The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  Next day Susannah Kerr took over the day-to-day care of the Prince quite smoothly. Every single scrap of food that had been left in the chamber after the puppy attack, was gathered up and taken to feed some handsome Tamworth pigs in the village who showed no ill-effects. Elizabeth would have banned the doctors if she could, but Carey himself said that it was important that the Prince still have his medical treatments.

  And so Elizabeth stood by while the four learned men came swooping grimly into the Prince’s chambers. Dr Hughes felt the Prince’s twelve pulses, while Dr Cunningham uncovered a bowl of pungently smelling hot water which was intended to cause the Prince to sweat out his excess of phlegm. The Prince was wailing sadly and holding his stomach which was starting to swell. Elizabeth was reminded of some of the terrible sights she had seen during the northern famine of the late nineties. She had to force herself to remain still as the doctors talked in Latin over the child and herself.

  “Dr Stott, pray continue,” said Dr Hughes after a learned disquisition. Then he turned to Elizabeth, “His grace is to have a new medicine which I believe may answer well, designed to soothe the irritation of the tissues caused by the Nurse’s treachery.”

  Dr Stott advanced, holding a small bottle and poured a dose into the Prince’s cup, smiling as he did so.

  “Now please do not be alarmed if the Prince needs to sleep after his physic, he shall be far better in the morning . . .”

  Elizabeth took the cup from him as he advanced towards the Prince.

  “Yes, thank you Dr Stott,” she said pleasantly and rapped quickly twice on the wall beside her.

  Carey stepped through the door from the passage.

  “My apologies, Mrs Kerr,” he said smoothly, “However the Queen has ordered that everything that the Prince eats or drinks must first be tasted by the person who brings it. Which includes you, Doctor.”

  Dr Stott seemed to be standing very still, the pleasant smile fixed on his face.

  “Sir?” he asked, seeming confused.

  “Only a routine test, doctor. Please be so good as to taste the medicine before you give it to the Prince.”

  Elizabeth moved towards him, holding out a silver cup. He reached for it, but seemed suddenly clumsy and dropped it on the floor. Dark liquid spilled stickily into the rushes.

  “How unfortunate . . .” said the Doctor, smiling again. “Alas, I must now mix some . . .”

  “Guards!” said Carey quietly. Two of the Gentlemen of the Guard stepped through the other door and took hold of his arms.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded Dr Hughes, starting to swell like a turkey-cock.

  It was Elizabeth who saw what Dr Stott was planning. She barged forwards as he lunged towards the Prince who was still in Mrs Kerr’s arms. Instinct made her pull back as the small scalpel in the doctor’s hand flashed past her, and she swung her padded hips into him as hard as she could. He stumbled sideways; Carey moved in the same moment and punched him on the chin.

  The doctor fell to the floor, half-stunned, was grabbed and his arms twisted very ungently up his back as the Gentlemen hauled him out. Drs Hughes, Cunningham and Pike simply stared with their mouths open, looking exactly like a row of codfish.

  The Prince pulled his face out of Mrs Kerr’s neck, pointed imperiously at the doctors and said his second sentence ever. “B-bad!” he shouted, “Go away now!”

  Carey was rubbing his knuckles ruefully. “You heard his grace, gentlemen,” he said drily. “Off you go.” He smiled at Elizabeth.

  “B . . . but . . . You have no evidence . . .” gobbled Dr Hughes.

  “Fortunately,” Elizabeth explained, trying not to let her shakiness come out in her voice, “I kept the original medicine poured by Dr Stott so what he knocked to the ground was simply a wine syrup.” She looked at the stuff in the cup. “Although I think Dr Stott’s actions have convicted him, we will try and learn what this physic would have done.”

  The piglet who slurped up Dr Stott’s physic died in its sleep shortly afterwards and Mrs Gates was immediately released. Elizabeth had to explain to her how she had been arrested simply to trap the real culprit and after a gift of a handsome new shawl she grudgingly agreed that it had been for the best.

