4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (13 page)

‘Eh, sir?’

‘You got to ’ave heard of
Tamburlain
,’ put in Barnabus, his face glowing. ‘Now that’s proper play. “
Holla, you pampered jades of…
” of somewhere, can’t remember where. Foreign.’

‘Pampered jades of Israel? India?’ Carey was trying to remember too, ‘It’s a wonderful play, plenty of battles…’

‘And the Persian king pulling a chariot,’ said Barnabus reminiscently. ‘You remember, they had him done up like the King of Spain. I did laugh.’

‘Anyway, if Shakespeare can pull off anything half as good as Marlowe, he’ll be doing well,’ said Carey judiciously. ‘I don’t think he will, though; he hasn’t got the boldness.’

‘So he’s not the man your father had looking for your brother,’ Dodd prompted, tired of all this discussion of plays he had neither seen nor wanted to.

‘No, no,’ Carey laughed again at the idea. ‘He’s been hanging around my father’s household for months—before I left he even had me talk Berwick for some character he was thinking about. He wants a patron like any other would-be poet and thinks my father might be mad enough, but also he’s desperately in love with Mistress Bassano.’

‘She doesn’t like him, though?’

‘Of course not. She’s not stupid and anyway, he’s got no money and isn’t likely to get any as a common player. Mistress Bassano has a very clear head.’

‘Not that clear, sir,’ said Barnabus slyly. ‘I thought she had a fancy to you, didn’t she?’

Carey’s eyes chilled suddenly to ice. ‘No, she doesn’t.’

Thinking of the scene in the parlour on the day they arrived at Somerset House, Dodd regarded Carey with a grave lack of expression.

Carey did his family’s explosive throat-clearing and went back to the real topic of conversation.

‘My father hired Robert Greene to find Edmund, seeing as Greene’s a well-known poet and he also knows his way around London’s stews and slums and he has family contacts with the King of London. Greene claimed to be hot on the trail, got five pounds off my father and since then Father’s heard nothing, so the first thing we’ll do is find Robert Greene and ask him what he’s up to.’

Dodd sighed. ‘Find another man first, sir.’

‘This one’s easier than my brother. I know where he lives and more importantly, I know where he drinks. The second line of enquiry is to find out who murdered Michael to stop him talking to me and why.’

Friday, 1st September 1592, early morning

All four of them plunged into the roaring smelly chaos of London’s back streets, Carey very cautiously avoiding the Strand and the Thames where the bailiffs still waited, Dodd with his hand twitching to his swordhilt every five minutes and thinking sadly of the civilised joys of Carlisle.

They first of all went to Edmund Carey’s house, another one of his father’s property speculations in the old Blackfriars monastery. Carey explained this system for making gold breed gold. First you found a place that was cheaper and less classy than it should be considering its location. Then using lawyers and intermediaries you quietly bought up the freeholds of all the houses in it, paying as little as you could. Doing only the most basic maintenance work you waited until you owned the whole place, then you used your court contacts to sort out any legal problems, evicted any disreputable tenants, replaced roofs, redug jakes and generally revamped the area, and then you sold off the freeholds again for quintuple what you paid for them.

Dodd shook his head at such amazing longterm planning.

Edmund Carey’s house was a tall narrow building looking out over the old monastery courtyard, a wilderness of pigpens, chicken coops, overgrown herb beds, a jakes, a choked pond and a dead walnut tree, with a long wall of rubble along one side, out of which poked occasional pillars still decorated with fragments of tracery, like stone trees. Carey gestured at it while they waited for someone to answer the door.

‘You see that? Used to be full of beggars living in the cloister carrells before the roof collapsed a couple of years ago. Now it would take about a month to fill the pond, cut down the walnut tree, tidy up the courtyard and repave it, after which the houses round about would be worth twice what they are now. If you cleared the rubble from the cloisters and built some houses on the site, you’d make even more.’

