P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

Dodd tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘Ay, sir. I’ll own I was surprised to hear ye…er…tell such a strange tale to your dad.’

‘What? You mean, lie to him?’ Carey grinned, who would have instantly called Dodd out if he’d said the word himself. ‘I didn’t. He’s already got the real report from me. He warned me to be tactful with Heneage, so I was.’

‘Er…how?’

‘Called me Robert. Never does that, not ever. Usually it’s Robin, boy or bloody idiot, depending. I wanted to talk to him about it last night but his man said he was…ah…busy and passed the message about the report. Now it seems I’m stuck here indoors scribbling away like some damned clerk-God, how I hate paperwork. But I want you and Barnabus to go and do some scouting for me. See what’s going on. Barnabus will want to put a notice up in St Paul’s to find a new master and if you see any likely looking northerners who might make a decent valet de chambre for me, get their names. I may have to borrow somebody from Father, seeing the Court’s not in town and the law term not started yet. And something’s wrong here but I’m not sure what.’

‘With your father?’

‘And with London too. It’s too quiet. Strand’s half-empty. Where is everybody? Bartolmy’s fair just packed up and Southwark due to start, but all the traders seem to have made off as fast as they can with their woolsacks and bolts of cloth. I want to know why. Stick close to Barnabus, and if you get lost, head south for the river and then go westwards until you find Somerset House. Or take a boat.’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘And leave any of your money behind that you don’t want stolen. London pick-pockets are famous the world over.’

As Dodd had brought what had once seemed to him like the large sum of three shillings from his pay and also had an angel and some shillings from the footpads, he nodded at this good advice.

***

St Paul’s was surrounded by a market full of little stalls filled up with booksellers and papersellers, more books than Dodd had ever seen in his entire life before. Even the Reverend Gilpin had never had such a lot of books. How could a man tell which he wanted to read? It was indecent. And the place was full of people standing around reading books or talking and arguing with each other. Two poorly-dressed, hungry-looking men were arguing loudly with a fat man in an ink-stained apron who they seemed to think owed them money for their writing of a book, which he was strenuously denying.

Barnabus threaded through purposefully, swatting boys away from his pockets and disentangling Dodd from a pretty young piece in a mockado gown who seemed to think Dodd was her long-lost cousin.

They climbed the steps and went into the cathedral of London town, which was a great echoing monster of a building. The nave was full of little stalls, and scriveners tables, the aisle was full of young men who paraded in clothes that made Dodd gasp for the colours of them, the outrageous size of their cartwheel ruffs, the velvets, damasks and satins, the vast padded breeches and the long peascod bellies, the slashings and panes and embroideries. The human butterflies were in constant motion, bowing to each other, talking, laughing.

‘Mm,’ said Barnabus, staring about critically. ‘Now where is everybody?’

‘Eh?’ said Dodd.

‘Nobody here,’ Barnabus said over his shoulder as he threaded across the circling stream of haberdashery to one of the huge round pillars near the high altar screen with its blaze of gold and silver and red silk banners. There were a number of men in jerkins or buff leather standing around the pillar, looking hopeful, pieces of paper pinned to a noticeboard behind them. Barnabus went straight to it, stole two pins from one of the older notices, and stuck up his own paper.

‘There,’ he said. ‘I’ll be sorry to leave ’im, but what can you do?’

‘You’re resigning from the Courtier’s service?’

‘I’ve had enough,’ sniffed Barnabus. ‘Carlisle don’t suit me, what with nuffing to do and nearly getting hanged in the summer. I’ll leave ’im when I’ve found a new master.’

‘Hmf,’ said Dodd. He’d never thought much of Barnabus, who rode like a sack of meal and half the time made no sense at all. Mind you, he had good skills at knife-throwing and the Courtier seemed to rate him, but that was all you could say in his favour really.

Barnabus squared his shoulders and looked round at the competition, some of which seemed large and ugly enough.

‘Don’t know what I’ll find though,’ said the little man gloomily. ‘What with nobody being here.’

‘But…look at ’em all.’

‘Nah,’ said Barnabus, folding his arms and leaning against another pillar to glare disapprovingly down the aisle. ‘The Mediterranean’s half-empty for the time of year. Must all be up at Oxford, arse-licking the Queen.’

How did they all fit in when they were here, Dodd wondered. He craned his neck to look up at the roof which seemed very new, the upper walls part burned. St Paul’s had no proper spire, only a temporary roof where it should have been. Barnabus was beckoning one of the urchins playing dice by the altar steps.

‘Here, you, boy. Show my friend here round Paul’s for me and if nobody’s nipped his purse by the time he gets back, I’ll pay you a penny extra.’

Dodd shrugged and followed the mucky-faced child who pointed self-importantly at a large monument full of moping angels and rampant lions and the like on the south side, with a little chapel next to it. Apparently it was Duke Humphrey’s tomb for certain sure and definite though some scurvy buggers said it was some John Beauchamp fellow or other, which it wasn’t but Duke Humphrey’s, did he understand?

Dodd shrugged again and said it could be Good King Henry’s tomb for all he cared, to be told sharply that that one was in Westminster, didn’t he know nuffing?

Tomb after tomb was knowledgeably pointed out, one with a lot of reverence as Sir Philip Sidney’s, and they made the circuit of the nave where pie-sellers, stationers and the apple-women cried their wares. It all seemed crowded and noisy enough for Dodd.

At least the Londoners seemed to be friendly folk. Overfriendly, perhaps. Twice Dodd was hailed as an old friend by men he had never met before, one of them a southerner from Yorkshire by his speech.

The third time a complete stranger clasped his arm and demanded to know what he was doing in London, bless him, Dodd decided to play along with the game.

‘Och, good day,’ he said with as big a smile as he could muster. ‘If it’s no’ Wee Colin Elliot himself,’ he added, naming his family’s bitterest enemy. ‘What are ye doing here?’

The man, who was as tall as Dodd and by his speech had never been north of Durham in his life, laughed and bowed.

‘I could ask the same of you, friend.’

‘It’s too long a tale to tell,’ said Dodd who couldn’t be bothered to make one up. ‘How’s yer wife and the bairns?’

‘Well enough,’ said the man. ‘Well enough indeed. I thought it was you; I was just saying to my friend here, that’s him to the life and it was.’

‘Ay,’ said Dodd, still smiling unnaturally until his face ached with the exercise. The friend was shorter and darker and both were well-dressed in wool suits trimmed with velvet.

‘It does ma heart good to find a fellow Berwick man here in this nest of Southerners,’ said the shorter of the two in a passable imitation of the Berwick way of talking. ‘Mr Dodd, you must have a cup of wine with us. Will ye do that? Us northerners should stick together, after all.’

‘Oh ay, we should. O’ course,’ said Dodd, glancing across at Barnabus who was deep in obsequious conversation with an elaborately taffeta’d young man. Dodd shrugged. If he wasn’t feared of the Bewcastle Waste or the Tarras Moss, why should he be feared of London, strange place though it was?