  The Careys attended on the Queen in her Presence Chamber, and Sir Robert paced up and down to explain.

  “When I was sure it could not be something in his food then there were only two possibilities,” he said as the Queen listened intently. “Either one of his nurses or cradle-rockers had been somehow induced to do it or it must have been one of the doctors. After all, among other crimes, when the puppy raided the Prince’s chamber he knocked over the physic bottles and licked up the spill. And yet the Nurse would at least lose her place if the Prince died and all the doctors had sworn the Hippocratic Oath – and yet, when a doctor’s patient does die, the doctor is not usually blamed. So I was more suspicious of the doctors. But it was a puzzle to know which one it could be. And so I made the arrest of Mrs Gates to reassure the learned gentlemen that they were not suspected and my wife laid the trap.”

  “Sir Robert had warned me that the first person to offer the prince anything to eat or drink should be suspected, because they would wish to finish the job whilst Mrs Gates could still be blamed for it,” Elizabeth explained. “When Dr Stott offered his physic, I had two silver cups ready, one already filled. I exchanged one for the other and when my husband told him he had to drink it, sure enough, he contrived to knock it to the floor, believing this would prevent his treason being discovered.”

  She drew a great breath because the memory of the scuffle still made her heart pound. “As for what happened after, I can only think he must have panicked or perhaps have been half mad before . . .”

  “Lady Carey, you put yourself between my son and the traitor’s knife,” said Queen Anne softly, “That I will not forget.” She turned to Carey, “As to the doctor’s reasons . . .?”

  “His colleagues only know that he came from the Prince of Wales’s household and seemed a learned man, able to converse in Latin as well as them.”

  “Could the Papists have suborned him? Or the Puritans? Or some ill-affected men of Scotland?”

  Carey spread his hands. “Your Highness, he is being put to the question as we speak, but . . .”

  “But?” asked the Queen with her eyebrows raised.

  “I doubt that torture ever gets the truth from anyone. I would have preferred to question him over time myself.”

  “His majesty the King has ordered it,” said Anne of Denmark flatly. “He is convinced it must be a connection of the Ruthvens.”

  Sir Robert bowed politely.

  “Lady Carey,” said the Queen, “I have decided that you will be in sole charge of the Duke of York’s household from now on.”

  “Thank you, your highness.”

  “Do you think he will die?”

  Elizabeth swallowed hard. “Your Highness, it is in God’s hands. But if I have free rein with him, I will do everything in my power to bring him up as healthy and happy as mine own children.”

  “Do so,” said the Queen.

  “With your permission, I shall dismiss all the doctors since they did not see that he was being poisoned.”

  “Certainly,” said the Queen firmly.

  As the Careys walked down the wide stairs where the Royal households were packing up ready to move again, Elizabeth looked sidelong at her husband.

  “What did Dr Stott really say when you questioned him?” she asked.

  Carey smiled ruefully. “He informed me that while he was in the household of the Prince of Wales he was told by an angel that when he was King, the Duke of York would cause the destruction of the Crown of England. He claims to be on a mission from God.”

  “But Prince Charles won’t be King,” Elizabeth protested.

  “No, the next King will be King Henry IX, of course,” agreed Carey.

  “Did Prince Henry know of this prophecy?” Elizabeth asked, a nast
y thought occurring to her.

  Carey sighed. “I’m afraid he did.”

  Historical note: Elizabeth Lady Carey did in fact have the care of young Prince Charles for the rest of his childhood. She battled with King James himself to prevent the young prince having his legs put in iron boots to cure his incipient rickets and having his tongue cut to help him speak. Under her care the Prince became healthy and strong, though still very short, and when he was old enough Sir Robert Carey took over as his Governor.

