Heneage coughed again, but would he leave off? No, he would not. Where the hell was Carey when he was needed?
‘Well, perhaps you can tell me how Signor and Signora Bonnetti fare?’
‘Eh, sir?’
Heneage’s round little smile was becoming somewhat fixed. ‘The Italian wine merchant and his wife. Perhaps you recall them?’
Dodd thought about it for a while. ‘Ay, I mind ’em.’
Another silence. Heneage took a deep breath, held it and coughed again. ‘Did…ah…did Signora Bonnetti seem well-affected to Sir Robert?’
Dodd looked even more blank. ‘Sir?’
‘Surely you met the lady?’
Heneage had come closer, had taken Dodd’s elbow in a proprietorial fashion. ‘Come, Dodd, we can deal together,’ he said softly. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Ay, sir,’ said Dodd, wishing to flick Heneage’s importunate fingers off his arm but controlling himself. ‘Ye’re the Queen’s Vice Chamberlain.’
‘One of my offices is to thoroughly investigate all potential… ah…foreign problems. You can be sure I ask my questions with good reason.’
‘Ay, sir.’ Was there some kind of threat in Heneage’s silky confiding manner? Did he expect Dodd to be frightened or flattered? The plump fingers were nipping quite hard now, they were stronger than they looked. Dodd’s eyes narrowed and he could feel anger starting to wash up the back of his neck. Was the fat courtier trying to bully him? Him?
‘I have other sources regarding Signora Bonnetti,’ breathed Heneage. ‘You needn’t fear that you will tell me anything I don’t already know about your master. I am only looking for confirmation.’
Carey was standing over by a tree next to his father. Their eyes met briefly and Dodd could have sworn the Courtier winked knowingly at him. Dodd had never been so angry in his life without he punched somebody, but Carey steadied him. He took a deep shaky breath.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I cannae help ye, for I never met the lady.’
‘Surely you saw her, for she danced with Sir Robert.’ Jesus, would Heneage never let up?
‘Ay, she did, sir, but I niver spoke to her.’
‘Sir Robert was friendly with her? Hm?’
‘She’s a fair lady,’ said Dodd, not bothering to keep his voice as low as Heneage’s. ‘I never saw Sir Robert but he was friendly to a good-looking woman.’
Heneage chuckled softly. ‘Did they deal together?’
Much more of this, thought Dodd, and I surely will punch the bugger. Once again Carey caught his eye, still speaking to his father. Looking very amused, the Courtier shook his head infinitesimally.
Dodd felt as if he was drowning. What did Carey want him to do? Lie? But he didn’t know what to say.
‘Ah’m sorry, sir,’ he said to Heneage at last when he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake. ‘But I cannae help ye as ye think I can. I’m no’ Sir Robert’s servant, I’m nobbut a Sergeant o’ the Carlisle garrison.’
At last Heneage let go of him, leaving tingling prints on Dodd’s elbow. He didn’t seem dissuaded, only calculating. ‘Perhaps we can talk at some other time. Perhaps I should invite you to my residence at Chelsea.’
Even Dodd could hear that there was a threat in the man’s voice, though the words seemed harmless enough.
‘That’s kind of ye, sir,’ he said, struggling to be urbane.
Heneage frowned as if Dodd had insulted him. ‘Don’t under-estimate me, Dodd.’
What the hell had he said that was wrong? ‘I dinna follow ye, sir.’
‘No? Perhaps you should ask your Captain to elucidate.’
‘Ay, sir,’ said Dodd, taking refuge in stolidity again.
Heneage sighed and shook his head. ‘Was there nothing at all that struck you about the Scottish court?’
Dodd took a deep breath. ‘They was an awfy lot of buggers there, sir. Ah didnae take to it mesen.’
Heneage’s brow wrinkled as he tried to make out what Dodd was saying.
‘I’m afraid Sergeant Dodd thoroughly disapproved of the Scots court and the whole proceedings generally, didn’t you, Sergeant?’ translated Sir Robert who had finally drifted over to them. His father was still under the apple tree, poking with his staff at the green apples weighing the branches.
‘Ay, sir. I’m no’ a courtier, sir.’
Both men heard the compressed distaste in his voice. Heneage smiled; Carey’s eyebrows went up quizzically.
‘Well, each to his own,’ he said comfortably. ‘Eh, Mr Vice Chamberlain? Good thing not everyone is desperate for the court, or the place would be even more infernally crowded than it is now. How are the accommodations at Oxford? Colleges being co-operative?’
Heneage sniffed. ‘Helpful enough, though not perhaps as willing as one would like, Sir Robert.’
‘You’ll be doubling up the Gentlemen, no doubt. I remember one Progress when I had to share a bed with Sir Walter Raleigh. Though he was still a plain mister then-it was a few years ago now. And the only reason we didn’t have a third man in bed with us was because we bribed him to sleep on the floor.’
Dodd found to his astonishment that his hands were shaking. Never had he felt such pure rage and been forced to do nothing about it. His arm felt unclean where Heneage had dared to pinch it. And what the hell was he hinting about his residence in Chelsea? Dodd would personally eat his helmet if the Queen’s Vice Chamberlain was planning to invite him to a dinner party, no matter how eager he was to pick Dodd’s brains on the subject of Carey’s doings in Scotland.
They were moving back towards the house, Carey prattling about Raleigh’s sleeping habits. Raleigh, it seemed, had been unreasonably insulting to Carey, claiming he snored like a wild sow in farrow, which was manifestly unfair. Was it true that Raleigh was in the Tower now, over one of the Queen’s maids of honour? Heneage allowed that it was and Carey displayed an almost infantile pleasure at the juicy nugget of gossip-Bess Throgmorton, well, he was damned, would never have thought she’d have it in her, though he knew Raleigh did, and now it seemed she had more in her than she rightfully should…Carey put his head back and laughed. Serve Raleigh right, the man’s arrogance was insufferable.
Mistress Bassano came out, gliding over the grass, very lithe and graceful for a woman in her condition, with two of her women, one on either side of her and her bald manservant trotting at her heels like a bloodhound. A small hairy dog followed close behind him completing the symmetry.
Hunsdon joined them from the apple tree, and Mistress Bassano smiled like a cat as he caught her hand and put a large arm proprietorially around her shoulders. She kissed Hunsdon as lingeringly on the lips as she had earlier kissed Carey. Dodd could almost feel his eyes bulging from their sockets. Was Carey really ploughing his father’s field? Was that why he had come to be Deputy Warden in Carlisle? By God, it made sense of why a popinjay Courtier would want to move north in a hurry.
Carey was showing not a single sign of guilt. He was laughing and chatting to Heneage in the most natural and carefree way, taking the trouble to flatter the Vice Chamberlain as he had buttered up Lord Maxwell in Scotland.
A liveryman came out and announced that supper was served, and as he followed Hunsdon and his mistress, Carey, Heneage and flocks of attendants, Dodd’s head was reeling.
***
Supper involved eight different kinds of meat in sixteen different sauces, salads decorated with orange nasturtium flowers, a piece of a pie which must originally have been the size and weight of a millstone, and yet more of the wine. Dodd had always thought he didn’t like wine but now realised that what he didn’t like was cheap wine. If this was the way the better stuff tasted, he felt he could well get used to it.
The pity of it was having to sit down with Carey, his dad, his dad’s mistress, and Heneage in another room hung with tapestries. Servants filed in with the food under silver covers on silver dishes as ceremoniously as if this were some fine feast, which only meant further delay before Dodd could fill his belly. Lord Hunsdon said grace. After all that, Dodd had almost lost his appetite again. Heneage tucked in enthusiastically, though.