Air of Treason, An: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (Sir Robert Carey Mysteries) (25 page)

“Ay?”

“Well of course. It’s only because you illicitly drank enough to half-kill yourself that my father doesn’t have you banged up in the Oxford jailhouse right now.”

There was a long thoughtful pause while Hughie digested this.

“Ah hadnae thocht o’that, sir.”

“No? Well, think about it now. You bring me wine which is poisoned, ideally I die and it’s only thanks to God that I didn’t, and then as my henchman who brought the wine, you would be the first and probably last suspect.”

“But I didna…”

Carey leaned forward, blinking at the young man’s sullen face and wishing he could see more clearly. “Hughie, I’m sure you didn’t but if I was dead and you unpoisoned, you would be in very big trouble no matter how innocent you were. I can’t guarantee that my father wouldn’t have you put to the question to find out what had happened; he’s a decent man and doesn’t like that kind of foreign rubbish, but he would be very upset if he had my corpse to bury. To put it mildly.”

More silence. “Ay, sir,” said Hughie heavily. There was some kind of rage smouldering in him somewhere. Carey hoped Hughie would put the rage to good use, by finding the poisoner, for instance.

Carey stood and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I’ll talk to my father, make sure he releases you to me once you’re better. Think about it. Oh and Hughie…”

“Ay, sir?”

“I’m a very tolerant man, you know. I served at Court for ten years before I decided it would be more fun to do some fighting on the Borders. I know how Courts work and I know how the King of Scotland’s Court works as well because I was there with Walsingham years ago and I’ve been back a few times since. The only thing I don’t forgive in a man of mine is lying to me. Understand?”

More silence.

“If you’re taking money from someone to keep an eye on me and report back, I don’t mind at all—so long as you tell me about it.”

Nothing. Carey nodded and crammed his hat further down over his eyes. “See if you remember anything more, drink plenty of mild ale and if you feel up it you can be back at work for me tomorrow. God knows, Mr. Tovey my new clerk doesn’t know one end of a doublet from another.”

Not a glimmer of a smile, the saturnine young face was clearly masking a brain that was thinking furiously.

Quite pleased with himself, Carey went out and found Tovey sitting on a window ledge peering out the window into the quad. His face was wistful.

“Happy memories, Mr. Tovey?”

“Yes, sir. Though I was at Balliol not Trinity and working my keep, I loved it here.” The shy smile among the spots was like that of a man remembering an old love. “All the books, it was just…It was heaven here. So many books to read.”

Carey nodded politely. While he liked reading and enjoyed romances like the
Roman de la Rose
or adventure stories like Mallory’s
Morte d’Arthur,
he usually got restless after an hour or so. He wasn’t a clerk.

“Let’s go find one of my brothers,” he said. Tovey hopped down and trotted after him obediently.

Luckily the one he found was George who was unenviably in charge of organising the Hunsdon household. The household was enormous even on progress and spilled out of the main college quad and into the gardens behind. George was Hunsdon’s heir, in his forties and very harassed by the lack of provisions.

“What?” he snapped irritably when Carey asked him the question for the fourth time. “You want to know whether your man Dodd’s turned up and also about Aunt Katherine’s riding habit thirty years ago? For God’s sake, Robin, why?”

“For a good and sufficient reason,” Carey said. His hat was helping the dazzle but he was getting another headache and his guts were in a sad state, no doubt thanks to Dr. Lopez’ prescriptions. And he was now seriously worried about Dodd—none of his father’s men had any idea whether he had been found yet. It was as if he had been stolen away by the faery folk. And Carey did not personally want to think about a faery that could do that to Dodd.

Carey passed a hand down the leg of the horse that seemed skittish, while his elder brother gloomily checked the hay stores which had clearly been got at by rats and possibly humans.

“I don’t know what the devil happened to her skirt,” said George pettishly. “And as for Dodd, my bloody wagons left London ten days ago with food supplies and they haven’t arrived yet either. Maybe the sergeant ran off with them.”

Not impossible with Dodd, but unlikely, Carey thought. The skittish gelding next to him blew out its lips and hopped a bit. Running his hand down again, Carey found the hot sore place on the knee which he suspected would need a bran poultice. He pointed this out to George who wasn’t pleased to hear about it as he was also short of horses. In Carey’s experience nobody, in any situation, ever had enough horses.

