Air of Treason, An: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (Sir Robert Carey Mysteries) (36 page)

“Whit the hell did ye…”

“Didn’t want another argument,” Carey said, blowing water out of his mouth like a dolphin on a map. Dodd found a place where the water only came to his chest and there were indeed fish in the tank but not too much weed or slime. The fish immediately started nibbling at his feet and legs and he tried to kick them away. “It’s the final part of the treatment. You’ll feel a lot better for it.” The man was looking insufferably smug again.

A suspicion struck Dodd. He suddenly remembered the other purpose of stews, the one that didn’t involve women.

“Is this yer way of getting me tae take a
bath
?” he demanded furiously, “
Again
? Not a month after the last one?”

Carey sniggered and so Dodd went after him, ducked him, held him under then decided not to drown the bastard because he was too tired to deal with the consequences. So he let go and climbed out by the mosaicked steps. Carey stood coughing, shaking his head and still bloody laughing, the git.

A little later he was dry, skin glowing, feet in another clean pair of linen socks which had been very helpfully put on by one of the girls who had patted them dry and tutted sympathetically and even put a green salve of allheal on. They were drinking brandy in the stews’ parlour while Dodd waded into an excellent dinner of steak and kidney pudding with potherbs and followed by a figgy pudding with custard that filled most of the corners in his belly. However he had maintained a dour offended silence throughout and continued it as they walked back to Trinity, trying not to limp. Carey was not in the least concerned.

“See you in the morning, Sergeant,” he said in the upstairs parlour that overlooked the large courtyard that Carey called a quadrangle for some reason. There were a couple of straw pallets and some blankets by the fireplace, so it seemed some servants would be sleeping there. It was nice that Dodd had an actual bedchamber. “We’re riding out before dawn.”

“Och,” said Dodd, wishing he could have a day off too.

At least there was ale and bread and cheese waiting for him in his chamber, and a manservant came in to help him undress, a luxury he still found suspicious but was grateful for as his eyes had started shutting by themselves again. He went to sleep with his skin still feeling very peculiar and his hair damp.

Thursday 21st September 1592, dawn

Mrs. Odingsells always woke at dawn, even though the fog that filled most of her world meant she only knew when it was full light. Her window faced east and she left the shutters open so that when the weather was bad enough she could see the threatening colour of dawn a little.

She was always amazed at how tiring it was to lie down all the time. She had a girl come the village most mornings to help her dress and sit in a chair by the window but lately the trembling had got too bad and she couldn’t make her legs work. Why the Devil couldn’t she die? She prayed most nights to die and welcomed each cough and sniffle in the hope that it might be bearing the gift of a lungfever. She was not afraid of death, had hopes that her faithfulness might count for something with Almighty God, with whom she intended to have words in any case. She was not even very worried by pain.

So why was she still alive, she wondered. She had borne two children to Mr. Odingsells in the 1550s during the boy-king’s reign, only to have all three carried off by the English sweat. It was an old horror now, well-scabbed over. With no heart for another husband, she had become a gentlewoman to her distant cousin Amy Robsart when she made her very good match. And then Amy, too, was mysteriously struck down. She had stayed at Cumnor Place afterwards, thanks to the kindness of Sir Anthony Forster, and lived a quiet and prayerful life on her small jointure, running the manor for him, with occasional visits to Oxford and Abingdon, reading mainly scripture and the Church Fathers. She had a long memory and a good one: she remembered the bonfires for the Princess Elizabeth’s birth, had in fact got drunk at the feasting and danced with the young man she had liked then, who only got himself killed in France. Yes, she would have words with the Almighty.

She had outlived everyone she loved so what was she doing here? Was it about the Queen’s matter, from decades before. In which case…perhaps there was hope that the pleasant young man would have passed on her message to Her Majesty.

She knew he had as soon as she heard the hooves of several horses in the courtyard, heard old Forster with his voice full of fear greeting the man with the rumbling voice. She remembered that voice, remembered it very well and managed to sit up in bed. More than two horses, three or four, she thought, including a pony from the shorter stride.

