4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (18 page)

Marlowe put down four fives and Carey shook his head, sighed and threw in his cards. Marlowe smiled in his self-satisfied way and pulled what looked like a very tasty pot towards him.

Dodd tutted sympathetically. ‘Your luck out today, sir?’

‘I must be on the point of getting married, it’s been so bad.’ The man called Poley was dealing again and Greene waved a hand to be included.

‘Don’t waste your sympathy,’ Greene slurred at Dodd. ‘It’s only justice because he won’t tell me why he’s in London and not up in your part of the world having fun hanging sheep-stealers.’

Carey picked up his cards, raised his eyebrows at Greene. ‘You’d have heard about it by now if you hadn’t been so stinking drunk when I found you.’

‘A slight indisposition,’ said Greene, wiggling his fingers generally at Carey. ‘Nothing to be concerned about. I’ve been off colour since I overdid the eels and Rhenish wine last month.’

‘No doubt,’ said Carey. ‘Shocking bad wine the Germans sell, isn’t it?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Greene with dignity. ‘I’m certain it was the eels that were off. Very dangerous to the health, bad eels.’

‘So why are you back in London so soon, Sir Robert?’ asked Marlowe, putting his new cards into a neat pile and laying them face down on the table. ‘I thought Mr Bullard was after your blood.’

Greene sucked air in a whistle through his teeth and tutted with bogus sympathy.

‘No, no,’ said Carey nonchalantly. ‘He’s being paid off, he’s perfectly reasonable.’

Poley laughed quietly at this and so did Greene, only more loudly. Marlowe nodded, grave as a parson.

‘You’ll be moving home to London then?’

‘No, I like Carlisle. I’ll be back there as soon as I can.’

‘The Queen’s in Oxford,’ pursued Marlowe. ‘Are you going to see her?’

Carey looked at him levelly and Dodd had the sudden feeling that this was a river with hidden whirlpools in it.

‘Come on man, out with it,’ roared Greene, who seemed unable to talk except in a bellow. ‘We never thought we’d see you again, what with the creditors and King James and Lady Wi…er, the northern ladies and all.’

‘Oh, don’t be such an idiot, Greene,’ said Carey, in the drawl he used when he was getting annoyed. ‘You know perfectly well what I’m doing here, since my father’s paying you to do the same.’

Greene opened his eyes wide in a parody of innocence. ‘And that is, dear boy?’

‘Look for my brother Edmund, who has somehow lost himself in London.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Greene. ‘To be sure. Edmund. Fine chap.’ There was a glugging noise as a mug of sherry-sack went down his throat. Dodd called for some himself, on the grounds that if the Courtier had decided to spend the night drinking and losing yet more money, who was he to differ? ‘Drawn a blank, though. Nobody’s seen him for weeks.’

‘Maybe he’s caught the plague and died of it,’ said Dodd, surprising himself. ‘There’s plague in London, is there no’?’

‘Nothing more than usual, is there?’ asked Carey, looking concerned.

‘No, no,’ soothed Marlowe. ‘Just the normal amount. Isn’t that so, Will? You’d know if there was plague about?’

Shakespeare had said nothing so far, being more interested in drinking. He blinked owlishly at Marlowe, who was smiling at him. ‘Plague?’ he asked. ‘Er…no, I don’t…No.’

Good God, thought Dodd in disgust, it’s true what Barnabus was saying, they’re keeping it quiet for fear of losing business. He felt Barnabus staring at him desperately and wasn’t sure what he could say next.

Greene had stopped in mid-drink and was scowling pop-eyed across the table at Shakespeare.

‘You!’ he hissed. ‘What are
you
doing here?’

Shakespeare blinked at him. ‘Drinking,’ he said peaceably. ‘Loshing…losing money at cards. What are you…er…doing?’

With an incoherent roar, Greene slammed both fists down on the table in front of him, causing it to jump. Both Marlowe and Carey immediately picked up their tankards, but before Dodd could do the same, Greene had surged to his feet, bellying the table over so that cards and coins and Dodd’s full cup of sack went spraying in all directions. Like a charging bull, Greene waded past the table, grabbed Shakespeare round the neck. Momentum carried both of them up against the side of the stairs where Greene started banging Shakespeare’s head against the bannisters while he throttled him.

