ‘Don’t drag my cousin into this,’ said Carey pointedly and Julie had to hide a smile because of the expression on some of the men at arms’ faces.

  ‘Webster, Oat, arrest that man.’

  Two of the men at arms moved forward uncertainly. Heneage seemed to expand with rage like a pigeon’s neck. ‘And you, Potter, get him out of there.’

  The men-at-arms were advancing in a circle on Carey who had stopped his little dance and taken up a fighting crouch, the open en garde with sword and poignard recommended for more than one opponent. He was grinning at them, showing his teeth like a fox at bay.

  ‘I’ll give twenty-five shillings to the man who subdues him,’ said Heneage. Carey laughed.

  ‘Christ, Heneage, you’re cheap. The Borderers are offering ten pounds sterling for my head.’

  That was when everything got confused. Julie noticed that the men-at-arms at the back of Bolton’s Ward were distracted, they were looking over their shoulders. Heneage was listening to one who was whispering in his ear, there was the sound of boots on the stairs, shouts. Meanwhile the men at the front hadn’t realised anything was happening, they were focused on Carey and nerving themselves. Suddenly they made their rush, two of them from either side with their clubs high. One swung down, one swung sideways, Carey blocked the higher one with his blade, leaped sideways to avoid the worst of the sideswipe, used his poignard to stab for the man’s face when his sword got stuck in the cudgel’s wood and the man fell backwards away from Carey’s stab while the other two tried to hit him as he tried to shake the cudgel off his sword. Julie flung herself forwards trying to catch the boots of one of them as Carey took a blow on the shoulder and faltered; she caught them and got a kick in the face though she brought the man down.

  There was another man-at-arms in the fight; Carey had dropped his sword, dodged a club, kicked someone in the kneecap and then somebody had caught his arm, he was hit again, shrewdly with the thrusting end of a cudgel in the belly and he doubled over. One man at arms lifted his club high to bring it down on Carey’s head and finish the fight. It bounced off the sturdy haft of a halberd thrust out by a broad elderly man in black velvet and brocade. There was a sweep of tawny satin and flame-red velvet gown as the elderly man whirled, punched the man-at-arms and knocked him down.

  Carey was upright again but obviously couldn’t see properly, hadn’t realised he could stop fighting now, he was lungeing towards the newcomer with his poignard. Julie put her hand to her mouth, but the old gentleman stood his ground with the halberd held in defence across his body and roared, ‘ROBIN.’

  It was almost comical to see Carey stop almost in mid-air, skidding on the slimy floor, fighting for balance. One of the new men at arms in a blazing livery of black and yellow put out a hand and stopped him from falling over.

  ‘F…Father,’ he wheezed as his sight cleared, looking round him at his father’s men, some of whom were grinning. ‘Where the…hell have you been?’ He sheathed his poignard carefully at the back of his belt, and leaned against the wall, tenderly cradled his midriff, easing his shoulder and wincing, shaking his head to clear it.

  Lord Hunsdon looked at his son for a moment, obviously assessing him for serious damage, and then he turned to Heneage who had suddenly seemed to shrink in size and had drawn back. The place was so full of men now, it was hard to move, every one of Heneage’s men countered with one of Hunsdon’s.

  Hunsdon stared coldly at Heneage for several seconds. ‘Mr Vice Chamberlain, I’ll deal with you later,’ he said. ‘Where’s Ned?’

  Carey gestured wordlessly, still working on catching his breath. Julie picked herself up from where she had been nursing her painfully bruised cheek, curtseyed as low as she safely could to Lord Hunsdon.

  ‘He’s here, my lord,’ she said. ‘Be careful, don’t go near him if you’ve never had gaol-fever. He’s been terribly ill with…’

  Quite gently Hunsdon put her aside, went over to his son and embraced him. Only Julie heard what he said which was, ‘There now, poor boy, you bloody idiot, there now.’

  The next moment Hunsdon had turned round and was giving a dizzying series of orders which cleared Bolton’s Ward as if by magic, Heneage standing blank-faced in a corner under guard, his men at arms told they’d get in no trouble if they went and stood quietly in a corner of the gaol courtyard, some of Hunsdon’s men sent running to find and hire a litter, no bloody new-fangled carriages mind, they could ignore the useless contraption standing in Fleet Lane.

  Hunsdon went over and clasped his youngest son to him as well. Carey was recovering quickly now, bright eyed and rather pleased with himself until something occurred to him and his face clouded.

  ‘Where’s Sergeant Dodd, Father?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Have you found him?’

  Heneage’s second-in-command scooped up Carey’s sword, pulled the cudgel off the blade and gave it to him, hilt first. ‘If you mean the northerner, sir, he’s in the carriage.’

  Carey turned and ran out of Bolton’s Ward, up the stairs. Hunsdon nodded at two of his men to go with him. Heneage looked down at his boots.

