4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (34 page)

‘The message is,’ came a familiar voice behind him, ‘don’t fucking play silly games with me, Marlowe, I’m tired of it.’

He’d been waiting, Marlowe realised dimly, bucking and gasping in an effort to find a way to breathe, and he’s very angry. Half-suffocated and with lights beginning to flash in his eyes, Marlowe tried to say something, only to feel the knee dig harder into his back, the knife moved from his neck and Carey was fumbling for his other hand.

No, thought Marlowe, he’s not going to tie me up. He grabbed desperately to move the bumrolls out from under his head, found the end of one and whipped it round as hard as he could left-handed in the direction of Carey’s face. If you were willing to hurt yourself more, there was a way out of an armlock. Marlowe heaved convulsively to the left, felt Carey’s weight slip, and punched still blind with his left hand for Carey’s groin. He hit something, heard a gasp, scrambled out of the pile of underwear and got to a wall where he stood up and drew his sword.

Carey already had his sword and dagger drawn, crossed in front of him. Behind him the door was shut. The room was so small, their swords were already inches from each other’s face.

‘The Queen’s going to be very angry when I get blood on her bumrolls,’ said Carey conversationally. ‘Why not surrender?’

‘Do you really think you can kill me?’ Marlowe asked, his heart beating hard with excitement and the fresh air in his lungs.

Carey grinned at him, looking much more like a wild northerner than the Queen’s courtier Marlowe had known. ‘Oh yes, if I want to.’

‘But you don’t want to, or you would have, already,’ said Marlowe with absolute certainty.

‘I want a few answers.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought you knew them all.’

Marlowe was deliberately trying to annoy Carey into an attack. In such a small space his primitive broadsword was a positive liability against Marlowe’s rapier. The glittering poignard was a much better weapon for close quarters, but that was in Carey’s left hand.

To Marlowe’s surprise and irritation, Carey laughed. He straightened slightly, though he kept his weapons
en garde
.

‘You silly bugger,’ he said, almost affectionately. ‘You know you wanted to talk to me, tell me how clever you are. That’s why you were hanging around in the Mermaid all morning, all on your lonely own. Do you think I don’t know bait when I see it? So talk to me. Tell me your magnificent plan. Watch me gasp with admiration.’

‘This wasn’t how I’d intended to do it.’

‘No, I’ll bet it wasn’t. Me in irons, no doubt, and you with the thumbscrews to aid my concentration.’

‘Not quite like that,’ murmured Marlowe, inspiration at his shoulder as it usually was in times like this. ‘Is that what happened to you in Scotland?’

Carey had no gloves on since his own were no doubt far too fine to go with the baggy homespun he was wearing. Several of his fingernails were only half grown and Marlowe knew one thing that did that.

Carey’s face tightened and lost some of its good humour. After a pause he answered, quite softly, ‘Yes, it was.’ The silence stretched a little and Marlowe suddenly found the look in Carey’s eyes frightening.

‘I didn’t plan anything like that,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I promise you.’

‘Oh really?’ Carey’s voice was still soft and inexplicably terrifying. ‘What about Heneage?’

‘I’m not working for him at the moment.’

‘You’re commanding a lot of his men. I recognize them.’

‘Well, he doesn’t know that yet.’

Carey laughed, still quietly. ‘What the devil are you up to, Marlowe? What do you want?’

Marlowe took a deep breath. ‘I want to work for my lord Earl of Essex. Not Heneage.’

‘What? Essex hates your guts.’

‘I know that. I was hoping you might…er…intercede.’

Carey’s eyebrows often seemed to have a life of their own. One went up, almost to his hairline. ‘Me?’

‘Yes. You’re still his man, aren’t you?’

‘I am. So?’

‘He’ll listen to you; he has in the past.’

‘He might.’

‘You could at least get me an audience, so I can put my case.’

Carey barked a laugh. ‘You don’t know him very well, do you, Kit? And you haven’t given me one reason yet why I should do a damned thing for you.’

