They carried on to an inn next to the Royal Exchange. Looking perky and happy as usual, Letty went in followed by a Cornishman. There was a pause and then she came out, frowning.
“He’s not there, my lady,” she said.
Lady Hunsdon frowned. “Is he not? Are you sure? Ask the landlord if he’s gone out?”
Letty went back in and returned a moment later. “Landlord said he’s gone, he’s not here any more.”
Lady Hunsdon held her hand out to Dodd who swung her down and then, on an impulse, jumped down from the horse himself, gave the reins to one of the henchmen to hold, and followed her into the inn’s commonroom to back her up if she needed it.
She didn’t really. The landlord was hunched and hand-washing with anxiety but he stuck to his guns.
“A thousand pardons, your ladyship, but e’s gone. I dunno where, just gone. That’s all I know.”
“We arranged to meet at this very inn this very day, oh…several weeks ago,” rapped out Lady Hunsdon. “Of course he isn’t gone.”
“He’s gone, your ladyship, or rather, I don’t know what’s happened to him and his bill not paid and he left his riding cloak and some duds here when he went.”
Lady Hunsdon’s eyes narrowed. “That’s ridiculous. Let me see his room.”
“I can’t your ladyship, beggin’ your pardon, but I let it again and I sold his duds to pay his bill wot he hadn’t, see.”
“When did you last see him?”
“More’n a week ago, ladyship, honest,” said the innkeeper. “He saw his lawyer and then he went out to a dice game, he said, and that’s the last I seen of him.”
“Didn’t you look for him?”
The landlord shrugged. “’Course I did, ‘e hadn’t paid his bill had he, but I couldn’t find him.”
Dodd’s eyes were narrowed too. There was something radically wrong here.
Lady Hunsdon made a harumph noise like both her husband and her son. Behind her, Letty was snivelling into her sleeve. The landlord invited them to a drink on the house and Lady Hunsdon agreed, sharp as a needle. They were shown to a back parlour with some ugly painted cloths hanging on the walls where Lady Hunsdon drank brandywine with a large spoonful of sugar, Letty drank mild, and Dodd had a quart of some of the worst beer he had ever tasted, thin, sour, over-hopped and not very strong. Lady Hunsdon said nothing, gazing beadily at Letty who was trembling and clearly trying not to cry.
Before they left, Lady Hunsdon beckoned the landlord and spoke quietly in his ear. A gold angel passed from the lady to the landlord and his demeanour changed.
“Sergeant Dodd,” she said, “would you be so good as to go upstairs with mine host and search the bedroom used by Mr. Tregian?”
“Ay m’lady,” said Dodd, not sorry to be leaving his beer unfinished.
He followed the landlord who seemed nervous. The private room was better than the common run, reasonably well-furnished with a half-testered bed, a truckle for the servant, and a couple of straw palliasses for pageboys or henchmen, a chest with a lock and a table and chairs. The jordan was under the bed, not only empty but clean. So the room hadn’t been let.
Dodd couldn’t slit the mattresses with the landlord watching but he could and did search methodically and carefully, working from one side to the other, like a maiden doing the cleaning. All he found was an old book of martyr stories on a shelf which was a little loose. Dodd jiggled it a couple of times and then looked at the join it made with the wall. It was definitely loose at one end. He peered at it from underneath and saw something folded and wedged up behind the wood of the shelf. With the tip of his dagger he teased it out and found two blank sheets of paper. Presumably they’d been put there to stop the shelf wiggling and he was about to throw them in the fireplace when he caught a faint scent of oranges from the papers. It was an expensive way of fixing a shelf after all.
He folded them carefully and put them in his belt pouch, then went on down the stairs. The ladies were ready to go so Dodd went ahead. Out of habit, he checked under his saddle and his girth, mounted then bent to hand Lady Hunsdon up behind him.
“London Bridge,” she ordered.
They carried on, shoving through the crowds, all of whom seemed to be heading for the Bridge, which was hard on the temper.
“Powerful lot of folk here,” said Dodd as he pushed on through an argument between three men and a donkey stopped in the middle of the path and all four braying furiously.
“Have you never been on London Bridge, Sergeant?” asked Lady Hunsdon with a naughty sparkle. “Or did you cross several times and simply not notice that the best drapers, haberdashers, and headtiring shops in the world are there?”
“Ay,” Dodd admitted, “that’d be it.”
They were coming to the gate towers with their fringe of traitors’ heads, where you could hear the rush and creak of the newly installed waterwheels, the crowd nearly solid as they passed through the narrow entrance. The gate gave onto the street over the Bridge which was enclosed by the shops and houses built right on it and dim enough to need lanterns at the shop doors. Suddenly there was a gasp behind them as if somebody had been stabbed. Dodd jerked round to see Letty staring up at the row of spikes along the top of the gatehouse. A crow was flapping heavily away from the newest of the heads there, arrived from Tyburn the day before. Letty seemed struck to stone by the sight of the bearded and now eyeless face. Her hands flew to her mouth, she breathed deep, and then she screamed like a pig at the slaughter.
Dodd’s gelding took severe offence and, despite the weight of two people on his back, tried to pirouette, then backed frantically into a group of stout women with baskets who all shouted angrily. Letty was still screaming which had thoroughly spooked the mare she was sitting on. Shakespeare was frantically sawing at the reins as the animal lunged sideways, snorting and kicking and starting to crow-hop to get rid of her burden. A gap opened in the frightened crowd and she looked ready to take off for the far hills.
Dodd felt Lady Hunsdon’s arms clasp tight around his waist and her hands lock together.
“Help them, Sergeant,” came the firm cool voice behind him.
Dodd brought his whip down brutally on his gelding’s side, which got the beast’s attention. Then Dodd turned him around and drove him after Shakespeare’s and Letty’s mount, knocking pedestrians and one Cornishman aside. He came alongside the bucking, frantic nag, grabbed the bridle, and leaned over to put his sleeve across the silly creature’s eyes. Being a horse, she immediately stood still because she couldn’t see and Dodd muttered in her ear, telling her gently how he would have her guts for haggis casing and feed her rump to the nearest pack of hunting dogs he could find. It didn’t matter what you said to the animal, so long as your voice was right. At least Letty’s screaming had stopped, though a glance over his shoulder showed this was because Shakespeare had a hand firmly on her mouth.
Shakespeare’s face was white and there were hot tears boiling down Letty’s cheeks, little cries still coming from behind Shakespeare’s palm.
“God’s truth, mistress, did ye wantae die…?” he snarled.
“Shhh,” said Lady Hunsdon behind him in a voice that was an odd mixture of fury and sadness. “She’s seen something that upset her. We’ll go back to Somerset House now.”
“Ay m’lady,” said Dodd, and turned both the horses. “Will ye bide quiet now, lass?” he asked Letty who was trembling as much as her mare. She nodded so Shakespeare took his hand away, after which she dropped her face into her hands and started to cry.
Dodd was sweating from all the drama, which was made much worse by the stares and sniggers of the Londoners standing back unhelpfully to watch the show. The Cornishmen were helping Hunsdon’s henchmen to pick up and dust down a couple of annoyed lawsuit-threatening Londoners who hadn’t moved away fast enough.
Dodd jerked his head at Shakespeare and they closed up the distance between the horses. A Cornishman cudgelled an urchin who had his hand in the heaviest pannier on the packpony as Dodd swatted away a small bunch of child-beggars with their hands up and their sores exposed. Their party formed a tighter group and headed back for the other side of the City as fast as they could.