She pulled on a bedjacket she had knitted herself a decade before, of silk and wool mixed, against scripture, of course, but very practical. With infinite effort she rearranged her pillows so she could stay sitting up, then felt for the sewn silk packet she had kept on a ribbon round her neck all this time, safe. That ill-affected man Topcliffe had tried to find it to take it off her years ago but she had convinced him the papers were burned.

Forster soon knocked on her chamber door and she bade him show her visitors in.

It was the man and the woman again. The same two. She squinted sideways, lining up the tiny patch of her eye that still worked. There was Henry Carey, even more like the King in his age, older and greyer, of course. There was the woman she had never actually seen before but had heard, screaming. She was wearing a black wig again. Forster withdrew.

“Mrs. Odingsells, with your permission, we wish to make use of your hall…” began Hunsdon courteously.

“Well?” That was the woman, the strong contralto voice, accustomed to command.

“Your Majesty,” Mrs. Odingsells said steadily, for hadn’t she practised in her imagination for this meeting many times? “Please forgive me for not rising, my legs no longer obey me.”

The woman stepped forward. “Do you have them?”

Mrs. Odingsells nodded. “Yes. Please use whatever you want of this house—Mr. Forster will help you.”

“All this time?” said the Queen in wonder. “Why did you keep it? Why not burn it?”

Her bedroom was not cold, there was a curfew over the fire, to keep the coals hot. Mrs. Odingsells looked sideways at it, not able to see it any more.

“I couldn’t. I tried to many times, especially when that evil man Topcliffe tried to take it. But…It was in your handwriting, signed by you, Your Majesty, and by poor Amy. And…I thought you might want it one day.” She couldn’t see, of course, but she thought the Queen coloured.

“Why? To remind myself of how near I came to losing my kingdom?”

She did understand. Mrs. Odingsells smiled joyfully into the fog where the Queen loomed. “Yes, Your Majesty. Nothing good could have come from poor Amy forswearing herself, breaking her Bible oath. No amount of gold or land or manors could have made that right.” She didn’t add that the Queen’s love for Robert Dudley was the mystery of the age, considering how he had treated Amy who loved him too.

“No.” The Queen was agreeing with her. “I think that poor Amy saved my life and my kingdom that day.”

It was time. Slowly, with fingers that trembled and fumbled no matter how hard she tried to control them, Mrs. Odingsells lifted the little packet on its ribbon over her head and held it out. The Queen took it, her long slender fingers cold and smooth. The paper crackled as she opened it out. She took a long breath.

“Hmm. Good penmanship,” said the Queen after a moment in a self-satisfied tone. Mrs. Odingsells nearly laughed. Amy’s handwriting had been poor so the Queen must have been her own clerk that day and done it well. “I thank you heartily, Mrs. Odingsells, both for your discretion and your faithful keeping of this to give to me. Is there anything we can give you or assist you with in token of our thanks?”

“No,” said Mrs. Odingsells. “It was my duty to keep it safe and now you have it once again, perhaps the good Lord will call me to Him at last.”

There was another long pause, and a sharp movement from Henry Carey. “God speed,” said the Queen. “Thank you, Mrs. Odingsells.”

The two of them walked out leaving a sense of empty space behind them. Mrs. Odingsells called in Mr. Forster and told him to let them do whatever they wanted within reason.

Once out in the passage the Queen looked down at the single sheet of paper. Written on it, in her own excellent Italic, was her agreement with Amy Dudley née Robsart that Amy would petition Convocation for the annulment of her marriage on grounds of non-consummation and in return receive large estates, a pot of gold, a manor house and a house in London and a pension from the Queen. Both parties had signed it, of course, but…Harry was staring at it, appalled. In all the hurry, thirty-two years ago, they had both clean forgotten the agreement they had come for and now…

“Where’s the other one?” he whispered. “There were two copies.”

There had to be two copies. One for Amy, one for her. Two copies, both signed by both parties. Mrs. Odingsells had only handed over one.

The Queen shook her head, refolded the paper and put it under her stays, then walked down the stairs swiftly and out into the weedy courtyard. Her lady-in-waiting Mary Radcliffe and Thomasina her Fool had already gone into the old hall to supervise its tidying and sweeping. The horses were tethered in the corner. To be so free of attendants—as always it made her feel light and giddy. She had her brother get out his tinderbox and light the stump of candle in it so she could burn the paper she did have and stamp the ashes into the mud. The other copy…Well, that would have to wait. Perhaps she would set young Robin on to find it one day.