There was a confusion of shouting. Carey tried to grab Greene round the oxlike shoulders and was shrugged off, Marlowe tried a simultaneous blow at the back of Greene’s neck with his dagger pommel and was sent flying by a blow from the back of Greene’s fist. Shakespeare’s face was going purple and he was prodding ineffectually with his fists.

‘Somebody had better stop him killing him.’ The voice seemed to have only an academic interest in the matter, but Dodd had lost an expensive drink he’d been looking forward to and needed desperately, and he didn’t like Greene in any case, while he felt sorry for the player. He picked up the stool he’d been sitting on, prodded the legs into Greene’s meaty back, just where his kidneys should be, and heard the satisfying whoop of pain. He slammed the stool sideways into Greene’s ribs, dropped it, got his left arm in a lock around Greene’s bull neck from behind, leaned back, swivelled his hips and swept Greene’s legs out from under him in a Cumbrian wrestling throw.

Greene’s weight pulled him down, but he was expecting it and he fell on top of the man, bruising his elbow. Half crouching he got a knee up in the small of Greene’s back and then said breathlessly, ‘Will I break yer neck for ye?’

Greene heaved and made horrible noises, the cords on his neck expanding. Christ, he was strong, but Dodd was in much better condition and very angry.

‘I’ll do it, I’ll break it and no’ think twice. Stop still afore I hurt ye.’

Just to make his point, he levered up his elbow to lift Greene’s chin and put more strain on his neck.

‘I’d listen to him if I were you,’ said Carey conversationally. ‘So far Dodd’s been quite gentle with you.’

There was that indefinable change of muscle tone beneath him that told Dodd the man was starting to think. He increased the pressure and felt the man surrender.

‘Will ye behave yerself if I let ye up?’

‘Hhhnnhh.’

After another jerk on his neck to remind him, Dodd let him go and stepped away smartly. Greene lay there whooping and gasping for several minutes before he staggered to his feet. He glowered at Dodd for a while, breathing hard.

‘I want satisfaction from you,’ he croaked at last.

‘Are ye challenging me?’ Dodd asked, almost laughing. ‘Tae a duel?’

‘Name your place and your weapons, sir.’

Behind him Dodd distinctly heard Carey say, ‘Oh dear.’

‘Ye want to fight
me
? With
weapons
?’

‘Don’t you speak English? Yes, I am, you northern yokel.’

‘Och God, I would ha’ thought ye’d want a rest after a’ that booze and the battering I gave ye. But well enough. Let’s dae it here.’ Dodd drew his sword and dagger, crossed the blades in front of him in the
en garde
position and waited expectantly.

To his surprise Greene didn’t draw his own blades. His jaw had dropped and he was staring at Dodd as if he didn’t know what to do next.

‘Come on, man, I havenae got all night. Let’s get the mither done wi’ and then I can get back tae ma drinkin’.’

In a voice overflowing with amusement, Carey translated this for Greene. Marlowe was standing next to Greene, whispering in his ear. Greene glared about under his bushy red eyebrows, but his hand made no move to his swordhilt.

‘Do ye want tae fight, or no’?’ Dodd asked, surprised at the delay.

Carey was on the other side of Greene now, whispering in his other ear. Greene was looking at the ground. He coughed.

‘I withdraw the challenge.’

‘Ay?’

‘And the insult about northern yokels?’ prompted Carey.

‘I withdraw it,’ growled Greene.

‘Och, Ah dinna care what a drunken southerner wi’ nae blood tae his liver thinks o’ me,’ said Dodd genially.

Carey translated this as acceptance of Greene’s withdrawal of the insult.

Behind him Poley was setting the table upright again and arranging the stools round it. The innkeeper was standing nearby with arms folded, eyes narrowed and a large cudgel dangling from his wrist on a cord. The plump little man was sitting Shakespeare wheezing on the bench, dusting him down and handing him another cup of booze, which the player took with hands that shook like rivergrass.

‘All right,’ said Carey. ‘Now shake on it, gentlemen.’

Dodd put his sword and dagger away, and held out his hand. After an almost insulting pause, Greene shook.

There was a universal coughing and the staccato laughs of released tension.

