They followed Forster in through the door to the opposite wing where the great doors to the hall were and then up a larger set of stairs that led on to a corridor in the inhabited part of the house.
They went into a chamber with a very large curtained bed, with the curtains pulled back and the shutters half open. The smell of old lady in the room was not too bad, Cumberland thought, quite similar to the Queen’s under all the rosewater, although the chamberpot was clearly unemptied.
Propped up on the linen pillows was a bony form in a knitted jacket and embroidered cap. Her hair was white, her eyes yellowed and milky with cataracts, and her beak the most powerful part of her face which had mostly fallen away back to the skull. Carey’s warrant lay on the bed, now right way up.
“So Her Majesty is trying again, is she?” she demanded in a stronger voice than Cumberland expected.
“Er…yes, mistress,” said Carey, sweeping off his hat in a bow, removing the scarf.
“Sit down, sit down, both of you boys. What’s your name?”
“Sir Robert Carey, mistress,” he explained, “seventh son of my lord Baron Hunsdon, Chamberlain to…”
The old woman had sucked in a breath.
“Henry Carey?”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Why isn’t he here then, eh?”
“I’m not sure, Mistress Odingsells, I think he’s supervising the Queen’s move to Oxford on progress.”
“I didn’t like the man she sent last time she was there, whats-isname? Slimy villain for all his fancy gown.”
Carey had sat on the chair by the bed, Cumberland modestly took the clothes chest by the door, the better to escape if necessary.
“Kept shouting at me and hectoring and then offering money. Stupid man. Must have been a very good liar to get the job. So. What do you want, my lad? I didn’t see who did it, you know. I was playing cards, God forgive me.”
“Do you know the man’s name? The one who questioned you before?”
The wrinkled lips pinched together, then smacked apart.
“No, and I’ll have forgotten yours by tomorrow. Ugly tall man, black hair and eyebrows, one of Lord Shrewsbury’s crew, I think. The Queen was at Oxford.”
“Well, can you tell me the story of Lady Dudley’s last few days?”
“I can,” said the old lady and shut her lips.
Carey smiled. “Please will you, mistress?”
“Perhaps. Why should I?”
“I have a warrant from Her Majesty.”
The old lady lifted the warrant and squinted at it from the side of one eye. “Queen’s seal, give aid and so on. Yes. So what? Might be a forgery.” Carey said nothing. “And why would she want it all dug up again after thirty years?”
“I don’t know, mistress,” said Carey with surprising humility. “She won’t tell me. She won’t tell me anything, which is extremely annoying.”
The old lips stretched in a smile.
“It’s a puzzle isn’t it? And the man most folk say was the murderer died four years ago.”
“Do you mean my lord of Leicester?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Odingsells, “Who else? Not Sir Richard Verney nor Bald Butler as the Papist book said, they weren’t anywhere near. And yet it wasn’t right.”
Cumberland was suppressing the urge to shout “Stop talking riddles!” Mind you, it would be interesting to hear about the thing that changed the Queen’s life forever from someone who was there. Not as interesting as a sea battle, but still interesting.
“Mistress, please, would you tell me the tale, starting with about a week before, around the 1st September 1560?”
The old lady shut her eyes. “I suppose I’ll get no peace until I do.”
“I’m afraid not, mistress.”
The eyes snapped open. “Well the last thing I want is peace. So there!”
“Yes,” said Carey quietly, “It’s very dull being blind, isn’t it? A…an accident happened to my eyes on Saturday and I own I have never been so utterly undone with tedium as since then.”
She laughed a little. “What’s wrong with ’em? French pox?”
“Someone put belladonna into my wine.”
“Tut. You see, that was why I always thought it couldn’t have been my lord of Leicester. Yes, Sir William Cecil had a man placed in the kitchens, but it would have been easy enough to get round him and do the deed.”
“I think so too,” Carey said.
“Hmm. Good. Why didn’t you die?”
“I was very lucky, mistress. Or perhaps I should say that God must have watched over me?”
That’s right, thought Cumberland, give it a bit of Godly piety, that should unlock the old oyster.
“Hah! Such arrogance. So why didn’t He watch over poor Amy?”
“I don’t know, mistress. I’m not privy to His counsels. Perhaps God never meant Her Majesty to marry, as she says now.”
There was a cynical look on Mrs. Odingsell’s face. “So why didn’t He find a way that didn’t mean killing poor Amy?”
“In fact, you might say, in order to stop the Queen marrying Leicester, God only had to keep Amy alive.”
Mrs. Odingsells slowly shook her head, looking pleased with herself.
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?” Carey’s voice had gone down to a murmur.
“Something was afoot. Something…I didn’t know. A messenger arrived from my lord Leicester and put Amy all in a tizzy. She ordered a new gown from her tailor and then when a new message came before it was ready, she sent me into Oxford to have her best velvet gown refashioned, to put gold brocade on the neck. She wouldn’t let me read any of the letters. She burnt them. Then she wrote three herself, though her penmanship was poor. I thought Leicester was planning to visit her but…”
“Did he?”
Again the slow shaking of her head. “He hadn’t seen her for months. A year maybe. He didn’t visit her.”
Cumberland missed the inflection but Carey didn’t.
“Who did visit her?”
There was a very long silence while Cumberland said nothing and rather thought Carey was actually holding his breath.
“According to the inquest papers, she wanted the house empty for the day,” Carey prompted finally. “She sent everyone else to the fair at Abingdon, but you refused to go and she was angry about it.”
“I knew poor Amy was terribly worried about something. It was very important. But she never killed herself, she wouldn’t do that, no matter what wicked men say. Never never. Amy was a good Christian woman, she spent hours on her knees praying for the wisdom to judge rightly.”
Another long pause.
“She did love her husband, you see,” creaked the old voice sadly, “In spite of everything. She loved him. She knew he didn’t love her, never really had, and she knew he was completely enchanted by the Queen but…she still loved him.”
Carey was tense as he sat, poised. Cumberland had to admire his patience and wondered where he’d got it.
“As for going to the fair…” The old creaky voice was far back in the past. “The youngsters were all for it, I wasn’t. I liked peace and quiet then. Go to Our Lady Fair at Abingdon on that Sunday…No! I don’t think so. Only the ungodly would go to a fair on a Sunday. There was to be a football match as well and why should I watch something so boring and unseemly?”
To Cumberland’s surprise, Carey didn’t explain to her what fun football was-but then no woman could possibly understand such things. Even his wife thought football was a waste of time.
“I refused to go and we had an argument about it. Mrs. Owens was going to stay with her but Mrs. Owens was deaf as a post and not too firm in her wits. Amy screamed at me that I would spoil everything, but I held fast and then finally she told me…She was meeting two courtiers. She would not say why but the meeting was vitally important. So I offered to help her dress for it and at last she said I could stay so long as I never moved from the parlour, on my honour.” There was a long creaking sigh. “And I never did, till it was too late.”
“Do you know who were…”
“The two courtiers? One was your father, Henry Carey, the other one of the Queen’s women. I didn’t know them, of course.”