A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (14 page)

“Where are you going Sergeant?” hissed Carey from the wall.

“I’m gonnae see for meself,” Dodd told him, trotting quietly down the alley and then into another one on a sudden thought. Aggravatingly the alley suddenly twisted on itself and ended up at some riversteps, so Dodd moved along the bank to another alley and then jogged along it back to the main road.

There he saw exactly what he had suspected: a large group of large men in jacks carrying loaded crossbows. They were filing down the alley he had just accidentally avoided coming out of.

“Och,” thought Dodd with fury, “Will I niver get to ma bed?”

He opened his mouth and let out what he thought was quite a good caterwaul, heard running feet stumbling down Fleet Street for the Strand. Two urchins who had been asleep on a dungheap for its warmth were sitting up and staring at him. Dodd nodded at them and beckoned them over, gave each of them sixpence which was all he could bear to part with, and told them what they were to do.

There was no sign of alarm from the men at arms who had paused at Dodd’s imitation cat. Moving quietly and deftly through the shadows, Dodd came round by a different direction to the front of the Mermaid where the sign hung over a coach waiting outside, with the horses half asleep, their hooves tipped. Dodd recognised the damned thing, and crept up to it on the other side with his heart thundering.

The coach itself was empty. Dodd peered round and saw one man standing by the door to the tavern, who was probably the coachman, looking in with interest.

Suddenly there was a shouting and yelling followed by the loud twang of a discharged crossbow. Then a grumble of voices.

Dodd sighed. Instead of waiting for Dodd to come back with his report, the daft Courtier had got himself captured and he hoped that he hadn’t got in the way of that crossbow bolt.

“Thish ish an outrage!” came Carey’s voice at its loudest and most affected. “How dare you, shir, unhand me!”

Dodd nearly smiled, it was all so theatrical. Had he done it on purpose, perhaps? Peeping around the coach he could see Carey through the diamond paned windows, lit up by candles and menaced by several crossbows, dusting mud off his hat.

Dodd skulked back behind the coach and very quietly, using the point of his dagger and a fingernail which broke, pulled out two of the axle pins in the coach wheels. He then went back down the alleys, past the two urchins who were bent over a tinderbox, and climbed onto the wall of the courtyard again. The goats were up, giving occasional excited bleats, the chickens were complaining to each other but not daring to come out of their hutch, which in any case was bolted against alleycats. With infinite care, Dodd climbed down from the wall and crossed the yard. In front of him was the usual shamble of kitchen sheds and storesheds and the entrance of the cellar. A gabble of talk came from the commonroom.

Holding his breath, Dodd tried the back door to the kitchen which was latched on the inside. Very carefully he put his dagger through the hole and jiggled. For a wonder the bar was not pegged and came up. He went into the scullery where the pots and pans were piled up and into the kitchen where the boy was fast asleep by the fire, wrapped in his cloak with the spit dog huddled in his arms.

A loud growling came from the spit dog. In any case, Dodd needed to talk to the boy. He went over, gripped the dog’s nose with one hand and clamped the other one over the boy’s mouth. The boy woke and squeaked with fright.

“Can ye understand me?” Dodd said patiently, and told the boy what he had come to say. The boy shivered and stared at him, so Dodd hoped he had got the message, tapped the dog on the nose, and padded on to the serving passage, closing the door behind him as he went. He heard a scramble of feet and excited yipping.

There was a second door to the commonroom and Dodd put his ear to it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” came Carey’s pained tones, “Jusht…on my way home from an evening’sh cardplay with my friendsh and I am shurrounded…shurrounded, sir!…by Smithfield bullyboys who threaten me with croshbows and make me come in here, no idea why, sure it’s illegal. Eh?”

There was a quiet ugly murmer which Dodd could not make out. He was sure it didn’t come from Marlowe, being too deep and not nearly cocky enough. It contained rather a dull certainty. The owner of the coach, then? But Heneage’s voice was lighter than that.

“Yesh, I wash, marrer of fact, wiv him, your friend and mine, Mr. Kit Marlowe, playwright. Got lorsht.”

