P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

“Mr. Poley, I can’t imagine why you think I’m going to discuss my father’s plans with the likes of you,” said Carey. “If I wanted to tell it all to Heneage I’d write a letter and get Marlowe to deliver it which would probably be quicker.” Marlowe had been over by the barman, talking quietly to him.

Poley coloured slightly. “I don’t…”

“Oh tut tut,” said Marlowe silkily, coming back, picking up and laying down his new cards, “Chorus. Mine I think. If you want my lord Baron Hunsdon to employ you when Heneage goes you’ll have to do better than that, my dear…”

Poley gave Marlowe an ugly look. “I…”

“Crows white, noonday night, hills flying, pigs roosting in the trees,” murmured Carey seemingly apropos of nothing.

“Eh?” Poley paused in a blindingly deft shuffle of the cards.

“He means,” Marlowe told him patronisingly, “that these things will happen before Hunsdon employs you. Very poetic I’m sure, Sir Robert, since you’ve nipped it straight out of a Border ballad.”

“I don’t know why I’m being insulted,” sniffed Poley as Marlowe took the cards from him to shuffle again.

“Tell me about the body in the Thames,” said Carey.

“Which one?”

Carey’s eyebrows went up. “A gentleman or seeming like one, dark hair, sallow complexion, marks of burns and stains on his hands, top joint of his left forefinger missing.”

It was the merest flicker, but Poley looked uncertainly at Marlowe and then quickly back at his cards. Meanwhile Marlowe had paused infinitesimally as he dealt Carey in. Dodd shook his head and stayed out of it. So did Enys who was sitting quietly on his stool, sipping his small beer and watching everything. From the corner of his eye Dodd saw the potboy trot through the commonroom and out the door into the street where he speeded to a run.

“No idea,” said Marlowe glibly, “Where was he found?”

“Washed up against the Queen’s Privy Steps.”

Marlowe raised his eyebrows, very Carey-like. “So?”

“In the jurisdiction of the Board of Greencloth. My father wants me to investigate. He also wants me to look into rumours of crooked land dealings in Cornwall.”

Marlowe shrugged. “It’s all the rage at court, I believe. Bald Will was talking about how the Earl of Southampton is buying himself a sheaf of godforsaken Cornish hills.”

Carey nodded, picked up his cards, glanced at them, put them down, leaned forwards and put his chin on his clasped hands. “And?”

Marlowe shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’m certainly not about to buy some dubious marshy fields somewhere I am never likely to go. No matter what they might have under them. And even if I had the money.”

Carey murmured something to Enys who had been blinking at Marlowe as if tranced like a chicken. Enys started, coloured, and fished in his satchel of papers and brought out a stiff piece of paper, written and sealed. Carey took it and handed it to Marlowe who took it absent-mindedly while adding his bet to the pot, glanced at it, and then scowled.

“Damn it, Sir Robert.”

“You’ve been served, Christopher Marlowe. I’m calling you as a witness to Heneage’s dealings with my brother and the incident with Sergeant Dodd here.”

Dodd’s spirits lifted slightly. That had been nicely done. Marlowe’s face was a picture and no mistake.

Marlowe screwed up the paper furiously. “You tricked me!”

Carey shrugged. “I can’t appear in open court against Heneage.”

“Yes you can,” said Carey. “Until it’s time to testify you can stay at Somerset House and we’ll organise you a boat to take to to Westminster.”

“I can’t appear,” said Marlowe through his teeth. “I was not a witness. I wasn’t there. I was in Southwark.”

“Were you now?” said Carey easily, not seeming ruffled by this abject lie. Poley’s eyes darted from Marlowe to Carey and back. “Any corroboration, any witnesses to that?”

“Oh yes. Mr. Poley here for one.”

Poley didn’t look happy at this. “That’s right,” he said, “I was with Mr. Marlowe on…ah…the day in question and he was in Southwark.”

“Was he?” Carey’s eyes were half-hooded. “You sure about that, Kit?”

“Yes,” Marlowe was giving Carey back stare for stare.

“Despite all the witnesses I have to you sitting in the Mermaid waiting for me on the day in question?” Carey was smiling. “Come on, I know Heneage is powerful and wealthy but so is my father and he likes poets for some reason. He’ll protect you.”

Marlowe finished his brandywine, checked his cards again, and folded. “Does your father employ Richard Topcliffe?” Now where had Dodd heard that name before?

“No. Who’s that?” From the look in Carey’s eyes, Dodd suspected he did know but wasn’t admitting it.

“You’ve never met him?”

Carey shrugged.“No.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” said Marlowe. “Topcliffe is…well he’s ingenious and he’s very good at his job which he likes very much.”

“Really?”

“He’s a freelance inquisitor. He often works for Heneage. He has the breaking of most of the Papist priests we…the pursuivants catch. He’s at the Tower working on one called Robert Southwell at the moment. That’s why you haven’t seen him and why he wasn’t at Chelsea.”

“And?”

“And? I don’t want him after me. Because he’s completely insane and kills for fun and Heneage protects him, gives him completely free rein.”

Dodd nodded, struck by a memory. “Ay, Shakespeare was saying there was someone he was more affeared of than me…Which was a surprise to me, ye follow.”

Marlowe blinked at Dodd as if he’d forgotten his existence and then nodded. “That will be Topcliffe.”

“Come on, Marlowe,” said Carey comfortably, “this isn’t like you. Where’s the student of the lofty spheres…”

“The student of the lofty spheres prefers to keep his own fleshly spheres away from Topcliffe who likes playing games with men’s stones. I mean it, Carey, I’m not testifying against Heneage.”

“I heard Topcliffe buys the bawdy-house boys that get poxed and nobody ever sees them again,” put in Poley.

“How does he get away with it?”

“The Queen protects him because she’s been told he’s useful. He’s mad, of course. Bedlam mad. He’ll tell anyone who listens the dreams he has of the Queen where he…Well, you’d expect her to hang him if she’d heard what he says, so I assume she hasn’t. And he has other friends at court, powerful friends. And although he’s old now, he’s a very good pursuivant.” Marlowe lifted his hands palms up. “I’m not doing it.”

“Isn’t anyone going to play primero?” said Poley. Enys shook his head and pushed the cards he’d been dealt back towards Marlowe, who picked them up with his eyebrows raised. “Mr. Enys, I’m surprised, I thought all Gray’s Inn men were shocking gamblers.”

Enys smiled faintly. “Not me, sir. Or rather I am a shocking gambler as I generally lose. I lost so much last Christmas that I have sworn to my sister that I will have no more to do with play.”

Marlowe nodded but said nothing more. “Sir Robert?”

“Oh eighty-five points,” said Carey languidly, dropping a sixpenny stake into the pot. Dodd shook his head as well, filled a pipe, and lit it. Once again the aromatic herb and incense mixture made him feel as if some tight knot in his stomach was being slowly unwound. He passed the pipe to Enys who took some and hardly coughed at all this time. As the pipe went round, Dodd considered that there were London vices he would be sorry to leave behind him and he’d have to buy in a good stock of the doctor’s medicine before he went north.