P. Chisholm: A Murder of Crows

A hunchback and a poet met in the glorious gardens belonging to the hunchback’s father. The poet was dusty and tired, having ridden up from London to report to his new employer on the sensational events in and around the Fleet Prison the previous Sunday.

The hunchback preferred to sit in the shade, dressed in his customary black damask and white falling band, his lean handsome face tilted slightly sideways to listen more carefully. Beside him, since he liked to make notes, was pen, ink and the very best, most expensive paper, smoothed with pumice so that his pen nib never caught nor spattered. The poet stared at the sheets hungrily, knowing they cost as much as tuppence each and wishing he could afford such a pile. The bench was carved to look as if it had grown from the ground and faced across a labyrinth made of low clipped box-trees, filled in with scented flowers, some of which were making a valiant last flowering in the autumn light. The Queen had often walked in these very gardens and still occasionally did. When the hunchback’s father chose to inspect his plantings, he would normally travel around the carefully raked and weeded paths on the back of a small donkey since he was now crippled by gout.

The hunchback generally walked the paths when he was thinking, at a fast pace and with hardly a limp despite the bandy legs of a childhood trampled by rickets.

The poet prided himself on his memory and never wasted precious paper on mere notes. He had been a player and hoped to be one again, used to being presented with a part the night before its first afternoon performance with only one rehearsal in the morning. He could read pages twice and know them by heart. His memory was just as good for what he heard: once he had written out in full a sermon that had lasted three hours for the benefit of his then employer who suspected the preacher of subversive puritanism.

Naturally the hunchback had chosen a bench where the trees behind it would give him shade but the sun would shine direct on the poet’s face. He was glad he had done that. The poet’s tale was very nearly incredible. Yet there had been reports from Carlisle which were almost as insane but which came from different and unimpeachible sources.

“Are you telling me that Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage organised a plot to implicate one of Lord Chamberlain Baron Hunsdon’s sons…”

“Edmund Carey,” put in the poet quietly.

“Yes, whichever one, in the forging of gold angels by alchemical means?” The poet nodded. “That when he saw the trap closing, Edmund Carey then took cover, as it were, under the nose of the cat and that his brother Sir Robert, whilst disguised as a north country man, later caused a riot there, and ended by breaking Mr. Heneage’s nose because Mr. Heneage had taken and beaten a man of his from Carlisle?”

“Yes, your honour,” said the poet promptly. “He also…”

The hunchback put up a long pale hand, leaning back as far as he could. “Mr. Heneage was trying to oust my lord Baron Hunsdon from his place as Lord Chamberlain?”

“Yes, your honour.”

The hunchback smiled, making his face immediately charming and attractive, never mind the weakness of his body. “Good Lord!” he said. “Who would have thought it?”

The poet considered answering this question, but decided it was rhetorical.

The hunchback sprang to his feet and began pacing. “Sir Robert’s antics are not so surprising,” he said, more to himself than to the poet, who stood patiently with his hands tucked behind his back. “God knows, he was dangerously bored the last time I saw him at Court and was as badly in debt as he was a couple of years ago when he walked to Newcastle in ten days.”

The poet blinked a little at this. The hunchback smiled ruefully. “I lost several hundred pounds on that bet, blast him, and so did a lot of his friends. He made about?3000. It didn’t do him any good at all, of course. Once a spendthrift, always a spendthrift.”

The poet looked down discreetly.

“That’s why I recommended to Her Majesty that she appoint him Deputy Warden of the West March instead of that corrupt fool, Lowther, and also for…good and sufficient reasons.”

The poet narrowed his eyes but was far too sensible to ask what they were.

“It’s Heneage’s behaviour that I find extraordinary,” said the hunchback, sitting restlessly back down on the bench and leaning forward now in a confiding way. “What do you think of his proceedings?”

“Ah…” The poet thought very carefully, since he had been working for Heneage at the time. “I felt…unhappy.” Unhappy didn’t really cover the poet’s incandescent rage when he understood just how dangerously he had been set up by the Vice Chamberlain, a man he had trusted. Having played the part of the alchemist, he realised he would have been perfect meat for the hangman if the scheme had worked the way it was supposed to. It still made his innards quake to think about it.

“How about that rival of yours, Marlowe?”

“I wouldn’t describe him as a rival,” murmured the poet. “I would describe him as a friend and…and teacher.”

“Really?”

“For all his faults, Kit Marlowe is a wonderful poet.”

The hunchback shrugged. “Nevertheless he’s still working for Heneage, as far as anyone can make out.”

The poet struggled with his conscience for a moment, and then lost. “I had heard…I believe that he may be trying to use Sir Robert as a means of entering the Earl of Essex’s service.”

There was a considering silence while the hunchback thought about this. The poet wondered if he had done right telling him.

“Interesting,” was all the hunchback said. “So he’s unhappy with Heneage too?”

“I imagine so.”

“As unhappy as you were when you realised that the delightful Mistress Emilia Bassano was not only Baron Hunsdon’s official mistress but was also having an affair with his son?” The hunchback was watching intently for the reaction to this prod.

The poet’s ears went pink which was unfortunate because he didn’t have much hair to hide it.

“I understand the lady is now in bed with the Earl of Southampton,” he said smoothly. “Clearly love blinded me to her unchastity.”

“Quite over it?”

The poet bowed. “Of course.”

“Good. And what’s your opinion of this Carlisle henchman of Carey’s?”

The poet paused. “Sergeant Dodd?”

“That’s his name. He seems to be…ah…the wild card in the game.”

“He appears to be no more than a typical Borderer, very proud of being headman of his little patch of country and holding a tower there…”

“Gilsland in fact controls one of the routes from Scotland into northern England,” said the hunchback, who had been reading ancient reports and squinting at maps prepared by his father’s agents in 1583.

The poet bowed a little. “…as well as serving in the Carlisle Castle guard under Carey. He looks and behaves like a mere stupid soldier, useful on horseback, and with any weapons but especially with a sword and his fists…”

“But?”

“I think there’s more to him than that,” said the poet. “Sir Robert certainly thinks so. And I like him.”

The hunchback’s smile was sunny. “Excellent,” he said. “His lawsuit against Mr. Heneage?”

The poet shrugged. “He wants compensation, of course.”

“And if he doesn’t get it?”

“I think he’ll look for another kind of compensation.”

With one of his typically sudden movements, the hunchback threw a small full leather purse and the poet just caught it. The hunchback’s face was impossible to read for sure but it seemed that somewhere in what he had said, the poet had told him something of value. He bowed again.