A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (8 page)

“And why did he do it like that,” Dodd asked, which was the main question on his mind. “Why be so complicated? Even in London it canna be hard for a man wi’ Heneage’s power to slit his throat and drop him in the Thames and nae questions asked?”

Nobody said anything.

The steward knocked on the door, came in, and whispered in Lord Hunsdon’s ear.

“Oh. Ah. Yes, of course. We will see him in the large parlour. I believe your lawyer has arrived, Sergeant.”

“Ay.”

“In the meantime,” Hunsdon summed up with weary distaste, “we shall keep this matter as quiet as possible until we can discover what really happened. The final decision on any action to be taken will, of course, be mine although I may be forced to take the matter to my sister.” There was a warning tone in his voice and yes, he was glaring directly at his wife.

“Of course my lord,” she said, “Naturally.”

Carey closed his eyes briefly and seemed to be praying while Dodd fought down the urge to snicker. After all, it was hardly a laughing matter. Still the blandly respectful look on Lady Hunsdon’s face as she lowered her eyes to her meekly clasped hands was very, very funny to Dodd. Lord Baron Hunsdon seemed quite satisfied and nodded approvingly. “I knew you would understand, my love.”

Carey caught Dodd’s eye and one eyebrow flicked infinitesimally upwards. However Dodd was ready for it and his mouth drew down and his face settled in its normal scowl.

Tuesday 12th September 1592, afternoon

With Hunsdon leading his wife out, they processed to the large parlour where Lord and Lady Hunsdon were seated on two well-carved arm chairs that teetered on the edge of being presumptuous thrones. Hunsdon’s bore the lions of England carved into the wood while his lady’s was padded with tawny velvet. They had stopped short of a cloth of estate, though.

Following Carey’s lead, Dodd sat down on a bench at the side of the room and watched as James Enys came in, wearing a good if out-of-fashion green wool suit and his Utter Barrister’s monkish black cloth robe hanging from his shoulders. He took off his velvet cap and bowed low to both the Hunsdons. He was already sweating with nerves. Lady Hunsdon made a noise that sounded a little like “Tchah!” and stared down her nose at the lawyer.

“Mr. Vaughan, good of you to come,” said Hunsdon, was politely elbowed by his wife, and coughed. “Enys, yes, of course.”

Enys bowed again.

“I understand you are willing to take the brief on behalf of Sergeant Henry Dodd of Gilsland here against his honour Mr. Vice Chamberlain Sir Thomas Heneage?”

“Ah…yes m’lord.” Enys’s voice was quite light but firm and pleasant to listen to. It carried easily. Dodd noticed he was holding the lapels of his gown with his thumbs under the material in a way which made him look combative but was probably designed to stop his hands shaking.

“Despite Mr. Vice Chamberlain having frightened off all of your legal brethren?”

A faint smile crossed Enys’s ugly face. “Ah…yes m’lord.”

“Why?” asked Hunsdon bluntly. “Have you no wish for preferment?”

“There is no chance whatsoever that Mr. Vice will ever offer it to me. Whereas you, my lord Chamberlain, have a reputation for dealing justly and I have no doubt but that you will be my good lord, whatever the result of the litigation.”

It was prettily put and Lord Hunsdon beamed and expanded slightly. Lady Hunsdon leaned forward.

“We can’t help you if you end in Chelsea with that devil Topcliffe questioning you.”

Enys shrugged. “I am a good loyal subject of Her Gracious Majesty, I attend Divine service every Sunday, and my brother fought and was wounded in the Netherlands.”

“If you go against Mr. Heneage as things are at the moment you may find that these things do not protect you,” put in Carey.

Enys shrugged again. “I may die of plague tomorrow if God wills it.”

“Hm.” Hunsdon leaned an elbow on the arm of his chair and tapped his teeth. Lady Hunsdon had fixed Enys with a gimlet blue stare which would certainly have had Dodd sweating. However, the young man seemed to have calmed somewhat. He took a breath to speak.

“My lord, my lady, may I be quite frank with you?”

Hunsdon nodded while his lady only narrowed her eyes.

“Obviously, you will be wondering if I am in fact Heneage’s man.”

