Even in the annoying dazzle Carey could see the men in his father’s livery at the door of Trinity College, tucked between a field and a small bookshop. He went straight over, made a few enquiries and ten minutes later was unbolting the chamber door where Hughie was still recovering.
The window was shuttered and although Hughie didn’t rate a proper fourposter bed, somebody had rigged up a curtain of old-fashioned tapestry with pointy hatted women and moth-holes.
Hughie looked pale and frightened, which was an odd sight in a young man as large and well-shouldered as he was, with his black hair and square shuttered face and his beard starting to come in strongly.
When he’d blinked at Carey, he tried to get up but Carey stopped him with a raised hand.
“Hughie, don’t trouble yourself, I came to see how you were doing.”
“It wisnae me, sir,” growled Hughie in Scotch. “Ah tellt ’em, Ah didnae spike yer drink…”
No doubt his father had made sure the lad was well-questioned, but Carey had better methods. He pulled up the stool and sat himself down, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
“I’ve only just been well enough to get up,” he said affably. “How are your eyes doing?”
“Mebbe I’ve bin struck blind,” muttered Hughie dolefully, “I cannae mek out…”
“No, that’s what belladonna does to you, it seems, fixes your pupils open so you can’t see in daylight. Dreadful stuff. It’s lucky I didn’t drink as much of that flagon as you did. You should start being able to see properly again tomorrow.”
“Ay?”
“Oh yes. Now I’m completely certain it wasn’t you who put the belladonna in my booze, but you must have seen who did it because…”
“But I canna remember, sir, I’m so sorry.”
That might be true. Carey couldn’t think how he’d got to the church and couldn’t remember much of what happened there either, apart from the puking which he would have preferred to forget.
“Well we’ll start with your last clear memory and see what more you can remember? Do try, there’s a good fellow, you’re my only chance at tracking down whoever did it.”
“Ay,” Hughie looked very gloomy, his jaw was set. “I wantae ken that masen.”
“All right. Do you recall me sending you off for spiced wine?”
It was like pulling teeth. Hughie remembered the girls dancing the country dance. He remembered seeing Carey speak to the pretty Italian woman and he remembered heading for the spiced wine bowl and pushing through the other servingmen. He couldn’t remember any more.
“Did you see who was serving?”
He shook his head, there were too many people around the table, he couldn’t get through.
“So how did you get your flagon filled?”
He’d passed it forward to the table and got it back filled with spiced wine…
“Ach,” he said, scowling, “that’s when it happened.”
Carey nodded. “They wouldn’t take the risk of poisoning the whole bowl, it had to be very specific. So when whoever it was saw you with the flagon, he knew you were my man, he blocks your path to the spiced wine and he helpfully gets it filled then adds the belladonna. The idea, I think, was that you would be blamed for it.”
“Ay?”
“Well of course. It’s only because you illicitly drank enough to half-kill yourself that my father doesn’t have you banged up in the Oxford jailhouse right now.”
There was a long thoughtful pause while Hughie digested this.
“Ah hadnae thocht o’that, sir.”
“No? Well, think about it now. You bring me wine which is poisoned, ideally I die and it’s only thanks to God that I didn’t, and then as my henchman who brought the wine, you would be the first and probably last suspect.”
“But I didna…”
Carey leaned forward, blinking at the young man’s sullen face and wishing he could see more clearly. “Hughie, I’m sure you didn’t but if I was dead and you unpoisoned, you would be in very big trouble no matter how innocent you were. I can’t guarantee that my father wouldn’t have you put to the question to find out what had happened; he’s a decent man and doesn’t like that kind of foreign rubbish, but he would be very upset if he had my corpse to bury. To put it mildly.”
More silence. “Ay, sir,” said Hughie heavily. There was some kind of rage smouldering in him somewhere. Carey hoped Hughie would put the rage to good use, by finding the poisoner, for instance.
Carey stood and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I’ll talk to my father, make sure he releases you to me once you’re better. Think about it. Oh and Hughie…”
“Ay, sir?”
“I’m a very tolerant man, you know. I served at Court for ten years before I decided it would be more fun to do some fighting on the Borders. I know how Courts work and I know how the King of Scotland’s Court works as well because I was there with Walsingham years ago and I’ve been back a few times since. The only thing I don’t forgive in a man of mine is lying to me. Understand?”
More silence.
“If you’re taking money from someone to keep an eye on me and report back, I don’t mind at all-so long as you tell me about it.”
Nothing. Carey nodded and crammed his hat further down over his eyes. “See if you remember anything more, drink plenty of mild ale and if you feel up it you can be back at work for me tomorrow. God knows, Mr. Tovey my new clerk doesn’t know one end of a doublet from another.”
Not a glimmer of a smile, the saturnine young face was clearly masking a brain that was thinking furiously.
Quite pleased with himself, Carey went out and found Tovey sitting on a window ledge peering out the window into the quad. His face was wistful.
“Happy memories, Mr. Tovey?”
“Yes, sir. Though I was at Balliol not Trinity and working my keep, I loved it here.” The shy smile among the spots was like that of a man remembering an old love. “All the books, it was just…It was heaven here. So many books to read.”
Carey nodded politely. While he liked reading and enjoyed romances like the Roman de la Rose or adventure stories like Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur, he usually got restless after an hour or so. He wasn’t a clerk.
“Let’s go find one of my brothers,” he said. Tovey hopped down and trotted after him obediently.
Luckily the one he found was George who was unenviably in charge of organising the Hunsdon household. The household was enormous even on progress and spilled out of the main college quad and into the gardens behind. George was Hunsdon’s heir, in his forties and very harassed by the lack of provisions.
“What?” he snapped irritably when Carey asked him the question for the fourth time. “You want to know whether your man Dodd’s turned up and also about Aunt Katherine’s riding habit thirty years ago? For God’s sake, Robin, why?”
“For a good and sufficient reason,” Carey said. His hat was helping the dazzle but he was getting another headache and his guts were in a sad state, no doubt thanks to Dr. Lopez’ prescriptions. And he was now seriously worried about Dodd-none of his father’s men had any idea whether he had been found yet. It was as if he had been stolen away by the faery folk. And Carey did not personally want to think about a faery that could do that to Dodd.
Carey passed a hand down the leg of the horse that seemed skittish, while his elder brother gloomily checked the hay stores which had clearly been got at by rats and possibly humans.
“I don’t know what the devil happened to her skirt,” said George pettishly. “And as for Dodd, my bloody wagons left London ten days ago with food supplies and they haven’t arrived yet either. Maybe the sergeant ran off with them.”