P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

“What?”

“Your son insisted that the Earl of Essex be told before he would take anything to bring up the poison. He knew what had happened, but he was more worried about me drinking the spiced wine.”

There was a pause.

“Quite right,” came his father’s voice after a loud harrumph. “No more than I’d expect.”

“Oh, Harry…” The Queen’s voice had a smile in it. “I have a Court full of men who claim they would die for me, but so few of them who really would.”

There was another loud harrumph from his father, who seemed to have something stuck in his throat-a confounded nuisance, as far as Carey was concerned, as he needed his father to talk for him. Come on, Father. Ask her! Fee! Warrant! More money! shouted Carey in his mind, to no effect at all.

Through the watery flicker of his eyelids, he made out two blurred shapes embracing again. Very touching, you prize idiot, thought Carey in despair, why the hell won’t you get me some more money and a proper warrant, you old buffoon? Or a customs farm or a patent? How about a monopoly on the import of sugar? That would be nice.

“Eliza, may I beg a favour?” His father’s voice sounded tired.

Thank God, Carey thought. Come on, Father, you know how to do it.

“Of course.”

“Please, Eliza, for God’s sake, will you make sure the boy’s mother doesn’t get to hear of this?”

Arrgh, thought Carey. Then after a moment’s thought-well, yes, all right. Sensible.

Now there was something better than a smile in the Queen’s voice, more like a giggle.

“I’ll do my best, Harry, but you know that Annie has her ways of finding things out, just as I do. Nobody else need know since neither Robin nor his man actually died, thank God, so no inquest is needed and the Board of Green Cloth doesn’t need to sit, or not officially. The poison was only in that particular flagon, not in the rest of the spiced wine.”

There was the sound of a woman’s skirts on the rush mats again.

“In fact, I think the attempt was upon your son, not me.” Hunsdon said nothing. “And even so, brother,” continued the Queen awkwardly, “as soon as he’s well enough again, you understand that I want Robin to carry on with investigating the Robsart matter.”

Another pause and his father sighed. Now! thought Carey. A piece of land. A nice monopoly on the sale of…oh…I don’t know…brandy…Come on!

“Will you let me tell him what…?”

“No. He has to work under the same conditions.”

“For God’s sake…”

“Under the same conditions.”

“He’s working blind. Literally now, as well as metaphorically.”

“I have a reason for what I do, Harry.”

“Excellent. What is it?”

“I want your son to have an open mind, not to make assumptions about anything.”

“That could be dangerous, you know. Not just to his life, but to you. He might find out by himself or work it out but come to the wrong conclusion. Very clever boy, you know, in spite of the way he treated his tutors, probably the brightest of the litter.”

By now Carey had gone beyond thinking in words. His head was too full of pain and frustration at his father’s incredible dunderheadedness in not setting his penniless younger son up for life. That was mixed with some pleasure at his father at least acknowledging him as the brightest of his brothers-which he knew already, of course, but it was good to hear it from his father’s mouth. Even if he did keep calling him “boy” when Carey was over thirty-two years old and had fought and killed.

Suddenly the Queen laughed her amazingly magical laugh.

“Brightest of the litter?” she chided playfully. “Are you saying he’s a sleuthdog for tracking criminals?”

“Why not?”

“What does that make Annie?”

Hunsdon laughed too. “Nothing wrong with bitches. Some of my best trackers have been bitches.”

“And you, Harry?”

“Your Majesty’s old guard dog, always at your heel.”

Creaking of joints meant Hunsdon had genuflected again. Well done, Father, very courtly, Carey thought in despair, where’s my goddamned exclusive patent for the sale of silk ribbons, eh?

“Send Thomasina to me as soon as you can,” said the Queen’s voice.

“Ah yes, before I forget…one of the matters we’re investigating is the very fine gold and ruby necklace Robin had in his doublet pocket. His friend the Earl of Cumberland said it was a necklace he had given the Italian woman Signora Bonnetti.”

Somehow the Queen could make even a silence dangerously loud. “Interesting,” she said at last.

“Signora Bonnetti, however, had left the dancing tent with the Earl’s party by then and my lord of Essex says that she was playing cards with him while they discussed her husband’s management of the sweet wine farm for him. Two of my own men who were there say this is true.”

“So the necklace was a fee for the introduction?”

“I think so.”

“Nothing wrong with that and quite a reasonable amount considering the value of the sweet wine farm. I remember Thomasina mentioned it to me earlier. Do you think the Italians are spies, too?”

“Probably. They were at the Scottish Court this summer.”

“Ah.”

Carey’s lids fluttered again and he croaked, trying to explain that he didn’t think it was Emilia who had poisoned him, despite it being with belladonna, but that she definitely was a spy.

At last they paid attention to him. He caught the Queen’s smell of rosewater and peppermint comfits to sweeten her breath. She was leaning over him with a smooth ivory cup of water with brandy in it. Behind her loomed the wide shape of his father in black Lucca velvet and gold brocade as usual.

He’d better drink whatever the Queen was giving him. With enormous difficulty he lifted his head and gulped to soothe his leathery throat. Something bumped his teeth and he just managed to avoid choking on a large dark bitter-tasting stone, rattling around in the bottom of the cup.

“There,” said the Queen, letting his head rest on the pillow again, “how are you, my dear?”

“Better,” he managed to say. And he did indeed feel better, though for some reason there was a sharp uncomfortable pain at the base of his belly. The window shutters were closed so the room was not so full of painful light as it had been.

The Queen stroked his cheek. “Your fever’s gone,” she said. “We’ll talk later, Robin.”

The blur of black and white topped with red swished out of the room. Carey’s father came closer to the bed.

“Well done, son,” he said, gripping Carey’s bruised shoulder, “She won’t forget this. It’s a good thing you’d stripped off your clothes and dropped your knife belt in the fever. You were in such a rage, laying about you and roaring about saving Elizabeth, it took every single clerk in the church to hold you down. But at least nobody’s dead. Now let’s hope we can keep it away from my esteemed lady wife, your mother, eh?”

“Yes, Father,” said Carey with difficulty. It had just occurred to him what the pain in his groin was. He urgently, desperately, needed a piss. Christ, he needed it right now!

“Father,” he croaked, “Ah…pot…please?”

“Eh?” Hunsdon was deep in thought.

“A chamber pot?”

“Oh…ah…I’ll send for a servant.…”

“Now!”

Carey was sweating, so perhaps Hunsdon could see the urgency because he bent, looked under the bed and, thank God and all His holy angels, brought out what Carey needed, which was miraculously empty. It took a moment to let go but the relief almost brought tears to his eyes.

As Lord Hunsdon put the pot very carefully down on the rush mat next to the bed, Carey smiled. Amazing the way your body ambushed you and the joy in even the basest things when it hadn’t been working for a while. He realised his father had gone to the door and he was afraid of being left alone, the first time he had felt like that since…must be the Armada year, when he was ill before.