“Come on, George,” he insisted, “I’ll leave you alone if you tell me. You must remember more than I do and I remember quite a fuss years later. Aunt Katherine’s riding habit?”

“God, I don’t know,” snorted George, sounding very like a lame horse himself, “I’m not so bloody interested in fine clothes as you, I don’t…”

“I don’t wear kirtles, George,” Carey said coldly, wishing his brother wasn’t so pompous. “I’m asking for a reason. Do I have to show you my warrant?”

“Oh. That. Well…” George sighed and stared at the ground. “Far as I can remember she was at Court early in the Queen’s reign. Lettice hadn’t come to Court yet. I was a page still, and yes, her riding habit went mysteriously missing. And then one of her tiring women was complaining that it was ruined but then the Queen was very kind and gave Aunt Katherine a dress length—a whole twelve yards—of fine green Lincoln wool, and arranged for her own tailor to make a new habit for her.”

“Anything else? How was the kirtle ruined?”

“Got splashed with blood or something. And the headtire had been lost as well. Aunt Katherine probably fell off her horse and didn’t want to admit it, she was never a very good rider.”

Yes! Carey stood stock still, staring into space. “I don’t remember Aunt Katherine ever liking the hunt,” he said carefully. “What style was the headtire?”

George shrugged. “She was very old-fashioned, usually wore French hoods that went out with Bloody Mary, I don’t know.”

Carey’s heart was pounding and the hair up on the back of his neck, it was like what you felt when you saw a chorus of Kings in your hand and a fat pot on the table.

George was still droning on. “Sorry, brother?”

“I said, Robin, if you’d care to listen for a change, that Aunt Kat was very upset about it and so was Father and he told us not to mention it at all.”

“Right.” That fitted too. Carey decided he had to find his father and talk to him. “Where is Father?”

“He’s out with some men, trying to find out what happened to the pack train—and your Sergeant Dodd as well. He was saying if you hadn’t been so infernally careless and got yourself poisoned, you could have been very useful. He wants to know when you think you’ll be fit to ride?”

Leaving out the detail of where he had gone that morning, Carey shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow if my eyes are better. I’m quite busy too, you know. In addition to the warrant matter, I’m also trying to find out who poisoned me. Thank you, George.”

He walked carefully out of the Hunsdon camp, still trailed by Tovey, with the sunlight peering under a sheet of dirty linen cloud to dazzle him again and make his head hurt. He would have to find out from Cumberland who was serving the spiced wine on Saturday and then talk to the man to see if he could remember any of the people crowding round the table. Meantime his head was buzzing because he had thought of a possible reason for the Queen to be at Cumnor Place on the 8th September 1560. It was far-fetched but it made better sense than the notion that she would personally murder Amy, that was sure. He might have to go back to Cumnor Place and press Mrs. Odingsells for whatever it was she had kept. And his Aunt’s missing headtire made sense of something else.

Unfortunately the new explanation once again made a prime suspect of Lord Burghley.

Monday 18th September 1592, night

Back with the Earl of Cumberland’s encampment, he found the man who served the spiced wine who was understandably extremely nervous. It took some time to calm him enough to get any sense out of him at all. He said he was certain there had been no woman at all amongst the servingmen wanting spiced wine for their masters, which took out Emilia’s direct intervention. As for which of them had passed forward Hughie’s flagon—the man had no idea at all, blinked helplessly at the flagon Carey showed him and said he’d filled hundreds that looked just like it, he was sorry, sir, but…Carey sighed, gave him thruppence for his time and promised him another ninepence if he could remember anything else.

Carey would bet a lot of money that whichever man it had been, he’d left Rycote on Saturday night, but so had plenty of other people. Or had he? There were so many servingmen, henchmen, and general hangers on at Court, even on progress, the poisoner could easily have stayed with the Court if he kept his nerve.

He was restless and out of sorts. He couldn’t even enjoy playing cards with Cumberland when he could hardly make out the pips. Darkness fell which eased him somewhat. And so Carey sat and drank mild ale in the little alehouse on the corner of the Hollywell Street, staring into space, trying to filter out the noise of a lute being played by an idiot and some extremely bad singing.

