P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

“Ay?”

“About an hour later, someone tried to shoot me with a crossbow. It was pure luck they missed. And that night someone put belladonna in my spiced wine and nearly killed me.”

“Ay?” Well, that explained the pallor and slowness. Poison? Jesu, that was a new one even for Carey. “Did ye tell Jeronimo those things?”

“Yes, I asked him if it had been him with the crossbow and the belladonna on Saturday, and why he had been trying to kill me not the Queen, not that I minded, of course. Moments later, he started puking and then when I came to help, he hit me.”

“How? His wrist was roped to his belt.”

“With his stump-it must have a leather and iron cap over the end from the way it felt.”

“Och!” Dodd was reluctantly admiring.

“Then while I was stunned, he part-drew my sword with his teeth and sawed through the rope, then he was gone. Damn it.”

“Would ye know that old man again?”

“That whole Saturday evening is very blurred. I don’t know. Jeronimo said there were two of them that tried to kill the Queen, his friend and him. The friend who had family in Oxford and gave him shelter. And now I think about it, I wonder if he was the musician from the Oxford waits that played cello for Mr. Byrd when I sang the song again and then disappeared halfway through the Earl of Oxford’s ball. Mr. Byrd was very annoyed. I even drank his ration of ale.”

They were silent a moment. “I’ll tell my father,” Carey said. “We’ll let the men comb through the forest with dogs, I doubt they’ll find Jeronimo. He’ll be in Oxford meeting his bloody friend…What was his name? Sam? Punch…no Pauncefoot. Right. We’ll get them cried at the Carfax and St Giles.” Carey smiled wanly at Dodd. “Even out in the courtyard, I could hear you shouting at the…the lady to hang Jeronimo immediately. That was good advice, but it probably helped make his mind up to escape.”

“Ay,” said Dodd bitterly, wondering when someone would listen to his good sense soon enough to do something about it.

It was a hopeless business, trying to search Oxford for just two men, even if one of them had only one arm. The place was full of strangers, not just courtiers and their attendants and hangers-on, but also scholars and lecturers and readers, all there ahead of the start of Michaelmas term to cheer the Queen, along with any peasants from the surrounding countryside who could bring anything into the market to sell. Oxford roared with people and horses, pigs, goats, sheep, cattle, innumerable chickens and geese, barrels, carts…Dumfries had been more chaotic but there were far more people in Oxford which was a bigger town to start with.

Dodd was fascinated by the idea of the colleges, fortresses where you went to learn things from books. He had never heard of the like, although he vaguely thought that the Reverend Gilpin had studied Divinity somewhere like Oxford. He had a look at Christ Church which was where the Queen was going to stay and thought it well-defensible so long as no one had cannon. However the proposed processional route was a nightmare, lined with painted allegorical scenery, any one of which gave beautiful cover for a man with a crossbow and no shortage of high windows in the houses either.

Halfway through the afternoon it started spitting with rain but then stopped. Dodd was sitting at a table in the White Horse on Broad Street in a private room at the back with Lord Hunsdon, Carey, Lord Hunsdon’s steward Mungey, the Captain of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners of the Guard and some other men, including Carey’s two new servants, the skinny clerk Tovey and the large dark Scot who was as pale and unhealthy-looking as his master. Dodd gave the man an ugly look: he didn’t like Scots. The Scot gave him an ugly look right back: no doubt he had his nation’s usual irrational hatred of the English. His voice was pure Edinburgh but there was something about him that tickled Dodd’s memory.

The Captain of the Queen’s Guard was speaking, Dodd forgot his name. He was deputising for Sir Walter Raleigh who was still in the Tower of London for getting a Maid of Honour with child and then marrying her without the Queen’s permission.

“Her Majesty will not cancel her entry into Oxford.” Nobody looked surprised though Dodd was. He had heard that the Queen was nervous about her safety and very careful of poison. “That’s final.”

Hunsdon and Carey looked at each other. “Did you bring the Royal coach?” Carey asked.

“Yes we did, although she hasn’t used it yet. She hates it, claims it makes her feel seasick,” said Hunsdon thoughtfully. Dodd agreed with the Queen, he hated coaches too.

“Well then, I’d persuade her to at least ride in the coach. That makes it much harder to shoot at her and the coach should stop a crossbow bolt.”

Hunsdon nodded and his clerk made a note. “She won’t like it, but she will do it,” he said.

“Would she wear a jack or a breastplate?” Dodd asked. “For when she’s out of the coach listening to speeches? The King o’ Scotland has a specially padded doublet for entries and the like.”

Everyone exchanged looks. “It was hard enough to get her to do it in ’88,” said Hunsdon, “for Tilbury. There’s no reason we can give now and I think she won’t do it. It would look mistrustful of the people.”

Dodd wondered why a sovereign Queen cared about that. He sighed. “We just have tae find them, then,” he said.

As the futile search wore on into the night, Tovey and Tyndale were not much use, Carey was looking more and more glum and said very little. It seemed Tyndale had had a chance to catch Jeronimo’s friend the night before but had messed it up. At last it was Dodd who called a halt and they went back to Trinity College. They drank a late night cup of brandy by the fire in Dodd’s chamber while Tovey and Tyndale got themselves settled for the night in the parlour.

“Dinna fret yersen,” Dodd said awkwardly to the Courtier who was staring at the flames with a remote expression on his face. “Onybody might ha’ made that mistake wi’ Jeronimo.”

“It never occurred to me that he might hit me with his stump.”

“Nor to me,” Dodd said, though he hoped he would have thought of it. Still, as Jock o’ the Peartree had established, the Courtier was soft.

“Come on, Henry, what would you do to find Jeronimo and his friend before they kill the Queen?”

“I wouldna bother searching the town the day,” he said after a moment’s thought. “I would search her route but yer dad will do it anyway. What I would do is think like Jeronimo. He hasnae kin in Oxford but his friend is one of the waits, so we need to keep a good eye out for them. But yer dad will do that too. So. Where would I put myself to kill the Queen?”

“Somewhere high. No shortage what with all the displays and allegorical arches around, not to mention the buildings.”

“What would I use?”

Carey’s laugh was humourless. “A crossbow, a dag, Christ, a dagger will do if he can get close. She’s only flesh and blood.”

Dodd narrowed his eyes and thought. He’d never actually assassinated anyone, in the strict sense, but you couldn’t deny, it was an interesting problem. You had to be close, within about ten feet to have any hope at all of hitting the target. Or you needed to know exactly where she would be and lay a trap of some kind. His money was on a trap. Everyone knew her route through Oxford-down the Woodstock Road, St. Giles, Cornmarket, Carfax, and on down to Christ Church.

They talked it over for a while and then went to bed because it was late and they had to be up before dawn. They had come up with a large number of outlandish ideas, including gunpowder, which even worried Dodd. He was shocked to hear Carey praying quietly before he fell asleep.