  Another of Hunsdon’s men came trotting in to report that the litter was ready in the courtyard. Hunsdon took his magnificent gown off and wrapped it around his son before two of the men picked him up carefully under the knees and armpits and carried him up the stairs.

  Hunsdon nodded to Julie and offered her his arm. They were all at the door of Bolton’s Ward, ready to leave, when Carey came back down the stairs two at a time, went over to Heneag
e and, without preamble, lashed out with his fist. Heneage fell back grabbing at his nose and Carey followed up, quite silent, white to the lips, crowding him against the wall, punching him with a blinding flurry of short cruel blows. Heneage cringed, wailing, ‘I didn’t touch him, he didn’t tell me, I worked it out, I never hurt…’ The words ended in a gargle as Carey put his hands round the man’s neck and started to squeeze.

  ‘Stop him,’ ordered Hunsdon wearily and it took three of his men to do it because Carey was deaf and blind to anything except killing Heneage. Julie had never seen a gentleman go berserk before and she found it very ugly and frightening. Edmund would not have lost all control like that, used such barbarous violence.

  Hunsdon went close to his son who was still struggling white-faced.

  ‘Is your man dead?’ he asked. He asked the question several times before his son could be sane enough to answer him.

  ‘No, I…no, he’s not.’

  ‘Is he crippled?’

  Carey’s eyelids fluttered as he thought. ‘I don’t…think so.’

  ‘Well, thank God for that. You’ve a good man there. Now you know you can’t throttle the Queen’s Vice Chancellor, she wouldn’t like it.’

  Robin was breathing hard and shakily. ‘One of…one of Heneage’s servants was there, with thumbscrews.’

  ‘But they hadn’t been used.’

  Robin shook his head.

  ‘Well, thank God for that too,’ rumbled Hunsdon, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder and shaking him gently back and forth. ‘Thank God.’

  Heneage was pinching at the bridge of his nose, bent over to keep the blood away from his fine clothes, his handkerchief darkening.

  ‘I’ll see you in Star Chamber for this,’ he said huskily. ‘How dare you…’

  ‘How dare you touch my man?!’ roared Carey, swinging round to him and making his father’s men grab at him again to stop his lunge. ‘If he dies I’ll make sure you follow him, you’ll swing for it or I’ll kill you myself, you fucking piece of…’

  ‘ROBIN!’ bellowed Hunsdon, nose to nose with Carey. ‘Do I have to hit you to calm you down?’

  Carey was breathing heavily through his nose again but he was trying to regain his self-control. Julie saw him trembling all over like a nervous horse with the effort.

  Heneage was still muttering sulkily and stupidly about lawsuits for battery and assault. Hunsdon looked over at him contemptuously.

  ‘Be quiet,’ he ordered. ‘This is unseemly. We shall discuss these matters somewhere more private.’

  That reminded Julie of the secret Edmund had given her to hold. She turned aside to lift up her kirtle and take it out of the pocket of her petticoat where it had been weighing her down for weeks. She held the heavy little package out to Lord Hunsdon.

  ‘My lord,’ she said. ‘Ned…Mr Carey gave me this to hold for him.’

  Hunsdon took it, looking puzzled. Carey reached out his hand. ‘My lord, may I?’ Hunsdon gave it to him, he opened it, glanced at it and nodded. Heneage watched and for the second time Julie saw real fear in his face. Carey held one of the little round lumps of metal up to the light and squinted.

  ‘The Tower mark,’ he said. ‘I thought so.’ He smiled so cruelly at Heneage that Julie decided she didn’t like him at all. ‘We can destroy you now, Mr Vice, you know that don’t you?’

  Heneage didn’t answer.

  ***

  In a manner that brooked no argument, Lord Hunsdon took over the gaoler’s lodgings. Julie felt that perhaps she should withdraw now, go and see to her children who were staring at her from behind the skirts of the woman who ran the ruff-making circle. But Hunsdon insisted that she stay with him even after Edmund had been loaded barely conscious into the horse litter and sent off at a sedate walk down Fleet Lane towards Somerset House, past the row of tethered horses that had brought Lord Hunsdon and his men to the Fleet. Another litter was being fetched for Robin’s henchman, who was sitting in the sunlight on the steps of the carriage, bent like an old man and looking putty-coloured and ill. Obstinately he insisted in his guttural, almost incomprehensible, voice that if they would just get him a decent horse he could ride, for God’s sake, what did he want wi’ a litter like a woman, he was nae sae bad, he’d been worse, dinna fuss, and forebye he didnae want to go back to Somerset House until he knew what the hell had been going on…In the end, to stop his complaints, two of Hunsdon’s men helped him into Newton’s living room and sat him on the best padded chair, with a cushion to ease his back.

