‘You omitted the detail of the footpads, Robin,’ Hunsdon said drily to his son.
Carey waved airy fingers. ‘Fairly cack-handed attempt at an ambush in the Cut as we came through, which was foiled by Sergeant Dodd who spotted what was going on well before I did. Nothing much to say, really, since there was no harm done. To us, anyway.’
‘Hm. That was why your gun was loaded.’
‘Of course.’
‘When you discharged it in the Strand I felt certain you were only defying me and had come prepared to bully your way in,’ Hunsdon explained, standing up and brushing down his elaborately paned trunk-hose. ‘Excellent suggestion of yours, Sergeant; I’ll write to Mr Recorder this afternoon about the attempted robbery. With luck we’ll be able to find and hang the men who murdered my servant.’
‘If not the man who paid them to do it,’ murmured Carey, also standing up.
Hunsdon tilted his head cynically. ‘It’s the way of the world, Robin, you know that. Now would the pair of you care to view the finest pack of hounds this side of Westminster?’
***
The hounds were very elegant beasts, and included a yellow lymer with a heavy head and a serious expression. One of the dog-pages explained at length about the thorn in his paw, which the dog held up to show the neat bandage. Both Careys examined it carefully, Lord Hunsdon squatting down with his arm across the dog’s back. Dodd examined it himself.
‘What do you think, Dodd?’ Carey asked. ‘It looks clean enough to me.’
Dodd felt around the dog’s leg, in case there were any lumps in the animal’s groin. You could sometimes get early warning of trouble with a wound if you found lumps, but there were none and the dog panted at him in puzzlement.
‘Ay,’ said Dodd thoughtfully. ‘But I wouldnae hunt with him till it’s all healed up, of course.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Lord Hunsdon. ‘You’re on sick leave, aren’t you, Bellman, old fellow?’ The dog panted and licked Hunsdon’s face and the old lord pummelled his ears.
‘Is he any relation of my lord Scrope’s lymer bitch that pupped on yer bed?’ Dodd asked, thinking he saw a family resemblance.
‘Yes,’ smiled Carey, who was rubbing the dog’s high chest as the animal groaned with pleasure and plopped himself over on his side. ‘He’s her brother. Father gave Scrope the bitch as a present a couple of years ago.’
‘Pupped on your bed?’ Hunsdon laughed. ‘What did Philadelphia say about it?’
‘She wasn’t very pleased. I had a great long lecture about the impossibility of cleaning counterpanes properly, as if I’d told the silly animal to do it. But it was a good thing she did, because she had trouble with the last pup of the litter.’
Hunsdon listened to the tale and agreed that a ruined counterpane was a small price to pay for saving a fine gentle bitch like Buttercup. Robin should take care with the pup though, because this particular line of lymers seemed to be even more greedy than the general run of hunting dogs and they got fat very easily. In fact Bellman himself was a bit tubby, and Jimmy the dog-page must remember not to feed him too much while he couldn’t run.
As if to confirm this wisdom, Bellman farted extravagantly and all three of them retired coughing to look at the horses. Dodd was greatly impressed with Hunsdon’s stable which held bigger and glossier beasts than any he had seen outside the contraband animals that the Grahams had harvested from the Scottish king’s stables. The pathetic nags that they had ridden in from the Holly Tree the day before looked as if they knew how useless they were in comparison.
A bell rang, calling the household to dinner, and Dodd found himself borne along to the parlour where the Careys generally ate their meals, seven covers of meat this time and still nothing Dodd rightfully recognised as food. Afterwards Sir Robert, who had drunk far more than he ate and was evidently going mad with boredom at being cooped up in his father’s house, announced he would go and talk to the falconer and see if the birds had finished their moult. Hunsdon grunted and told Dodd he wanted his opinion on some arrangements for the Berwick garrison-would he come along to the old lord’s study in an hour? He wished to see Robin privately first; he could come to Hunsdon’s study in half an hour.
An hour later one of the grooms led Dodd along the corridors. It was astonishing how many rooms there were in the place-you couldn’t count them all-and how peculiar to have one for each thing you might do in a day, such as a parlour for eating and a study for reading and writing, and every single one of them painted and decorated with hanging cloths and furnished with carved oak. Surely to God, Hunsdon could afford to pay Sir Robert’s debts, even enormous ones?
Hunsdon’s study was a room lined with books and cluttered with papers and official dispatch bags hanging on hooks. Dodd knocked on the door, entered at the single bark of ‘Come’, and stood straight with his cap off in front of the desk. Hunsdon had been leafing dispiritedly through a pile of letters and looked up at him.
‘Sergeant Dodd. Good of you to come so promptly. What do you think of the mews?’
‘I’m no’ a falconer, my lord, and I canna say I’ve ever hunted with a bird, though I’ve watched when I was beating. Yer man at the mews says they might fly next week, being cautious, but we’ll be back on the road tae Carlisle by then.’ Hunsdon wasn’t really listening.
‘Hm. Dodd,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There was a Dodd under my command when we took Dacre’s hide-any relation?’
‘Ay, sir. Me father, sir.’
Hunsdon beamed. ‘That’s right, of course he is. You’ve exactly the look of him. Damned fine soldier, if a bit serious. Scouted for me, as I recall, with his Upper Tynedalers.’
‘Ay, sir.’
‘Spotted Dacre’s cavalry, I think.’
‘Did he, sir?’ Dodd could feel his ears going pink. He preferred not to think of his father. It brought back the horrible hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d had all through his teens.
‘How is he?’
‘Ma father, sir? He’s died.’
Hunsdon sighed. ‘I’m sorry to hear it, Sergeant.’
Strangely enough he did genuinely seem sorry though he could hardly have given a thought to Dodd’s father between the Revolt of the Northern Earls and this day.
‘Ay, sir. Er…thank ye, sir.’
‘And what’s this I hear about my son’s behaviour at the Scottish court?’
The ambush was the more deadly for coming from behind a cover of sympathy.
‘My lord?’ Dodd kept his face carefully blank. Hunsdon made a ‘hrmhrm’ noise that was obviously where the Courtier had got his throat clearing and leaned back in his carved chair, causing it to creak at the joints.
‘Sergeant,’ he said gently, ‘I like discretion in a man under my command and I’ve no doubt my son does too, but I must have the full tale.’
‘The one Mr Heneage heard?’
Hunsdon chuckled without the least trace of humour. ‘Certainly not. The one in which my son becomes somehow sufficiently deranged to deal in armaments with a couple of Italians who had Papist Spy all but branded on their foreheads, as he saw fit to boast in his letter? The one which explains the rumours about him being arrested for high treason, which he did not mention? The one which accounts for the damage to his hands which makes him embarrassed to take his blasted gloves off in my presence? That tale?’
‘Och,’ said Dodd firmly, resisting any impulse to smile at the exasperation in Hunsdon’s voice. ‘That one?’
‘Yes,’ said Hunsdon patiently. ‘That one.’
Dodd told him, or at least all of it that he knew. At the end of his story, Hunsdon passed his palm across his eyes.
‘Good God,’ he said. ‘And his hands?’
‘What he said to me was they got caught in a door.’
‘Oh really?’
‘But considering two fingers was broken-which are fine now, my lord, his grip’s good enough to fire a dag-and he’s lost four fingernails which arenae grown back yet, my guess is someone had at him wi’ the pinniwinks.’ Hunsdon raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah, thumbscrews, sir.’