A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (28 page)

“Ay sir,” he said, “he couldnae do it safely by letter so he went tae speak to the Queen hisself.”

Sir Horatio smiled and nodded. “As ever,” he said, “Sir Robert is precipitate but correct.”

From flushing an unbecoming shade of red as a result of the ladies outside, Enys had now gone an equally ugly pale yellow.

“Sirs,” he said, leaning forward, “excuse my interruption, but is it true that the Queen does not know of this…ah…this land fraud?”

Sir Horatio sighed. “As far as I know, she does not.”

“Ay she does now,” said Dodd with confidence, “Sir Robert will have left this morning when he gave the huntsmen and falconers the slip and it’s ainly forty miles. He’ll be at court for sure by now.”

“It may take him some time to gain audience with Her Majesty,” said Sir Horatio. “But yes, correctly put. She
did
not know, Mr. Enys.”

“Ah hope she hasnae bought none?” Dodd asked, voicing his main worry.

Sir Horatio laughed kindly. “Why would she need to,” he asked, “since if there were gold there, she would own it in any case through Crown prerogative?”

Dodd nodded. “Ay,” he said. “That’s a relief.”

Sir Horatio seemed highly amused by this. “Indeed it is.”

“But…sir…” Enys was frowning with puzzlement, “I drafted many of the bills of sales and the deeds of transfer and I told Mr. Vice Chancellor Heneage that I thought the thing was not what it seemed. I told him that I knew many of the places had been assayed for tin many times and found to be barren of all metals including gold. It was why he dismissed me as his lawyer and then took steps to destroy my practice because he would not have what he called the falsity told abroad. But I assumed he had told Her Majesty at least.”

There was a silence at this. Mr. Pickering seemed the least surprised at it, and in fact had a cynical smile. Sir Horatio turned and stared at Enys with an expression of mixed anger and calculation while Dodd groaned softly under his breath.

“When did you tell him this, Mr. Enys?”

“Months ago. He was very angry. I think because he had bought some.”

“Hm. He was not the only one,” said Sir Horatio. “Mr. Enys, I understand that you were in contact with the assayer, a Mr. Jackson.”

Enys lifted his head. “No sir,” he said, “that was not me, that was my brother whom I came here to find. And it was Father Jackson SJ.”

“Society of Jesus.”

Enys nodded.

“The man that was hanged, drawn, and quartered by Mr. Hughes?” said Pickering with a puzzled frown.

“Nay sir, that wasnae him. It was one Richard Tregian.” Dodd corrected him. “Mr. Topcliffe substituted him for the Cornish gentleman.”

Palavicino was leaning forward, his face full of bewilderment. “Substituted him?”

“Ay sir, and Fr. Jackson seemingly ended up in the Thames wi’ a knife in his back but we dinna ken how or why.”

Enys drew a deep breath. “Sir, my brother has been calling himself James Vent. Do you know where he is? Sergeant Dodd said he thought he had seen him here?”

“Vent?” Pickering’s glittering little eyes had gone hard. “He was here but he ran out of money. Said he was going to the Netherlands again to make his fortune and headed for a ship he knew of in the Pool of London.”

“Do you know which ship, sir?”

“The
Judith of Penryn
,”

The name didn’t seem to mean much to Enys but Dodd recognised it. Och God, he had to get back to Somerset House after all.

“Thank you, sir,” Enys was saying. “Will you excuse me, gentlemen. I must try and track down my brother and speak to him urgently. Sir Horatio was looking very thoughtful while Pickering was scowling.”

Enys was already bowing to Pickering in thanks and heading for the door, no doubt to find a boat to chase his brother. For a moment Dodd wondered about telling him who owned the ship, then decided he would find out soon enough. As the lawyer clattered down the stair, Dodd had a thought about the now decoded letters. He had been wondering about it but now he made a decision. If Palavicino was the Queen’s banker, perhaps he was the best way for Dodd to get the information safely out of his keeping and into the Queen’s. It clearly all hinged on whoever Icarus might be a codename for and he had no idea, although he suspected Carey did. Icarus had been in normal letters, not numbers, so he supposed it was doubly important. He pulled out the coded letters and his laborious translations and handed them to Palavicino.

