Dodd concentrated on eating as neatly as he could, despite the way the Vice Chamberlain had soured his stomach. He watched out of the corner of his eye to see how Carey handled his eating knife and silver spoon and tried hard to copy him. The funny foreign sauces on the meats didn’t help and he dropped a big piece of pheasant into the rushes. Mistress Bassano’s lapdog was onto the tidbit at once, slurping and growling at it. Trying to pretend he had meant to drop the food, Dodd patted the hairy head and had his fingers nipped at for his pains, which made Mistress Bassano smile at him again.
‘Little Willie is a very naughty dog,’ she told him with a teasing note in her voice. ‘You really must not indulge him, Sergeant, or he’ll get fat.’
Dodd smiled at her apologetically while he mentally took all her clothes off and bulled her up against a wall. As if reading his mind and enjoying it, she bent over and scooped the dog into her arms, while Dodd tried desperately to stop himself wondering if her arse was as smooth and round as her tits. He concentrated on the meat again. Much more of this, he thought, and he wouldn’t be able to rise from the table.
The talk went right over his head too, though it seemed to be swirling repeatedly around the twin whirlpools of Carey’s relations with the Scottish King and the question of the Italian woman. Mistress Bassano must have been foreign herself with that name but spoke like any other southerner. She was sitting next to Lord Hunsdon and leant against him scandalously. Carey’s father seemed not exactly smitten-more pleased and smug like a bull next to his favourite heifer. Carey sat opposite her and next to Heneage. Thank God, the Courtier was studiously avoiding the lady’s eye.
Mistress Bassano talked, laughed, preened and, unless Dodd was much mistaken, the whole pleasing display was aimed straight at Carey and not his dad. That was distinctly tactless and Carey seemed a little worried by it. He struck up another gossipy conversation with Heneage in a bid to avoid the noonday glare of Mistress Bassano’s dangerous flirtation. It didn’t work, for she kept interrupting.
At last the food was finished-or at least they had eaten their fill for there was too much to be got down in one sitting. Dodd wondered what happened to the leftovers-the Hunsdon pigs must live like kings and be fat as butter.
The leavetaking was prolonged and jovial, Carey talking rather at random as Heneage and his followers went down to the river again and took a few of the boats. Dodd was more than ready for his bed. Mistress Bassano went ostentatiously to her chamber, kissing Lord Hunsdon fondly on the lips and giving Carey’s fingers a squeeze when he bent to kiss her hand.
Dodd had half-expected to be put in the servants’ quarters or on a truckle bed in Carey’s room, but it seemed the Hunsdon steward knew more about what a Land Sergeant was than did Heneage. He was stunned at the magnificence of his bedchamber-a fashionably golden oak-panelled cavern and no less than a four-poster bed complete with a tester and pale summer curtains. The servingman who led him there through a bewildering number of corridors and rooms advised him to shut his bed curtains against bad ague airs from the Thames and asked with a careful lack of expression and no hint of a glance at his homespun if the Land Sergeant would require a man to help him undress. Dodd told him no and decided on his usual ale and bread for breakfast at a restful 7 o’clock in the morning, well after sun-up. Now that was something to look forward to-a nice lie-in when he was neither wounded nor sick.
For a while, Dodd wandered around the room admiring the vast quantity of things in it; the painted cloths, the clothes chests, the carved folding chair, the fireplace laid with logs in case he should feel cold and a tinderbox beside it. There were candles everywhere, at least five of them and not a speck of tallow but the finest beeswax. Dodd firmly crushed the urge to slide them into his pocket. The rushes on the floor were new all the way down to the floor and the windows were glass with wooden shutters, so that not only was there no draught but you could even look out of them quite well. In awe Dodd touched the carved babies rioting with grape vines across the mantelpiece: he liked to whittle on wood himself and appreciated fine workmanship.
At last he shucked his clothes down to his shirt, left them folded on the chest, drew the curtains around the bed and climbed gingerly in, sliding between ice-smooth linen sheets that had not only never been slept in by another body but must have been ironed as well. By God, what it was to have hordes of servants, he thought, as he shut his eyes and snuggled into the softness of the pillows.
Half an hour later he turned over for the forty-fourth time and opened his eyes. It was no good. He couldn’t sleep. He was used to sleeping alone-the jealously guarded privilege of his own cubbyhole next to the bunkroom of the barracks at Carlisle was normally his sole domain. But the fact remained that this bed was bigger than that entire tiny room. The vast spaces of the chamber outside the curtains, unpeopled by friendly farting snoring humanity, made him as nervous as a horse in an empty stable.
He got up, wandered around the room again, peered out of the window, swatted an enterprising mosquito and then found the jug of spiced wine. That was a blessing. Sipping lukewarm spiced syrup from the silver goblet provided, he looked again out of the window and saw someone moving on the Strand. Those bailiffs weren’t giving up; two men in buff coats were watching the gatehouse like cats at a mousehole.
Thursday, 31st August 1592, morning
Next morning Dodd had a slight headache from the spiced wine but felt happier than he could remember after sleeping so late and waking in solitary state with no one hammering on the door telling him the Grahams were over the Border or Gilsland was under siege. God knew what was going on at home with the whole Border Country as stirred up as it was, but what could he do about it? A man-servant brought in his breakfast on a tray and seemed surprised to find him already up and dressed.
Sitting by the window again, he ate fine white manchet bread with fresh-made butter and cheese and drank ale as nutty and sweet as Bessie’s. It was fine to look down on all the folk milling around, working hard, and the shops opening up with a rattle of shutters. And it was staggering the wealth here; even the prentices had velvet sleeves and the kitchen maids wore silk ribbons and fine hats. How would you pillage London, Dodd wondered, where would you begin? Fetching the spoils away might be a problem-there didn’t seem to be many horses around. Most people were on foot.
There was a knock on the door and Carey entered, resplendent in black velvet and brocade, a suit Dodd didn’t think he had seen before. He had obviously been up since well before sunrise and was full of plans. He instantly destroyed the restful peace of the morning.
‘Morning, Sergeant,’ he said cheerfully, strode to the window and peered out. His brows knitted. ‘Christ, we’re under siege.’
Dodd looked out again at once, but couldn’t see any armed concourse of men, so assumed the Courtier was exaggerating about debt-collectors again. ‘Oh ay?’
Carey paced up and down tiringly. ‘I was going to slip out by river this morning, have a look round, but there was a whole boatload of ’em waiting by the steps. And there are four that I recognise on the Strand now.’
Dodd nodded mournfully, though in fact he had rarely been more tickled by a situation in his life. God, whatever else you could say about the Courtier, he was very entertaining.
‘Ay, they were keepin’ watch here last night.’
‘Were they?’ Carey was only confirmed in his disgust. Off he went pacing again.
‘Er…sir,’ said Dodd tactfully. ‘Yer father’s a man o’ substance and wealth.’