Then she had the final argument with her brother about the meeting she had planned. It didn’t matter what he said. She had to receive the old musician who had plotted so carefully to meet her. She must finish what she could of the business at last. Obviously she couldn’t do it at Woodstock, so full of courtiers and spies, nor at Oxford. There was a fitness in things and for all Henry’s spluttering about the risks, this matter must be finished where it started.

Thursday 21st September 1592, morning

It was full light when Dodd woke up to someone knocking on the door. That was some comfort.

“Whit the hell…?” he growled, confused into thinking he was still in London.

“We leave in about half an hour, Sergeant,” came Carey’s voice filled with his usual loathsome morning cheerfulness.

Dodd rolled out of bed, used the jordan under it and slowly got himself dressed. There were good thick knitted hose with it to go over the linen socks, so he took a chance and pulled on his boots that someone had already done a good job of mending and polishing. It wasn’t what you could call comfortable but it was bearable and he would just have to hope they were riding not walking. He went into the parlour where there was food ready on the table, neither Tovey nor the Scotsman visible. He gulped down more mild ale and fresh bread and cheese.

In the quadrangle were horses and men and Carey efficiently sorting them out. Nobody was wearing buff jerkins or helmets or jacks but they all had their swords and were looking smart. Dodd’s own sword was at his hip and he felt much the better for it. To his surprise, Don Jeronimo was also there, on a horse with his only hand loosely attached to the saddle so he could still use the rein, one of his feet was tied to the stirrup. His face was unreadable under his hat but he looked worryingly humorous.

Dodd mounted without touching the stirrups, despite it being so early, then leaned over and unbuckled the stirrup leathers, handed them to a surprised groom. “They’ll ainly mek ma feet sore,” he told the lad who didn’t look like he’d understood.

“So,” he asked Carey, “where are we gangen tae, sir?”

“Not far, about four miles from here.”

They went through the College gate, walked along the wide road where they must have markets, down a narrow road past another of the odd-looking monkish fortresses, curved along the line of a high wall, over a bridge and then they went to a canter in a body, Don Jeronimo constantly surrounded by Hunsdon’s liverymen. Dodd recognised several typical Border faces among them, though their speech was from the East March.

They had to slow down soon. The road into Oxford was choked with people and packtrains coming the other way, so they used the verge, where it wasn’t too muddy, and pounded along. It was mostly a broad road, well-built perhaps by the same giants that had built the Faery’s Wall that once was the Border line. Dodd recognised the look of the stones and some of the waymarkers carved with square letters in foreign.

They turned aside only a little south of Oxford so it was hardly any time at all before they were clattering into the courtyard of a mansion that had clearly been closed up and not much inhabited for a long time, from the grass growing between the stones and in the gutters. As usual there was no proper tower and it was not defensible but there were four horses tethered in the corner, two beautiful hunters, a palfrey and a little pony.

“Where’s this, Sir Robert?” he asked.

“Cumnor Place,” Carey told him, “about a mile and a half north of where you were being held. This is where Amy Dudley née Robsart was killed.”

Dodd had never heard of the woman so he concluded that it was some dirty business Carey had got himself tangled in. And the south must be getting to him: he hadn’t even thought how to steal those very pretty and unattended four horses in the corner.

Jeronimo had slumped in the saddle but when Hunsdon’s liveryman untied his foot and reached over to tie his wrist to his belt instead of the saddle, he looked around himself as if recognising the place. Then he swung his leg over the horse’s neck and jumped down forwards, only staggering a little as he landed. Dodd dismounted the same way and managed not to yell when his boots hit the ground.

And then they were going into the hall which seemed to have been hastily swept, though the tables were still piled on one another and the benches stacked by the wall.

On the dais sat Carey’s father with two, no, three women beside him. One looked like a child but had a face that was somehow not childish. She was sitting cross-legged in tawny velvet at the feet of a black-haired elderly woman in a green woollen kirtle and a gown of velvet, who was sitting a little behind Hunsdon. In front of her and on a better chair was another older woman in richer clothes, with red hair.