Dodd nodded, not all that interested. The door was opened by a pretty blonde woman with a velvet cap and little frown lines marking the smooth brow between her eyes. Her face lit up when she saw Carey.

‘Robin!’ she shouted and flung her arms around her brother-in-law. ‘Oh Robin, you’re back. Kate, Eddie, come out and see your uncle back from the wild north. Oh Robin, Robin. I don’t know where he is. I haven’t heard from him for weeks. Have you seen him? He didn’t follow you to Berwick, did he?’

Carey shook his head and disentangled her arms. ‘Susannah, my dear, that’s why I’m back in London. Father wants me to find the silly bastard.’

‘Don’t swear.’

‘Sorry. Hello, Kate, hello, Eddie.’

Two children threw themselves into Carey’s arms squealing, demanding presents and asking was it true that Scotsmen had tails. He told them gravely that he rather thought it was, seeing how big their padded breeches were, and introduced Dodd.

The house had two rooms on the ground floor, one a parlour and the other a kitchen where a grim looking woman was trying to relight the fire. Kate was sent out to get some proper beer, since Susannah was quite sure their Uncle Robin didn’t like mild ale, bread and meat from the cookshop on the corner if it was open yet and if not come straight back, don’t talk to any naughty street children, and when would Kate learn to comb her hair before she put her cap on, for goodness’ sake, and why wasn’t Eddie properly dressed and ready for school, did he think his clothes would magically climb on his back by themselves? No, and where was his hornbook, this was the third he’d lost in two weeks and she could not afford to keep buying them, he’d just have to share someone else’s and if the schoolmaster beat him, then perhaps he’d take better care of his belongings in future…?

Carey and Dodd retired from the shouting to sit in the parlour where the benches were carved but padded with old cushions and the hangings clearly came from Lord Hunsdon’s house because they were too big for the walls. Eventually Kate came trotting in, red-faced, carrying a jug of beer and two pewter mugs, while Eddie sprinted out of the door with his mother yelling at him that if he lost another cap, he could go bareheaded and catch lungfever and serve him right.

Finally she came into the parlour carrying her own mug, sat down and smiled wanly at them while Carey poured her some beer.

‘The children think their father’s in the Netherlands again,’ she said. ‘I know he’s silly, but I wish he’d come back. I do worry so much…’

Carey fished in the pocket of one of his padded sleeves and produced a purse full of money which he handed to her.

‘From Father.’

The frownlines, that had no business on such a pretty face, tightened further. ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t, really; Edmund gets so cross when I take more money from my lord Hunsdon. He’s really too generous.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Carey easily. ‘Doesn’t want his grandchildren to lack for anything, no matter how cretinous their father. What was he up to the last time you saw him?’

Susannah Carey leaned forward, put her elbows on the worn velvet of her kirtle and caged her fingers round her nose and mouth.

‘He was…He was full of plans, full of optimism, quite sure he would sort out our finances once and for all.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Yes. I know. He wouldn’t tell me what the secret was.’

‘Reselling brocades?’

‘No, he’s learnt his lesson on that one, though he still notionally owes Ingram Frizer a lot of money.’

‘Let the little turd sue.’

Susannah shook her head, clearly fighting tears. ‘Obviously, I was worried when he was so pleased with himself. But he wouldn’t tell me and…and…I lost my temper. We had a big fight and he stormed out saying he’d be back when he had hundreds of pounds and then he’d…he’d take the children away and…and…’

Silently Carey handed over his handkerchief, and stared at the ceiling for a bit. After a while he patted his sister-in-law’s shoulder and said, ‘There, there.’

Eventually the sniffling stopped and Susannah blew her nose.

‘What was the secret, Susannah?’

She rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘I think it might have been alchemy,’ she said tragically.

Carey barked with laughter. ‘Oh, bloody hell. I suppose it’s one thing he hasn’t tried.’

‘You see he was talking about how he needed seed-gold.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘He sold the last of his rings and my pearls that I had from the Queen when we married, and off he went. He was buying a gold plate off a sailor, he said, before we started fighting, then that gold would be the seed and he’d harvest ten times as much gold from it.’