  There Carey paced up and down in front of his father who had taken the only other chair and was sitting behind Newton’s table like a judge.

  ‘As you know, my lord, Mr Heneage wants to be Lord Chamberlain and have control over the Queen’s courtiers, her security arrangements and her mind, if possible.’

  Hunsdon grunted at this in a way which indicated he was neither surprised nor shocked nor very impressed. Carey answered the comment with a smile.

  ‘I know, my lord, it’s pathetic, isn’t it? But still. He wants to remove you, and since you won’t oblige him by committing treason, raping a maid of honour or going to Mass, he’s been looking for some way to blackmail you into resigning your office.’

  ‘I protest at these outrageous accusations. I have never been so insulted…’

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ growled Hunsdon. ‘Let the boy…let my son tell his tale.’

  ‘Under protest, be it noted.’

  ‘Noted, noted. Yes, Robin?’

  ‘Dodd pointed out to me the similarity with some of the gangsters we have in the north. If a man is too strong to attack directly, they kidnap one of his near relatives and apply pressure that way. King James does something similar when he takes noble hostages off his Border lords.’

  ‘Dirty business.’

  ‘Effective, though, my lord. If Mr Heneage had succeeded and taken Edmund into the Tower on some trumped up but believable charge, you might have been willing to exchange the office of Lord Chamberlain for him.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Hunsdon, and glared at Heneage.

  Carey didn’t comment but continued. ‘This summer Edmund was inveigled into a project by two men who called themselves alchemists. The plan as presented to him was to use the Philosopher’s Stone they claimed to have discovered to create a large quantity of gold blanks. They wanted him to lay his hands on a set of Tower coin dies: that way, they said, what they did would not be forgery. The blanks would be gold, the coin dies would be genuine, so the coins they struck would be no different from the Queen’s money in any way.’

  Hunsdon sighed heavily at this. ‘He fell for it?’

  ‘I’m afraid he did, my lord. Of course they needed some seed-gold to work the transformation, which Edmund got for them somehow. And the coin dies—well, by a remarkable coincidence, Edmund knew a man who had just retired from being one of the Deputy Mint-masters at the Tower and who had kept a pair of dies that should have been cancelled because they were an old design.’

  ‘Heneage’s man?’

  Carey smiled. ‘Of course. Edmund bribed the man to get the dies. He witnessed the transformation, which he found very impressive since he knew nothing at all about the goldsmith’s art. What he saw was a method called parcel-gilding. According to the goldsmith I talked to, it’s a very simple thing to do if you know how to control a furnace and the main problem is to keep the mercury fumes from escaping so you can resublimate it and reuse it. An alchemist’s pelican does the job perfectly.’

  ‘At the end of it he actually had a pile of parcel-gilt pewter blanks, but he thought they were genuinely gold?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Why in the name of God didn’t he weigh them himself to make sure?’

  Carey waved an arm. ‘I don’t know, my lord.’

  Hunsdon rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, then they struck coins from the blanks using the Tower dies and of course the coins looked perfect. Edmund believed
that the whole operation was nearly official; one of the alchemists had a warrant from Heneage and the idea was that the coins would be used to help pay for the expenses of his intelligencing which the Queen will never give him enough money to run properly. Edmund took a fee for his part in getting the seed gold and finding the coin dies.’

  ‘And then he tried to spend it and found…’

  ‘Quite so. They were straightforward forgeries. His tailor weighed them and told him what they were.’

  Hunsdon was staring coldly at Heneage. ‘Of course uttering false coin is a hanging offence.’

  ‘Which the Queen takes very seriously.’

  ‘Very seriously indeed. She would be enraged,’ said Hunsdon. ‘The most I could have done would have been to beseech the mercy of the axe for Edmund. She might also have been suspicious of me.’

  ‘Precisely, my lord.’

  Hunsdon nodded. ‘Well, it’s clever, you have to give him that,’ he rumbled. ‘It might have worked.’

  ‘I think Heneage planned that Edmund would be arrested for coining. He would then offer to you the services of his pursuivants to find the alchemists responsible, in exchange for your resignation from the Lord Chamberlainship. Possibly he might even have found somebody to take the blame.’

  Hunsdon nodded again. ‘Under such circumstances…Hm.’

  ‘Only at last, Edmund started to use his brain. When the tailor accused him, he worked out what had been going on, what the whole elaborate coney-catching operation was about. He isn’t stupid, he’s…’

  ‘He has no common sense. Whatsoever.’

  Carey coughed. ‘At that point he panicked. He knew Heneage must be behind the business because of the warrant. All he could think of was to lie low somehow. It seemed to him that he might be safer in gaol than out of it, so he struck a deal with the tailor to be arrested in a false name.’

  ‘But why the devil didn’t he come to me?’

  ‘He was afraid of your anger, my lord, and also…He was ashamed. He knew how stupid he’d been.’