Not really, more amazed he hadn’t thought of it before. Lady Blount looked pink-cheeked and happy and creaked obediently to her feet as Carey offered his hand to help her up.
“Please don’t tell anyone at all what you’ve told me,” he warned.
“Oh don’t worry, Robin, not even my lord Treasurer Burghley, though he’s such an old friend and he was asking me the other day. You know he was the one who introduced me to my lord of Leicester after my lord realised the Queen would never really marry him?”
Which put Burghley squarely back in the dock for the murder of Amy Robsart, despite all his protestations. If Amy had agreed to petition for divorce that would ultimately make Dudley king and Burghley would have been out of a job the same week. Desperate men do desperate things. In 1560, the then-Sir William Cecil had not yet made his fortune from the Treasury and the Court of Wards. It was all very clear. The Queen wouldn’t like it coming out at all though and what about Mr. Secretary Cecil? Speaking of which, why on earth had she set all this in motion anyway? Why hadn’t his father warned him?
Carey bowed Lettice, Lady Blount out of Cumberland’s pavilion, blinked longingly at the men playing veneys in the central area of the camp while Sergeant Ross ran the sword class with his usual combination of wit and bullying. Unfortunately he had an urgent and probably unpleasant appointment with the jakes.
Tuesday 19th September 1592
Some time later, Carey ambled into town again to see if he could spot the musician he had been following the previous night. His eyes did seem to be getting better-he had to squint and things were a bit blurry but at least he didn’t have to tie a scarf across them. He was in search of a good tailor in case he could find a better doublet for ordinary wear than his green one and perhaps one of the short embroidered capes that were all the rage and possibly one of the new high-crowned hats…Passing Carfax he heard a great deal of shouting as a short puffy man was arrested for coining and horse-theft. The man’s face was purple; he kept shouting that he was Captain Leigh on urgent business. His henchman, a big louring thug, suddenly broke free of the two lads holding him, knocked down a third and took to his heels down the London road. A few people gave chase but didn’t try too hard on account of his size and ugliness. Carey didn’t fancy it himself. Meanwhile, the horsethief had been cold-cocked on general principles and hauled off to the Oxford lockup.
The first tailor he found on the High Street, was showing some very good samples of fine wool and Flemish silk brocades in his window, so he wandered in and asked questions. Alas, the prices were even more inflated than in London and the man explained smugly that he couldn’t be expected to produce anything in time for the Queen’s Entry on Friday as all his journeymen were working flat out already. And there were only two other tailors in Oxford town.
Carey picked up one of the little wax dolls showing the latest French fashions in women’s kirtles, looked deeper into the shop which was full of men sitting cross-legged stitching at speed. “Who is the oldest man here?” he asked idly.
The harassed man in thick spectacles frowned. “I am.”
“When did you do your prentice piece?”
“In 1562. I cry you pardon, sir,” he added with the sharp voice of someone who spends his days sitting down, worrying. “I have fully worked my time as an apprentice and journeyman and I am simply not able to fill any more orders at all at any price…
Carey smiled. “I was just wondering if I could ask you a question or two, Mr. Frole.”
It was a pity, he would have liked to order a couple of alterations to his Court suit to make it a little more in fashion, but never mind. Hughie could do it when he was better.
“I’m looking for the tailor who made gowns and kirtles for Lady Leicester,” he said. “Not Lettice Knollys, but Amy Robsart, his first wife. Did you work for her?”
The man went pale and his eyes flickered. Suddenly he was sweating.
“No sir,” said Frole shortly, “I didn’t. I have only been in business as Master Tailor these last ten years and…
“Do you know who was her tailor?”
“It was Master William Edney in London.” The man shut his mouth like a trap. Carey watched him, wondering how to get him to open up.
“Mr. Frole, I know this is a sensitive matter despite being as old in years as I am myself. Were you prenticed in Oxford?” The master tailor nodded. “I know gossip travels around the ’prentices. Is there anything at all you can tell me about the end of August 1560, anything about Lady Dudley…? I have been asked by the Queen herself to make enquiries.”
The man was looking narrow-eyed and suspicious. Carey sighed. “I believe she set another man, by name Richard Topcliffe, to find something out about it only six years after Lady Dudley’s death, while Her Majesty was on progress in Oxford the last time. But the man has an ill-reputation and I’m certain he…
“He had a warrant,” said Frole. “Do you?”
Carey took it out of his doublet pocket, his heartbeat quickening.
“Did Topcliffe offer money which he didn’t pay or did he grab people and beat them up until they told him what he wanted to hear?”
“Both,” said Frole, thin-lipped, and held out his hand. Carey handed over the warrant which Frole read quickly and gave back.
“We told him all we knew which was that Lady Dudley was in a hurry to have a new gown although she already had plenty of the best quality. She had ordered a new one from London but it hadn’t come. This was the first week of Spetember and she sent her best bodice, kirtle, and gown into Oxford by her woman Mrs. Odingsells to have the collar changed to stand up and have gold lace put on it, very costly. We did the work while she waited, for Lady Dudley intended to wear it in a few days.”
“Who did the work?” Carey asked, “you?”
Frole shook his head. “One of the journeymen, she was too important a customer to risk an apprentice’s work. He died of plague in ’66. Mrs. Odingsells paid for it in gold at once. Just as well, really.”
“How about her headdress? Did that need altering?”
Frole shook his head. “Her headtires all came from London as she didn’t like the shop here. I believe they were very old-fashioned, from the boy-King’s reign. I never met Lady Dudley, you know, she was always at Cumnor Place, waiting for her husband.”
“Did Topcliffe let slip anything interesting?”
Frole gave a cautious look. “He was an evil man, broke my best friend’s fingers so he couldn’t continue in the trade. He went off to Cumnor Place after he spoke to us and I heard him boasting in an alehouse that night that he had found something that would make him a great man at Court-he was the Earl of Shrewsbury’s man then-and comfortable for the rest of his life. He said other things that I can’t repeat about the Queen, terrible obscene things. But at least he had lost interest in us prentices and took himself off back to London the next day, following the Court.”
Carey nodded. Terrible obscene things-Topcliffe was notorious for the way he spoke of the Queen and yet nothing was ever done about him. Generally the Queen rightly had a short way with anyone who was offensive about her in way that often made them shorter by a head or another important limb. So what gave Topcliffe his extraordinary immunity? Blackmail, surely. But with what?
“Mr. Frole,” he said to the unhappy looking tailor, “I am very grateful to you. If you have any further memories or ideas, please tell me-you can find me with the Earl of Cumberland while the Queen is here or by means of the Lord Chamberlain if I am gone north again. He will make it worth your while.”
Frole bowed Carey out of the shop who stood in the street and havered between heading off down the London road to look for Dodd and continuing his sweep of Oxford. He even had five pounds from the Earl of Cumberland won on a bet as he left. George Clifford had been loudly offering to take Carey on as a permanent general purpose gleeman and fool if he got tired of soldiering in the starveling and dangerous Debateable land. George had explained how Carey would only have to wear a cap and bells on Saturdays and would have his very own kennel with the dogs…Carey had thrown a pennyloaf at the Earl on this point and challenged him to a veney which he had narrowly won.