A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (17 page)

“Three years ago I heard that my best friend that had married my sister had taken the smallpox,” he was almost whispering as if he had difficulty getting breath to speak even slowly. “He…I posted down to Cornwall when I heard and found him dead and buried and his two children sickening. After they died my sister took sick and so I nursed her for I would not bring any other into that house of ill fortune to do it. Then when she recovered, I took sick of it as well and so turn and turnabout she nursed me. We lived, barely, hence we have such similar scars, but my sister says…No one cares how ugly a man be, so he be rich enough and kindly, but for a woman to lose her complexion and her looks is an end to all marrying. And so, since her jointure was small and her husband’s land reverted to his brother on the death of his issue, we shut up the house in Cornwall and came to London together to try if the law would make our fortunes.”

Carey nodded. “Her Majesty says that Lady Sidney’s scars are as much honours of battle as any gallant’s sword cuts. And so I think yours and your sister’s must be too.”

Enys inclined his head at the compliment, then turned aside to stare over the water again. “My apologies, sir, but I hate to remember that year.”

Carey and Dodd left him to it. The tale was common enough, Dodd thought, but hit each person it happened to as rawly as if no one else had ever caught smallpox. He might catch it himself and die with his face turned to a great clot of blood as the blisters burst—though they said that when the blisters came out you were on the mend so long as none of the blisters turned sick. That was why they tied your hands to the bedposts so you wouldn’t scratch.

Dodd shuddered and trailed his fingers in the waters. Fish rose to him from the depths and he wished vaguely for a fishing rod.

Westminster steps was again clotted with lawyers in their black robes, Enys dug his own robe out of a drawstring bag of fashionable blue brocade and slung it round his shoulders. At once the transformation happened; he seemed to relax and settle as if he had put on a jack and helmet and was waiting for the fight to begin.

“Did they get all the papers?” Carey asked him.

Enys smiled for the first time, even if lopsidedly. “No sir, not all.” He scrambled to get out of the boat and nearly fell in the Thames again when his sword got between his legs. Dodd rolled his eyes regretfully. God preserve him from ever having to take Enys into a real fight.

In the din and confusion of Westminster Hall they found no trace of Heneage appearing to answer their plea.

“Calling Mr. Enys in the matter of Sergeant Dodd versus Mr. Vice Chamberlain Heneage et aliter,” shouted one of the court staff.

Once again they lined up in front of Mr. Justice Whitehead who scowled at them from under his coif.

“Mr. Enys?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I regret to inform you,” said the judge in English, leafing through the papers before him with the expression of one skinning decayed rats, “that Mr. Heneage’s case has been transferred under the Queen’s Prerogative to the court of one of my brother justices and has been adjourned sine die. He has seen fit to rescind all warrants of pillatus on Mr. Heneage and all and any co-defendants. ”

Enys sighed.

“What?!” shouted Carey. “God damn it!”

Dodd’s hand went to his swordhilt and his face set into what his men would have recognised as his killing face.

“Mr. Enys” snapped the judge, “be so good as to inform your clients that if I hear any more blasphemous disrespect from them, I shall have them committed for contempt of court.”

Both Carey and Dodd subsided. It seemed that the only one who was unsurprised was Enys who was looking exceedingly cynical.

“Which honourable judge was it?”

“Mr. Justice Howell,” said the judge with a sour expression.

Enys nodded. “Thank you, my lord,”

“By the way,” said the judge, “for completeness, I have had copies made of the papers filed this morning under the Queen’s prerogative by a Mr. Evesham. I believe he is the clerk to Sir Robert Cecil.” He leaned over and gave a sheaf of papers to Enys who took them with an expression of cautious surprise. Carey’s lips were formed into a soundless whistle.

“My lord,” he said. “Sir Robert Cecil, Privy Councillor?”

“Yes,” said the judge, glaring at Carey over his spectacles. Carey swept a magnificent bow.

“Then my apologies to you, my lord,” he said, “for having unintentionally misled you yesterday. It seems that this
is
a matter of Court faction, a complication of which I was unaware.”

The judge nodded and rubbed the margin of his beard with his thumb. “Quite so, Sir Robert.”

“Thank you very much, my lord,” said Carey, and led all three of them from the Hall. Behind them they heard Judge Whitehead’s weary voice. “You again, Mr. Irvine. I hope you have the correct pleadings this time…”

Once again they needed a drink with even Enys accepting a small cup of aqua vitae. He was reading the papers he had been given very carefully, eyes narrowed, his lips moving as he reread some of the words.

Carey was cutting into a large steak and kidney pudding which was the ordinary for that day. “Well?” he said.

“The case has been adjourned sine die, which means indefinitely, for reasons good and sufficient to the Queen’s Prerogative. That means both the civil and the criminal case. We can apply for a new court date but this will set the proceedings back by weeks…”

“Does the Queen no’ like my case, then?” asked Dodd, wondering if he should leave the country immediately. Then he thought of something. “Ay, but how does she know about it? Is she no’ still at Oxford?”

Carey looked thoughtful. “Yes, we only tried to arrest Heneage yesterday. I suppose he could have sent a message the forty odd miles to Oxford and back in the time, but the man would have had to ride post and ride through the night as well.”