“That one,” he said, tapping it, “I found hidden in Richard Tregian’s chamber. The ither one…” He coughed, not sure how this would be received. “…ah, the ither one we found when we had a warrant to arrest Mr. Heneage for assault in my case and we were searching his house for him.”

It seemed both Pickering and Palavicino knew about that because they both smiled.

“As usual, ingenious and appropriate,” said Palavicino, not making a lot of sense as far as Dodd was concerned. “And what have we here?”

“The translation’s there,” said Dodd, quite proud of what he had done in only an afternoon. Sir Horatio looked hard at the writing and his lips moved as he read it. Then he looked up and nodded.

“Sergeant, thank you,” he said. “I shall see the Queen receives this at once.”

“Ay,” said Dodd, thinking it might be about time to be going. Pickering stopped him. “Just a word before we go, Sergeant, about Sir Robert’s enquiry,” said Pickering quietly. “I’ve asked around and I will lay my life on it that not one of my people ‘as lifted that survey out of the Cornish maid’s purse.”

“Eh?” said Dodd, then remembered. “Ay?” He was surprised. “Are ye sure?”

“Certain. I’d’ve ‘ad it in my ‘ands by yesterday night if any nip-purse or foist or any of their friends ‘ad it, believe me.”

Dodd nodded. That left only one place the survey could have gone to and now, he thought about it, made perfect sense.

“As for what the watermen think about whoever did in the Papist priest…It’s only a rumour but they say ‘e was escaping from Topcliffe’s place in south bank marshes when it happened. I haven’t found the man who rowed the boat for them so I can’t say for sure. Unfortunately, he disappeared a couple of days ago.”

“Thank ye, Mr. Pickering,” said Dodd, thinking he knew what had happened to the poor boatman. “If ye hear any…”

There was a thunderous banging on the doors downstairs. Pickering jumped to his feet and stood there with his fists clenching and unclenching.

“What the ‘ell…?” he said.

“Open in the name of the Queen!” came the roar from below. Dodd moved to the window and peered out. The area around the warehouse was full of large men in buff coats, another boat pulling up with more men in it. Out of it stepped Mr. Vice Chancellor Heneage with a very prim and satisfied expression on his plump prissy face. Dodd had forgotten how much he disliked the man. At least he was still sporting green and purple around his eyes and his nose was swollen.

Poor Enys had obviously walked straight into an ambush as he left to find his brother. He was being held with his arms twisted behind him by two men who looked pleased with themselves. Enys looked as if he might be sick and was still struggling.

“Och,” said Dodd, cursing himself for a fool. He looked at Sir Horatio who was still frowning at the letters.

“Get him out o’ here, Mr. Pickering,” he said to the King of London who seemed too shocked to react. “Have ye no’ a bolthole?”

Pickering blinked, shook himself and moved. “’Course I do. Come along, Sir Horatio.”

He went to the corner of the small room and rolled back one of the mats. Dodd lifted the trapdoor, revealing stairs leading down. To his surprise, Pickering did not go down the steps but motioned to Sir Horatio.

“At the bottom is a door into a basement, it’s a bit wet but don’t worry. Open the door and go along the passage and you’ll be in the warehouse over by the third crane, see?”

Palavicino looked out the window and nodded. “Now Sir Horatio,” gravelled Pickering, making the two words sound like “sratio”, “’ere’s the key to the door of the warehouse. The seals is fake and you can put them back. Bring me the key when you can.”

Palavicino nodded, took a candle from the mantlepiece, shook hands with Pickering, and then went down the stairs, moving remarkably quietly for so large a man.

There was more thundering and a banging downstairs and Heneage ordering the door to be opened in the name of the Queen. Pickering, short sturdy and bullet headed, looked at the door, pursed his lips, sucked his teeth, and squared his shoulders. From a mere wealthy merchant he had become something much more dangerous.

“I’m going to welcome in our visitors. I think you should slip away as well as I’m quite sure ‘e’s got a warrant for you.”

Dodd quietly loosened his sword despite what Pickering had said, then followed the man through the gambling room where the players and the half-clad women were staring through the windows. “Mary,” said Pickering to one of them, “put ‘em away, luv,” and the women started pulling their shifts up and relacing their stays so as to look a little bit more respectable. “Start moving out, girls,” he added as he went past, quite quietly. The girls started ushering all the wealthy players to the back room where the trapdoor and secret tunnel were.