‘Damn,’ said Marlowe. ‘I had ten shillings to put on Sergeant Dodd to win.’

‘Yes, but nobody was going to take the bet, were they?’ said Carey drily.

Greene slammed his bulky arse down on a stool and glowered. Dodd sat back down on the bench next to Shakespeare and accepted the drink brought for him by Poley. The primero circle reformed itself and the innkeeper stood watching for a few minutes more before he and two other large men with cudgels melted back into the loud shadows.

They were piss-poor, these southerners, Dodd thought to himself; if he could only get the remounts and a sufficiency of right reivers together, he could run the raid of all time down here.

Poley and the plump man, whose name was apparently Munday, were both down on the floor, scooping coins and cards out of the sawdust and complaining at Greene while they did it. Carey was watching Greene with narrow eyes and a very suspicious expression, making no move to help. Marlowe was watching as well. Greene seemed slightly deflated, though he was still knocking back the booze at a fearsome rate. Now Carey was talking to him quietly, to a response of shrugs and growls. Poley put the pack of cards on the table and bent again to pick up the coins. Some of them were gold crowns and angels, Dodd noted to his horror; it wasn’t any wonder the Courtier was in hock to his eyeballs.

Shakespeare cleared his throat painfully next to Dodd.

‘Um…thank you, Sergeant,’ he whispered. ‘Er…if you don’t mind my asking, why did you…?’

‘Och,’ said Dodd, embarrassed. ‘He knocked ma drink over when he sent the table flying.’

‘Oh.’

‘And he puked on ma boots earlier the day. I dinna take to loud drunks either. And I’ve had a long day.’

Shakespeare had a wide expanse of brow to wrinkle. ‘Ah,’ he said, evidently only understanding half of this, though Dodd tried to make his speech sound more like the Courtier’s, which wasn’t at all easy against the effects of the booze. You had to say this for London town, you could find good drink here. Even the aqua vitae tasted quite smooth, if fiery. He tasted some more of it.

‘Ye’ve not had a good couple of days either, have ye?’ Dodd said sympathetically. ‘And what was it ye had me give to Mistress Bassano yesterday that made her so wild with ye?’

Shakespeare blinked gloomily at the sherry-dregs in the bottom of his mug. ‘Sh…sonnets.’

‘Ay,’ said Dodd cautiously, not willing to reveal that he didn’t know what a sonnet was.

The little bald player smiled wanly. ‘Poems. Rhymes. In praise…in praise of Mistress Bassano.’

‘They werenae lewd?’

‘No, of course not. They were classical. I compared her to Helen of Troy, Aphrodite, Aurora goddess of the dawn, likened her hair to gold poured from an alchemist’s flask, her eyes to sapphires…’

‘But her hair’s black and her eyes are brown.’

‘It’s poetic symbolism.’

‘Ay. Does she ken that or does she think ye werenae thinking of her at all?’ This produced an odd effect. Shakespeare stared at him for several minutes together with his mouth open, looking a complete simpleton. ‘Only,’ Dodd added, making a real effort to help the man, ‘if I told my wife I loved her for her yellow hair, she’d hit me with a rolling pin in the certainty I was playing her false wi’ a blonde. She’s redhead,’ he added, for completeness. ‘An’ I bought her a fine green velvet hat the day for twenty shillings.’ He was now feeling quite proud of himself for spending so much money on a frippery for his woman, though Shakespeare either hadn’t heard or was used to the stupid London prices. The player was now nodding to himself, seemingly oblivious to Dodd.

Across the table the Courtier appeared to have won a little of his money back, since he was pulling in a reasonable pot. He raised his eyebrows.

‘Dodd?’

Dodd shook his head. ‘Yer stakes are too high fer me. I’m no’ a rich man.’

Marlowe leaned over, smiling. ‘I thought Sir Robert said you owned land.’

‘I do. I’m rich in land and kin and kine, but no’ in money,’ Dodd explained. And yon Courtier’s rich in nowt but kin, though that’s never stopped him, he thought but didn’t say.

‘Come on, Sergeant,’ said Poley with a little edge to his voice. ‘Aren’t you going to take the chance to enrich yourself? We could teach you if you don’t know how to play.’