‘No,’ Marlowe sighed, thought for a minute and decided to gamble that Carey hadn’t been completely changed by his service in France and the North. He tossed his rapier onto the dusty floor and sat down on a pile of under-petticoats. Carey blinked, then smiled and sheathed his broadsword, squatted down peasant-style with his back against the door. He held his poignard in his right hand though, which Marlowe thought was probably fair enough.

‘Heneage wants to be Lord Chamberlain,’ Marlowe began. ‘He wants the power over the Queen he believes your father has.’

‘He’s an idiot. The Queen…’

‘The Queen’s a woman and can be influenced.’ Carey’s eyebrows said he didn’t think so, but Marlowe continued. ‘In any case, it doesn’t matter what’s true, it matters what Heneage believes. Heneage has been trying very hard to find a way to discredit your father in her eyes, but it’s difficult. Your father’s so bloody honest, so far he’s just ignored all the attempts Heneage has made.’ Carey grinned. ‘Or the Queen has. Now this summer Heneage ran some kind of operation involving your brother Edmund—I’m not clear what, since I wasn’t involved then—which should have got your brother arrested on a capital charge, probably treason, thus giving Heneage the lever he’s always wanted against your father. But just before the net closed, your brother disappeared, and when he did, he had some evidence that would have got Heneage into trouble. So the Vice Chamberlain has been combing London for your brother, just as your father has. When he sent for you to come back from Newcastle…’

‘Carlisle,’ corrected Carey.

‘Wherever, Heneage decided that one son was as good as another and besides, if he had you, Edmund might come out of hiding. So he made sure that the bailiffs knew you were coming…’

‘Did you kill Michael?’

‘Who?’

‘The servant my father sent to warn me off?’

‘Oh, him. No, that was a mistake. Heneage wanted the footpads to stop him, not kill him.’

‘He should have been more specific. And perhaps if he hadn’t paid them with forged money, they might not have been so anxious to jump us,’ said Carey in the soft tone of voice Marlowe found so worrying. ‘Michael left a wife and children, you know?’

Marlowe shrugged. What was he supposed to do, weep for the man? ‘The next thing Heneage decided was that perhaps we could take your henchman and use him to trap you…’

‘Who, Dodd?’

‘The northerner.’

‘
Take
him?’ Carey sounded very amused. ‘What happened?’

‘We didn’t succeed.’ Marlowe was annoyed. ‘He got away from us.’

‘Was the trollop and Nick the Gent you as well?’

Marlowe nodded. ‘It wasn’t a very good idea, but Heneage was getting impatient.’

‘Why the hell didn’t he just arrest me, Dodd, the lot of us. Why be so complicated?’

‘How could he possibly arrest
you
on a charge of treason? The Queen would have hysterics. He wanted you imprisoned, but he didn’t want to do it himself.’

‘What’s Shakespeare’s part in all this?’

‘Who? Oh, him.’ Marlowe waved a dismissive hand, ‘He’s my informer in your father’s house. He was supposed to keep an eye on you and report back. He’s not much good.’

‘He played the part of Dr Jenkins the alchemist well enough.’

Marlowe eyed Carey unhappily. ‘Oh?’

‘Come on, Marlowe, don’t try doling out your story like bloody ship’s rations. You were there at the time, you organised the whole rigmarole with little Mr Shakespeare dressed up in a gown and a false beard to be an alchemist.’

Marlowe smiled reminiscently. ‘He was really very convincing. I almost believed it myself.’ He caught himself at the expression on Carey’s face. ‘I’m sorry. It was one of the things that made me decide to quit Heneage’s service.’

‘Oh, was it, indeed?’ Carey’s voice was soft. ‘I wish I could believe that.’

Marlowe coughed. ‘Why would I lie about it?’

‘Why? I don’t know. I think you’ve got so used to plotting and making people dance like puppets, you don’t know what reality is any more. What about Greene? Did you poison him?’