‘Let me guess. The alchemist took the seed-gold, started the reaction, some disaster happened and it didn’t work and Edmund needed more money to pay for more seed-gold. Yes?’

Susannah shook her head. ‘Well, no. He did come back, drunk, one night in early August and he showed me a big purse full of gold angels. He said he’d bred ten gold angels for each angel of gold he started with. He was very happy, said we’d soon be out of hock, we made up our quarrel and off he went again. That was the last time I saw him.’

Carey rubbed his chin slowly. ‘It
worked
?’

‘I was surprised myself. I never heard of alchemy working before.’

‘Nor me. Did he let slip any names?’ Susannah shook her head. ‘Well, can I go upstairs and have a look round, see if he left any bits of paper or anything else?’

Susannah gestured at the stairs and finished her beer. Carey went up the stairs and jerked his head for Dodd to follow him.

The main bedchamber was on the next floor, overlooking the courtyard, smelling musty and much used. The enormous fourposter bed hadn’t been made yet and the two clothes chests were open and higgledy piggledy. Carey looked around.

‘Poor Susannah. She never was any good as a housekeeper, any more than Edmund has ever been worth a farthing as a provider.’

‘Why do they not live wi’ yer father?’

Carey shrugged. ‘Edmund doesn’t get on with Father at all, mainly because Father keeps trying to stop him drinking and gambling and Edmund resents it. They had a really bad fight in May after the Frizer business when Father had to pay the man off, and after the surgeon had reset Edmund’s nose, he said he’d rather die in gaol than speak to Father again. All very stupid. Now then, let’s have a look here.’

Carey pawed through Susannah’s clothes and then did the same with the other chest which was rather more full of fashionable men’s clothes, rich black velvet sprinkled with pearls, pale creamy satin. When the chest was empty he thumped the bottom of it in case there were any secret compartments. Dodd narrowed his eyes.

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘What? Oh, yes. How odd.’

Little tiny beads of silver were clinging to the padded leather lining of the chest. Dodd prodded one with his finger and it bounced back, rolled down a seam and joined another bead like two raindrops on a windowpane. Carey tore off a little piece of paper from the small notebook he kept in a pouch in his belt, chased and caught a couple of the little beads, then twisted the paper closed and put it in the pouch.

There was nothing else in the room except for a couple of books of sermons, an empty jewel box and some dirty pewter plates which Dodd brought down with them.

Susannah had a bit more colour in her cheeks from the beer.

‘Did you find anything.’

Carey shook his head. ‘I’ll ask Father to send a woman and a boy to you until Edmund turns up again. When he does you can send the boy to tell us. By the way, did you…er…did you check the gaols?’

Susannah nodded vigorously. ‘Of course I did, it was the first thing I thought of. I went to all of them, the Clink, the Fleet, all of them, but nobody had heard of him. Oh, it’s so worrying. What if he’s dead?’

She was dry-washing her hands helplessly, her mouth wrung sideways with anxiety. ‘What shall I do if he’s dead?’

Carey put his arm across her shoulders and kissed her forehead. ‘Darling, you know my father won’t let you and the children starve. At least if my idiot brother is dead, you’ll be able to find someone better to marry, won’t you?’

‘But I don’t want anybody better, I want Edmund.’

‘I can’t imagine why, he’s never treated you properly.’

‘Well, you know, he is a bit silly with drinking and card-playing and money-making schemes, but he’s a very good man, he’s a good father, he’s never beaten me once, not even when I’ve called him names, he…he…He’s not so bad, really.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ said Carey firmly, kissing her again. ‘Never has. Now dry your eyes. If the fool isn’t at the bottom of the Thames, I’m going to find him. All right?’

Susannah nodded anxiously, blinking up at Carey.

Dodd felt dispirited as Carey bade goodbye to Kate and tipped her sixpence. If folk as rich as the Careys could have money troubles, what hope was there for him?