More muttering. “Mr. Topcliffe,” said Carey’s voice with magnificent boozy arrogance, “my friendsh have all gone home and I would like to ash well. What…ish the problem?”

More murmering. Carey laughed theatrically. “Don’t be ridiculoush,” he said, “I can’t turn Papist. I’m the Queen’sh bloody nephew. And her coush…cousin. If I so much as think about it, which I wouldn’t because it’sh evil and treashon as well, I’d already be in the Tower with my head chopped off. So to shpeak.”

Dodd risked a peek round the door. Carey had sat himself down on one of the settles by the fading fire with his right leg propped on his left knee and a mannered right hand placed just so on it. Standing nearby with a strange expression of mixed fear and amusement on his face was Marlowe. In front of Carey at an angle from the door, arms folded, dark gown with hanging sleeves trailing off his shoulders and men behind him, was an old man with a sword. At odds with the lines on his face was his hair and beard which was a sooty black colour. Dodd didn’t know him.

Marlowe was staring straight at Dodd and must have seen him. Infinitesimally he moved his head to right and left at Dodd, then lifted his brows and his gaze went over Dodd’s shoulder. He turned back to the black-bearded man.

Dodd’s stomach froze twice. First when he knew Marlowe had seen him, once again when he realised what Marlowe was urgently trying to tell him.

A click of the safety hook coming off a crossbow trigger. Dodd sighed softly, let the door shut, and turned with his hands up.

One of the henchmen was standing there grinning gaptoothed, a beer mug in one hand and a crossbow in the other. That was the nuisance of crossbows. Unlike firearms you couldn’t hear them because there was no match to hiss.

“Ha ha!” said the henchman, “Got yer.” He took a pull of beer from his mug and waved the crossbow slightly. “Wotchoo doin ‘ere, yor sposed to be watchin ve coach.”

Dodd paused for a moment, completely mystified then said as near to London-talk as he could get, “Ah wis ‘opin to find booze.”

It didn’t work. The man’s eyes narrowed so Dodd gave up on subtlety and kicked him as hard as he could in balls, hoping he wasn’t aiming the crossbow straight. The man’s eyes crossed, he slowly started to crumple up. Dodd’s hand closed on the crossbow and took it off him to find the thing wasn’t properly loaded and the bolt had stuck fast. There were too many men backing the black-bearded man in the common room, so Dodd changed his plan.

He ran back through the kitchen where the kitchen boy was methodically helping himself to meat hanging up in a larder while the spit dog yipped excitedly. He grabbed the boy by the ear. “Ah tellt ye to run, now run!” he growled and propelled the boy out the door in front of him, followed by the spit dog, still yelping.

The boy ran across the courtyard, slammed open the gate, and disappeared into the alley. The tied-up goats set up a loud bleating and the chickens clucked. Dodd sprinted round the side of the lean-to, found a water barrel, and climbed up it onto the slippery wooden-shingled roof.

He watched with interest, counting under his breath, as a stream of broad men in jacks came rushing into the yard, across it and through the gate, followed by the black bearded man who was pointing with his sword and shouting furiously as he hobbled after.

Wishing again, pointlessly, for Barnabus who would have been very useful with his throwing daggers, Dodd stayed as flat as he could and listened for the sounds to die down. Then he climbed up a little to a balcony, hearing the whispering and giggling of the urchins down in the yard.

It was a struggle to get over the rail thanks to the stupid stuffed hose he was wearing. He tried the door to the best bedroom but it was locked. He used his dagger to attack the hinges of the window shutters where the wood was old and a moment later after some stealthy cracking, managed to lever the shutter back and off, leaving a space large enough for him to climb through and into the empty bedroom. He hoped. He held the useless crossbow out and waited for the shout and scrape of steel but there was no sound of breathing in the room.

The corridor was also empty. Dodd clattered down the stairs with his sword in his right and the crossbow in his left, and came upon a fascinating picture.

Two men must have been left to guard Carey but they were both in crumpled heaps on the floor. Marlowe and Carey were standing over them. Carey looked up as Dodd came down the stairs, slightly breathless no doubt because of the tightness of his doublet.

Carey beamed at Dodd. “Excellent, Sergeant, I told Kit you wouldn’t be long.”

