P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

Carey nodded once then shook his head. ‘It’s the only explanation. You sent him with a message about the bailiffs and somebody…stopped him delivering it.’

‘Ay,’ added Dodd dolefully, though in fact he didn’t know Michael from Adam and didn’t much care that he was dead. ‘And they hid his body where naebody would notice it.’

‘Very imaginative of them,’ said Hunsdon.

There was a short silence. ‘Will you tell his wife, or should I do it?’ Carey asked.

Hunsdon sighed. ‘I’ll send some men up to Hampstead first to fetch the body, make absolutely sure. Then I’ll tell her myself. Good God. What a bloody mess.’

Carey turned his head and looked consideringly at his father. ‘Father, what’s going on here?’

‘Damned if I know, Robin. It’s all a mystery to me. Why the devil did they have to kill him? All they had to do was knock him on the head.’

‘That can kill a man by itself,’ said Carey. ‘Maybe they did it accidentally. Or maybe somebody wanted to make a point, as it were.’

‘His father served me, you know, cared for my guns and armour in ’72, when we did for Dacre.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Good man. Died of flux, I seem to recall, a couple of years after. I remember Michael as a page, eager little lad, always willing. Poor Frances.’

‘Is she here?’

‘No, I’ve set them up in a house in Holywell Street, near the Cockpit. Two whippersnappers and another on the way. He was acting under-steward here. Only sent him because you’d be sure to know him. Thought he’d gone home to his wife when you arrived last night.’

‘And you could hardly ask with Heneage hanging about.’

‘No.’ Hunsdon’s face hardened. ‘God rot his bowels.’

‘You think it’s…er…’

Hunsdon looked up, though he didn’t seem to see the gargoyle waterspout on the stable guttering that he was glaring at.

‘Don’t know who else it could be. Damn him.’

‘Perhaps it might be worth going to Oxford?’ Carey asked.

Hunsdon shook his head, then clapped his hand on Carey’s shoulder and stood up. ‘I’d best organise a party to go up to Hampstead, fetch the body and give him a decent burial. I’ll draft a letter to Mr Recorder Fleetwood, as there’ll have to be an inquest, and I want it conducted properly.’

‘If the corpse is still there,’ Carey said.

‘Hmf. Well, what can you do? You have to try.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t make it too public that we know what’s happened.’ Carey was speaking very quietly and thoughtfully. ‘After all, Heneage will have at least one paid man here.’

‘Of course he does. What do you…ah. I see. Well, I don’t like it. Goes against the grain to leave a man of mine hanging on a gibbet. What if Frances went past and saw him?’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Dodd. ‘I verra much doubt he’ll still be on the Elm. But could ye no’ make a song and dance about they footpads we saw off at the Hampstead Cut and, while ye were at it, maybe find out about your man?’ Dodd found himself caught in a crossfire of stares and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Only, there’d be nae secret about that, my lord, since we left three kills of our own there.’

‘You omitted the detail of the footpads, Robin,’ Hunsdon said drily to his son.

Carey waved airy fingers. ‘Fairly cack-handed attempt at an ambush in the Cut as we came through, which was foiled by Sergeant Dodd who spotted what was going on well before I did. Nothing much to say, really, since there was no harm done. To us, anyway.’

‘Hm. That was why your gun was loaded.’

‘Of course.’

‘When you discharged it in the Strand I felt certain you were only defying me and had come prepared to bully your way in,’ Hunsdon explained, standing up and brushing down his elaborately paned trunk-hose. ‘Excellent suggestion of yours, Sergeant; I’ll write to Mr Recorder this afternoon about the attempted robbery. With luck we’ll be able to find and hang the men who murdered my servant.’

‘If not the man who paid them to do it,’ murmured Carey, also standing up.

Hunsdon tilted his head cynically. ‘It’s the way of the world, Robin, you know that. Now would the pair of you care to view the finest pack of hounds this side of Westminster?’

***

The hounds were very elegant beasts, and included a yellow lymer with a heavy head and a serious expression. One of the dog-pages explained at length about the thorn in his paw, which the dog held up to show the neat bandage. Both Careys examined it carefully, Lord Hunsdon squatting down with his arm across the dog’s back. Dodd examined it himself.

‘What do you think, Dodd?’ Carey asked. ‘It looks clean enough to me.’

Dodd felt around the dog’s leg, in case there were any lumps in the animal’s groin. You could sometimes get early warning of trouble with a wound if you found lumps, but there were none and the dog panted at him in puzzlement.

‘Ay,’ said Dodd thoughtfully. ‘But I wouldnae hunt with him till it’s all healed up, of course.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Lord Hunsdon. ‘You’re on sick leave, aren’t you, Bellman, old fellow?’ The dog panted and licked Hunsdon’s face and the old lord pummelled his ears.

‘Is he any relation of my lord Scrope’s lymer bitch that pupped on yer bed?’ Dodd asked, thinking he saw a family resemblance.

‘Yes,’ smiled Carey, who was rubbing the dog’s high chest as the animal groaned with pleasure and plopped himself over on his side. ‘He’s her brother. Father gave Scrope the bitch as a present a couple of years ago.’

‘Pupped on your bed?’ Hunsdon laughed. ‘What did Philadelphia say about it?’

‘She wasn’t very pleased. I had a great long lecture about the impossibility of cleaning counterpanes properly, as if I’d told the silly animal to do it. But it was a good thing she did, because she had trouble with the last pup of the litter.’

Hunsdon listened to the tale and agreed that a ruined counterpane was a small price to pay for saving a fine gentle bitch like Buttercup. Robin should take care with the pup though, because this particular line of lymers seemed to be even more greedy than the general run of hunting dogs and they got fat very easily. In fact Bellman himself was a bit tubby, and Jimmy the dog-page must remember not to feed him too much while he couldn’t run.

As if to confirm this wisdom, Bellman farted extravagantly and all three of them retired coughing to look at the horses. Dodd was greatly impressed with Hunsdon’s stable which held bigger and glossier beasts than any he had seen outside the contraband animals that the Grahams had harvested from the Scottish king’s stables. The pathetic nags that they had ridden in from the Holly Tree the day before looked as if they knew how useless they were in comparison.

A bell rang, calling the household to dinner, and Dodd found himself borne along to the parlour where the Careys generally ate their meals, seven covers of meat this time and still nothing Dodd rightfully recognised as food. Afterwards Sir Robert, who had drunk far more than he ate and was evidently going mad with boredom at being cooped up in his father’s house, announced he would go and talk to the falconer and see if the birds had finished their moult. Hunsdon grunted and told Dodd he wanted his opinion on some arrangements for the Berwick garrison-would he come along to the old lord’s study in an hour? He wished to see Robin privately first; he could come to Hunsdon’s study in half an hour.

An hour later one of the grooms led Dodd along the corridors. It was astonishing how many rooms there were in the place-you couldn’t count them all-and how peculiar to have one for each thing you might do in a day, such as a parlour for eating and a study for reading and writing, and every single one of them painted and decorated with hanging cloths and furnished with carved oak. Surely to God, Hunsdon could afford to pay Sir Robert’s debts, even enormous ones?