P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

Carey sighed again which Letty didn’t notice. Fr. Jackson came to Cornwall as a priest from the Jesuit seminary in Rheims, but he wasn’t evil or a traitor. He travelled around helping people and advising them how to pay their recusancy fines and which bits of land to sell because of course nobody wants to sell land and usually the land he sold for them was poor or fit only for pasture and…

“Fr. Jackson would sell land for people?”

“Not exactly,” said Letty, “It was only because he was clever and knew some people in London. My father did as well, I think. So when somebody had a terrible lot of fines to pay-because they changed the magistrates a year ago and now they’re much more strict-he would write to his friends and sometimes someone would buy the land in exchange for the fines so there wouldn’t be any more fines or bailiffs or court cases but the person in London owned the land, you see?”

“Hm. Yes, I do. What else did Fr. Jackson do?”

“He said Mass of course, like priests do, you know and he would hear your confession…” Letty went very pink at that and Dodd wondered why. “…and he was very kind though I once had to say a whole rosary a day for a week which was a bit much…. And he would catechise and baptise and marry and all that. He was very busy.”

Carey nodded. Letty smiled. “I know he’s a priest and everything and I know a priest is dedicated to God and can never marry like the heretic priests do…Sorry, the Church of England priests do, so…well…I…but I was thinking I might go beyond the seas to be a nun which would be…um…almost as good.”

Carey raised his brows. “Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” he said. “Did you know nuns have to cut all their hair off and never talk to anybody again except other nuns?”

Letty stared. “Cut all their hair off?”

“Yes. Very short. I used to see nuns when I was in France and they had everything except their faces covered up but a…a friend of mine told me they have to keep their hair very short or even shave it all off.”

There was a silence. “Oh. But I’m sure they’re quite beautiful.”

“I didn’t see a beautiful nun all the time I was there. They all looked cross and disagreeable,” said Carey blandly.

Another silence. “Well,” said Letty.

“I’m sure my mother will help you find a good husband when you’re old enough,” said Carey kindly, “if you ask her.”

Letty brightened at that, then her face fell again. “I suppose…” she said sadly…“I was hoping to see Fr. Jackson again. They did say the priest might hear confessions after Mass and I was going to tell him what happened to my father-in private when I made my confession, you know-and ask his advice. But the priest wasn’t him at all and then Sergeant Dodd shouted and…Do you think we’ll see Fr. Jackson?”

“Oh I doubt it,” said Carey easily. “I don’t think he’s even in London any more. Not if he has any sense.”

The blue glare warned Dodd but Dodd was in no hurry to cause another waterfall. In fact he was spending a good half of his attention on not taking another pipe of tobacco. What was wrong with him now? It wasn’t as if he was hungry, he had had a pork pie with a few winter sallet roots and some pickled onions and bread and was quite full. Yet, there it was. He wanted a pipe.

He growled and pulled it out, cleaned the bowl, filled it and lit it and sighed with satisfaction. He would have to try and buy some before they left, that was all there was to it. He wondered if it was possible to grow the herb in Gilsland and if he would be able to persuade Janet to do it if he could get the seeds.

“What now?” he asked as Carey stared into the distance while Letty engulfed her pie. “Are we going to take Letty back to Somerset House?”

“Letty, didn’t my mother send someone with you?” Carey asked after a moment.

Letty went pink. “Yes, she did, it was Will but I…er…I lost him.”

Carey’s eyebrows went up.

Letty’s shoulders hunched and dropped. “I didn’t want him following me around with his calf eyes trying to be witty and everything and besides…er…I wanted to go to my father’s Mass by myself and he would have told my lady and…umm…” Her face squinched in the middle. “Oh, Sir Robert, do you think your lady mother will beat me?”

Carey spread his hands. “Ahhh…possibly, she’s never hesitated to box my ears any time she thought I needed it. But she soon forgets all about it. So where did you dump poor old Shakespeare?”

“I left him in Paul’s Churchyard and just speeded up when he started reading something off a stall because once he does that he has no idea what’s going on around him and he once had his purse taken out of his cod-piece without even noticing.”

“Perfect,” said Carey, smiling at the picture this made. He piled money on the table in an amount Dodd was beginning to get used to. “Come on, if we get back there quickly enough he may not notice you ever left.”

Letty immediately brightened and she swallowed the rest of her meal in two large gulps, brushed crumbs off her chin and small ruff.

“That’s a wonderful idea, sir…”

“I’ll still have to tell my mother, mind you, but at least you won’t be embarassed in front of Bald Will.”

They hurried through the crowds with Carey offering Letty his arm so she wouldn’t fall off her pattens on the muddiest parts-though London was less muddy than Dodd expected, considering the horses clattering through and the pigs, goats, and chickens wandering around the place. However, crowds of urchins fought each other to shovel up the dungpiles on street corners and several little stalls offered it for sale to those who had gardens. The king’s share was picked up early in the morning by the nightsoil men and taken out to Essex. Dodd had learned to sleep through their shouts, their clattering and banging every morning. In London everything had a price. Water was more expensive than beer, for instance, if you had it from one of the men with barrels on their backs, and it tasted far worse.

Paul’s Walk was thronged as usual and the churchyard filled with people reading books in a hurry next to the various stationers’ stalls. Shakespeare was deep in discussion with the printer who had served Lady Hunsdon when they found him and blinked at Letty in bemusement. He had clearly forgotten all about her.

Carey dusted off his hands as she departed, chatting happily about watching the young courtiers in St Paul’s and how there was one in tawny velvet and lime green satin who seemed to be having a contest with another one in cramoisie and tangerine as to who could cause the worst headache. Carey had pointed them out as they passed through the huge old cathedral.

“Now where?” moaned Dodd, as Carey immediately headed purposefully for Ludgate.

“I want to know precisely what lands in Cornwall were sold and who bought ’em. Particularly who bought them. I’m beginning to wonder if it matters which lands.”

“Eh?” said Dodd.

Carey shook his head. “Lands in exchange for recusancy fines. That’s quite an old system for getting rich. Anthony Munday’s been at it as hard as he can for years. But what was it about them that brought those two up to London and then both of them wind up dead-one as a substitute for the other as well.”

“What system? I dinna ken nowt about land buying and selling.”

Carey had the grace to look a little ashamed. “Well…if a Catholic landowner continues to be foolish and obstinate and go to Mass, he gets fined for it. After a while, if he doesn’t pay the fines, he could be arrested on a warrant for debt. Now if someone…er…with influence could buy the warrant, he could then exchange it…ahem…for the deeds to some of the man’s land and it would…er…be perfectly legal.”