4 A Plague of Angels: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (37 page)

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Julie Granville heard the hammering on the prison gate and went to look, along with a crowd of children. When Newton opened the postern a plump man was standing there, four square in fur-trimmed velvet and at his back at least eight hard-faced men at arms.

He stood with his arms folded while Newton bowed and scraped and tried to argue in a wheedling tone of voice about his authority and his position and his properly paid-for office.

One of the men at arms stepped forward and cuffed Newton. ‘Don’t delay Mr Vice Chancellor,’ he said. ‘This is in the name of the Queen.’

Newton cringed and stepped back. The men at arms filed through with the Vice Chancellor in the middle.

Julie picked up her skirts and ran across the courtyard, down the steps to Bolton’s Ward. The gaol servant now sitting there was an odious man she had had dealings with before who leered at her bodice and told her he didn’t want a penny for garnish, but a nice loving kiss. For a moment she couldn’t think what to do, whether she should let him or not, but her guts revolted at the thought. She could hear the sounds of the upper parts of the gaol being searched while the prisoners were harried into groups according to ward in the courtyard. Her children would be frightened without her, but one of her gossips would look after them, she knew. Meanwhile she didn’t have time to argue with a lecherous gaoler.

She went up close to him, putting up her mouth as if yielding, and when he reached for her she kneed him as hard as she could in the balls. He made a pleasing
oof
noise and reeled against the wall, and she took the keys off his belt, opened the heavy door with it.

Her eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the dimness, but she could see Robin Carey over near his brother, sitting cross-legged, talking quietly to him. He looked up as the door opened, saw her and came instantly to his feet.

‘What is it, mistress?’

‘The Vice Chancellor…Mr Heneage…he’s searching the gaol.’

For a moment Robin looked astonished.

‘But he’s only had Dodd for a couple of hours…’ he said to himself in a voice of bewilderment. Then he stood absolutely still and she had no idea what he was thinking because his face had gone stiff like a mask.

He looked at her considering. ‘Mistress,’ he said, quite conversationally. ‘Will you help me?’

She hesitated. What would happen to her, to her children? Could she, dare she trust him? His family were important and rich, perhaps they might help her? Or perhaps they would simply use her and forget her. She didn’t know.

She saw Edmund was raising his head again, looking at her. His eyes were less vividly blue than his brother’s, more of a sea-grey colour, but the memory of the kindness and laughter in them steadied her.

Her heart was thumping hard. She came in, shut the door behind her and locked it with the key, then came across to him.

‘That won’t hold them very long, I’m afraid. Newton has the master keys,’ she said.

‘Do you have the key for his ankle chain?’

‘Probably.’

They tried a couple, found the right one and unlocked it, revealing a wide bracelet of ulcers on the bony ankle. Robin bit his lip when he saw it, then raised his head and looked around. Some of the other beggars and sick men in the ward were looking up, a couple of them were moving anxiously as far away from the brothers as they could, being tethered.

‘Over there,’ Robin said, pointing at an alcove under one of the high semi-circular barred windows that were at ground level of the courtyard. ‘I’ll carry Edmund, you bring his bedding.’

Edmund was trying to struggle upright, but his brother simply picked him up in his arms and straightened his knees.

‘Oh, shut up, Ned,’ Robin told him. ‘You don’t weigh anything like as much as several of the women I’ve carried into my bed.’

Julie scooped up the straw pallet that had cost her sixpence, trying not to think about its likely population of lice and fleas, took the pillow and the blanket and followed as Robin carried his brother briskly over to the alcove, apologising politely as he stepped over prone bodies and cursing once when he nearly slipped on a turd. Julie put down the pallet and Robin laid Edmund gently down on it, arranged the blanket and pillow and then stood and leaned his arm on the pillar of the arch. There was a querulous tone in Edmund’s voice, though Julie couldn’t quite make out the words.

‘Ned, you’re a prize idiot. Heneage isn’t going to get you and nor are you going to hang for coining. I’m going to hang you myself for causing me so much trouble. Mistress Granville,’ Robin added gently to her. ‘I really think you ought to leave.’

