P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

Will was holding out his precious letter which he had taken out of the front of his doublet, good creamy paper, carefully folded and sealed. Dodd shrugged, took it and put it in the front of his leather jerkin.

At the gate of Somerset House Dodd was carefully inspected and then admitted without argument. Behind him on the Strand, the heavyset men in their buff coats leaned in doorways or stood in alleyways, waiting patiently for their quarry to reappear.

He asked in the yard where Sir Robert was and then headed where the manservant pointed, towards the stables that looked over the garden. Mistress Bassano was sitting under a cherry tree heavy with fruit, her two maidservants sitting prettily disposed around her, all three of them stitching busily at some large embroidery. Best get it over with, thought Dodd, and marched over to her, made the best bow of his life and stood before her with his cap off, trying to get his thoughts in order. The way she was sitting on cushions with her pale green silk skirts spread out around her, you only had to tilt your head to get a full view of those magnificently rich breasts, riding high over the fertile swell of her belly. Dodd had never bedded a pregnant woman, since Janet was yet to fall for a babe, alas. How did you do it? Could you do it? What would it be…

‘Why, Sergeant Dodd,’ said Mistress Bassano. ‘Can I help you?’

Dodd cleared his throat. ‘Ay. Ah…I was given a letter for ye by…eh…by an admirer.’

Full pink lips curled up in a slow smile, the ends tucking themselves into a pair of dimples, and the heavily-lashed lids came down a little. Dodd knew he was staring at the woman’s chest but couldn’t stop himself; he felt like a tranced chicken.

‘How romantic. And who is he?’

‘Ah…he asked me not to say on account of it…er…being better left a mystery.’

‘Oh.’ The maid on Mistress Bassano’s left giggled and Mistress Bassano pouted her maddening lips at the girl. ‘Now, be sensible. These are important matters.’

‘Ay,’ croaked Dodd, wanting a quart of beer and wishing the sun wasn’t so hot. ‘Ah…here it is.’

He clutched the letter from the inside pocket of his leather jerkin, and held it out to Mistress Bassano who reached up a hand to take it. Her fingers brushed the back of Dodd’s hand and made it tingle and prickle.

‘How charming to receive a billet doux from such an unexpected messenger,’ she said. And oh, the curve of her neck as she looked up at him, he could kiss his way all down the side of it, and…

Dodd found his breath was coming short. What did the woman do to radiate desire like that? Was she a witch? Had she laid some kind of spell on him? Ay, maybe that was it. God’s truth, he was beginning to hate the Courtier and his father both.

‘Thank you, Sergeant Dodd,’ said Mistress Bassano as she lifted the edge of her kirtle and tucked Shakespeare’s letter away in the pocket of her petticoat. Surely it was no accident that she let Dodd have a flash of her ankle and bare foot…Scandalous, no stockings, no shoes, a clear line all the way up her bare leg to her…

Dodd clutched his cap, jerked a bow and stepped back, nearly tripping on a miniature box hedge surrounding a bed of herbs.

‘D’ye ken…have ye seen Sir Robert?’ he asked, having to whisper because his mouth was so dry.

A tiny frown crossed the creamy brow under its wings of black hair dressed with pale green stones. ‘Oh, I think I heard him shouting in the stables,’ she said.

‘Ay. Thank ye kindly, Mistress.’

Dodd very nearly turned tail and ran across the smooth green lawn to the complex of buildings around the stable yard. Before he got there he heard the unmistakeable sound of Careys having an argument, as Mistress Bassano had said.

‘I came here because you ordered me to,’ Carey was saying, obviously trying not to shout though his voice was probably audible in Westminster. ‘Your letter, sir, ordered me away from my responsibilities in Carlisle where I am still very far from secure, and where the reivers will no doubt be playing merry hell in my absence. You , sir, ordered me to London where I have absolutely no wish to be. Sir. If you didn’t want me to come to Somerset House, you shouldn’t have written your bloody letter. SIR!’

Carey was nose to nose with his father, whose face above its ruff was going purple. Behind them in the kennels, hunting dogs barked and whined in alarm.

‘Damn your impudence, boy,’ roared Hunsdon. ‘Why the hell didn’t you go to the Liberties like I told you to? What the devil did you think you were at, prancing into this house when I specifically told you the bailiffs were out in force, you stupid boy?’

‘Don’t call me boy ,’ Carey ground out through his teeth, his fists bunched. ‘And your letter said not a damned thing about bailiffs, as you well know, unless you’ve bloody forgotten it, you senile old goat.’

Hunsdon roared inarticulately and threw a punch at his son, who ducked, backed and put his hand to his sword. Entertaining though the scene certainly was, Dodd decided he had to intervene. Hunsdon had his own sword half-drawn.

‘Sir, my lord.’ He had stepped between the Careys, his hands up to fend them off.

‘Out of my way, Sergeant,’ bellowed Hunsdon.

‘Dodd, this is none of your business,’ growled Carey.

‘Ay, it is. If ye kill each other who’s gonnae guide me back home? And forebye, I dinnae understand what yer quarrel is.’

‘It’s simple enough, Sergeant. When I order my son to make sure he doesn’t come into Somerset House but should go to one of my properties in the Liberties of Whitefriars, where he can at least move without being hunted by bailiffs, I expect to be obeyed.’

‘How the hell can I obey an order I never received?’ bellowed Carey. ‘You said nothing about Whitefriars in your letter.’

‘Of course I didn’t, you overdressed halfwit; I sent a verbal message by Michael.’

‘What bloody message? I never got it.’

‘Nay, sir, he didnae. Who’s Michael?’

‘Used to be my valet de chambre ,’ Carey said. ‘Father, I never saw Michael.’

‘What do you mean, you never saw him?’ Hunsdon’s voice was now modulating down to a shout. ‘I sent him out to meet you at Hampstead horsepond.’

Carey’s bewilderment was so clear on his face, even his father began calming down. ‘He wasn’t there. We were jumped by footpads, but…’

The thought struck both Carey and Dodd at the same time. Carey paled and sat down on the edge of the horsetrough. ‘What was he wearing when you sent him? Livery?’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t want to advertise who he worked for. He was wearing a brown wool suit. Why?’

‘Ay,’ said Dodd mournfully. ‘That was him, all right. Brown doublet and hose, wi’ some fancy work in black velvet ribbons.’

‘That’s right,’ Hunsdon growled.

‘Oh,’ said Carey, putting his hand over his mouth. ‘Poor bastard.’

Hunsdon’s bushy eyebrows were meeting over his nose. ‘I thought you said you didn’t see him.’

Carey seemed too upset to answer so Dodd cleared his throat and did the job.

‘Ay, we saw him, but he couldnae tell us yer message, my lord, on account of he wis hanging from the Hampstead Hanging Elm at the time, and nae face on him neither.’

‘What? He was dead?’

‘Ay. And not long dead, now I come to think of it. The body wasnae rotted.’

‘I should have spotted it,’ Carey said to himself. ‘What was a fresh body doing on the Elm when the Assizes couldn’t have sat for a month?’

Lord Hunsdon sat down on the horsetrough edge next to his son.

‘Well,’ he said as if the breath had been taken out of him too. ‘Who could have thought it? Poor Michael. You’re sure?’