4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (21 page)

There was plenty of room under the main bed and the two bullies were coming round it to grab for Dodd once more, so he rolled again until he was underneath, finally got his breeches fastened and belted, then reached out an arm and scooped up his sword belt.

One of them was bending down, flailing about under the tumbled blankets for Dodd. Dodd poked him in the face with the sword still in its scabbard, then emerged volcanically out the other side, kicked the truckle bed on its wheels into the portly gentleman and made for the door. It was locked and he couldn’t open it, so he turned at bay with his sword and dagger out and snarled at them all,

‘Get the hell oot o’ my bed chamber!’

‘Don’t you realise who I am, Sir Robert?’ said the portly gentleman. ‘I am Sir Edward Fitzjohn and that’s my wife you were attacking.’

Sheer outrage at this ridiculous claim stopped Dodd from roaring and charging at the man.

‘What?’

‘I am Sir Edward Fitzjohn and I will swear out a warrant against you in the church courts, sir, for fornication and adultery with my wife.’

‘
What
?’

‘Oh oh,’ wailed the girl. ‘Don’t let them take you, they’ll put you in prison, oh oh!’

‘WHAT?’

‘I have that right, as the offended party,’ said Sir Edward Fitzjohn.

‘Give him money, anything you’ve got, only don’t let him take you away…’

Grinding headache and churning stomach notwithstanding, Dodd was now quite certain there was something very fishy going on here.

‘What would it take to settle the matter?’ he asked, only glancing at Sir Edward while he made sure he gave no opening for the two henchmen to grab him.

‘Are you offering money?’ spluttered Sir Edward. ‘For my wife’s honour? Damn you, sir…How much have you got?’

Dodd wanted to laugh, he could feel his mouth turning down with the effort to stay straight-faced.

‘Ah dinna ken where ma purse is, Ah think it was lifted last night,’ he said, which caused all four of them to wrinkle their brows, including the girl sitting prettily on her knees in front of her alleged husband with her smock still falling off. ‘I wis robbed last night,’ he explained, trying to speak slowly and clearly. ‘I’ve no money left.’

Sir Edward’s face went through a series of expressions—disbelief, disappointment and finally hard ruthlessness. ‘We’ll have to kill him then,’ he said in quite a different voice, and the girl obediently started shrieking. ‘Help, murder, oh oh!’ while the two henchmen and Sir Edward himself attacked with their swords. The girl scurried on hands and knees under the bed and started pulling on her stays and petticoat, all the while shrieking, ‘Murder, blood, help, oh save my husband, sirs, save him!’ at the top of her voice.

In the flurry of ducking one sword while he parried desperately at two more, Dodd was never quite sure how soon it was before the door started juddering to somebody else’s boot. The bolt ends came out of the door-jamb which was when Dodd realised it wasn’t locked, just bolted top and bottom.

Carey appeared in the doorway, sword out, Barnabus next to him on the little landing with a throwing knife in each hand.

‘Oh shit!’ said the girl under the bed, crawling further under it and starting to pull on her boots. Dodd was in a corner by then, dagger and sword up and crossed, ducking as Sir Edward’s rapier flicked for his eyes.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ demanded Carey’s court drawl.

There was a bright glitter in the air and one of the little daggers was growing out of Sir Edward’s arm. He yelped, grabbed it out and the henchmen stopped their attack to stare at Dodd’s reinforcements. Dodd growled, rage truly flaming in him now for the ruination of one of the few pleasant awakenings of his life, aimed the point of his dagger and charged at Sir Edward’s belly.

Sir Edward jumped back, bombast and wool bursting out of the wound in his doublet, the two henchmen exchanged glances, and all three of them suddenly broke for the door. There was a confused scuffle while Carey and Barnabus tried to stop them, but they had momentum and desperation on their side and all three sprinted down the stairs and out through the common room, followed by Dodd, still roaring.

They disappeared into the crowded street and Dodd had to stop chasing at the cross-roads because he couldn’t see any of them. Also the Londoners were staring at him and Dodd realised that his shirt was open and his insecurely belted breeches were on the point of falling down.

