P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

‘Well they was four of them, but I couldn’t see their faces because they had cloths muffled up to their noses and their hats pulled down.’

‘Was there anything at all about them that you can remember?’

‘They sounded like courtiers, sir, gents.’

‘Hm. What were their hands like? Rough? Smooth? Did they have rings?’

‘Well, the one that did the talking had two rings but I don’t remember no more, sir, honest I don’t, I was so frightened, what with Uncle Barney being dead and the men hissing at me, and I couldn’t think what with getting my head slapped and everything…’

‘It’s all right, Simon,’ said Carey. ‘You did the best you could. None of it was your fault. Do you know what they were looking for?’

‘No, only it was small from the way they searched.’

‘Hm.’ Carey stared straight ahead of himself, at the dented plaster of the wall. ‘The men expected me to be here?’

‘Oh yes, sir, when they came in they all had their swords drawn and one of them had a dag with the match lit.’

‘Hm. Do you think you could walk?’

Simon sniffled and rubbed his hands. ‘I dunno, sir. My feet are killing me wiv pins and needles.’

‘Try. I want you out of here in case the men come back.’

‘But where will I go, sir? What can I do? My Uncle Barney’s dead and…and…’

‘Simon, do you think I’m going to put you on the streets because Barnabus is dead? Do you think that’s the kind of man I am?’

Simon gulped hard. ‘No, sir.’

‘You’re not thinking straight. We need to get you somewhere safe. Now it’ll be a lot easier if you could walk down Fleet Street to Somerset House, but if you really can’t manage, I’ll get you a litter.’

Simon shook his head and struggled to his feet, biting his lips and leaning on Carey’s arm. Then he sat down again.

‘It hurts. But I think I can. But I can’t do my boots up, my hands is too sore.’

Nan came over with the boy’s boots and between them, they got them on. Then Carey took Nan to the window and looked out carefully.

‘Mother,’ he said looking straight in her eyes, so she found herself smiling and thinking what a pity it was she wasn’t forty years younger. ‘I want you to do me a great favour. Take this boy to Somerset House and ask to speak to my Lord Hunsdon. Tell him what we found here and what Simon told us and also tell him that Dodd’s been arrested in mistake for me, God knows how. Can you do that?’

‘My Lord Hunsdon?’ she asked, very impressed. ‘Is he your lord?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said the young man drily. ‘Tell him Robin sent you and if he wants confirmation, you can tell him I said I’m at the reiving again, only for two-legged kine this time.’

‘You’re at the reiving again, for two-legged kine,’ Nan repeated uncertainly.

‘Don’t be frightened if he laughs or shouts, that’s just his way. Tell him Dodd’s in the Fleet in mistake for me.’

‘Will you not go with us?’

‘No. I’ll keep an eye on you, but my guess is that the men who did this might be watching the place and as it’s me they want, I don’t want them seeing me.’

‘What if they stop us?’

‘Play stupid but don’t try anything with them, they’re very dangerous.’

‘I didn’t take to the young man, your enemy.’

‘No. I have a bone or two to pick with him.’

‘And your servant?’

‘Barnabus? He’ll come to no harm here. I’ll see he gets a decent burial when I can.’

‘What about the fighting cock?’

Carey eyed the bird who stared back at him defiantly and decorated the ruined bed again. ‘That’s Tamburlain the Great. He’s got water and he’s got grain. I should think he’ll be all right for the moment. I’ll send someone with food and medicine to Simon’s family as soon as I can.’

They helped Simon out onto the tiny landing and Nan used the candle very carefully to restick the seals. Carey had to carry the boy down the narrow winding stairs but once on the level Simon could shuffle along, holding tight to Nan’s arm.

She walked down Fleet Street feeling heavy with fright, the boy sniffling beside her as he walked. The street was teeming with people, carts, large dangerous-looking men, women carrying buckets.

They passed the gauntlet of the beggars at Temple Bar and the ballad singer and the rat catcher with his strings of dead black rats slung across his back and onto the wide dusty Strand. When Simon showed her the gate to Somerset House she felt almost too frightened to try it, because it was so grand, but the boy insisted. They had to wait for a long time because the porter sent for the steward and when she said she had a message for my lord from Robin, this caused a flurry, before they were escorted into the magnificent marble entrance hall and then deep into the building. The steward’s wife came to fetch Simon to her stillroom to dose him against plague and melancholy, which Nan found left her bereft since at least she had met the boy. This was so rich and brilliant a house, more elaborate than any church she had ever cleaned, it made her feel very small. They told her that my lord Baron Hunsdon was not at home, being out inspecting some properties, but was expected back that afternoon. They asked her if she wished to wait, or pass on her message, and she said conscientiously that she would wait.

***

Dodd had spent the morning trying to hang onto his temper. He had signed the Prison’s logbook at the Deputy Gaoler’s office in his own name, causing tuttings and sighings. Deputy Gaoler Newton wrote Sir Robert Carey’s name next to it. Then two of Newton’s bullyboys had held his arms while Newton personally searched his body, a process of nasty intimacy made worse by Newton’s deliberate roughness. Triumphantly, he produced Dodd’s purse and took one of the angels from it, biting it cautiously before he put it away. Ten shillings. Almost a week’s wages.

‘There’s my garnish,’ sneered Newton. ‘Now, sir, the charge for the Knight’s Commons is a shilling a night, or sixpence if you share a bed. The Eightpenny ward is eightpence a night or fourpence if you share.’

The charges were iniquitous. When Dodd had spent six months in ward at Jedburgh for one of his wife’s relatives, the charge had only been a couple of pennies a day, though admittedly he had had to sleep on a bench instead of a bed and the food had been frightful.

‘You’d better go in the Knight’s Commons,’ said Newton. ‘Seeing as you’re a knight.’

‘I’m not a knight, thank God,’ said Dodd. ‘I’m the Land Sergeant of Gilsland.’

‘Oh, really, sir, give over this nonsense. You’ll go where I tell you and I say you’re a gentleman, so you go in the Knight’s Commons. Will you be wanting a bed on your own, sir?’

‘Och, no, I’ll share. I wouldna pay a shilling a night for the best inn in London.’

‘Well, you would, sir, and more. But never mind. I take it kindly that you’re willing to share, makes my job simpler. Now do I have your word as a gentleman that you won’t cause trouble?’

‘No, ye do not.’

‘I’ll have to chain you in that case.’

‘Och. All right. I willna make trouble.’

‘Your word on it, sir?’

‘Ma word on it.’

Newton escorted him through the second gate and across the yard which boiled with people, men and women in all states of raggedness, most of them trading or working. There was a group of women gathered in the shade of an awning, sitting on the ground with their skirts spread out around them like brightly coloured pools, every white-capped head bent over some kind of linen stitchery and their fingers flashing.

Newton went over to one of the men playing cards in a doorway, sitting on boxes.