P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

Enys took a breath, possibly to argue, then nodded firmly. “How will I know?” he whispered. Dodd thought.

“Ye’ll know if ye hear fighting or me yowling like a cat as a signal.”

In Tynedale they gave a yell but Dodd didn’t want to give too much away. Meanwhile Carey had crossed the yard without waking the chickens or the goats and got to the horn-paned window of the scullery. He knocked on it. Out came the sleepy-eyed potboy with wet hands red raw from lye. After quiet conversation and the transfer of a coin in the normal direction-away from Carey-the boy ducked back inside and a few minutes later, the innkeeper came out. He was carrying an empty barrel. Another quiet conversation and another transfer of coin.

Meanwhile Dodd had been thinking and none of what he thought pleased him at all. Even he was wishing for Barnabus now who would have been the ideal man for what he needed done.

The innkeeper went back inside, Carey crossed the yard again and used the henhouse to climb back up onto the wall. This time the hens inside clucked anxiously.

“The innkeeper tells me Marlowe is on his own and I’ve bribed him to get Marlowe out into the yard and…”

“Nay sir,” said Dodd, coming to a decision. “I dinna think so.”

“I beg your pardon, Sergeant?” Carey’s voice was cold. He always hated being contradicted. No help for it, Dodd was not about to stand by and watch Carey run headfirst into an ambush again.

“Sir, did ye never run a raid on someone wi’ but a few men and have the rest lying out in a valley to ambush them when they rode in on the hot trod?” It was so obvious, it was painful.

“This isn’t the Borders, Sergeant,” sniffed Carey, “and I’ve seen that…”

“Sir, ye’ve seen nothing, ye’ve been told.” With decision, Dodd moved to the end of the wall and climbed quietly down into the alley again, helping Enys down as he went. “It’s a’ too bloody convenient,” he muttered to himself.

“Where are you going Sergeant?” hissed Carey from the wall.

“I’m gonnae see for meself,” Dodd told him, trotting quietly down the alley and then into another one on a sudden thought. Aggravatingly the alley suddenly twisted on itself and ended up at some riversteps, so Dodd moved along the bank to another alley and then jogged along it back to the main road.

There he saw exactly what he had suspected: a large group of large men in jacks carrying loaded crossbows. They were filing down the alley he had just accidentally avoided coming out of.

“Och,” thought Dodd with fury, “Will I niver get to ma bed?”

He opened his mouth and let out what he thought was quite a good caterwaul, heard running feet stumbling down Fleet Street for the Strand. Two urchins who had been asleep on a dungheap for its warmth were sitting up and staring at him. Dodd nodded at them and beckoned them over, gave each of them sixpence which was all he could bear to part with, and told them what they were to do.

There was no sign of alarm from the men at arms who had paused at Dodd’s imitation cat. Moving quietly and deftly through the shadows, Dodd came round by a different direction to the front of the Mermaid where the sign hung over a coach waiting outside, with the horses half asleep, their hooves tipped. Dodd recognised the damned thing, and crept up to it on the other side with his heart thundering.

The coach itself was empty. Dodd peered round and saw one man standing by the door to the tavern, who was probably the coachman, looking in with interest.

Suddenly there was a shouting and yelling followed by the loud twang of a discharged crossbow. Then a grumble of voices.

Dodd sighed. Instead of waiting for Dodd to come back with his report, the daft Courtier had got himself captured and he hoped that he hadn’t got in the way of that crossbow bolt.

“Thish ish an outrage!” came Carey’s voice at its loudest and most affected. “How dare you, shir, unhand me!”

Dodd nearly smiled, it was all so theatrical. Had he done it on purpose, perhaps? Peeping around the coach he could see Carey through the diamond paned windows, lit up by candles and menaced by several crossbows, dusting mud off his hat.

Dodd skulked back behind the coach and very quietly, using the point of his dagger and a fingernail which broke, pulled out two of the axle pins in the coach wheels. He then went back down the alleys, past the two urchins who were bent over a tinderbox, and climbed onto the wall of the courtyard again. The goats were up, giving occasional excited bleats, the chickens were complaining to each other but not daring to come out of their hutch, which in any case was bolted against alleycats. With infinite care, Dodd climbed down from the wall and crossed the yard. In front of him was the usual shamble of kitchen sheds and storesheds and the entrance of the cellar. A gabble of talk came from the commonroom.

Holding his breath, Dodd tried the back door to the kitchen which was latched on the inside. Very carefully he put his dagger through the hole and jiggled. For a wonder the bar was not pegged and came up. He went into the scullery where the pots and pans were piled up and into the kitchen where the boy was fast asleep by the fire, wrapped in his cloak with the spit dog huddled in his arms.

A loud growling came from the spit dog. In any case, Dodd needed to talk to the boy. He went over, gripped the dog’s nose with one hand and clamped the other one over the boy’s mouth. The boy woke and squeaked with fright.

“Can ye understand me?” Dodd said patiently, and told the boy what he had come to say. The boy shivered and stared at him, so Dodd hoped he had got the message, tapped the dog on the nose, and padded on to the serving passage, closing the door behind him as he went. He heard a scramble of feet and excited yipping.

There was a second door to the commonroom and Dodd put his ear to it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” came Carey’s pained tones, “Jusht…on my way home from an evening’sh cardplay with my friendsh and I am shurrounded…shurrounded, sir!..by Smithfield bullyboys who threaten me with croshbows and make me come in here, no idea why, sure it’s illegal. Eh?”

There was a quiet ugly murmer which Dodd could not make out. He was sure it didn’t come from Marlowe, being too deep and not nearly cocky enough. It contained rather a dull certainty. The owner of the coach, then? But Heneage’s voice was lighter than that.

“Yesh, I wash, marrer of fact, wiv him, your friend and mine, Mr. Kit Marlowe, playwright. Got lorsht.”

More muttering. “Mr. Topcliffe,” said Carey’s voice with magnificent boozy arrogance, “my friendsh have all gone home and I would like to ash well. What…ish the problem?”

More murmering. Carey laughed theatrically. “Don’t be ridiculoush,” he said, “I can’t turn Papist. I’m the Queen’sh bloody nephew. And her coush…cousin. If I so much as think about it, which I wouldn’t because it’sh evil and treashon as well, I’d already be in the Tower with my head chopped off. So to shpeak.”

Dodd risked a peek round the door. Carey had sat himself down on one of the settles by the fading fire with his right leg propped on his left knee and a mannered right hand placed just so on it. Standing nearby with a strange expression of mixed fear and amusement on his face was Marlowe. In front of Carey at an angle from the door, arms folded, dark gown with hanging sleeves trailing off his shoulders and men behind him, was an old man with a sword. At odds with the lines on his face was his hair and beard which was a sooty black colour. Dodd didn’t know him.

Marlowe was staring straight at Dodd and must have seen him. Infinitesimally he moved his head to right and left at Dodd, then lifted his brows and his gaze went over Dodd’s shoulder. He turned back to the black-bearded man.