P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

“Not really, sir. I’ll send for some hot water and a razor.”

“Please apologise to Lady Blount and explain that I’m not in a fit state to see her yet but I’ll be as quick as I can. Get her sweet wine and some wafers and sweetmeats if you can find any.”

Twenty minutes later, wearing a fresh shirt belonging to the Earl of Cumberland (who owed him at least five from the abortive camisado attack in France a year before), beard trimmed, cheeks shaved, hair combed, hat pulled down low against the grey daylight, clean falling band and his forest green hunting doublet unbuttoned at the top in the fashionable melancholy style, Carey breezed into the marquee where Lady Blount was sitting, magnificent on a cushioned stool which was entirely drowned by her large wheel farthingale.

“My lady cousin,” he said making a full Court bow with a flourish of his hat, “how delightful to see you here!”

She was the daughter of his aunt, Katherine Knollys, she of the lost riding habit, and the mother of the Earl of Essex by her first husband Walter Devereux. She had earned the Queen’s undying hatred because, after her husband, the first Earl of Essex died conveniently in an Irish bog of a flux, she had firmly set her cap at and succeeded in stealing the Queen’s only real love, to wit, one Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. She had been a beautiful woman in her youth, flame-haired, white skin, blue eyes, but had got quite stout recently. She made no concessions to this and creaked in a low cut pointed bodice plunging into her vast farthingale in eye-watering yellow brocade and emerald-green velvet. Her feathered hat was tilted on her white cap and her famous red curls peeked out under it, quite possibly helped by alchemical magic. Her face was well made-up so she looked like a child’s poppet with her white skin and red cheeks, and her hands were heavy with rings. She no longer looked so similar to the Queen as she had in her youth because the Queen was still slender and she was not.

“Well Robin, what have you been doing to yourself?” she cooed maliciously. “Are you hungover again? You really shouldn’t drink so much.…”

Carey smiled with equal sweetness, “No, Coz, somebody put belladonna in my drink on Saturday night,” he said. “Was it you?”

She ignored this. “What is it my lord son tells me about my gold-bearing Cornish lands?”

Carey sighed. Somebody had to have bought them-clearly he was right and the Earl had been buying them on behalf of his mother.

“If my lord Earl of Essex was repeating what I told him,” he said slowly and clearly so as not to overtax her very womanly brain, “the lands were a lay set by a coney-catching Papist called Father Jackson and are about as worthless as land can be.”

“Of course they’re not, Robin, I have seen the assays. You really mustn’t try and lower the price on them, I expect dear Henry wants to snap some up cheap the way…”

I don’t really have the time or the inclination for this, Carey thought, how can I get rid of the old bag?

“Perhaps you would like to discuss this with my mother,” Carey said, “She’s the one who spotted what was going on. She’s at sea now, I think, but I’m sure my father would…”

Carey knew perfectly well that his mother and Lettice hated each other. Lady Blount tightened her mouth which was wrinkled exactly like an old purse.

“I’m asking you, Robin.”

Don’t call me Robin, Carey thought and smiled again because he’d been on the verge of commiserating with her about the failure of her speculation. His father had suffered a few: You can’t speculate in property without occasionally making a costly mistake.

“Lady Blount, if my mother says the lands are worthless, they’re worthless. And they’re in Cornwall where I doubt you’re willing to go to find out.”

“Why not? Where is Cornwall anyway?”

“About four hundred miles west and south of here.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Er…yes, cousin.” He decided not to try and explain the details because it would probably melt whatever passed for a brain under her fake red curls. “And I’m very sorry, but I’m not completely recovered from the poisoning and…”

He wasn’t being entirely truthful. He felt tired but now he was more awake and in the dimness of the pavilion, his eyes were behaving themselves at least.

“Well that wasn’t why I came.” Lettice was staring sideways at him now. “I heard from my son that you were looking into the…er…the death of my late second husband’s first wife.”

Carey paused. Surprisingly, the Earl must have kept his promise. “Yes, my lady cousin, I am. Very reluctantly but the Queen ordered it.”

“Reluctantly?”

“The thing happened thirty-two years ago, the year I was born in fact.” To his unkind satisfaction he saw Lettice flinch slightly. “That’s how long poor Amy Dudley has been dead and buried. I know Her Majesty set someone on to look into it in 1566, but he got nowhere…

“Topcliffe certainly did get somewhere,” Lady Blount contradicted him. “He just never said what he found, only I think he’s been blackmailing the Queen about it very cleverly.”

“Oh?” Now that was very interesting. Was that why Topcliffe was mysteriously untouchable, no matter what he did? “Do you know what he found out?”

Lettice shrugged her powdered white shoulders and then looked cunning. “Maybe you should ask what he found, not what he found out. Just knowing something wouldn’t be enough, would it?”

Carey perched himself on a table and wished for wine, his throat was infernally dry again. “Sergeant Ross,” he called, “could you find me a boy to fetch us some wine…some more wine? Not spiced, please. And some breakfast for me.”

After last Saturday night, Carey doubted he would ever again be able to stomach spiced wine; just the thought of it made his gorge rise.

Lady Blount had clearly finished the first plate of sweetmeats and looked disappointed when the boy trotted in with a plate of bread and cheese alongside a jack of good rough red wine, then brightened when he produced another silver plate of wafers and comfits. Carey didn’t like sweetmeats and they pained one of his back teeth every time the Queen made him eat one. He soon felt full so he let Lettice munch on the other half of the penny loaf and only took a bit of cheese himself. However the wine was Italian and better than usual so he drank that.

“Do you know what thing Topcliffe found, Lady Blount?”

“No, of course not.” The kohl crusted eyelashes batted at him. “And I would tell you if I did, Robin, because nobody likes Richard Topcliffe despite the way he gets lands off the Papists.”

Carey suppressed a sigh. “So was it Topcliffe you wanted to talk to me about, my lady?”

She made a face. “Ugh no, he’s a horrible man. My son wanted me to tell you something my lord Leicester said to me once when he was drunk.”

She paused significantly. What would she want for the information?

“Yes?”

“Of course, you know this is secret. This is very, very secret. I’ve never told anybody this, not even my darling Robin until now.”

“Yes?”

“So you won’t tell Her Majesty who told you?”

“I can’t promise that, my lady. If she asks me the question direct, I will tell her of course.”

The pouchy rosebud lips tightened. Then she shook herself. “Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, the scandalous old cat. Especially if she’s digging it all up again.”

“Hm?”

“My lord husband…” said Lettice drawing the words out slowly and Carey worked to keep the impatience off his face because it would only encourage her, “…my lord of Leicester said once after dinner that it was damned unfair, the whole thing had nearly been arranged, Amy would divorce him, and if he ever found out who murdered her before she could set him free, he would kill the man with his own hands, for taking his Eliza from him. There.”