Hunsdon smiled; his lady remained grim.

“Also, obviously, there is very little I can do to convince you that this is not the case since any test of my truthfulness you could think of, Mr. Heneage could circumvent. Here is my tale. Immediately after I was called to the Bar and whilst I was still in pupillage a year ago, I was approached by a man of business, a solicitor of some fame, and asked if I would take some cases in King’s Bench dealing with forfeitures of Papist land and other property dealings. Knowing no more than that Mr. Vice Chamberlain was the principal and that he was high in the counsels of our most worshipful Sovereign Lady, I naturally agreed. I took the cases, drafted the pleadings, and appeared in the initial hearings.”

He sighed. “At this point I found that all was not as it seemed and that I could not appear for Mr. Heneage without lying to the court and going utterly against mine honour.”

The Hunsdons exchanged glances and then both scowled at Enys. It was quite admirable that he stayed steady and continued with his rhetorical story.

“I withdrew, charging no fee, and Mr. Heneage offered me a higher fee to remain, then a cut of the proceeds plus many further tempting blandishments. I still refused and he said he would destroy me since he would not be denied by anyone, especially not a stripling lawyer. He has gone some way to achieving his threat as I have had practically no cases in the past six months and will soon lose my chamber as well. I have no profession but the law and have no family other than my brother …um and sister…to help me, nor any good lord.”

“So?” asked Lady Hunsdon.

“So, my lady,” answered Enys, “When I heard two gentlemen discussing their problems regarding Mr. Vice and realised from his speech that one of them must be your son, I thanked Providence that I had stopped by the pool instead of going to sell my cloak, and made haste to offer them my services.”

Hanging in the air was the wonder of such a stroke of luck. Lady Hunsdon summed it all up by sniffing eloquently.

Hunsdon smiled on the young man. “Mr. Enys, it could be dangerous to act for Sergeant Dodd. Mr. Heneage has a tendency to attack the smaller fry in a dispute. You could easily wind up in the Tower confessing to Papistry.”

Enys smiled back bitterly. “The man is a scandal and a tyrant, m’lord. Yes, I could. But I may do so in any case since he is mine enemy in which case…”

“In which case, Mr. Enys?”

“In which case I might as well take the fight to the enemy first.”

Dodd nodded at this piece of good sense. Hunsdon laced his fingers together.

“Mr. Enys, I shall naturally make enquiries about you. What were the cases?”

“Matters relating to the estates of Mr. Robert Boscoba, Mr. John Veryan, and Sir Piran Mawes of Trenever.”

“Cornish lands? You’re Cornish, aren’t you?”

“Yes, your ladyship. My father was from Penryn and came up to London after Glasney College was put down. My sister…” Enys paused. “…My sister was wed to a Cornishman until the smallpox widowed her.”

Lady Hunsdon nodded intently. “Do you know a Mr. Richard Tregian who would have come up to London about two or three weeks ago?”

“No, my lady,” said Enys, his eyes narrowing, “I have never met him.”

“Assuming my enquiries are satisfactory,” said Hunsdon, “I shall retain you for the amount of a guinea per week plus refreshers for court appearances.”

The lawyer bowed low. “My lord is very generous,”

Lady Hunsdon leaned forward confidingly. “Mr. Enys,” she said coaxingly, “what were the cases you withdrew from about?”

Enys’s eyelids fluttered. “I cannot tell you more, m’lady, I’m very sorry. Client confidentiality.”

“You withdrew from the cases,” Hunsdon pointed out.

“I did, m’lord, because they would have gone against my honour.” There was a pause whilst Enys nerved himself. “It would also go against my honour to babble about them like a woman at the conduit to anyone who asked.” Hunsdon nodded.

“How soon can you draft and lodge the pleadings on Sergeant Dodd’s behalf.”

“Once I am fee’d and briefed, m’lord, by tomorrow.”

“Any ideas on the conduct?”

“Yes, m’lord.” The young man took a deep breath and clasped the lapels of his gown tightly. “I would recommend a writ of
pillatus
against Mr. Heneage for the criminal assault and wrongful imprisonment, to be served immediately.”