He sidled back into the inn, up the stairs and found Carey leaning out of the window swiping at something there. Dodd peered over his shoulder to see the girl who had woken him up so well climbing briskly across the thatch, still in only her stays and petticoat. She flipped Carey the finger as she let herself down onto a balcony and he laughed and took his hat off to her.

Dodd slumped on the bed breathing hard, hung his head and moaned at the weight of his hangover.

‘Threatened to sue you through the church courts for fornication and adultery, eh?’ asked Carey, handing him another mug of mild ale.

‘Ay,’ said Dodd, rubbing his face. ‘And then they tried to kill me when I said I had nae money.’

Barnabus tutted. ‘I told you they’d ’ave another go,’ he said. ‘But you should never let on you’re broke, not in London. ’S dangerous.’

Carey laughed. ‘Somebody should have warned them about Dodd in the mornings. Bears with sore heads isn’t in it.’

‘Och. It wasnae so bad afore her husband bust in.’

‘Husband!’ Barnabus snorted. ‘Molly Stone’s never been wed in her life, ’cept to a bishop.’

‘You couldn’t pass the word, could you, Barnabus? Tell ’em to lay off?’

Barnabus shook his head. ‘Nah, sorry, sir, I’m out of touch.’

‘Give it a try, there’s a good fellow. I’d be grateful.’

Barnabus shrugged. He didn’t seem himself that morning, though it was hard to say what was wrong. He seemed subdued, depressed. Mind, it wasn’t surprising, considering what had happened to his sister and her family.

‘At least you’re awake now, aren’t you, Sergeant?’

‘Ay, I suppose I am.’

‘Excellent. Make yourself decent and let’s go.’ Carey had paced restlessly to the window and back again. He looked as spruce and tidy as ever: damn him, he must have gone to a barber’s while he was out, his hair was shorter and his face was clean-shaven while he smelled daintily of lavender and spice and he had a new ruff on. It was obscene, that’s what it was.

‘Where now, sir?’ Dodd moaned.

‘Greene’s lodgings.’

‘Och, not him again, sir!’

‘Yes, him again. I haven’t talked to him properly yet and I’m bloody certain he knows more than he’s letting on about my idiot brother Edmund, not to mention the false angels that Heneage slipped you, according to Barnabus.’

‘I suppose ye want to catch him when he’s sober,’ said Dodd, dispiritedly dealing with his points and buttons and wishing there was a more sensible way of fastening your clothes. His head was still pounding and his eyes wouldn’t focus properly.

‘Good God, no,’ said Carey. ‘All we’d hear would be rubbish about snakes and spiders and demons attacking him. Catch him when he’s only half-drunk, that’s the best plan. Come on, Dodd, hurry up or we’ll miss the golden moment.’

Dodd found his cap and jerkin and finished buckling on his sword and dagger, followed Carey’s long stride out the door.

A thought struck him halfway down. ‘Wait, Sir Robert, Ah’ve lost ma purse.’

‘No, you haven’t. You left it next to the bed and I took it with me this morning when I saw how dead to the world you were. Here you are. I haven’t borrowed anything.’

He hadn’t, as Dodd could tell by hefting it. Not for the first time since he met the Courtier, gratitude and annoyance warred in him.

‘Not that it’s any of my business,’ said Carey after a tactful pause, ‘but when did you hire yourself a trollop?’

‘Me?’ Dodd was outraged. ‘Ah thocht she was yourn?’

One day Carey would hang for the way his eyebrows performed. One went up by itself and then the other joined it. ‘What?’

‘I thocht ye hired her, to wake us up like. Did ye no’?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Ye didnae?’

‘No.’

Dodd shut his eyes tight and shook his head, trying to clear it, which was a mistake. ‘But…but when I woke, she was already…at ma tackle, ye ken.’

‘And so you…er…’

Dodd could feel himself getting red as a boy caught with his hands down a kitchen maid’s stays. ‘Ay,’ he said truculently. ‘Wouldn’t ye?’

Carey grinned. ‘Yes,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘But didn’t you wonder how she got there?’

‘Ay, I did. Like I said, I thought she wis…’

‘Mine.’

‘So to speak.’

