P. Chisholm - A Murder of Crows

“Mr. Enys,” he shouted, “Milady wants us no’ to kill tae many o’ them.”

She blinked, shook her head and-typical woman-said, “Why?”

Dodd didn’t have breath nor time to tell her. He just shrugged, broke the man’s knee properly with the hilt of his sword so he couldn’t make trouble after, and carried on down into the cellars which stank badly of blood and shit. Pickering was standing in the middle of the place looking horrified, the heavy iron bound door had been smashed in and when Dodd braced himself to look through into the straw-scattered little cell, he understood why.

A sigh puffed out of him. There was young Mrs. Briscoe on her hands and knees in the straw squawking and howling. Portia Morgan blinked, took a long shaky breath, blinked again. Then she dropped her veney stick, went over, bent and stroked the girl’s shoulder. “It’s all right, it’s coming.”

Another horrendous shriek came from the girl as her belly moved. Enys saw Dodd standing staring, stood up, and came to him.

“Sergeant, can you get me two stools or blocks of wood this high, a big bowl of hot water or some aqua vitae, linen strips and a clean knife.” The girl was howling again, calling for her mum.

“Now hush,” said Portia Morgan. “You’re not going to die, it’s only a baby. Sergeant!”

She was lifting the girl’s petticoats to look and Dodd turned quickly and ran up the stairs. Pickering came with him.

“God’s truth,” he said as Dodd stripped off one of the stunned men’s doublet and hauled his shirt off over his head, then moved to the corner where there was a wood-basket and a promising looking small barrel. Dodd tapped some into a mug, tried it. The aqua vitae was cheap but drinkable, so he drank that to steady him, poured another one and gave it to Pickering to sustain him, and then put the barrel under one arm, picked up the woodbasket after slinging the man’s eating knife into it along with his shirt, and carried the lot down the cellar steps to where Portia Morgan had her hand under the girl’s petticoats and a look of concentration on her face.

“If you could find a real midwife, Sergeant,” she said, “that would help, I’m having to try and remember what the woman did for…er…my sister.”

“Ah’ve helped ewes at lambing and dogs wi’ whelping,” Dodd offered. “It’s no’ sae different.”

At that point the girl squealed angrily again and started to cry. Portia Morgan turned again and looked under the blood-splattered petticoats. “It’s coming, I can see it,” she cried, and dug into the wood basket to pull out two large blocks of wood which she set on the floor. “Come on, Ellie, sit on these.”

Dodd lent a hand to heave the girl off her hands and knees and sit her down with her legs spread, a buttock to each block, while Portia shoved the petticoats back and the girl grabbed her head and howled. Something black and bloody was showing between her legs. Suddenly he decided this was a lot more frightening than a lambing and ran up the stairs.

“It’s coming,” he said in explanation to Pickering who was sitting on the master’s seat in the kitchen with his feet on the table, drinking from another barrel he seemed to have found. Dodd helped himself. “We canna move her until her wean’s born now.”

“I could see that, Sar’nt,” said Pickering. There was a thundering about upstairs and the firebell had stopped ringing. “Fire’s out, fank goodness. I’ve got Briscoe to check for any remaining cinders, keep his mind off things. I’ll blame the fire on on you.”

Dodd shrugged. What did he care what a lot of Londoners thought of him? His cold black rage had gone now, he felt as happy and relaxed as if he had…well, as if he had just had a pipe of Moroccan incense and tobacco.

At that moment there was a distant boom and all the shutters rattled. Dodd cocked an ear to it. The shriek from the cellars had almost drowned the noise.

“So it was mined,” he said.

“Yer,” said Pickering. “I wonder if that bloke Vent survived.”

“Best not talk about it,” Dodd said, “Whit do the neighbours say?”

“Oh they’re all right. They know I’ll pay ‘em for their trouble. And the roof is off and the fire’s out and Gabriel’s tying up the men here in one of the bedrooms. There was only twenty of them and only a couple of dead.”

“So the maist o’ them will be at Chelsea or the marshes.”

“Yer,” said Pickering, “waiting for us with not the faintest idea.” He laughed. “Until now, mind.”

He laughed again and lifted his cup of wine in a toast to them.

***

Perhaps an hour later there was a clattering of a boat at the watersteps, a challenge from the Cornishmen. And then there were mutterings and Mr. Trevasker saying “milady” and “your honour.” Pickering took his feet off the table and sat up warily.

Into the looted kitchen walked the small sprightly figure of Lady Hunsdon, pink-cheeked and happy. Beside her, dark and lean and bowed over sideways and forwards by the curve of his back, was a man in sober black damask and a white falling band, a fashionable black beaver hat shading a long face. And behind him trotted Shakespeare.

Dodd came to his feet and so did Pickering.

“Sergeant, my compliments on a very neat piece of work,” said Lady Hunsdon, with her wonderful roguish smile that had caught Lord Hunsdon, the King’s bastard, in a permanent web. “Sir Robert Cecil, Privy Councillor, asked to meet you at once.”

Dodd bowed to her and inclined his head to the second son of the most powerful man in the Kingdom. From things Carey had told him, he thought that Burghley, Cecil’s father, and Carey’s lord, the Earl of Essex were at some kind of courtly feud. So why was Cecil so friendly with Carey’s mam, eh?

“Ay,” said Dodd, “Ehm…” How did you do it properly? “Ah, milady, may I present Mr. Pickering, the…eh…”

Pickering stepped forward quickly, bowed to Lady Hunsdon and Cecil and took his hat off. “Laurence Pickering, milady, your honour,” he said. “Merchant of London.”

From the half-closed eyelids and the faint smile, Dodd felt that Cecil knew perfectly well who this was. From the expression on Lady Hunsdon’s face it seemed that she wasn’t entirely sure.

“Ah…Mr. Pickering helped wi’ the raid,” Dodd finished slightly lamely, hoping he hadn’t offended or insulted anyone. “He’s…ah…a friend of Sir Robert’s.”

“An honour to be of service to you, milady, yer honour,” said Pickering, staring hard at Cecil.

“Mr. Pickering,” said the hunchback, inclining his body slightly, “I’ve heard a great deal about you from my mentor and friend, Sir Francis Walsingham, God rest his soul. I believe there was an…understanding between you?”

“Yes there was, yer honour,” said Pickering, “I ‘ad the…ah.. the honour of ‘elping Sir Francis on several occasions. Though never as…ah.. dramatic as this time.”

“Quite so.” Sir Robert Cecil smiled and his dark face instantly transformed into a handsome and charming man. “I understand you run the only game that’s worth visiting in London and that Heneage had the impudence to raid it?”

“Yerss, yer honour, that’s right.”

“Outrageous. I hope you will be continuing with it…”

“Of course, yer honour. When I get it set up again, shall I send your honour word of its whereabouts?”

“How kind, Mr. Pickering,” said Cecil. “I would be delighted to learn to play properly.”

Pickering bowed. Dodd could almost see the implied handshake between them. “Wiv yer honour’s permission, I think I’ll take my…friends…away now.”

“Do so, with my thanks,” said Cecil.

“And mine, of course, Mr. Pickering,” said Lady Hunsdon. “How wonderful to meet another of my son’s more interesting friends.”