Tovey’s voice was struggling to sound unmoved. “Yes, sir.”
“Please burn that page.” He waited until the crackle of paper and the smell of smoke reached him and Tovey pounded the ashes in the fireplace where a fire had been laid but not lit.
What was the time? Somewhere near midnight? Damn, damn, damn it. Where the hell was Dodd? What had happened to him? The man always seemed to be made of boiled leather and very sharp steel but he was only human.
Carey pushed the covers back and got out of bed, intending to get dressed and roust out some men to canter down along the Oxford road and find out what had happened at that post-inn.
Then he fell over the chair Burghley had sat in, blundered into the chest by the wall, and stubbed his toes painfully. While he was still cursing that, there was another knock at the door. Tovey moved to open it a little and there was a murmur of argument. Tovey turned his head, his voice even more nervous than usual.
“It’s Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage to see you, sir.”
Sunday 17th September 1592, night
Carey was standing on one leg, holding his toes. Jesu! Heneage! Come to make a complaint, no doubt, damn damn.
He hopped to the bed with the dressing gown flapping, knocking over the little table by the bed as he went and climbed in gratefully.
“I’m resting, Mr. Tovey,” he hissed. “Tell him to go away.”
More conversation. “Sir, Mr. Vice Chamberlain says that Her Majesty has sent him and he must speak with you.”
Heart thumping with annoyance and tension, Carey sat up again, wrapped the dressing gown tighter round him. His knuckles had recovered from breaking Heneage’s nose at the beginning of September, but still…Had the man come to demand satisfaction? Was that why Cecil had told him the bare bones of what Dodd and Lady Hunsdon had been up to while he had been riding for Oxford and snoring in the post-inn on the way? It sounded as if Dodd had introduced some of the Borderers’ ways of settling disputes to London, and as an officer of the Queen’s law, he could not possibly approve of it. Officially.
“Mr. Tovey,” he said loudly, “I am at a disadvantage here. Please make notes and if Mr. Heneage does not behave himself as a gentleman should, would you be so good as to tell Mr. Henshawe to remove him and then fetch my father?
Heneage came through the door with the predictable clerk at his back. Carey couldn’t make him out either.
“I think you are hardly in a position to lecture me on the behaviour of a gentleman, Sir Robert,” he sneered nasally.
“Quite true, Mr. Vice,” Carey said. “I find the presence of the man who tried to use my older brother against my father and then beat up my henchman does annoy me enough to make me forget my manners. What do you want?”
Heneage plumped himself down in the chair that Carey had just tripped over.
“You wished to speak to me, Sir Robert,” he said sourly. “Her Majesty told me to come and so here I am.”
“I don’t believe I did. You weren’t a Privy Councillor in 1560 were you?”
“I was far too young. I didn’t even come to Court until 1563.”
“Why are you here then?”
“Mrs. de Paris insisted as well.”
“Why?”
A pause. Heneage’s voice when he spoke again was full of compressed fury. “I know very well that you set your man Dodd to burn my Southwark house in complete defiance of Her Majesty’s peace and…”
Carey managed a laugh, carefully measured for maximum insult. “I certainly did not, Mr. Vice. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the balls. If, which is not admitted, Sergeant Dodd had anything to do with quelling the riot at your house caused by your negligent employment of deserted ex-soldiers and other riffraff, I’m sure he did it in order to preserve the Queen’s peace, not break it.”
“Make him drop his lawsuit.”
Carey laughed again. “Mr. Vice, you wildly overestimate my control over Sergeant Dodd. If he chooses to drop the lawsuit, he will and if not, then not. My interference would certainly not convince him to stop and may well provoke him to continue. I think you discovered what a stubborn independent man he is for yourself, didn’t you?”
“The thumbscrews would have worked eventually,” said Heneage.
Carey paused because he was too furious to speak for a moment, though he kept the smile on his face. It might have become a little fixed.
“I doubt it, sir. Mr. Tovey, see Mr. Vice out…”
“I’m not going until I’ve told you what I need to.”
“Then perhaps you could come to the point? Hmm?”
Carey’s fists were bunched in the sheets and if he hadn’t been blind he might well have punched the bastard again. It was taking him an immense amount of effort not to jump out of bed and try anyway. Speaking in a voice lower than a shout was actually making his throat hurt.
“I wasn’t at Court in 1560 but I…know someone. Someone the Queen set on to investigate the Robsart death before you, when she was in Oxford last time.”
It had been in 1566. Who had that been? Carey wondered at the back of his anger.
“So, give me Dodd and I’ll tell you about him.”
Christ almighty, Carey realised distantly, is he just trying to provoke me or is he serious?
“Dodd is riding a stolen horse with the Queen’s brand on him and no warrant. He shouldn’t be hard to find. Tell me where you’ve told him to hide out and I’ll do the rest.”
Carey’s jaw was hurting from the way his teeth were clenched. Dear God, it was hard to sit still.
“Goodbye, Mr. Heneage,” he managed to say at last. “I know you’re accustomed to cheapening over men’s lives. I am not.”
“He found out a lot, this man,” Heneage pursued. “He’s very good at it. He found out something he’s never told.”
“What?”
The sound of a shrug. “Give me Dodd and I’ll give you him.”
If he says that again, I surely will hit him, Carey thought through the roaring noise of his temper in his ears. Also I don’t know where Dodd is. He took the scarf off his eyes and squinted at the shadowed blur before him.
“Go, Mr. Heneage. Go now. Mr. Tovey?”
Tovey had already gone to the door and was speaking to someone standing outside. A large shape appeared in the candle dazzle, a smear of black-and-yellow Hunsdon livery.
“My lord Hunsdon left orders that his son wis no’ to be annoyed,” said the Berwick tones of Ross, Hunsdon’s sword-master who must have replaced Mr. Henshawe for the nightwatch. “On account of it being a danger to his health and the health of the annoyers forbye. I hope your worship will see the sense in it.”
Heneage stood, walking out with his clerk. At the door, typically, he turned again to sneer.
“Why do you make your life so difficult, Sir Robert? My informer has made a good thing of what he found all those years ago.”
“It would be pointless trying to explain my reasons to you, Mr. Vice,” said Carey, “since I would first need to explain to you the meaning of the words honour, loyalty, and friendship. Good night to you, sir.”
Ross gestured the man out and at last he went.
Carey leaned back on the pillows, feeling frighteningly weak and shaky, Fury was exhausting when you had to sit still and not hit anybody. He actually felt dizzy.
“Sergeant Ross, please don’t let anybody else in until tomorrow.”
“Can’t do that, sir, Mrs. de Paris is here to speak to you and she’s brought supper from the Queen’s own table. I can’t keep her out.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s why I’m here,” came Thomasina’s squeaky but extremely firm voice. “The Queen sent me to be sure you eat all of it. She knows what you’re like.”
“What I really need is a large tot of brandy…” Carey hinted.
“Not at all,” said Thomasina. “Dr. Lopez was very clear about it. Nothing but mild ale for you to ease the strain upon your sanguine and choleric humours…”