Dodd went down the polished stairs. Briscoe and the other henchman were standing on the inside of the barred and locked door as it shuddered to the blows of a battering room.

“Yerss,” said Pickering, “plenty of time, gentlemen, these doors was put in by the Tunnage and Poundage. The girls are still busy upstairs. Meantime…What would you do if some jumped up court clerk did this to you in your own country, Sergeant Dodd?”

Dodd was amazed Pickering needed to ask. “If it were the Queen herself as did it, then I’d do nowt,” he said, heavily, “but if it were aye one o’ her men, then I’d have the Border alight in two hours, Mr. Pickering, the bells would a’ be ringin’ and the men would a’ be riding. But Ah’m nobbut the Land-Sergeant of Gilsland and Ah could ainly call on the Dodds and the Armstrongs there and mebbe the Bells and the Storeys, four hundred men at best. If it were Richie Graham of Brackenhill that had his tower burned, by God, Mr. Pickering, there’d be fifteen hundred men i’the saddle by daybreak and Carlisle in flames the day after.”

The King of London smiled briefly. “Hm,” he said, “it ain’t quite like that here in London, mind, but I agree wiv you, I will not be treated like this and I won’t ‘ave my men treated like this either. So, Sergeant, wot do you reckon?”

“Me? There’s a man I’d like to talk to first and then…I wantae talk to the owner o’ the
Judith of Penryn
and find this man Vent. And then, Mr. Pickering, Ah’m at yer disposal.”

Pickering looked consideringly at his men. “ Mr. Briscoe,” he said quietly as the battering ram hammered home again, “would you do me the kindness to come and speak with me…”

To Dodd’s surprise the man called Briscoe suddenly looked hunted and made for the stairs. His mate caught hold of him firmly by the neck and held him there.

Pickering went up to him. “Easy way or hard way?” he said softly through his teeth.

Briscoe licked his lips and started to cry. “Only, ‘e took my Ellie, my missus, what’s gonna have a baby, he took ‘er down to his house and he said to me, ‘e’d have ‘er belly cut open to get the baby out and then ‘e’d make me watch while ‘e…”

“Heneage?”

Briscoe shook his head “Topcliffe.”

“And?”

“And so I told ‘im where the game would be and that we was waiting for Sir Robert to come back and…I told ‘im.”

“Topcliffe still got yer mort?”

Briscoe nodded, then hid his face in his hands. “I signalled when I saw the Sergeant,” he whispered, his voice muffled.

Pickering shook his head. “Tim,” he said in a low voice, “Why didn’t yer come and tell me?”

“’e said ‘e’d know if I did and ‘e’d kill ‘er right away.”

Bang went the battering ram again. You had to admire the way the doors were standing up to it, thought Dodd. Surely Heneage would try gunpowder next?

Pickering nodded once. “I’m ‘urt Tim,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m ‘urt you didn’t find a way to tell me what was going on,”

“I know, Mr. Pickering, I’m ever so sorry, I couldn’t fink ‘ow to do it.”

“Well, the damage is done now. What do you fink I should do about you?”

Briscoe studied the ground, and sniffled. He muttered something Dodd couldn’t make out.

Pickering smiled. “’Course I’m going to kill you, Tim, but what should happen first?” He put his hand up on Briscoe’s burly shoulder. “’Ave a fink about it, tell me later. Meanwhile, see Sergeant Dodd here?” Briscoe nodded. “’e needs a man at ‘is back if ‘e’s to get away and do somfink about yer mort and yer kinchin. Will yer do that? Wivvout tipping ‘im no lays?”

Briscoe nodded convulsively and looked up at Dodd who was now halfway up the stairs.

“Come on,” Dodd grunted, and Briscoe followed him up to the room where the girls were just staggering down the steps carrying large bags of money, but still leaving some scattered about the tables. Dodd approved of that—the money would slow the searchers down considerably. The girl called Mary stood waiting by the trapdoor and a couple of the younger ones were bunched around her, looking angry and frightened.