P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

Although Dodd hadn’t drunk very much by the end of the long evening he was feeling peaceful and light in the head as he left the Mermaid and all three of them headed up past the Blackfriars monastery wall. They were heading for Ludgate and Fleet Street to pass onto the Strand and Hunsdon’s palace of a place. Only a madman tried to cut through the Whitefriars liberties at night after curfew and they were no longer using the little tenement Hunsdon had given them earlier in the month. He and Carey had felt that if they were taking on Vice Chamberlain Heneage in the courts they were better off somewhere with walls and a large number of serving men. Dodd was thoroughly enjoying the luxury of Somerset House, now he had got over his shock at having an entire chamber to himself. He was even starting to get used to the ridiculous hot tight clothes Carey insisted he wear.

There was a movement of something too large to be a cat in a shadowed alley. The hair on Dodd’s neck stood up straight. Automatically he loosened his sword and took a quick glance behind him under cover of a coughing fit. A large shape moved into shadow in the corner of his eye. Heart thundering and his head still swimming with the tobacco, Dodd paused and then turned left into the nearest alleyway, feeling for his codpiece laces. He needed a piss anyway.

“Och, Sir Robert,” he called, “Will ye look at this?” and pretended to be squinting into the alley.

Carey had been trying to persuade Enys to sing “A Shepherd to His Love” in harmony with him, to Enys’s giggly but steadfast insistence he had no voice. Now Carey swung back and Enys trailed after them, still sniggering.

Dodd shook his head violently, trying to clear it. “S’ a place here looks a lot like Tarras Moss,” he slurred. “Would ye credit it?”

Carey sauntered over, whistling happily. For a moment Dodd thought he hadn’t got the reference until he saw Carey’s hand go stealthily to the poinard dagger hanging at the small of his back.

Dodd looked down, annoyed. Sheer tension meant he could not actually piss.

“Och damn it,” he moaned, wishing he hadn’t had the beer. Carey was leaning one arm against the wall, singing softly and pretending to fumble at his own lacings.

“How many?” he muttered very quietly.

“Ah’ve seen two,” Dodd muttered back, quickly tying again, “so I’d bet on five or more.”

“Me too. Break for the Temple, not Somerset House.”

“Ay sir,” said Dodd. “Will we charge ‘em now?”

“Not exactly,” said Carey with a smile, “Let’s see if we can avoid a trial for murder, shall we?”

He drew sword and dagger and crossed them. Dodd drew his sword and faced the other way. Enys was leaning against a wall, still giggling.

Carey stepped out a little so that a public-spirited torch in a sconce on one of the linen shops, showed him up in the blackness.

“Gentlemen, I know you’re there. Shall we talk?”

There was a pause and then a heavyset man moved from the shadows of an alley and another came out of the bulk of Temple Bar itself where he must have been pretending to be a carved saint. Dodd strained his eyes to penetrate the other shadows and thought he caught a glimpse of metal as someone drew a dagger. Three visible, so a possible six in total.

Seeing Enys still leaning against the wall giggling from the tobacco fumes, he kicked the man on the ankle. “Ow,” said Enys aggrievedly, “Why…?”

“Will ye draw, ye fool?” Dodd hissed furiously.

“Wha’?” Enys tried to stand upright and blinked about himself. Yes, definitely a fourth man visible next to the huge permanent dungheap a little way from Temple Bar. Probably that was where the ambush had been planned for. Dodd squinted hard looking for the fifth and sixth whilst Enys hiccupped and fumbled at his sword hilt. No help there then, damn it, typical soft southerner.

“Talk?” said the large man in a jack who seemed to be the leader. “Wo’ abaht?” His voice was as full of glottal stops as Barnabus’ had been, very hard to understand.

“Oh nothing much,” said Carey, doing a couple of showy juggling tricks with his dagger and sword, swapping them over and then back again. “Just talk. What a pleasant night it’s been. How you gentlemen must be tired of waiting for us. Who’s paying you. That sort of thing.”

“Nuffink to talk about.”

Dodd saw what Carey was doing. He was deliberately drawing attention to himself, aiming to draw the attackers out so they’d show themselves. Presumably it would then be up to Dodd to kill them…Except what was that the Courtier had said about avoiding a trial for murder in London?

There was a scrape behind Dodd, he spun, saw a large moon-face looming near him with a veney stick raised over his head, and slashed sideways with his sword. He heard a yelp and smelled blood as the man reeled backwards, clutching a spurting arm. Dodd heard a cry behind him and saw Enys clumsily trying to block with his sword against a man battering down on him with a club.

Another club? No blades? Ay, the Courtier’s right, Dodd thought in a sudden slow moment of icy clarity, this is to get us all arrested for murder.

Furious at the man who had hired roaring boys and set them deliberately against fighters who could kill them, Dodd ran up behind the man who was so intent on Enys, his prey, that he had no defence against Dodd’s powerful boot in the arse which sent him sprawling.

Enys had dropped his sword and had his hands over his face as he crouched in a corner, moaning. Jesus, thought Dodd as he went past the ninny, what a pathetic sight. What’s wrong with him?

Dodd grabbed the club-wielder who was just trying to climb to his feet, picked him up bodily and crashed him backwards over a stone conduit filled with slimy horse-slobbered water. Dodd shoved the man’s head deep into the water and held him there while he clawed at Dodd’s arm. Meantime Dodd looked around cannily for more attackers. Something complicated was going on down Fleet Street, involving Carey and the big man-at-arms, but the other two men, if they existed, were still waiting their moment, or possibly had run.

Dodd let the man with the club crow in some air, and then had him blowing bubbles again.

“Wh…what are you doing?” came a slurred voice behind him. Dodd glanced over his shoulder and saw the soft southerner staggering over, trailing his sword in his left hand and twisting his right as if it pained him. Perhaps he’d sprained it somehow. He was panting and wild-eyed.

“Ah’m drowning this pig’s turd,” Dodd explained casually, letting the man up for a second so he could hear.

Enys watched the renewed bubbles and then jumped at a further clang and ting down Fleet Street followed by Carey’s customary bellow of “T’il y est haut!”

“What about Sir Robert? Won’t you help him?” trembled the soft lawyer.

Dodd leaned an ear expertly in the direction of the clanging.

“Neither o’ them are trying to kill each other,” he said. “And yon Courtier nearly held Andy Nixon to a draw for three minutes in the summer, he’ll be well enough while I make sure of this loon. Will ye fetch his dagger?”

The loon’s hands were flailing more feebly now, so Dodd let the man up to breathe while Enys gingerly fished the dagger from its sheath. What was it doing still there, Dodd wanted to know.

“Now then,” Dodd said to the man, who was coughing and spluttering fit to bust his lungs, “who was it set ye on tae me wi’ nobbut a stick and a knife, eh?”

“Heeh…heh…”

Dodd said it again patiently, only more southern. He hoped.

“Hur…ha…he said you was only a farmer, and not a gentleman.”

“Ay,” said Dodd, “I am certainly no’ a gentleman and I am a farmer, did he tell ye where I farm?”