  THE TOWER’S MAN

  MICHAEL JECKS

  Catholics, who had long been disaffected during the reign of Elizabeth, initially felt some hope when James came to the throne. He was the son of a Catholic sympathizer, Mary Queen of Scots, and they may have felt he would give strength to their cause. Alas, such was not to be. Indeed, James reinforced the penalties of old at the Hampton Court Conference convened to discuss religious grievances in January 1604. When the Catholic concerns were not addressed, Robert Catesby and his fellow conspirators plotted to blow up Parliament and with it, the King. So was hatched the infamous Gunpowder Plot. Despite how much we know about the Plot, there are many discrepancies between the various accounts, some of which were testimonies given under torture. Like so many other key events in history, there is the official account and the rumours.

  The possibility that all may not be as it seemed is the starting point for the following story. Michael Jecks (b. 1960) is best known for his long-running series featuring the Keeper of the King’s Peace, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, and Bailiff Simon Puttock, set in Devon in the fourteenth century and which began with The Last Templar (1995).

  There is a particular smell, a sort of musty foulness, that is the stench of terror and despair. It cleaves to those who sit in anticipation of their execution, like those poor devils in the Tower. As I sit here before my fire, I can still detect it upon my clothing, even though it is over an hour since I left that abominable little chamber.

  I can recall it to mind with a startling precision. Strange for, as I entered, I felt as one who was blind. There appeared to be no light when the gaoler took his lantern away. Perhaps the fact that my eyes could only gradually acclimatize to the filthy interior imprinted the details upon my mind more acutely because each aspect was brought to my attention individually. I could notice, comprehend and appreciate each detail.

  First, of course, there was the noise. The steady drip, drip, drip of water into a shallow pool; the chuckling of a guard in some corridor close by; the brief scuffle of a rat; and then the slow step of the gaoler as he continued along the passageway. There was no need for him to remain. Not with this prisoner.

  Then, suddenly, there was the odour: the rankness of a body which had remained unwashed for many days, the wounds festering, drool and vomit mingled with excrement. Oh, but there were so many elements of that reek: the nostrils were overwhelmed in a moment, and a relief it was, too.

  The last sense was sight. And by the time my eyes could discern objects within the room, my heart was already steeled in preparation.

  A thin, sickly light came from the grille set high in the wall. The sun could scarce penetrate, for the wall faced north, and with the rain lancing down outside, the battle was too much. Still, I could tell that the floor was stone-flagged as I walked in. And the light showed me a scraping of ancient rushes. There was neither stool, chair nor bench, let aside a table. On the floor I saw a leathern pail for his water, and a cracked wooden trencher with a bowl filled with a watery pottage made his meal. The very look made my stomach clench.

  He sat limply at the farther corner. His back was at the wall, as though he wished to keep in view any man who entered, like the cautious man he was – except he would not now – or could not. His head was pitched forward, one arm over his skull, his hand hidden in the gloom. While his body was hunched, his left leg was up, knee crooked, and his right lay on the ground with a flaccid, useless, immovable look to it. At first I thought he might already have cheated the executioner and died, but no. The torturers knew their job too well. He was alive, but ruined.

  It was unlikely he would recognize me – it had been many years since we had last met – but I considered it prudent to stoop and try to disguise my voice to prevent recognition.

  “You have confessed,” I rasped gruffly.

  I heard him grunt with quick fear, and his head lifted, face peering through the gloom towards me. “I’ve told all I can!” he wavered. He thought his inquisitors had returned.

  It was all I could do to remain in there with him. The sight of that broken face, bruised and ruined, was so repellent to me that I wanted nothing more than to beat at it still more. Yet there was a spark of Christian sympathy in my heart, and no matter that I wished to curse him, I had to tell myself that he was – what? – scarcely six years younger than me. A fool, an idealist, and finally a traitor and attempted regicide, but I could feel some compassion for a man who had been so cruelly used.

  “You have spoken enough.”

  “I know nothing more, I swear it!”

