The boy took the paper and blinked at it. “This is quite simple. Are you sure you need it translated, sir?”
Carey smiled. “You don’t normally work for the Queen’s clerks, do you?”
The boy blushed. “I’m…I’m the priest’s son here,” he stuttered, “I…I came to help to…to…”
The boy’s fingers were inky and had a scholar’s callus on the right index finger, so he probably was a genuine clerk.
Carey fished out another groat, a little less than a screever in London would have charged. “Go on,” he said, “English it as quick as you can. I’m due at the dancing.”
John Tovey nodded, gulped his large Adam’s apple against his falling band, took the documents from Carey and spread them out on his desk in the pool of light made by his couple of candles. The light in the church was poor. What followed was remarkable enough that Carey blinked his eyes at it. The boy simply laid down a fresh piece of paper, picked up and dipped his pen and started scribbling, with his finger tracing along the lines of Latin. No muttering aloud, no scratching out, he just wrote down the English for the fiendish Latin.
Carey looked around at the whitewashed walls and carvings. It had been badly damaged at some time in the past, no doubt at the time of the stripping of the altars. There were headless statues and the windows were boarded up.
“Carey!” boomed a voice behind him and Carey spun to see a large boyish man with a curly red-blond beard and wearing an eye-watering combination of tawny slashed with white. His doublet was crusted with amber and topaz, the white damask sprinkled with diamond sparks.
Carey’s left knee hit the tiles as he genuflected. “My lord Earl of Essex,” he said formally, genuinely pleased to see his lord.
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, favourite of the Queen, bustled across the aisle to Carey, gesturing for him to stand and slung an arm across his shoulders. Essex was a couple of inches taller and at least a hand’s breadth wider than Carey, who was neither short nor narrow. Essex was a man designed by God for the tourney and he loomed and laughed loudly.
“Sir Robert, how splendid! I thought you were still in Berwick chasing cattle raiders…”
“My noble father ordered me south, my lord,” Carey said and on that thought, he remembered why he had been so anxious to see Essex. His stomach tightened. He had important information for the Earl about some investments of his and what Carey thought had really been going on. Unfortunately the news was very bad and Carey had been the Queen’s messenger of bad news often enough that he was nervous about it.
“I heard about you being in some scandalous brawl in the Fleet Prison,” said Essex. “What the devil have you been up to? Is it true you gave Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage a bloody nose?”
“It is, my lord,” Carey said and told him an edited version of the last few weeks of activity. Some of it made Essex tip his head back and shake the church rafters with his bellow of laughter. John Tovey jumped like a startled cat at the noise.
“But it was the matter that happened later which brought me here, my lord,” he added. “I wanted to talk to you about some lands you’ve bought in Cornwall…”
Essex’s face suddenly shut down, switching from a handsome boy’s face to something quite masklike.
“I don’t own any lands in Cornwall.”
“You don’t?” Carey was shocked. He had been so certain that the code word Icarus meant the Earl of Essex.
“No. There was a man called Jackson hawking them about a few months ago-recusant lands with gold in ’em, he said-but I don’t own any.”
“That’s wonderful news, my lord,” Carey said, smiling with relief. “You were absolutely right not to buy. I was very concerned because the whole thing was a lay to coney-catch…people at Court.” He had been on the verge of explaining his theory as to who had set the lay and why, but something stopped him. Essex wasn’t looking at him and his arm was not heavy across his shoulders anymore.
“Hmm, shocking,” said Essex vaguely. “Well, I didn’t.”
Alternatively, Essex had indeed bought the lands but had heard rumours already about their worthlessness and was lying about it in hopes of selling them on. Carey studied his face. Most courtiers, like Carey, shaved or trimmed their beards short to a goatee or a Spanish-style spade-shape. Essex, blessed with a luxuriant bush of red curls, grew it as nature wished and combed and oiled it every day. It left less of his face to read. For all his easy manner, Essex was a true courtier. Carey couldn’t be certain if he was lying or not.
“I’m sure plenty of men at Court have been caught by Jackson’s Papist lay, but not me,” Essex added.
He had to do it. He had to warn Essex of the real source of the trouble, if only because his own fortunes were still bound up with Essex’s.
“Perhaps Sir Robert Cecil will be disappointed,” Carey said very quietly, in case any of the other clerks working away at the desks by candlelight as the light faded had been paid to listen.
Essex’s blue gaze felt like a blow on the head, but then he looked at the boarded higher windows of the church.
“Yes, he always is, poor crookback.”
Carey said nothing. Essex had been Burghley’s ward as a boy and had grown up with Burghley’s second son, Robert, who had suffered from rickets as a child. It had never been very likely that they would be friends.
“So,” boomed Essex, “what are you here for, Sir Robert?”
Carey paused before he answered because he wanted Essex to help with the Queen’s impossible order. “I’m hoping for my fee for the deputy wardenship,” he explained, “but Her Majesty wants me to do something else first.”
Essex grunted sympathetically enough and allowed himself to be drawn outside the church walls and into the watery dregs of afternoon. Clouds were marching up from the west in great armies which didn’t bode well for the dancing later.
He explained the whole circumstance and Essex shook his head.
“Jesu, rather you than me,” he said. “That’s a nasty matter.”
“Did your stepfather ever tell you anything about it?”
Essex shook his head vigorously. “No, nothing. Wouldn’t even let his first wife be named in his presence.”
“Your lady mother?” Carey asked cautiously. “Did she…er…?”
“You’d think she’d have been jealous of Amy Robsart, as my stepfather’s first love, but she wasn’t. She was jealous, exceedingly. But not of Amy Robsart.”
Carey said nothing. They both knew the woman Lettice Knollys had real cause to hate.
“I’ll be seeing my lady mother later,” Essex said. “I’ll mention it to her if you like.”
“That would be very kind, my lord. I need all the help you can give. But surely the Dowager Lady won’t be coming to Court?”
“No, no, of course not, the Queen won’t have her. But she’s staying in Oxford at the moment so I’ll see what I can do…”
That was hopeful-if the Earl remembered his promise and if he actually kept it. Carey thought of mentioning Emilia’s suit, but then decided not to. After all, she hadn’t yet even offered him a proper fee for the introduction to Essex. There was a nervous cough behind him. Carey turned back to see John Tovey standing there in his worn grey doublet, holding a close-written piece of paper and looking scared.
“Mr. Tovey,” said Carey affably, “Have you finished?”
“Y…y…yes,” stuttered the boy.”D…did you want me to sign the copy?”
Carey shook his head, took the translation and read it carefully; a little to his surprise, some of the Latin had meant what he had guessed it did. As the Earl was still standing there, avid with curiosity, Carey passed it to him and he read it, too.
“It all seems in order, Sir Robert. The jury found it was an accidental death.”
Carey was so surprised to hear Essex say this that he looked carefully to see if the Earl was joking. No, there was no twinkle in the blue eyes, no smile, but no puzzled frown either. Essex saw nothing wrong with the accounts at all.
“Yes, my lord,” he said after a moment’s thought and didn’t say any of the things that had struck him forcibly even while he had been struggling with the Latin. He caught John Tovey’s eye and saw from the terror there that the boy knew who Amy Robsart was and had spotted what he had in the dry legal phrases. So he had better deal with that.