‘I don’t want to,’ she blurted out, cut to the quick that he would dismiss her like that.

‘Mistress, life might get a little tense in here for a while. Those other poor sods can’t escape but you can.’

She sniffed at him, turned her shoulder and went resolutely, holding her breath when necessary, to unlock all the other ankle chains in the room. Some of the beggars were too far gone to move, but those that could instantly crawled or staggered out of the way to the stone benches at the side of room. Robin watched her without further comment. She came back and sat down on the stone floor next to Edmund, spread out her skirts and put her knife in her lap. Then she took Edmund’s hand in her own and stroked it.

‘You know he’s married, mistress,’ she heard Robin’s voice above her. He was looking down, not unkindly.

‘So am I, sir,’ she said.

Whether Edmund’s brother would have been tactless enough to ask the question he must have been wondering about, she never found out. Somebody tried the door, found it locked, hammered a couple of times and then there was a sequence of shouts as others were sent scuttling off to find the gaoler and Mr Vice Chancellor.

‘Oh, bollocks,’ Robin said, mainly to himself, drawing his sword and stepping out a little to block the alcove’s opening with his body. She heard him muttering to himself and thought he might be praying, hoped fervently that the Lord God of Hosts would hear and perhaps send a few angels to help, then smiled at herself for being childish. It was odd she could do it. Her heart was thumping so hard and her hands had gone cold.

The gaoler’s keys scraped and clattered in the lock, it was flung open and two men at arms came in, clubs in their hands. They stopped when they saw Robin standing there, waiting for them, sword bare.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said, and Julie could hear that he was smiling.

The Vice Chancellor pushed past and stood between his two henchmen, his little mouth pursed and pouched with anger.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Carey?’ he demanded. ‘Your brother is guilty of forgery, which is a hanging offence, witchcraft which is a burning offence, and treason which is a…’

‘Hanging, drawing and quartering offence,’ drawled Robin. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Are you going to hand him over to me in a sensible fashion or are you going to be stupid?’ demanded Heneage.

‘Oh, normally I’d instantly decide to be stupid,’ said Robin. ‘But first I want to know who you’re after.’

‘Your brother, Edmund Carey. He stole property which is mine and he…’

‘Edmund Carey? That’s not him. That’s Edward Morgan. Didn’t you check the book?’

‘I know your mother’s maiden name as well as you do, Carey, if that’s what she was and…’

‘You know, if you insult my mother I’ll simply have to kill you, which I could do, right now, if I wanted to. And then it would all be very inconvenient, I’d hang for it if I lived, which might upset my father, but you would be dead and facing God Almighty and all the poor souls you’ve destroyed with torture and ill-treatment. And then you would go to hell for the rest of eternity. So don’t you think you ought to try to be polite, hm?’

‘The sick man that you are standing in front of is Edmund Carey and I want him,’ said Heneage impatiently. ‘I’m going to take him, so get out of my way. I won’t tell you twice.’

‘You’re going to take him, are you? Who? You personally? I don’t think so. You haven’t the stomach and you haven’t the strength for it. So who’s going to do it?’ Again Julie could hear the smile in his voice as he moved his head to look lazily round at the men-at-arms crowding the stinking cellar and making it even more airless. ‘Are you?’ he asked the nearest one. ‘Or you? Or you, over there? Or the two of you? I think that’s all you could get in on me at once, given the way this cellar’s built. Such inconvenient pillars, aren’t they? Whyever did they build it like that? So you see, it isn’t really very easy for your men, Heneage. They’ve got clubs and knives and I’ve got a sword and I’m sure they’ll knock me down eventually, but in the process I should be able to kill at least one, maybe even two of them. Maybe I’ll maim a few more of them, you never know. This is a broadsword: it’s not perfect for close-quarters work but it’s quite sharp and it has two edges as well as a point and I’m in excellent practice with it.’

