‘Thank you, Sergeant Dodd,’ said Mistress Bassano as she lifted the edge of her kirtle and tucked Shakespeare’s letter away in the pocket of her petticoat. Surely it was no accident that she let Dodd have a flash of her ankle and bare foot…Scandalous, no stockings, no shoes, a clear line all the way up her bare leg to her…
Dodd clutched his cap, jerked a bow and stepped back, nearly tripping on a miniature box hedge surrounding a bed of herbs.
‘D’ye ken…have ye seen Sir Robert?’ he asked, having to whisper because his mouth was so dry.
A tiny frown crossed the creamy brow under its wings of black hair dressed with pale green stones. ‘Oh, I think I heard him shouting in the stables,’ she said.
‘Ay. Thank ye kindly, Mistress.’
Dodd very nearly turned tail and ran across the smooth green lawn to the complex of buildings around the stable yard. Before he got there he heard the unmistakeable sound of Careys having an argument, as Mistress Bassano had said.
‘I came here because you ordered me to,’ Carey was saying, obviously trying not to shout though his voice was probably audible in Westminster. ‘Your letter, sir, ordered me away from my responsibilities in Carlisle where I am still very far from secure, and where the reivers will no doubt be playing merry hell in my absence. You, sir, ordered me to London where I have absolutely no wish to be. Sir. If you didn’t want me to come to Somerset House, you shouldn’t have written your bloody letter. SIR!’
Carey was nose to nose with his father, whose face above its ruff was going purple. Behind them in the kennels, hunting dogs barked and whined in alarm.
‘Damn your impudence, boy,’ roared Hunsdon. ‘Why the hell didn’t you go to the Liberties like I told you to? What the devil did you think you were at, prancing into this house when I specifically told you the bailiffs were out in force, you stupid boy?’
‘Don’t call me boy,’ Carey ground out through his teeth, his fists bunched. ‘And your letter said not a damned thing about bailiffs, as you well know, unless you’ve bloody forgotten it, you senile old goat.’
Hunsdon roared inarticulately and threw a punch at his son, who ducked, backed and put his hand to his sword. Entertaining though the scene certainly was, Dodd decided he had to intervene. Hunsdon had his own sword half-drawn.
‘Sir, my lord.’ He had stepped between the Careys, his hands up to fend them off.
‘Out of my way, Sergeant,’ bellowed Hunsdon.
‘Dodd, this is none of your business,’ growled Carey.
‘Ay, it is. If ye kill each other who’s gonnae guide me back home? And forebye, I dinnae understand what yer quarrel is.’
‘It’s simple enough, Sergeant. When I order my son to make sure he doesn’t come into Somerset House but should go to one of my properties in the Liberties of Whitefriars, where he can at least move without being hunted by bailiffs, I expect to be obeyed.’
‘How the hell can I obey an order I never received?’ bellowed Carey. ‘You said nothing about Whitefriars in your letter.’
‘Of course I didn’t, you overdressed halfwit; I sent a verbal message by Michael.’
‘What bloody message? I never got it.’
‘Nay, sir, he didnae. Who’s Michael?’
‘Used to be my valet de chambre,’ Carey said. ‘Father, I never saw Michael.’
‘What do you mean, you never saw him?’ Hunsdon’s voice was now modulating down to a shout. ‘I sent him out to meet you at Hampstead horsepond.’
Carey’s bewilderment was so clear on his face, even his father began calming down. ‘He wasn’t there. We were jumped by footpads, but…’
The thought struck both Carey and Dodd at the same time. Carey paled and sat down on the edge of the horsetrough. ‘What was he wearing when you sent him? Livery?’
‘No, of course not. I didn’t want to advertise who he worked for. He was wearing a brown wool suit. Why?’
‘Ay,’ said Dodd mournfully. ‘That was him, all right. Brown doublet and hose, wi’ some fancy work in black velvet ribbons.’
‘That’s right,’ Hunsdon growled.
‘Oh,’ said Carey, putting his hand over his mouth. ‘Poor bastard.’
Hunsdon’s bushy eyebrows were meeting over his nose. ‘I thought you said you didn’t see him.’
Carey seemed too upset to answer so Dodd cleared his throat and did the job.
‘Ay, we saw him, but he couldnae tell us yer message, my lord, on account of he wis hanging from the Hampstead Hanging Elm at the time, and nae face on him neither.’
‘What? He was dead?’
‘Ay. And not long dead, now I come to think of it. The body wasnae rotted.’
‘I should have spotted it,’ Carey said to himself. ‘What was a fresh body doing on the Elm when the Assizes couldn’t have sat for a month?’
Lord Hunsdon sat down on the horsetrough edge next to his son.
‘Well,’ he said as if the breath had been taken out of him too. ‘Who could have thought it? Poor Michael. You’re sure?’
Carey nodded once then shook his head. ‘It’s the only explanation. You sent him with a message about the bailiffs and somebody…stopped him delivering it.’
‘Ay,’ added Dodd dolefully, though in fact he didn’t know Michael from Adam and didn’t much care that he was dead. ‘And they hid his body where naebody would notice it.’
‘Very imaginative of them,’ said Hunsdon.
There was a short silence. ‘Will you tell his wife, or should I do it?’ Carey asked.
Hunsdon sighed. ‘I’ll send some men up to Hampstead first to fetch the body, make absolutely sure. Then I’ll tell her myself. Good God. What a bloody mess.’
Carey turned his head and looked consideringly at his father. ‘Father, what’s going on here?’
‘Damned if I know, Robin. It’s all a mystery to me. Why the devil did they have to kill him? All they had to do was knock him on the head.’
‘That can kill a man by itself,’ said Carey. ‘Maybe they did it accidentally. Or maybe somebody wanted to make a point, as it were.’
‘His father served me, you know, cared for my guns and armour in ’72, when we did for Dacre.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Good man. Died of flux, I seem to recall, a couple of years after. I remember Michael as a page, eager little lad, always willing. Poor Frances.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No, I’ve set them up in a house in Holywell Street, near the Cockpit. Two whippersnappers and another on the way. He was acting under-steward here. Only sent him because you’d be sure to know him. Thought he’d gone home to his wife when you arrived last night.’
‘And you could hardly ask with Heneage hanging about.’
‘No.’ Hunsdon’s face hardened. ‘God rot his bowels.’
‘You think it’s…er…’
Hunsdon looked up, though he didn’t seem to see the gargoyle waterspout on the stable guttering that he was glaring at.
‘Don’t know who else it could be. Damn him.’
‘Perhaps it might be worth going to Oxford?’ Carey asked.
Hunsdon shook his head, then clapped his hand on Carey’s shoulder and stood up. ‘I’d best organise a party to go up to Hampstead, fetch the body and give him a decent burial. I’ll draft a letter to Mr Recorder Fleetwood, as there’ll have to be an inquest, and I want it conducted properly.’
‘If the corpse is still there,’ Carey said.
‘Hmf. Well, what can you do? You have to try.’
‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t make it too public that we know what’s happened.’ Carey was speaking very quietly and thoughtfully. ‘After all, Heneage will have at least one paid man here.’
‘Of course he does. What do you…ah. I see. Well, I don’t like it. Goes against the grain to leave a man of mine hanging on a gibbet. What if Frances went past and saw him?’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Dodd. ‘I verra much doubt he’ll still be on the Elm. But could ye no’ make a song and dance about they footpads we saw off at the Hampstead Cut and, while ye were at it, maybe find out about your man?’ Dodd found himself caught in a crossfire of stares and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Only, there’d be nae secret about that, my lord, since we left three kills of our own there.’