P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

Which was the last thought he knew as the clouds wrapped him in silk again.…

Dodd hauled the horse back on its haunches and cursed. He knew he was going the wrong way again…you wouldn’t think that riding northwest to Oxford would be so difficult. It hadn’t been while he stuck to the Oxford Road, but last night had worried him and so he’d left the Roman street and followed a signpost that took him along a nice road amongst the plump coppies and fields full of cattle and pigs eating up the stubble before they burnt it, ready for winter barley.

That had been early this morning. After a couple of hours of hard riding, he had spent some time in a copse rubbing chewed bark into the telltale brand on Whitesock’s hindquarters to stain it brown. It wouldn’t fool anyone who checked properly, but would do for the moment along with the mud he slapped on top. Now it was noon and he was tired. He hadn’t got any sleep on Friday night, had ridden hard most of Saturday, not got a full ration of sleep Saturday night, and here it was Sunday and he had no idea where he was. He knew the rutted track was taking him the wrong way, despite the waymarker that had pointed toward Oxford.

He would have struck off across country, but this land was separated out into little fields with newfangled tight-woven hedges and forbye; he didn’t want to leave so clear a trail as a broken hedge and a crossed field. The lanes between them headed in half a dozen different directions at once and it was all strange country to him-he didn’t know the lay of the land. He knew the right way to go, of course, even though the sky had clouded over, but the lanes wouldn’t let him and most of the fields had been deeply ploughed or were still stubbled.

He was starting to feel very thirsty and both horses were tired and sulky from being ridden without a saddle. Now the track was heading downhill into a boggy little wood. He went with it in the hope that he could find a stream in it, slipped from Whitesock’s back, and led him as well.

The wood closed around them. There were signs that there had been people living there, once long ago and some more recently, too. In one place there was an old fire and the marks of horses tethered to trees. In another he could see clear signs of wagons from only a few days ago. Perhaps there was some kind of manor house or village nearby.

Later Dodd wondered why he hadn’t been more careful and decided that as well as being tired, the rotten Southern air had made him as soft and soppy as the Southerners and he deserved what happened.

The track came at the stream from around a small mound and stones made a rough ford. The trees were thick overhead so he couldn’t see the sky and the horses pulled forward to the water so Dodd let them put their heads down to drink.

He was just looking at the deeper part in the bend behind him and wondering if there were any fish in it that he could tickle for his supper when something large and heavy landed on his shoulders and thudded on the back of his head.

Bright lights exploded and he went over like a toppled tree. He glimpsed an ugly scarred face with a broken nose under a morion helmet and a flash of bright orange-and-white rags, felt a hand across his mouth so he bit down hard and head-butted backwards at whoever was on his shoulders.

Next thing, two more heavy weights landed on him and his arms were wrestled up behind while his face went into the mud. Kicking and fighting as viciously as he could, he struggled to breathe, once even managing to rear up with the red rage all around him. Eventually another blow to his head took the world away into a deeper darkness than he’d ever known, although a part of him remained amused to note that he was still fighting as boots thudded into his ribs.

The light was hurting Robert Carey’s eyes even through his eyelids and two people were shouting at each other right next to him, hurting his sore head with the noise.

“…you ordered my son to investigate the Robsart matter…?”

“Who else could I ask, Harry? Walsingham is dead and none of the others…”

“My son! You put my son in danger of poisoning…?”

“I had to do it!” roared the Queen, “I have to find out…”

“You did not have to find out anything, Eliza, for God’s sake, you’ve let it lie thirty years, you could let it lie another thirty. Why the hell didn’t you?”

“I could NOT let it lie, you old fool, look what they sent me!”

Silence. What? What did they send you? Who sent it? Carey fluttered his lids, only to find his eyes worse than ever, blurred and blazing with light that hurt him. He shut them again, tried to stretch his ears.

There was a long moment of silence and his father’s heavy breathing, then the sound of creaking joints and popping knees as Lord Hunsdon knelt to the Queen.

“I’m sorry, Eliza.”

“Why?”

“For shouting at you.”

“You understand now? Why I couldn’t let it lie?”

A heavy sigh. “Yes.”

There was movement, rustle of skirts. “What else could I do?” His aunt’s voice had lost its full-throated roar suddenly and the blurred shape was merging with the darker shape, his father kneeling to her. “I was horrified when I found it. What if it all came out now? And then I heard your boy Robin had turned up at Court and it seemed…it seemed as if God had sent him specially to help me.”

More creaking as Carey’s father stood again.

“I’m so sorry he was poisoned, Harry. I never thought they would try such a thing, it never…Oh, Harry!”

The two figures merged into one. His father had his arms around the Queen and she was…good Lord, she must be crying into his chest, from the snuffling sounds.

Carey was too weak and dry even to moan. Ask her for my fee and my warrant as Deputy Warden, he thought as forcibly as he could. Go on, Father! Fee! Warrant! Ask!

Baron Hunsdon was rumbling again. “There now, Eliza, there now. It’s all right. I have the Gentlemen of the Guard checking all the supplies and some of my other men are asking Norris’ servants and kitchen staff what happened. Mr. Byrd and Mrs. de Paris are making reports right now.”

“Be gentle…”

“Don’t worry, I’m certain both Byrd and Thomasina are loyal, but they must be asked, you know. Somehow enough belladonna got into the flagon of spiced wine that Robin drank from to half-kill him and his henchman.”

What? Young Hughie had been poisoned, too? That was interesting.

The Queen sniffed and blew her nose. “You’re sure it wasn’t the servingman? He’s a Scot, after all.”

“I very much doubt it. It was pure luck he didn’t die after drinking about half the contents of that flagon. Everybody thought he was just very drunk. Luckily he puked some of it up and after he collapsed, the other servingmen thought from his fever that it might be plague so they left him where he lay under the hedge. Once Tovey raised the alarm, of course, he was the first one we went looking for and we found him with the flagon beside him. It was very lucky that we did.”

“And you’re sure it was poison?”

“Certain, Your Majesty. We fed the flagon’s contents to a piglet which ran wild, then collapsed and died less than an hour later. Dr. Lopez says an infallible sign of belladonna poisoning is that the pupils of the eyes become fixed wide open and that light dazzles and hurts the victim. Hughie Tyndale is suffering from that, as well as Robin.”

So that was what was wrong with his goddamned eyes.

“The fever and the delirium are also typical.”

“Harry, your son…” The Queen was sniffling again which was very unlike her.