He looked round again, balancing on his toes and looking quite relaxed. ‘So who’s it to be? Which of your men love you, Heneage, which ones would follow you into battle?’

You could feel the tension in the air and also the way uncertainty spread among the men around Heneage. They were looking at each other, assessing Robin’s stance, deciding whether he was telling the truth, wondering why he was talking so much. Julie knew. He was acting, playing for time. Edmund’s bony fingers were gripping hers tight enough to hurt.

‘Maybe we could just fight it out, Heneage, eh?’ Robin was moving now, waving his sword in elaborate arcs and making it flash hypnotically in the sunlight filtering down through the window, shifting his feet like a tennis player. ‘You and me, sword to sword, or knife to knife. That would be fun, very chivalric, very old-fashioned. Or use guns. I can see you’re not a fighting man, more of a desk man really, aren’t you? Standing back while other men do your dirty work, get themselves killed in your service? But you could probably fire a gun, couldn’t you, something light like a dag, only weighs a couple of pounds, you could do that. Maybe you could even aim it straight? I’m not as good a shot as I should be, you’d have a chance.’

Heneage’s mouth tightened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. In the name of the Queen I order…’

‘Don’t drag my cousin into this,’ said Carey pointedly and Julie had to hide a smile because of the expression on some of the men at arms’ faces.

‘Webster, Oat, arrest that man.’

Two of the men at arms moved forward uncertainly. Heneage seemed to expand with rage like a pigeon’s neck. ‘And you, Potter, get him out of there.’

The men-at-arms were advancing in a circle on Carey who had stopped his little dance and taken up a fighting crouch, the open
en garde
with sword and poignard recommended for more than one opponent. He was grinning at them, showing his teeth like a fox at bay.

‘I’ll give twenty-five shillings to the man who subdues him,’ said Heneage. Carey laughed.

‘Christ, Heneage, you’re cheap. The Borderers are offering ten pounds sterling for my head.’

That was when everything got confused. Julie noticed that the men-at-arms at the back of Bolton’s Ward were distracted, they were looking over their shoulders. Heneage was listening to one who was whispering in his ear, there was the sound of boots on the stairs, shouts. Meanwhile the men at the front hadn’t realised anything was happening, they were focused on Carey and nerving themselves. Suddenly they made their rush, two of them from either side with their clubs high. One swung down, one swung sideways, Carey blocked the higher one with his blade, leaped sideways to avoid the worst of the sideswipe, used his poignard to stab for the man’s face when his sword got stuck in the cudgel’s wood and the man fell backwards away from Carey’s stab while the other two tried to hit him as he tried to shake the cudgel off his sword. Julie flung herself forwards trying to catch the boots of one of them as Carey took a blow on the shoulder and faltered; she caught them and got a kick in the face though she brought the man down.

There was another man-at-arms in the fight; Carey had dropped his sword, dodged a club, kicked someone in the kneecap and then somebody had caught his arm, he was hit again, shrewdly with the thrusting end of a cudgel in the belly and he doubled over. One man at arms lifted his club high to bring it down on Carey’s head and finish the fight. It bounced off the sturdy haft of a halberd thrust out by a broad elderly man in black velvet and brocade. There was a sweep of tawny satin and flame-red velvet gown as the elderly man whirled, punched the man-at-arms and knocked him down.

Carey was upright again but obviously couldn’t see properly, hadn’t realised he could stop fighting now, he was lungeing towards the newcomer with his poignard. Julie put her hand to her mouth, but the old gentleman stood his ground with the halberd held in defence across his body and roared, ‘ROBIN.’

It was almost comical to see Carey stop almost in mid-air, skidding on the slimy floor, fighting for balance. One of the new men at arms in a blazing livery of black and yellow put out a hand and stopped him from falling over.

‘F…Father,’ he wheezed as his sight cleared, looking round him at his father’s men, some of whom were grinning. ‘Where the…hell have you been?’ He sheathed his poignard carefully at the back of his belt, and leaned against the wall, tenderly cradled his midriff, easing his shoulder and wincing, shaking his head to clear it.