Dodd crushed the impulse to grin back like some court ninny. They were very far from being safe and in fact he could smell smoke already. He went over and checked the men on the floor and was happy to find a pouch of quarrels on one of them, which he took. He then carefully discharged the crossbow in his hands which popped the bent bolt out onto the floor, put his toe in the stirrup, rebent the bow and hooked it so he could slot in a new bolt. Much happier, he shook his head at Carey and Marlowe’s move for the kitchen and instead went straight for the main entrance to the inn where the coachman was sitting on the coach driving seat, looking worried.

Dodd pointed the crossbow at him and he froze and sat back down again.

“Ay,” said Dodd. “Ye didna see nothing.”

The coachman nodded wildly. Carey and Marlowe looked at each other.

“Shall we steal the coach?” asked Marlowe, giggling slightly.

Dodd sighed. This was a serious business, not a boy’s escapade. “Ah wouldnae advise it,” he said coldly.

Carey looked over his shoulder. “Somerset House,” he said.

They bunched together and headed up to Ludgate and then left into Fleet Street over the Fleet Bridge that stank to high heaven. Dodd’s eyes were itching with tiredness.

Behind them were heavy running feet and shouts. After one glance to see the black-bearded man’s henchmen coming after them in a close-packed crowd and several crossbows being raised, all three of them picked up their heels and sprinted along the Fleet, running like hell for Somerset House or one of the little alleys leading into the Whitefriars if necessary. After about half a minute of serious running, Dodd was starting to feel breathless and tightchested. A crossbow twanged and he ducked instinctively, was outraged to see Marlowe drawing ahead of him as they pounded up the cobbles and wondered, in some cranny of his skull which was not in a panic, what had happened to his wind?

There was the rumble of coach wheels on the cobbles behind him, changing to scraping as they came onto the rutted muddy disgrace of the Strand. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see the black coach hammering after them, the horses nearly at the gallop, then the sound of clattering as it turned to avoid the margins of the dungheap. There was a crack and an ear-jangling crunch and crash as the wheels on one side of the coach tilted inwards and fell off. The coach toppled over sideways in a heap as the coachman leaped desperately for safety and landed on a soft pile of rotten marrows. Now that was a highly satisfying sound. Dodd had taken a great dislike to that coach and he risked another glance to see it in its splintered ruin, half on the dungheap with the coachman climbing groggily out from the muck. The horses had come to a stop with their traces trailing and were eating a London wife’s herbal windowsill.

Then he heard another cry and squinted ahead and his heart sank: up ahead was another large body of men jogging towards them, torches held high. Dodd immediately swerved left to the awning of the Cock Tavern and eyed the red-painted shutters with a view to climbing them for a good vantage on the roof. Marlowe too dodged behind a stone conduit. Carey however picked up speed and kept running forward.

“Mr. Bellamy!” he yelled. “Don’t shoot…”

There was a shout and the group of men stopped, Carey was among them, and Dodd heard his voice carolling, “How very good to see you.”

“Likewise sir,” said Bellamy, and Dodd recognised the voice of Hunsdon’s deputy steward.

Men in Berwick jacks and black and yellow livery were fanning out into the street to block it. They raised an interesting variety of weapons. The black-bearded man’s henchmen came to a halt and the two parties stared at each other across a gap of a hundred yards.

Dodd decided he fancied some height, so despite his lack of breath, he swung himself up on the lattices and hoisted himself to the join with another shingled roof, prayed devoutly that it wouldn’t collapse nor slip, and eased himself to a squatting position at the corner. Trying to control his ridiculous puffing, he aimed his crossbow carefully for the black-bearded man. Am I ill, Dodd wondered anxiously, och God, I must be. His heart was pounding, his breath so short that his hands wobbled on the stock of the bow, and he couldn’t get a clean shot. Ah Jesu, maybe it was plague?

Marlowe had broken from the shelter of his conduit for the Hunsdon liverymen, and he and Carey were now invisible in the mass of them. There was a thud of hooves on the mud behind the Hunsdon party and two horses skidded to a halt. The foremost was being ridden by a broad grey-haired man in clothes that glinted with gold brocade.