Marlowe shook his head. ‘Of course not, I wanted to know what he’d found out as well. We were sure he’d discovered something but the way he was drinking…Well, you saw him yourself. Nobody could get any sense out of him.’

‘So how did he come to be poisoned?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’m not the Devil, I’m not responsible for everything bad that happens.’ Marlowe was sneering. ‘Anyway, by this time, I’d decided that whatever Heneage was up to, I didn’t like it. So when the order came to set the bailiffs on you again, I made sure they arrested the wrong man.’

‘And put Dodd where?’

‘In the Fleet, of course; it’s the debtor’s prison for this area. Also, I think your brother’s there but I haven’t been able to find him. He’s not in the book and he’s not visible.’

‘Why do you think Edmund’s in the Fleet?’

‘Because Newton tried to spend some of the forged angels.’

‘Ah.’ Carey tossed his poignard from one hand to the other, making the jewels glitter. ‘Does Heneage know that yet?’

‘No.’

‘And my servants?’

Marlowe sighed. ‘That was Heneage again. He’d decided to take you himself and see what he could get out of you or…’

‘Make me confess to?’

‘Yes. It’s how he thinks. I was with him when we broke into your lodgings, and all we found was your man dead of something that wasn’t plague and the boy who was too stupid to tell us anything useful.’

‘You left him tied up.’

‘Heneage is planning to go back this evening when he’s had time to think and…’

‘And get thirsty and hungry and cramped? And terrified?’

‘Well, yes. And then persuade him to tell us where you were and what you were up to, perhaps other things.’

Carey’s eyes had become chips of ice. ‘Confess to Papistry? Say I’ve been hiding Jesuits?’

Marlowe shrugged.

‘You went along with this?’

‘Heneage has done worse,’ said Marlowe defensively. ‘He’s not like Walsingham.’

‘No.’

‘I’ve been trying to find you, have a meeting with you, all day…All I wanted was to explain…’

‘You’re a fool, Marlowe,’ Carey said. ‘Why didn’t you just go to my father and tell him all this?’

‘How could I possibly go into Somerset House with Shakespeare hanging around there?’

‘Written him a letter?’

‘You don’t know much about how Heneage works, do you?’

‘The other night, at the Mermaid?’

‘With Poley there?’

Carey sighed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think you enjoy the play too much, I think you like making people dance.’

Marlowe shrugged. ‘I’ve talked to you now,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do?’

Carey told him.

***

Dodd had finished his letter, sealed it, and after careful enquiry among the stallholders, had given it to the gaol servant who normally carried messages, along with a shilling to encourage him to deliver it. Obviously, it would be opened and read before it left the prison, but he had written it with an eye to that fact.

He sat in the sun and watched the activity around him, the children playing games in the dust, the women sewing, some of the men gambling or training rats or trying to press their suit with the women, some of whom were suspiciously well-dressed and vivacious. Apart from the glowering gaol servants and the men who were dragging chains around with them, it could have been a busy marketplace.

Dodd was just thinking wistfully of Janet and what she would make of him in his fine suit when three of the largest gaol servants came up to him, holding clubs. They looked worryingly purposeful and Dodd scrambled to his feet and looked for somewhere to run. Only there wasn’t anywhere, of course, that was the whole point of a gaol.

Two of them grabbed him and twisted his arms behind him.

‘What the hell is it now?’ he growled. ‘Why can ye no’ leave me alone?’

‘Sorry, Sir Robert,’ said the third, sounding pleased. ‘Orders.’

They started hustling him across the courtyard, causing the other prisoners to stare, into the gatehouse office, through another door and into what were obviously Newton’s living quarters. There were four other men standing waiting for him. The one in the middle, dressed in dark brocade and a fur-trimmed velvet gown, looked familiar with his smug moon-face and small pink lips. His expression wasn’t smug, however. It had started that way but as soon as it caught sight of Dodd, it changed, ran through puzzlement, incredulity, horror and ended in rage. Then it went blank.

‘I told you to fetch Sir Robert Carey,’ he snapped.