P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

‘So how did he come to be poisoned?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’m not the Devil, I’m not responsible for everything bad that happens.’ Marlowe was sneering. ‘Anyway, by this time, I’d decided that whatever Heneage was up to, I didn’t like it. So when the order came to set the bailiffs on you again, I made sure they arrested the wrong man.’

‘And put Dodd where?’

‘In the Fleet, of course; it’s the debtor’s prison for this area. Also, I think your brother’s there but I haven’t been able to find him. He’s not in the book and he’s not visible.’

‘Why do you think Edmund’s in the Fleet?’

‘Because Newton tried to spend some of the forged angels.’

‘Ah.’ Carey tossed his poignard from one hand to the other, making the jewels glitter. ‘Does Heneage know that yet?’

‘No.’

‘And my servants?’

Marlowe sighed. ‘That was Heneage again. He’d decided to take you himself and see what he could get out of you or…’

‘Make me confess to?’

‘Yes. It’s how he thinks. I was with him when we broke into your lodgings, and all we found was your man dead of something that wasn’t plague and the boy who was too stupid to tell us anything useful.’

‘You left him tied up.’

‘Heneage is planning to go back this evening when he’s had time to think and…’

‘And get thirsty and hungry and cramped? And terrified?’

‘Well, yes. And then persuade him to tell us where you were and what you were up to, perhaps other things.’

Carey’s eyes had become chips of ice. ‘Confess to Papistry? Say I’ve been hiding Jesuits?’

Marlowe shrugged.

‘You went along with this?’

‘Heneage has done worse,’ said Marlowe defensively. ‘He’s not like Walsingham.’

‘No.’

‘I’ve been trying to find you, have a meeting with you, all day…All I wanted was to explain…’

‘You’re a fool, Marlowe,’ Carey said. ‘Why didn’t you just go to my father and tell him all this?’

‘How could I possibly go into Somerset House with Shakespeare hanging around there?’

‘Written him a letter?’

‘You don’t know much about how Heneage works, do you?’

‘The other night, at the Mermaid?’

‘With Poley there?’

Carey sighed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think you enjoy the play too much, I think you like making people dance.’

Marlowe shrugged. ‘I’ve talked to you now,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do?’

Carey told him.

***

Dodd had finished his letter, sealed it, and after careful enquiry among the stallholders, had given it to the gaol servant who normally carried messages, along with a shilling to encourage him to deliver it. Obviously, it would be opened and read before it left the prison, but he had written it with an eye to that fact.

He sat in the sun and watched the activity around him, the children playing games in the dust, the women sewing, some of the men gambling or training rats or trying to press their suit with the women, some of whom were suspiciously well-dressed and vivacious. Apart from the glowering gaol servants and the men who were dragging chains around with them, it could have been a busy marketplace.

Dodd was just thinking wistfully of Janet and what she would make of him in his fine suit when three of the largest gaol servants came up to him, holding clubs. They looked worryingly purposeful and Dodd scrambled to his feet and looked for somewhere to run. Only there wasn’t anywhere, of course, that was the whole point of a gaol.

Two of them grabbed him and twisted his arms behind him.

‘What the hell is it now?’ he growled. ‘Why can ye no’ leave me alone?’

‘Sorry, Sir Robert,’ said the third, sounding pleased. ‘Orders.’

They started hustling him across the courtyard, causing the other prisoners to stare, into the gatehouse office, through another door and into what were obviously Newton’s living quarters. There were four other men standing waiting for him. The one in the middle, dressed in dark brocade and a fur-trimmed velvet gown, looked familiar with his smug moon-face and small pink lips. His expression wasn’t smug, however. It had started that way but as soon as it caught sight of Dodd, it changed, ran through puzzlement, incredulity, horror and ended in rage. Then it went blank.

‘I told you to fetch Sir Robert Carey,’ he snapped.

‘Yessir,’ said the gaol servant who had spoken before. ‘This is him, sir.’

Under the plumpness, jaw-muscles clenched. ‘No, it isn’t, you fool. It’s his henchman, Cod or Pod, or whatever his name is.’

‘Dodd, sir. Sergeant Henry Dodd, o’ Gilsland. Mr Heneage, is it no’?’

‘Where’s your master?’

‘Och,’ said Dodd sadly, his heart thumping hard. ‘I wish I knew that maself, sir. Only I don’t. I wis arrested in mistake for him and that’s the last I saw of him.’

‘You? In mistake for him?’ Heneage’s face was incredulous again.

‘Ay, sir,’ said Dodd. ‘It’s a puzzle to me too, sir. I dinna look anything like him, but there it is.’

‘Where’s Carey gone then?’

‘I told ye, sir, I dinna ken.’

‘Don’t try that half-witted northerner game with me, Dodd, I know you know.’

‘I dinna, sir. Sorry.’

The blow when it came was open-handed to the side of Dodd’s head, and hard enough to make his teeth rattle. It hurt, but Dodd had been hit much worse than that in his life, many times, and that wasn’t what he found frightening: it was the considering expression on Heneage’s face, the sort of expression boys wear when they take the wings off flies to see what they do. Heneage hadn’t been angry, hadn’t lashed out in a rage like most men. He had taken a cold considered decision to strike Dodd, to see how he would react.

If he could, Dodd would have hit him back, beaten him to pulp, Queen’s Vice Chamberlain or not, but he was being held too tightly by men who knew how to do it.

‘We’ll take him anyway,’ said Heneage to someone who was standing behind Dodd.

‘Would you sign the book, please, sir?’ said Newton, his face twisted with deference. ‘Only the trustees get…’

‘This man isn’t the one I wanted.’

‘Yes, well, would you sign it anyway, sir? Seeing as it’s not my fault?’

Heneage tutted and clicked his fingers. Newton brought the logbook over, held the inkpot while Heneage wrote swiftly in the space next to Dodd’s name.

‘Are you bailing him, sir?’

‘No, I’m transferring him.’

‘The warrant…’

‘This is the Queen’s business, Newton, don’t interfere.’

Dodd knew that phrase, Carey had told it to him. ‘I’m no’ a Papist,’ he said. ‘And I’m no’ a traitor, neither.’

Heneage looked at him fishily. ‘I think you’re lying,’ he said conversationally. ‘We’ll go to Chelsea where we can talk, as I suggested a few days ago, remember?’

And Carey had told him what that meant. Dodd felt cold.

‘What d’ye want from me?’ he asked.

‘I want the whereabouts of your master or his brother. It’s quite simple. When you’ve told me, I’ll have no further interest in you.’

Dodd drew a long shaky breath and thought quite seriously for several seconds about simply telling him that Edmund Carey was sick near to death a few yards away in Bolton’s Ward, in the name of Edward Morgan. He thought about it, part of him wanted desperately to do it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t give a sick man to Heneage to save his skin, even if it hadn’t been Carey’s own brother. Not that he particularly liked the blasted Courtier or his family, it had very little to do with them, only something inside Dodd set hard into an obstinate rock and wouldn’t allow it.