P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

Hughie was looking soulful. “Oahh,” he said, “I’ve allus wanted to be a musician. I love tae sing. What would lessons cost?”

The potboy sniggered while the musician stoutly explained that a shilling an hour was the minimum possible amount.

Sir Robert Cecil was speaking again. “I even had my people check further south and on the Great North Road in case he decided to go home without visiting you in Oxford but again, no traces.”

Carey lifted his silver cup to Cecil. “I’m indebted to you, Mr. Secretary,” he said formally, wondering why Cecil was being so pleasant to him and what he wanted in exchange. “Thank you for taking such trouble over it.”

“Not at all,” Cecil was genial, “I feel a sense of responsibility for Sergeant Dodd’s troubles. I realise now I should have warned him not to…er…reive any of Heneage’s horses that had the Queen’s brand on them, but I’m afraid it never crossed my mind.”

Carey nodded. “Why should it, Sir Robert? Only someone who had to deal with Borderers regularly would know what they’re like with good horseflesh.” Should he mention to Cecil the musician he had been following, who so liked the Spanish air? No. Perhaps not. After all, Cecil’s father had suddenly become a major suspect in Amy Dudley’s murder again. And goddamn it, both Hughie and the musician had gone. They must have left the place by the back door to the jakes while Carey’s attention was on Cecil.

“Her Majesty is in a terrible temper. If she were not the Queen, I would go so far as to call it a foul mood.” Cecil paused. The pause was a polite opening for Carey to tell Cecil what he had been up to.

Carey continued to say nothing. It wasn’t easy to do in the face of Cecil’s tilted face, his grotesquely curved back disguised by the clever cut of his doublet and gown. Cecil shifted on the bench and winced slightly.

“I understand you brought something back from Cumnor Place today,” said Cecil. Of course Cecil had spies everywhere, just as his father did. It was part of the game of Court politics.

“Quite so, Mr. Secretary,” Carey said evenly, “I did. I believe it was the murder weapon. A crossbow.”

Cecil raised his eyebrows as if this was new to him. “Did you find Lady Dudley’s damaged headtire?” Of course he would have read all the paperwork by now and seen what Carey had seen.

“No, Mr. Secretary, I didn’t.”

Cecil nodded. He hadn’t expected Carey to find it, he was making a point. There was a long silence again. “I may be able to help you in your quest,” Cecil said slowly, “I am not without…resources of my own.”

Carey thought very carefully about this. There was more to it than simple information exchanged for assistance. Carey was the Earl of Essex’s man and of all the great men at Court, it was well known that Essex and Sir Robert Cecil hated each other. At least, Essex despised Cecil whom he occasionally teased about his hunchback. Cecil, it was obvious to everyone except Essex, virulently hated the Earl.

On the other hand, Cecil was as loyal to the Queen as his father and did, indeed, have resources of his own. Although it was Essex who had hurried to take over Walsingham’s intelligence networks when Sir Francis died in 1590, Cecil was where the pursuivants and intelligencers went when they got tired of dealing with Heneage. He was even more close-mouthed than his father so it was impossible to know how much information he had access to, but Carey’s guess was that he would be a lot better at the work than Essex was, who tended to boast. And Cecil had been behind the subtle coney-catching lay of the Cornish lands, Carey was certain of it.

Yet when Lady Hunsdon had taken that colossal risk to pay back Heneage for covertly attacking her husband through her son, she had deliberately involved Cecil in the business. And Mr. Secretary Cecil had cooperated.

Cecil would want to protect his father, might even be acting on his father’s orders. And what if Essex found out? Nonetheless, some gut instinct was telling him to talk to Cecil.

“She wasn’t shot?” Cecil wasn’t really asking a question.

“Of course not. She was struck hard on the head with the end of the crossbow and broke her neck as she fell down the stairs.”

Cecil nodded. “The Earl of Leicester?”

Carey shook his head. “I really doubt it, sir. Why would he set on a man to shoot his wife with a crossbow-so clumsy, so risky-when a little belladonna could have sufficed as it nearly did for me?”

“No, I’ve never thought it was him either. So. Interesting. I will leave it in your capable hands, Sir Robert. Do not hesitate to call on me if you need any…er…advice or assistance.”

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” Carey said with a polite tilt of his head. “I will.”

Cecil smiled, a sweet and charming smile that lit up his saturnine face. “Have you ever considered a place on the Privy Council?”

Carey shuddered. “Good God, no, sir! I had rather go back to France and fight for the King of Navarre.”

“Why not?”

“Too many meetings, too much paperwork. And I hate paperwork.”

Cecil laughed. “It is an acquired taste, I admit. I only acquired it perforce but now I find it quite entrancing.”

“It would be good to have such an influential position,” Carey admitted. “And I’m honoured you think I might be suitable, Mr. Secretary, but I’m afraid that the Queen knows me far too well and would never appoint me.”

Cecil tilted his head and raised his cup in toast. “To your continued freedom from paperwork then, Sir Robert.”

Carey touched cups with him. “And to your expert navigation of it, Mr. Secretary.”

Hughie and the old musician walked down the lane at the rear of the White Horse, the musician going ahead to lead the way to his lodgings where he had brandy and a variety of instruments for Hughie to try.

Hughie was in a quandary. His first impulse was simply to get out his stolen harpstring and throttle the man in vengeance for daring to try and poison Hughie’s prey without Hughie’s permission-and nearly poisoning Hughie into the bargain. Why, why had he done it? The itch to know was as urgent as the itch to kill. The jeering voice inside was with him on this one-shouting at him to hurt the old man, make him suffer, find out if anyone else had been set on to kill Carey.

Despite Carey’s gift for making enemies on the Border and at the Scottish Court, Hughie didn’t think there was any real competition for the?30 in gold he expected to reap once Carey was dead and buried.

Perhaps he’d even have a lesson with the old fool. His interest in learning to sing and play an instrument was genuine. When you saw the mewling idiots who could impress the girls with their warbling and strumming, music couldn’t be so very hard to learn. It was just noise that went up and down to a beat, wasn’t it?

Now the musician had turned down a very narrow wynd, Hughie paused at the corner, loosened his knife. It occurred to him the musician must have marked him to give him the poisoned flagon in the first place and so…

He swayed back as the cosh came at him from a shadowed doorway on the other side of the wynd where the musician had been waiting.

Hughie laughed for sheer delight-knocked the cosh away with a sweep of his arm, then dived straight forward with his large left hand splayed, caught the man’s throat and shoved him back against the wall. A knee in the man’s groin finished the matter.

“Ay,” Hughie said, “we do have business, but ye canna beat me in a fight.”

The musician was hunched over creaking for breath. A light punch in the kidneys put him on his face and Hughie knelt on his back, forced his left arm out on the ground and pinned the wrist, then started sawing at the man’s thumb with his knife blade, which was shocking blunt, he’d have to sharpen it.