P. Chisholm: A Murder of Crows

There was a pause. The clerks continued to write away. Carey looked mildly surprised and then leaned on the mantel over the luxury of a small fireplace and hummed a tune. Dodd put his hands behind his back and waited stolidly.

Nothing happened. Surprisingly, Carey cracked first. “Is Mr. Fleetwood available?” he asked coldly, and the haughtiest clerk ignored the magnificence of his embroidered trunk-hose and raised a withering eyebrow.

“Do you have an appointment, Mr…er…” intoned the clerk down his nose. The pageboy had announced them correctly and clearly.

Carey’s eyebrow headed for his hairline as well. Dodd leaned back slightly and prepared to watch the fun: would the two pairs of eyebrows fight a little duel, perhaps?

“Robert Carey,” he drawled, “ Sir Robert Carey.”

The clerk held his ground. “Do you have an appointment, Sir Robert?”

“I believe my worshipful father, m’lord Baron Hunsdon, mentioned that we might be coming here this afternoon.” Carey paused. “To see Fleetwood. Your master.” He added as to a child, “About a legal matter.”

“Ah yes,” sneered the clerk, “The assault at Fleet Prison.”

The other clerk glanced up nervously from his copying, then down again. The page boy was hiding on the landing, listening busily.

“And unlawful imprisonment of my man, Sergeant Dodd,” said Carey, “and sundry other matters of a legal nature.”

The clerk sprang his trap. “Mr. Fleetwood is not available.”

One Carey eyebrow climbed, the other dropped. Did he know he was doing it, wondered Dodd who was not in the slightest bit surprised at what was happening. It seemed from his face that Carey was surprised. Now the left eyebrow was mounting Carey’s forehead again to join his brother in chilly wonder. Did he practise? In front of a mirror?

“How unfortunate,” said Carey. “Perhaps tomorrow…”

“Mr. Fleetwood is very busy,” said the clerk with magnificent contempt, “for the foreseeable future. A year at least.”

“My lord Hunsdon had assured me that Mr. Fleetwood could represent Sergeant Dodd in this matter.” Carey was losing ground here.

“My lord was mistaken. Mr. Fleetwood had not first consulted me,” sniffed the clerk. “His daybook is full.”

“Hm,” said Carey, eyebrows now down in a frown.

Dodd stepped forward and leaned his hands not too threateningly on the clerk’s desk. “Is Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage payin’ ye?”

The clerk quivered slightly and then answered with fake indignation, “Of course not, Sergeant, the very idea is outrageous.”

Dodd looked around at the other clerk, industriously copying, and nodded. “Ay, so he’s threatened ye.”

It was satisfying to see the haughty clerk now reading very carefully in Mr. Fleetwood’s daybook which seemed to be empty as far as Dodd could see. Nobody said anything.

“Thank ye,” said Dodd, remembering a little late some of Carey’s lectures about London manners. “Nae doubt it’s just as well, Ah wouldna want a man wi’ nae blood tae his liver standing up for me in court.”

He clattered down the stairs followed by a Carey who was smiling now.

“Well, I never saw that before,” he mused. “A lawyer turning down a fat fee. Amazing.”

“I have,” said Dodd.

Carey wanted to try other lawyers he knew of, Dodd said it wasn’t worth the bother. They had an argument about it in the arched old cloister next to the round church.

“See ye,” Dodd said, “if it ha’ been nobbut a bribe, then maybe, but if Heneage is threatening ‘em, he’s threatened the lot of them. Threats are cheap.”

“I know that, Sergeant,” said Carey. “I just want to check.”

Sighing Dodd followed Carey on his route through the dens of lawyers and found he was right. No serjeant, utter barrister, attorney, nor even humble solicitor would touch Dodd’s case on the end of a polearm. Not that any one of them could have lifted such a weapon.

Frustrated, they sat on a bench facing a small duck pond next to the other shiny new hall, still having its windows installed. Carey had to lean awkwardly with his legs out because of the idiocy of his clothes and their tight fashionable fit.

He pulled out the long clay pipe and started filling it with the mixture of tobacco and expensive Moroccan resin that Dr. Nunez had prescribed for them the previous week. Carey liked it enough to have made enquiries about importing some to Carlisle but it was eyewateringly expensive.

Despite the fact that the practise of drinking herbal smoke was a highly fashionable London vice, Dodd rather liked it too. He took the pipe and drew some of the aromatic white smoke into his lungs and after a moment was blinking peacefully at the tumble of huts going down to the water.

Carey chuckled. “It’s a mess, isn’t it? Last time I saw him, Sir Robert Cecil was talking about planting gardens down to the river. Of course you’d have to get the riffraff thrown out first.”

“What? The lawyers?” Dodd said deadpan, and Carey grinned.

“Good idea, as they won’t bloody work for us.”

“Ye canna blame them. Heneage will have said to a few of them, tsk tsk, d’ye think the Careys’ll take care of yer kine and yer tower while you’re lawyering for that Dodd, tsk tsk, and the word will have gone round,” Dodd said knowledgeably.

“Metaphorically speaking, but yes. Shortage of Readerships, strange famine of appointments to the serjeantcy, etcetera, etcetera. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

“Ay. So. Will we do it ourselves?”

“What, go to court? Certainly not.”

“Why not? It canna be so hard if lawyers can do it.”

Carey snorted with giggles and Dodd almost giggled as well, feeling pleasantly drunk from the smoke.

“Sergeant, you’ve run wood. How long does it normally take you to draft one bill? An afternoon? And I’m certainly not studying the law at my age.”

“Other young gentlemen study at the Inns of Court,” Dodd pointed out. One of the young gentlemen happened to be standing nearby wrapped in his black cloth robe, very like a crow, blinking at the ducks on the pond. For a moment Dodd thought he was familiar, but couldn’t place him at all.

Carey took the pipe back from Dodd who had forgotten he was holding it. “Not me. I went to France and wapped a lot of French ladies,” said Carey coarsely. “We need a lawyer.”

“All Heneage has done is reive our horses,” Dodd said.

“Metaphorically speaking,” Carey corrected, waggling the end of the pipe at him.

“So then we go after him on foot. We do it ourselves. Ay, so it’s slower but…”

Carey shook his head and passed the pipe back to Dodd. “I keep telling you, this is not a Border feud, we do things differently in London. Perhaps Father could twist some arms, raise the fees…Maybe one of the Bacon brothers would take it pro bono if I asked nicely.”

Dodd shook his head firmly and opened his mouth to argue but there was a soft cough which interrupted him.

“Excuse me, sirs, but I couldn’t help hearing your discourse.”

It was the young man in the lawyer’s robe. As the man made his bow, Dodd stared at him suspiciously, assuming this must be one of Heneage’s spies you heard so much about. The young man was average height, narrow built, with sandy hair under one of the newly fashionable beaver hats. Sharp blue eyes peered out of a face ruined by smallpox, worse even than Barnabus. His attempt at a friendly smile was actually twisted by the scarring. There was a shocking pit right next to his mouth, the size of a farthing.

“Is it true that you are in need of a lawyer?”

“Possibly,” said Carey, eyeing the man.

He bowed again to both of them, making Dodd feel uncomfortable. “I am James Enys, at your service, sirs, barrister-at-law.”