But you wouldn’t expect a priest to behave like that, even a Jesuit. Also, how did Enys know for sure? His own voice came to him. “You were from a Papist family.” Fr. Jackson was also a Papist-but what if Enys knew he wasn’t what he claimed? Didn’t all the Papists in a place tend to know each other?
Once again the backs of Dodd’s legs went cold. Even the sounds of the oars faded to nothing as his mind slewed round to the new idea. Good God. Maybe? Perhaps little Mrs. Briscoe had been right and the corpse really had been her brother Harry Dowling, always in trouble, greedy for money. Perhaps the stern-looking Catholic lady who was not called Mrs. Sophia Merry was also right and the corpse was Fr. Jackson SJ. Perhaps they were the same man? In fact, thinking about what Ellie Briscoe had said of her brother and how he had refused to know her when she saw him in London, perhaps Harry Dowling was more of a coney-catcher than a priest. Perhaps he was working all the time for someone else…Such as Heneage? Or maybe Sir Robert Cecil? And both Harry Dowling and James Enys had been in the Netherlands where Englishmen tended to bunch together in places like Flushing or under the same captains. It was more than likely Enys and Dowling/Jackson had met.
So when he finally saw the man, Enys must have realised Jackson wasn’t a priest at all. In fact, Cecil’s involvement made it almost certain he was someone who had been spying for Cecil’s steadily growing secret service. Cecil’s involvement in helping him escape also suggested that he was someone who was valuable and knew too much to be left in Heneage’s hands for too long. Enys had worked this out quickly because he knew the priest was lying, realised he himself knew too much to be allowed to live, and that the most likely way of getting rid of him was in the middle of a rescue.
But it had gone wrong for Cecil. Enys had fought in the Netherlands and he had struck first. The so-called Fr. Jackson went into the Thames still breathing and drowned-a nasty death, probably worse than the one Richard Tregian had suffered since Tregian had been hanged until he was dead. And Richard Tregian had died because Heneage assumed he was Cecil’s man, so took him and put him to death publicly as a warning to Cecil. Enys had to lie low with what he had been given as a downpayment and being what he was had tried to gamble it into a nest egg and lost the lot. So he couldn’t even pay his passage out of the country.
What had he done next? Gone to Cecil? Hardly, the man had tried to have him killed. Gone to…Well, obviously he had gone to Heneage who was the other side of the war he had stumbled into. He had gone to Heneage, spilled everything he knew. Probably he was trying to broker some kind of deal but of course Heneage had realised how that gave him a weapon. The taking of Briscoe’s wife had been a side-game and a tidying up of loose ends in order to take Pickering’s game. Heneage had arrested Portia Morgan to keep James Enys obedient and Portia Morgan would also be the bait that would draw the chivalrous and impulsive Carey into a trap, and alongside him that thorn in Heneage’s side, Sergeant Henry Dodd. Enys was the stone that would kill two birds at once. You could hardly blame Heneage for not resisting the temptation. He had overegged the pudding when he ransacked Pickering’s gaming chamber, but that was his habit as well.
However Carey had run to Court to speak to the Queen so he conveniently wasn’t here to stick his neck in another noose.
What had Enys said …“it was all a lie to coney catch great men at court.”
Dodd’s own voice came back to him. “Ye know nowt,” he had said to Carey about another ambush. “Ye’ve been told.”
Two boats? Sergeant Dodd as advisor, in command with Mr. Trevasker? Did Lady Hunsdon suspect something? He realised that he had sweat trickling down his back under his shirt, his stomach was crunched up, hiding under his ribs. This was far more frightening than a mere battle. He had been sixteen the last time he was this frightened. He looked across at the other boat which might as well have been on the other bank for all the talking he dared do. He couldn’t even signal with a lantern for fear of being seen, and he certainly couldn’t shout.
All right then. So they took Portia Morgan and had taken Briscoe’s wife to make sure of Briscoe’s help. It was provocative, an invitation to an attack. If there was to be an ambush there would be an alluring trail. And there was. Enys right there on the Judith where Carey would likely go to keep his father out of it, with the story of the house in the marshes, how he knew the path, how he had the key…
Dodd shook his head. This was all too complicated. It was simpler to think about it as if the Elliots had taken Janet and, say, Lady Widdrington.
No, perhaps not. Carey would be in the game then and make it complicated again. So. The Elliots have taken Janet. You think they’ve gone to their chief tower, but it could be one of the others. What do you do?
You hit the one with the less obvious trail and hope they haven’t double-bluffed you. In fact, you hit both towers, but you personally, Henry Dodd, you go to the less obvious one and make damned sure it’s taken quickly before they can cut Janet’s throat.
Which is less obvious? Lady Hunsdon and said “properties” so there were more than one. There was Heneage’s large house in Chelsea and the one Enys had been talking about in the marshes on the south side of the river. Both houses accessible by boat, one on the north and one on the south of the river. One approachable through orchards and gardens, in the village of Chelsea where there are witnesses. The other out in the empty marshes along a single muddy path which you could mine, lay an ambush along, or simply wait until your attackers are in the house and then…say…blow it up. And which one has the more attractive trail?
Dodd showed his teeth to the night and relaxed. He leaned over and tapped Ted Gunn on the arm. “Can ye bring the boats together?” he asked. “I wantae talk to Mr. Trevasker?”
Gunn nodded and called in a foreign language across the water. It sounded a bit like the funny jargon you sometimes heard from Welshmen or Irish kerns. The other boat came cautiously closer.
“Mr. Trevasker,” said Dodd, “I’ve a mind tae talk to Mr. Pickering.”
Trevasker looked blank so Dodd repeated it as southern as he could and added “The King of London,” Trevasker nodded hesitantly.
How and where could he find Pickering? Well, he was a headman who was also presumably about to go to war. He would have men placed on his borders to watch for him and tonight they would be awake.
“Take me to the nearest set of steps on the north bank,” Dodd said, “Wait there for me,” Mr. Trevasker was frowning slightly but eventually he nodded and the gig that Dodd was in began cutting north towards Blackfriars steps again. The other gig backed water well out from the bank.
Dodd was impatient to meet Pickering. He climbed out as noisily as he could, went up the steps a little way, then turned suddenly and laid hands on the two beggars quietly following him. They choked because he was holding both of them by the neck.
“I havetae talk to Mr. Pickering at once,” he hissed. “You go tell him, you stay here wi’ me.”
Bare feet sprinted into the distance and Dodd settled down to wait. Pickering announced his presence by the unmistakeable pressure of a knife against Dodd’s side and the smell of feet and sores. That was one of his henchman who had come up very silently next to Dodd despite the fact that he had his back firmly pressed to a wall from the old Whitefriar’s monastery. In front of Dodd was the interesting sight of the King of London wearing rags and almost silent turnshoes.