‘Ah. So who the hell hired her? Barnabus?’

‘No, sir. Why would I? You’ve never needed any help like that before.’

‘Well, did you ask…?’

‘I woke up with her hand rummaging ma privates and no, I didnae think tae ask her.’

‘Hm. Now isn’t that interesting. I wonder who the benefactor was?’

Dodd shrugged. ‘Sir Edward Fitzjohn hisself?’

‘Who?’

‘The man in the pretty doublet that wanted all ma money or he’d put me through the church courts for adultery.’

Barnabus snorted. ‘Sir Edward Fitzjohn, my arse. That was Nick the Gent.’

‘Dodd, could I have a look at that false coin you had?’

‘Ay.’ Dodd fished it out and handed it over and Carey stopped to hold it up to the light and squint at the bite marks. ‘It’s very good, you know. It’s an excellent forgery. I think it’s pewter inside with a thin layer of gold, but the minting’s perfect. And you got it where?’

‘I think it was in Heneage’s bribe. That he give me at yer dad’s party.’

‘Oh, that’s when he did it, is it? Who was the…agent?’

‘I dinna ken. The man give it me in the garden, all muffled with a cloak.’

‘Hmm. Interesting.’

‘Ay, well, he could have got me hanged for spending it.’

‘So he could. Hmm. Can I keep it?’

‘Ay. It’s nae worth nothing now.’

‘Hmm. You never know,’ was all the Courtier would say while Dodd decided that the whyfores of forgery were more than he could handle with his present headache.

Oh God. Maybe it wasn’t a hangover. Maybe it was plague. Was that a lump he felt in his armpit? Did he have a fever? He deserved God’s wrath after such a sin of adultery and fornication, no matter how desperate the temptation. The Courtier might not be shocked but Dodd was, shocked at himself. Dear God, why had he done it? what if Janet found out? what if he’d taken the pox…?

In the common room they passed Shakespeare lying curled up on the bench with a cloak over his narrow shoulders. The only comfort was that Dodd felt quite certain Shakespeare would feel even worse when he woke up than Dodd did. Which served him right.

Carey strolled over to the innkeeper who was just opening and talking to him quietly—got nowhere, to judge by the sorrowful headshakings. And now the bastard Courtier was humming to himself as they walked along yet another stinking street, some tweedly-deedly court tune all prettified with fa-la-las. God, thought Dodd, I hate London and Carey both.

Very slowly, the exercise of walking through the noise and bustle of the London streets in the bright warm sunshine moved from being a torture to a pain to a mere misery. Very slowly the awful pounding in Dodd’s head faded down to a mere hammerbeat. Maddened with thirst, he drank a quart of mild ale at a boozing ken’s window and felt much better, though still more delicate than one of those fancy glass goblets from Italy the gentry set such store by. If you blew hard on him, he would break.

Greene’s lodgings were over a cobbler’s shop. Carey asked at the counter which produced hurried whisperings and a small skinny faded-looking woman hurried in from the back of the shop to be introduced as Joan Ball, Mr Greene’s…ahem…common-law wife.

‘He’s not well, sir,’ she explained. ‘He’s been ill all morning. Very, very ill.’

Carey made a dismissive
tch
noise. ‘I know what he’s suffering from. I’ll see him anyway.’

‘Well, I don’t know, sir, he’s very…It’s not his usual illness, you know, sir. I’d get the doctor to him if there was any left in London.’

‘It’s no’ plague, is it?’ Dodd demanded, with another greasy thrill of horror down his back.

She rubbed her arms anxiously up and down her apron. ‘Oh no, no. Nothing like that. Some kind of flux, I think. Or even poison. I don’t know, sir. He says he’s dying and he keeps calling for paper, says he’s got to finish his swansong.’

Carey frowned with suspicion and disbelief. ‘What? Let me see him, I’m his patron, damn it.’

‘I’ll ask,’ whispered the woman and scurried upstairs.

‘Ye never are,’ said Dodd, staggered at this further evidence of financial insanity.

‘Yes, I am. Or I was. I paid five pounds for a thing he wrote last year and dedicated to me.’

‘What was it?’