  His voice was slurred, as though he had taken a strong draught of wine. I knew that if I approached I would see the bruises, the mashed lips and bloody chin. But even as I felt the stirrings of pity, I drew in my mind’s eye a picture of the carnage this man had tried to unleash. I saw the noble victims, their blood flowing freely into the Thames, limbs torn from them, splashes of gore on the rubble, and in among them, I saw a little girl, her blue eyes lifeless, clutched by her dead mother.

  It was enough to kill any soft-heartedness. “Is there any more you could say? Or would say?”

  I don’t think his ears worked any more. Perhaps it was just that his mind was addled after the pain, but he seemed incapable of listening to me. Maybe that was why he didn’t recognize me. “I have confessed. They all trusted me because they knew I was reliable.”

  “Reliable enough to slaughter many innocents. You had ample time to warn people of their plans.”

  “It was a year ago that my master asked me to see him.”

  “And you told no one.”

  He seemed to hear the contempt in my voice. “I could do nothing. If I had spoken, they would have murdered me! What could I do? I was nothing, but they were all rich and powerful men!”

  I couldn’t help but sneer at that. “You were born well enough. Not many men are made to be good yeomen in our kingdom; all too few can afford armour of their own. You had a wife, servant, and money, so don’t tell me you were a poor pawn in the hands of so many important men!”

  “I don’t say I was innocent. God knows, I was guilty enough. Yet this was a blow for our Catholic church. No one could stand aside as evil men seek to ruin the true faith.”

  Aye. There was the rub. A man of any condition could burst from obedience and honour at the thought that his betters were seeking to destroy his religion. There was little else for which a man would willingly lay down his life, but set his priests as naught, and see how even the mildest little mouse would roar and bite.

  I was quiet a moment, considering his words, then said, “So all those who profess the Catholic faith should be destroyed.”

  “In Jesu’s name, no!”

  “If you could be persuaded to commit murder of so foul a nature, so could any of your co-religionists. And the kingdom cannot tolerate those who may commit treason.”

  “It was different!”

  “What was? You were? What sets you apart from others who follow the Pope and the Jesuits?”

  “I was devoted to my master. Robert Catesby was a most determined man, and I admired him!”

  “You followed him because you admired him? You were happy to commit your immortal soul to damnation for his gratification? To murder with a bomb? To slaughter the king and his government?”

  “No. To help him do God’s will and protect all the innocent souls in the land. That was why I followed him. He persuaded me.”

  “A year ago.”

  “Yes. He thought I had n
oticed something. I had. Of course I had. It was obvious something was going on. My master had taken a house next door to the House of Lords, and I wondered why? He was talking with strangers, and I noticed he was buying a lot of tools. It made no sense, and he noticed I was wondering, so he called me to his house in Puddle Wharf . . .”

  “Where you found him and Wintour?”

  “Yes. They made me promise to keep their secret. I had to swear an oath and take the sacrament to prove I would keep it.”

  “And then you helped them to dig their tunnel.”

  “They were constructing a mine beneath the houses and leading into the cellars under the House. But then we learned that the cellar was to be let, and Percy took it over.”

  “And you filled it with gunpowder. How much was there?”

  “Thirty-six barrels, all found.”

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  That thought made me want to kill him there and then. The thought of such a massive bomb, right under the King as he began to speak . . . it filled me with horror. “Did you have no care for others, for the innocents who would be there?” The picture of the mother and child returned to me.

  “Of course I did! But it was like my master said: ‘Dangerous diseases demand a desperate remedy.’ It was plain enough as soon as the King took the throne that he intended to keep the old hag’s laws, God rot her!”

  He wouldn’t have dared speak of her like that in the street! I turned from him at the bile in his tone. She had ruled the kingdom for decades and protected us, her people, to the best of her ability. God Himself had defended her, and us, delivering us from all our foes. Queen Elizabeth was a good, honest, true queen. I would not willingly hear anyone speak ill of her. Yet this poor cretin had been persuaded to take the Catholic faith and as a result hated her. Poor men brought up in the country, seeing little of the real world, were so easily led I could almost pity him.