Not impossible with Dodd, but unlikely, Carey thought. The skittish gelding next to him blew out its lips and hopped a bit. Running his hand down again, Carey found the hot sore place on the knee which he suspected would need a bran poultice. He pointed this out to George who wasn’t pleased to hear about it as he was also short of horses. In Carey’s experience nobody, in any situation, ever had enough horses.
“Come on, George,” he insisted, “I’ll leave you alone if you tell me. You must remember more than I do and I remember quite a fuss years later. Aunt Katherine’s riding habit?”
“God, I don’t know,” snorted George, sounding very like a lame horse himself, “I’m not so bloody interested in fine clothes as you, I don’t…”
“I don’t wear kirtles, George,” Carey said coldly, wishing his brother wasn’t so pompous. “I’m asking for a reason. Do I have to show you my warrant?”
“Oh. That. Well…” George sighed and stared at the ground. “Far as I can remember she was at Court early in the Queen’s reign. Lettice hadn’t come to Court yet. I was a page still, and yes, her riding habit went mysteriously missing. And then one of her tiring women was complaining that it was ruined but then the Queen was very kind and gave Aunt Katherine a dress length-a whole twelve yards-of fine green Lincoln wool, and arranged for her own tailor to make a new habit for her.”
“Anything else? How was the kirtle ruined?”
“Got splashed with blood or something. And the headtire had been lost as well. Aunt Katherine probably fell off her horse and didn’t want to admit it, she was never a very good rider.”
Yes! Carey stood stock still, staring into space. “I don’t remember Aunt Katherine ever liking the hunt,” he said carefully. “What style was the headtire?”
George shrugged. “She was very old-fashioned, usually wore French hoods that went out with Bloody Mary, I don’t know.”
Carey’s heart was pounding and the hair up on the back of his neck, it was like what you felt when you saw a chorus of Kings in your hand and a fat pot on the table.
George was still droning on. “Sorry, brother?”
“I said, Robin, if you’d care to listen for a change, that Aunt Kat was very upset about it and so was Father and he told us not to mention it at all.”
“Right.” That fitted too. Carey decided he had to find his father and talk to him. “Where is Father?”
“He’s out with some men, trying to find out what happened to the pack train-and your Sergeant Dodd as well. He was saying if you hadn’t been so infernally careless and got yourself poisoned, you could have been very useful. He wants to know when you think you’ll be fit to ride?”
Leaving out the detail of where he had gone that morning, Carey shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow if my eyes are better. I’m quite busy too, you know. In addition to the warrant matter, I’m also trying to find out who poisoned me. Thank you, George.”
He walked carefully out of the Hunsdon camp, still trailed by Tovey, with the sunlight peering under a sheet of dirty linen cloud to dazzle him again and make his head hurt. He would have to find out from Cumberland who was serving the spiced wine on Saturday and then talk to the man to see if he could remember any of the people crowding round the table. Meantime his head was buzzing because he had thought of a possible reason for the Queen to be at Cumnor Place on the 8th September 1560. It was far-fetched but it made better sense than the notion that she would personally murder Amy, that was sure. He might have to go back to Cumnor Place and press Mrs. Odingsells for whatever it was she had kept. And his Aunt’s missing headtire made sense of something else.
Unfortunately the new explanation once again made a prime suspect of Lord Burghley.
Monday 18th September 1592, night
Back with the Earl of Cumberland’s encampment, he found the man who served the spiced wine who was understandably extremely nervous. It took some time to calm him enough to get any sense out of him at all. He said he was certain there had been no woman at all amongst the servingmen wanting spiced wine for their masters, which took out Emilia’s direct intervention. As for which of them had passed forward Hughie’s flagon-the man had no idea at all, blinked helplessly at the flagon Carey showed him and said he’d filled hundreds that looked just like it, he was sorry, sir, but…Carey sighed, gave him thruppence for his time and promised him another ninepence if he could remember anything else.
Carey would bet a lot of money that whichever man it had been, he’d left Rycote on Saturday night, but so had plenty of other people. Or had he? There were so many servingmen, henchmen, and general hangers on at Court, even on progress, the poisoner could easily have stayed with the Court if he kept his nerve.
He was restless and out of sorts. He couldn’t even enjoy playing cards with Cumberland when he could hardly make out the pips. Darkness fell which eased him somewhat. And so Carey sat and drank mild ale in the little alehouse on the corner of the Hollywell Street, staring into space, trying to filter out the noise of a lute being played by an idiot and some extremely bad singing.
The hammering and sawing died down and the workmen started filling up the alehouse, spending their wages. Flocks of students moved restlessly along the street in their black gowns, arguing and drinking and, occasionally, fighting.
Somebody else got hold of the lute, somebody who could actually play the damned thing because he started by tuning it. No alehouse lute was ever in tune. When the man began playing, Carey sat up and put his mug on the table.
It was the Spanish air he had sung at Rycote. The tune didn’t have the same arrangement that Byrd had given it, but it was still the same wistful melody. And the man playing the lute was the man who had disappeared from Byrd’s music consort on the Saturday night after hearing Carey sing.
Carey’s neck felt cold. Had he put the poison in Carey’s booze? Why would he do that? He’d annoyed Mr. Byrd by leaving the musicians’ consort-that didn’t say he’d left the whole party.
The man finished playing that air and then played two other tunes more. Despite applause and calls for more from the workmen, he put the lute down and walked out of the alehouse without even passing a hat round.
Goddamn it, he needed a man at his back, he wished he hadn’t sent the yawning Tovey off to his bed. At least Tovey could have run to Trinity College and rousted out Sergeant Ross and a few Northerners to arrest the man.
No help for it, he couldn’t afford to lose the man so Carey put his half-finished ale down and followed. At least now that the streets were fully dark apart from occasional public-spirited lanterns on college gates, his eyes worked very well. He could see as clearly as if it were a moonlit night and not as overcast as it was.
The man walked purposefully along the road to New College, went into the tiny boozing ken next to it, picked up the violin there and played that. Once again the Spanish air rang out, followed by two more tunes and the man left once more.
Carey pulled his hat down, wished he’d bothered with a cloak and pretended to be staggering drunk as he followed the man on down the lane that eventually wound up passing by Magdalen deerpark where he turned right and came back along the High Street.
There were a lot of inns and alehouses on the High Street and the man went into each one, played the Spanish air and a couple more tunes, then left without passing a hat round or accepting any of the beer offered to keep him in the place.
He stayed and ate the ordinary at the London Inn on the southwards road from Carfax, then off he went again, having maybe one quart of mild per five boozing kens and playing the Spanish air at each of them. And there certainly were an amazing number of inns and alehouses in Oxford. Studying must be thirsty work.
Just as Carey was loitering in a doorway on the corner of St. Giles after a foray to the Eagle amp; Child where the alewife had scowled at both of them, he saw a looming pair of shoulders and a statute cap pulled down low on Hughie’s saturnine young face.