P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

“We’ll go and see your father, shall we? Get his permission? Do you know where he might be?”

“In the alehouse,” shrugged the boy. “He won’t care.”

They passed the place on the way back to the orchard and young Tovey was correct: his reverend father was drunk, playing quoits with the blacksmith, the miller, and the butcher. Once he understood what his base-born son was telling him, he was blurrily delighted that Carey was employing the boy without his even having to pay a shilling for the office. Tovey knelt for his father’s blessing and got a wave of the hand and a few mumbles for it.

The boy asked if he could go back to the church to finish some work for Mr. Hughes and be paid for it. This was entirely reasonable and saved Carey from having to find somewhere for the boy to sleep since the clerks always dossed down where they worked. The dusk was coming down fast and the air crisping as he strode to the orchard.

Carey didn’t really want to go and dance, even if there had been any chance of dancing with Emilia again. But he had to, if only to kneel to the Queen as part of the crowd and make sure she saw him. Mistress Thomasina had kindly given him an excellent way of being conspicuous without importunity. But his head was buzzing with the implications of the inquest findings into the thirty-two-year-old death of Amy Robsart. No wonder the jury had taken a full year to report, and had done so in such a way as to satisfy both conscience and, no doubt, covert influence from the Queen, Dudley, and who knew where else? The whole pile of papers must have been quietly buried in the Oxford town muniment room. It was lucky Thomasina had been able to find it and give him a copy. He was a little surprised they hadn’t been burned in a mysterious fire. Did she know what was in them? Maybe not; she wouldn’t understand Latin.

Back in the little tiring room, Carey waited until Mr. Simmonds had come out, clad in a smartly brushed buffcoat with his cloak over his arm, ready to attend Cumberland at the dance. His Court suit was hanging up ready, smelling of rose petal powder with the clean shirt he had managed to pack in his hunting satchel when he left Somerset House the day before. He had kept it carefully for exactly this chance. He sniffed his armpits and frowned. Could he wash anywhere? Riding forty miles in a day was a sweaty business and he’d ridden in from Oxford in the morning as well.

There would be stews in Oxford for the naughty students, but none here in the little village. There would be hip baths in Norris’ manor house which the Queen and her ladies would use. No doubt Essex was stepping into something organised for him right now. Where was Cumberland? A small pack of boys ran past him downhill, shouting in excitement about something going on in the duck pond.

He shucked his hunting doublet and hose, left them hanging on another peg. Scratching fleabites from the last night at the inn, Carey ambled barefoot in his shirt down toward the village duck pond, singing the tune he’d just learnt.

A grey-bearded man in a sober black doublet and gown suddenly turned and stared at him as if he had spoken, then hurried after him.

“Sir,” he said, “that tune. Did Heron Nimmo teach it to you?”

“Eh?” said Carey, irritated at being interrupted in his thoughts, “No, the Queen’s chapel master. Why?”

The man flushed and bowed. “My apologies, sir, I mistook you for a friend.”

“I don’t know anybody called Heron Nimmo. You should enquire of Mr. Byrd, perhaps. The Lord Chamberlain, my father, might know him if he’s a musician?”

The man bowed again, muttered to himself, hurried away. Carey sauntered on down to the duck pond. He found Cumberland and half the Court there, busily wading into the pond and the stream feeding it and washing as best they could.

Villagers were lining the banks and watching with gaping mouths. Some of them were women, peeking round hedges and clutching each other and giggling. Grinning at the sight of the richest and most powerful men in the country splashing about naked in cold water for fear of a fussy woman of fifty-nine, Carey stripped off his own shirt, hung it on a post, and waded in.

The water made him gasp but it was quite refreshing. You had to be careful because the stones on the bottom were covered in weed and very slippery. Cumberland saw him and whistled.

“Christ, Sir Robert, who tried to slit your ribs?”

Carey looked down at the purple scar he had collected in the summer and completely forgotten about.

“A Scotsman with a knife. Cost me?20 to get my black velvet doublet mended afterward.”

Cumberland laughed. “Where is he now?”

“In Hell, my lord, where do you think?” Carey answered coolly, since he had in fact killed his man to the great approval of the assembled Carlislers. The inquest on that death had taken twenty minutes and found it lawful killing in self-defence.

Cumberland slapped him on the back and offered him soap, which Carey took. Just in that moment, as he bent to wash his armpits in the water, he half-heard a familiar sound and his body instinctively clenched and ducked, well before his mind could tell him what it was.

His foot caught on a slippery stone and he went over sideways with a splash, swamping Cumberland and two other Court sprigs, one of whom had been silly enough to put his clean shirt back on before he was well away from the water. Pure reflex made him grab the nearest thing from underwater, which unfortunately happened to be the Earl of Cumberland’s leg. That took the Earl over as well.

Cumberland came up again, blowing water with weeds on his head, the light of battle in his eyes. Carey had to dive sideways to avoid a very accomplished wrestling grab by the Earl, which meant his shoulder went into the legs of somebody else and took him down as well.

The whole scene degenerated into a wrestling free-for-all. Carey climbed out of the shouting, splashing, yelling clump of nobility as soon as he could, quickly soaped his armpits and then was well-rinsed by the Earl of Cumberland pulling him back into the pond and dunking him. It took a very nice break-free taught him by Dodd to get out of the Earl’s expert grip so he could use a willow branch to haul himself up and cough water.

The entire village was now gathered to watch the fun, including the quoits players, vigorous betting going on and the boys cheering on their favourites while the village dogs barked their heads off. The noise was amazing which meant Carey could speak quietly to get under the sound and penetrate to the Earl of Cumberland before he could be thrown again.

“Look there,” he said, pointing.

Cumberland stopped laughing suddenly, frowned. They waded across, shoving wrestlers out of their way to a willow root on the far side where some highly offended ducks were hiding as far up the tree as they could get in their webbed feet.

A crossbow bolt was buried deep in the wood, the notch bright and new.

That was the sound he’d heard. The snick of a crossbow trigger being released. He and Cumberland looked at each other. The bolt was an ordinary one from a hunting bow. Not one for small game, but for deer. The bolt was a good six inches long, heavy and sharp. If it had hit him it would probably have killed him.

“I was wondering what you thought you were doing,” said Cumberland thoughtfully. “Thank you, Sir Robert.”

True, it could have been aimed at the Earl and not at him; they had been close enough together. And Cumberland too had enemies, notably the Spanish and the French and probably some inherited Border feuds as well. But when Carey felt which way the bolt’s tail was pointing and traced the line of its flight across the stream, he thought it was at chest height where he had been standing in the moment he heard the trigger. Behind him had been a low wall and some bushes. Carey waded back across the pond as the wrestlers calmed themselves and started climbing out and drying themselves. Bets were being settled. He peered over the wall. The ground was soft but well printed with many feet and no way of telling among them.