“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.
“Sir Robert, is your father providing bailiffs to back up the court staff?” he asked Carey.
Carey was busy smiling and taking his hat off to a boatload of attractive women heading downstream for London Bridge.
“Hm? Oh yes, the steward’s arranging for it and they’ll meet us at Westminster once you have the warrant.”
“Ay, but we’ll niver arrest him, will we?” Dodd said, thinking of Richie Graham of Brackenhill’s likely reaction to any such attempt, never mind Jock o’the Peartree’s. Jock would still be roaring with laughter at the joke as he slit your throat.
The Hunsdon boat was butting up against the boat landing. Carey and Dodd hopped in, while Enys seemed very nervous of the water and nearly fell as he stepped across. He sat himself down and gripped the seat hard with his hands, swallowing.
“I rather think we will, Sergeant,” said Enys, “although I’m sure not for long. And as there is no doubt at all that as soon as he’s bailed he’ll be trying to intimidate the witnesses, I have drafted a writ against him for maintenance to keep in reserve.”
Carey blinked as if puzzled for a moment and then shouted with laughter. “That old Statute against henchmen?”
“Old and from Her Majesty’s grandfather’s time, but still on the books. It’s not the oldest statute I shall be citing.”
“What is?” asked Dodd fascinated, although he had no idea that henchmen were illegal.
“Edward III 1368,” said Enys. Dodd used his fingers to work it out.
“It’s two hundred and twenty-four years old,” he said. “What good is that?”
“It’s a highly important principle,” said Enys, looking annoyed. “You might say it is the foundation of our English liberty. It says that no man may be put to the question or tortured privily without trial or warrant. In effect, habeas corpus.”
Once again Dodd struggled with foreign language. He supposed they meant something about dead bodies.
“I don’t recall Mr. Secretary Walsingham paying that much attention to the statute when he was questioning some Papist,” Carey pointed out.
Enys looked at him distantly. “Sir Robert, it is a fact that a man who murders another for his money may pay no attention to the statutes against murder. It is in the nature of sinful men that they break the law. It is a very different thing to hold that there is no such law to be broken, which Heneage does by his actions.”
“And if the law be changed in parliament?” asked Carey.
“If it be changed, then we must abide by the new law,” said Enys. “But this law has not been changed nor repealed. It was excluded from matters of treason and the Henry VIII statute of Praemunire made many religious matters into treason. Therefore Mr. Secretary Walsingham could and did rightly ignore the statute since he was seeking out Papist traitors against Her Majesty and the Commonweal of England.”
Carey nodded while Dodd stared in fascination to hear such a young man speak in such long and complicated sentences, using such pompous words. Now the lawyer lifted one finger in a lecturing manner. “However, this is not a matter of treason at all. Sergeant Dodd was neither guilty of nor accused of any crime whatsoever when Mr. Vice falsely imprisoned and assaulted him. There was a fortiori no trial and no warrant. I have seldom heard of such a clear case.”
“Ay,” said Dodd, catching up with most of the last part of the speech, “that’s right.” His head was buzzing with the legal talk.
“Perhaps Mr. Vice will simply claim that he was looking for me and laid hold of my henchman to track me down,” said Carey.
“I’m sure he will,” said Enys. “However the fact remains that you were not accused of treason either, Sir Robert. Even your brother was accused only of coining, which may indeed come under the treason laws as petty treason…”