P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

Carey picked up one of the little wax dolls showing the latest French fashions in women’s kirtles, looked deeper into the shop which was full of men sitting cross-legged stitching at speed. “Who is the oldest man here?” he asked idly.

The harassed man in thick spectacles frowned. “I am.”

“When did you do your prentice piece?”

“In 1562. I cry you pardon, sir,” he added with the sharp voice of someone who spends his days sitting down, worrying. “I have fully worked my time as an apprentice and journeyman and I am simply not able to fill any more orders at all at any price…

Carey smiled. “I was just wondering if I could ask you a question or two, Mr. Frole.”

It was a pity, he would have liked to order a couple of alterations to his Court suit to make it a little more in fashion, but never mind. Hughie could do it when he was better.

“I’m looking for the tailor who made gowns and kirtles for Lady Leicester,” he said. “Not Lettice Knollys, but Amy Robsart, his first wife. Did you work for her?”

The man went pale and his eyes flickered. Suddenly he was sweating.

“No sir,” said Frole shortly, “I didn’t. I have only been in business as Master Tailor these last ten years and…

“Do you know who was her tailor?”

“It was Master William Edney in London.” The man shut his mouth like a trap. Carey watched him, wondering how to get him to open up.

“Mr. Frole, I know this is a sensitive matter despite being as old in years as I am myself. Were you prenticed in Oxford?” The master tailor nodded. “I know gossip travels around the ’prentices. Is there anything at all you can tell me about the end of August 1560, anything about Lady Dudley…? I have been asked by the Queen herself to make enquiries.”

The man was looking narrow-eyed and suspicious. Carey sighed. “I believe she set another man, by name Richard Topcliffe, to find something out about it only six years after Lady Dudley’s death, while Her Majesty was on progress in Oxford the last time. But the man has an ill-reputation and I’m certain he…

“He had a warrant,” said Frole. “Do you?”

Carey took it out of his doublet pocket, his heartbeat quickening.

“Did Topcliffe offer money which he didn’t pay or did he grab people and beat them up until they told him what he wanted to hear?”

“Both,” said Frole, thin-lipped, and held out his hand. Carey handed over the warrant which Frole read quickly and gave back.

“We told him all we knew which was that Lady Dudley was in a hurry to have a new gown although she already had plenty of the best quality. She had ordered a new one from London but it hadn’t come. This was the first week of Spetember and she sent her best bodice, kirtle, and gown into Oxford by her woman Mrs. Odingsells to have the collar changed to stand up and have gold lace put on it, very costly. We did the work while she waited, for Lady Dudley intended to wear it in a few days.”

“Who did the work?” Carey asked, “you?”

Frole shook his head. “One of the journeymen, she was too important a customer to risk an apprentice’s work. He died of plague in ’66. Mrs. Odingsells paid for it in gold at once. Just as well, really.”

“How about her headdress? Did that need altering?”

Frole shook his head. “Her headtires all came from London as she didn’t like the shop here. I believe they were very old-fashioned, from the boy-King’s reign. I never met Lady Dudley, you know, she was always at Cumnor Place, waiting for her husband.”

“Did Topcliffe let slip anything interesting?”

Frole gave a cautious look. “He was an evil man, broke my best friend’s fingers so he couldn’t continue in the trade. He went off to Cumnor Place after he spoke to us and I heard him boasting in an alehouse that night that he had found something that would make him a great man at Court-he was the Earl of Shrewsbury’s man then-and comfortable for the rest of his life. He said other things that I can’t repeat about the Queen, terrible obscene things. But at least he had lost interest in us prentices and took himself off back to London the next day, following the Court.”

Carey nodded. Terrible obscene things-Topcliffe was notorious for the way he spoke of the Queen and yet nothing was ever done about him. Generally the Queen rightly had a short way with anyone who was offensive about her in way that often made them shorter by a head or another important limb. So what gave Topcliffe his extraordinary immunity? Blackmail, surely. But with what?

“Mr. Frole,” he said to the unhappy looking tailor, “I am very grateful to you. If you have any further memories or ideas, please tell me-you can find me with the Earl of Cumberland while the Queen is here or by means of the Lord Chamberlain if I am gone north again. He will make it worth your while.”

Frole bowed Carey out of the shop who stood in the street and havered between heading off down the London road to look for Dodd and continuing his sweep of Oxford. He even had five pounds from the Earl of Cumberland won on a bet as he left. George Clifford had been loudly offering to take Carey on as a permanent general purpose gleeman and fool if he got tired of soldiering in the starveling and dangerous Debateable land. George had explained how Carey would only have to wear a cap and bells on Saturdays and would have his very own kennel with the dogs…Carey had thrown a pennyloaf at the Earl on this point and challenged him to a veney which he had narrowly won.

Did he want to spend it on overpriced ale and beer? Well, yes, he did and he could kill two birds with one stone if he went round the multitude of Oxford taverns. So that was settled. He would do that and then he’d take a horse and ride down the road, see if he could spot where Dodd had gone. Or find his body, which was starting to look more and more likely.

It took a lot of work to wait in that pit without doing anything. Dodd drank the rest of the drugged ale and dozed, filling his head with lurid pictures of the welcome his wife would give him when he got back to Gilsland and what he would do and…Well, it passed the time, didn’t it? He had heard little Kat coming in, her clogs slow and tired and her stout lie that she had climbed a tree to avoid a pig in the forest when she was looking for more cobnuts and then got stuck in the tree. Her Grandam shouted at her and sent her to card wool in the cottage with no dinner, which made Dodd feel sorry for the little maid. His guts were churning with nerves about what he would do that night. After all, a mere night raid, a bit of fun running about shrieking and spooking horses, that was easy. His plan for this night was a lot more ticklish.

Still. He couldn’t go back to Carey without at least his sword and his boots. So there was no help for it and if everything went well he’d be bringing a lot more than just his sword and his boots. He might be able to make something of a show. He dozed off again, smiling to himself.

There was a clatter at the lip of the pit and Dodd jumped to his feet. Jeronimo was there, letting down the ladder, smiling enigmatically in the dusk. “Captain Leigh and his bullyboy have not come back from Oxford as they said they would, John Arden is drunk, and the men are afraid they have been tricked again. I spoke with your pequenita when I carry her the last mile, she was much tired, she said she had been questioned but then went away. She says it is sure Captain Leigh was taken because she heard him shouting.”

Dodd allowed himself a grim smile as he stepped onto the cobbles of the yard. For all the odds against it, that part had worked, at least.

“Where’s the old woman?”

“I said her stay in her cottage with the child. She has the dog beside her and barred the door.”