“I must go and meet the Queen,” said Essex. “I’ll do what I can for you, Sir Robert. I’ll arrange for you to talk to my lady mother-I’m sure she’ll be very happy to do it. But best not to mention the…er…the property business to her. She won’t be interested and might take it into her fluffy head to buy some, eh?”
There was an unfilial wink and a laugh and then the Earl turned and strode out of the churchyard, letting the gate bang behind him. Carey bowed to him as he went, honestly impressed at how well the Earl could fake genuine amusement. So that was who had bought up the Cornish recusant lands, was it? Of course Lettice Knollys’ son would have done the business for his lady mother. It made a lot of sense. Carey wondered if Sir Robert Cecil yet knew that detail-he would undoubtedly find out. Perhaps it would be a good idea for Carey to be the first to tell him? Or perhaps not. He would likely be annoyed, and Carey didn’t want Cecil to know how much he knew about the Jackson affair. Though he probably did.
Carey sighed at the weary complexity of Court life and turned to John Tovey, who was still standing there like a post, mouth open, Adam’s apple working every so often. His spots were more visible in the dull daylight, but he had done a creditable and more importantly fast job on the Latin. Carey sat down on the stone bench looking over the churchyard, the only part of the village not being camped on or grazed by the Court or its animals.
“Mr. Tovey, how old are you?”
“T…twenty, I think, sir.”
“Are you looking for a place as a clerk?”
The boy flushed-he was almost certainly not twenty but a couple of years younger at least.
“Er…yes. Yes, I am, sir.”
That was why rootless, penniless, but educated young men would come and clerk for the Queen on progress-in hopes of a cushy office job with perks. Some of them weren’t disappointed.
“What can you do?”
“I…I…can read and translate Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and write good secretary hand and italic as well. I can cast up accounts in Arabic figures and I…I know something of medicine and herbs.”
“Your father?”
“Is…the priest here. He taught me first and then, after I was prenticed to an Oxford ’pothecary, I went as a servitor at Magdalen, though at first they wouldn’t have me.”
“Why not?” There was a pause while the boy blushed ruby red and stuttered.
“I’m a b…b…bastard, sir.”
“Is that all? So’s my father. Did yours acknowledge you?”
“Yes, sir, but he never married my mother for fear of the Queen. She…er…she d…d…doesn’t like priests to marry.”
“Your mother?”
“Is dead, sir. A few years ago.”
“And you want to leave Rycote, seek your fortune?” He must, look at the place!
The boy flushed dark, gulped, and nodded convulsively once.
“Excellent. Would you like to work for me, Mr. Tovey, as my clerk? It would involve coming with me to Carlisle, I’m afraid.”
“Where’s that, sir?”
“A long way north. Next door to Scotland.”
“Oh.” A pause. Then another convulsive nod. Carey stepped closer, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gripped. “Well then, if your father gives permission, I will be your good lord if you agree to be my man.”
The boy nodded and said “Yes, sir,” firmly enough. They shook hands on it. As it wasn’t a hiring fair there was no need to go and pay fees or sign indentures, though for form’s sake Carey intended to talk to the lad’s father. He hadn’t at all meant to recruit a clerk as well as a henchman, despite his hatred of paperwork. However he had to do something about what Tovey had read and unexpectedly understood. Bribing him sufficiently would cost a lot more than simply paying him wages every so often. And, anyway, if the boy was telling the truth about his accomplishments, he’d be getting a very good University clerk out of it.
“We’ll go and see your father, shall we? Get his permission? Do you know where he might be?”
“In the alehouse,” shrugged the boy. “He won’t care.”
They passed the place on the way back to the orchard and young Tovey was correct: his reverend father was drunk, playing quoits with the blacksmith, the miller, and the butcher. Once he understood what his base-born son was telling him, he was blurrily delighted that Carey was employing the boy without his even having to pay a shilling for the office. Tovey knelt for his father’s blessing and got a wave of the hand and a few mumbles for it.
The boy asked if he could go back to the church to finish some work for Mr. Hughes and be paid for it. This was entirely reasonable and saved Carey from having to find somewhere for the boy to sleep since the clerks always dossed down where they worked. The dusk was coming down fast and the air crisping as he strode to the orchard.
Carey didn’t really want to go and dance, even if there had been any chance of dancing with Emilia again. But he had to, if only to kneel to the Queen as part of the crowd and make sure she saw him. Mistress Thomasina had kindly given him an excellent way of being conspicuous without importunity. But his head was buzzing with the implications of the inquest findings into the thirty-two-year-old death of Amy Robsart. No wonder the jury had taken a full year to report, and had done so in such a way as to satisfy both conscience and, no doubt, covert influence from the Queen, Dudley, and who knew where else? The whole pile of papers must have been quietly buried in the Oxford town muniment room. It was lucky Thomasina had been able to find it and give him a copy. He was a little surprised they hadn’t been burned in a mysterious fire. Did she know what was in them? Maybe not; she wouldn’t understand Latin.
Back in the little tiring room, Carey waited until Mr. Simmonds had come out, clad in a smartly brushed buffcoat with his cloak over his arm, ready to attend Cumberland at the dance. His Court suit was hanging up ready, smelling of rose petal powder with the clean shirt he had managed to pack in his hunting satchel when he left Somerset House the day before. He had kept it carefully for exactly this chance. He sniffed his armpits and frowned. Could he wash anywhere? Riding forty miles in a day was a sweaty business and he’d ridden in from Oxford in the morning as well.
There would be stews in Oxford for the naughty students, but none here in the little village. There would be hip baths in Norris’ manor house which the Queen and her ladies would use. No doubt Essex was stepping into something organised for him right now. Where was Cumberland? A small pack of boys ran past him downhill, shouting in excitement about something going on in the duck pond.
He shucked his hunting doublet and hose, left them hanging on another peg. Scratching fleabites from the last night at the inn, Carey ambled barefoot in his shirt down toward the village duck pond, singing the tune he’d just learnt.
A grey-bearded man in a sober black doublet and gown suddenly turned and stared at him as if he had spoken, then hurried after him.
“Sir,” he said, “that tune. Did Heron Nimmo teach it to you?”
“Eh?” said Carey, irritated at being interrupted in his thoughts, “No, the Queen’s chapel master. Why?”
The man flushed and bowed. “My apologies, sir, I mistook you for a friend.”
“I don’t know anybody called Heron Nimmo. You should enquire of Mr. Byrd, perhaps. The Lord Chamberlain, my father, might know him if he’s a musician?”
The man bowed again, muttered to himself, hurried away. Carey sauntered on down to the duck pond. He found Cumberland and half the Court there, busily wading into the pond and the stream feeding it and washing as best they could.
Villagers were lining the banks and watching with gaping mouths. Some of them were women, peeking round hedges and clutching each other and giggling. Grinning at the sight of the richest and most powerful men in the country splashing about naked in cold water for fear of a fussy woman of fifty-nine, Carey stripped off his own shirt, hung it on a post, and waded in.