Both Hunsdon and his lady stared at the young man for a second, transfixed, before Hunsdon bellowed with laughter and his lady gurgled. Carey too had a wicked grin on his face. “What’s that?” hissed Dodd to him, knowing he was missing something important here.

“He’s saying we should get a warrant to arrest Heneage immediately on the criminal charges,” whispered Carey, still grinning.

“He’ll surely wriggle out…”

“Of course he will, but he’ll spend at least a night in prison if we time it right.”

Dodd’s lips parted in delight. “Och,” he said, “I like this lawyer.”

“While he’s in prison,” added Enys, “we should serve writs of subpoena on all potential witnesses and put any that are…frightened…into protective custody.”

Hunsdon let out another bark. Dodd understood this. “Mr. Enys,” he called across the tiled floor, “one o’them’s the Gaoler o’the Fleet.”

Enys’s pock-marked brow wrinkled. “Then I think he needs to be named on the originating warrant as a confederate and also arrested, or he’ll never testify.”

***

Barnabus Cooke’s funeral was later that afternoon and a respectable affair, attended naturally by Carey, Dodd, and the young Simon Barnet, though not Barnabus’ sister’s family which was still locked up in their house with plague. No more of them had died apart from the mother. Hunsdon had paid for Barnabus’s coffin and the burial fees and also four pauper mourners, one of whom seemed to be genuinely upset. The Church of St Bride’s was convenient and the vicar glad of the shroud money, but had the sense to keep his eulogy of Barnabus short and tactful. Carey had pointedly invited Shakespeare to come as well, but had received an elegantly phrased letter of regret. Apart from a remarkable number of upright men who turned up hoping to be paid mourners too, there were several women in veils and striped petticoats and a round-faced man in a fine wool suit with a snowy falling band whom Dodd felt he had seen somewhere before. Carey seemed to know him and once the small coffin had been lowered into the plot in the crowded graveyard, strode over to greet him.

“Mr. Hughes,” he said, “how kind of you to attend.”

The man took his hat off and bowed. “Thank you, sir,” he said easily, “I try to attend them as gets away.”

Carey smiled. “Still smarting?”

Hughes smiled back. “No sir, though I’ll allow as I had a rope measured and properly stretched for him. I’m also here to bring the compliments of my brother-in-law and his thanks to your worshipful father for his support of Barnabus Cooke’s family.”

Carey seemed surprised by this for he paused, and then bowed shallowly. “My father is proud of his good lordship and feels it is the least he could do.”

“Nonetheless, sir, there’s not many would bother nowadays. My brother-in-law would like you to know that he is obliged to your honours and at your father’s service.”

With a dignified tip of his hat, Mr. Hughes moved quietly away and through the gate. Carey blinked after him. “Well well,” he said, “that’s interesting.”

Dodd was irritated that again he didn’t know what was going on here. “Ay?” he complained.

Carey smiled and led the way to a boozing ken on Fleet Street, filled with a raucous flock of hard-drinking black-robed lawyers and their pamphlet-writing hangers on.

“That, Sergeant,” he said as he drank brandywine with satisfaction, “is the London hangman. You saw him performing his office yesterday.”

“Jesu,” said Dodd, feeling slightly queasy.

“He is also, and this is where it gets interesting, the brother-in-law of the King of London, Mr. Laurence Pickering himself. Who has just as good as offered an alliance to my father for some reason.”

“The King of London?”

“Mr. Laurence Pickering, King of the London thieves, chief controller of the London footpads and upright men, main profiter by the labours of the London whores, coming second only to his Grace the Bishop of Winchester who collects their rents.”

“Ay,” said Dodd with respect. “Is there only the one King of London, then?”

“Oh yes,” said Carey drily, “Only the one. Now.”

Wednesday 13th September 1592, morning.

At dawn the next day, itching in tight wool and with a new highcrowned beaver hat on his head, Dodd went with Carey to take a boat at Temple steps with Enys for Westminster Hall. Enys was carrying a sheaf of papers in a blue brocade bag and looked tired with bags under his eyes. He pulled his black robe around him and held his hat tight to his head. It was hard to tell the expression on his face, so thick were the scars from the smallpox, but he looked tense.