The hammering and sawing died down and the workmen started filling up the alehouse, spending their wages. Flocks of students moved restlessly along the street in their black gowns, arguing and drinking and, occasionally, fighting.

Somebody else got hold of the lute, somebody who could actually play the damned thing because he started by tuning it. No alehouse lute was ever in tune. When the man began playing, Carey sat up and put his mug on the table.

It was the Spanish air he had sung at Rycote. The tune didn’t have the same arrangement that Byrd had given it, but it was still the same wistful melody. And the man playing the lute was the man who had disappeared from Byrd’s music consort on the Saturday night after hearing Carey sing.

Carey’s neck felt cold. Had he put the poison in Carey’s booze? Why would he do that? He’d annoyed Mr. Byrd by leaving the musicians’ consort—that didn’t say he’d left the whole party.

The man finished playing that air and then played two other tunes more. Despite applause and calls for more from the workmen, he put the lute down and walked out of the alehouse without even passing a hat round.

Goddamn it, he needed a man at his back, he wished he hadn’t sent the yawning Tovey off to his bed. At least Tovey could have run to Trinity College and rousted out Sergeant Ross and a few Northerners to arrest the man.

No help for it, he couldn’t afford to lose the man so Carey put his half-finished ale down and followed. At least now that the streets were fully dark apart from occasional public-spirited lanterns on college gates, his eyes worked very well. He could see as clearly as if it were a moonlit night and not as overcast as it was.

The man walked purposefully along the road to New College, went into the tiny boozing ken next to it, picked up the violin there and played that. Once again the Spanish air rang out, followed by two more tunes and the man left once more.

Carey pulled his hat down, wished he’d bothered with a cloak and pretended to be staggering drunk as he followed the man on down the lane that eventually wound up passing by Magdalen deerpark where he turned right and came back along the High Street.

There were a lot of inns and alehouses on the High Street and the man went into each one, played the Spanish air and a couple more tunes, then left without passing a hat round or accepting any of the beer offered to keep him in the place.

He stayed and ate the ordinary at the London Inn on the southwards road from Carfax, then off he went again, having maybe one quart of mild per five boozing kens and playing the Spanish air at each of them. And there certainly were an amazing number of inns and alehouses in Oxford. Studying must be thirsty work.

Just as Carey was loitering in a doorway on the corner of St. Giles after a foray to the Eagle & Child where the alewife had scowled at both of them, he saw a looming pair of shoulders and a statute cap pulled down low on Hughie’s saturnine young face.

“Ay, sir,” said Hughie, when Carey caught up with him, “I came to find ye because I minded me of something. The hand of the man that gave me the flagon back…it was…Ah…ye ken, his fingernails wis long and he had rough ends tae his fingers.”

Carey paused, his heart lifting. Hughie was screwing up his eyes and frowning and Carey knew that the very little light from the torches on the college gates was still bothering him.

“Hughie, well done!” he said, clapping the man’s shoulder, “That’s wonderful because I think I may be following the villain. Come with me.”

They went into the White Horse where the musician was just setting down the house lap harp and being applauded. There was a flicker over his face which could have been fear. As far as Carey could tell he had a square handsome old face, grey beard and hair, a solid-looking, dependable man, not at all what you might expect a musician to look like. He didn’t even have a drunkard’s red nose. Perhaps he and Hughie could lay hands on the man?

Then he heard a quiet cough behind him, turned and found Sir Robert Cecil sitting in a corner booth. Cecil lifted his quart to Carey.

“Sir Robert,” said Burghley’s second son, “I’m glad to see you up and about again.”

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” said Carey warily.

“May I get you anything?”

In the corner of his eye, he could see the greybeard musician moving toward the back of the alehouse. Under his breath he said to Hughie, “Is that him?” Hughie made the indeterminate Scotch sound “Iphm” which probably meant he wasn’t sure. “Go after him, keep him in sight,” Carey hissed. “Do it quietly.”

“Ay sir,” said Hughie with a shy smile, and went over to the bar.

Cecil had already beckoned the potboy. Carey certainly couldn’t ignore a Privy Counsellor in favour of an old musician, so why not? He had run out of money again, having come out with only a shilling in his purse. “Thank you, sir, I’ll have brandywine.”