“Eighty miles. Ay,” said Dodd, “ye could dae it if ye could see the Queen immediately…”

“No, the Queen will not have heard anything about it. These papers are from Sir Robert Cecil acting for Lord Burghley who, as Lord Chancellor and Lord Privy Seal, may wield the Queen’s Prerogative during pleasure.”

Carey nodded. “Hm. Interesting. I wonder…Hm. Must ask my father.”

“Can I no’ sue Heneage then?”

“You can continue with the litigation by requiring reasons for the adjournment and you can make representations to the Privy Council asking for the case to be heard in a different court,” said Enys, narrowing his eyes. “Obviously it would be ridiculous to take it in front of Mr. Justice Howell who is notoriously corrupt.”

“So I get nae satisfaction?” said Dodd mournfully.

“Well, you might…” began Enys.

“I think I should go and talk to Her Majesty about this,” said Carey, through a mouthful of kidney.

Dodd grunted and pushed away the rest of his pudding. He hadn’t expected much justice, but he had allowed himself to hope he would get some down here in the foreign south. Ah well, serve him right for being a silly wee bairn about it. His face lengthened as he considered the matter.

Carey washed down the last of his meal with the reasonable beer and leaned back with his fingers drumming on the front of his doublet. “I wonder what the surnames are up to at the moment?” he said to Dodd.

Dodd shrugged. Early autumn, the horses and cattle fat, bad weather not set in yet, but the nights not long enough. The planning would be feverish.

“It’s October and November they’ll start at the reiving,” he said, “when they’ve killed their pigs and calves. We’ve time yet.”

“Wouldn’t want to miss the fun,” agreed Carey, who probably meant it, the idiot. “Well then, I think I’ll find out about that corpse which annoyed my father. The inquest might not have happened yet—shall we go to the Board of Greencloth?”

The Board of Greencloth was held in a meeting room at the business end of the Palace of Whitehall, a short walk from Westminster Hall. Carey spoke gravely to the yeoman of the guard at the entrance and they were all three admitted to a wood-panelled room whose dusty glass windows let in very little light. The corpse itself was not present for which Dodd heartily thanked God, but there were several women there. One of them was Mrs. Briscoe, as round and pregnant as a bomb. Mr. Briscoe stood behind her looking nervous as if ready to catch her when she fell. Another was a grave looking lady in a dark cramoisie woollen kirtle with a doublet-bodice and small falling band. She had grey hair peeking under a white linen cap and black beaver hat, and a very firm jaw. Behind her stood a pale-faced young woman in dove grey furnished with a modest white ruff.

The men who served on the board filed into the room, led by Hunsdon who already looked bored and was carrying his white staff of office. The others were pouchy-faced and dully-dressed, men of business who ran the complex administration of the palace. A couple of them were distinctly green about the gills which might have been because they had gone to the crypt to view the body in question. Or it might have been the green baize cloth that covered the trestle table boards in front of them, a cloth which made some sense of the name of the Board. All of those waiting bowed to the members of the Board who sat down. One drank some of the wine in a flagon before him and took a little colour from it.

“We are here,” intoned Hunsdon, “to enquire as to the probable identity and cause of death of the corpse found by Mistress Wentworth, Queen’s Chamberer, at the Queen’s Privy Steps. Have we all viewed it?”

Everyone nodded, one swallowed again. “I have had the body cried three times in the cities of Westminster and London. Has anyone any…”

The grey-haired woman stepped forward and curtseyed to Hunsdon. “My lord, I am here to claim the body which I have identified as Mr. John Jackson who went missing in London some three weeks ago.”

Hunsdon’s bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Indeed, mistress. And you are?”

Carey was staring at the woman with his lips parted in a half-smile and his eyes narrowed. “Hm,” he said, in a tone of great interest.

“His cousin, sir, Mrs. Sophia Merry, gentlewoman.”

“Ah.”

Mrs. Briscoe had a puzzled expression on her face, mixed with some relief. Hunsdon looked shrewdly at her. “And you, mistress? Have you anything to say?”

“Oh, ah.” Mrs. Briscoe seemed confused at being addressed so courteously. “Um…I thought it was my bruvver, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You are willing to yield the body to Mrs. Merry?”

“Oh yes, my lord, if she’s sure. I’m not, see. His face…Might not have been him.” She looked down and frowned.

Mr. Briscoe put his arm across her shoulders and whispered in her ear. “My lord, may I sit down?” she asked in a whisper.

“Of course, mistress,” said Hunsdon, no more eager to have her go into labour there and then than any man would be. One of the court attendants brought up a stool for her to sit on.

The rest of the inquest went quickly. No mention was made of the man’s missing feet, all the attention was on the dagger-wound in the back and the missing joint of his finger. The Board of Greencloth found that Mr. John Jackson had been unlawfully killed or murdered by person or persons unknown and released the corpse into the keeping of his cousin Mrs. Sophia Merry.

They all bowed, the Board filed out of the room, and moments later they were in the little alley behind Scotland Yard where were the kilns that fired the staggering quantities of earthenware the palace kitchens used.

“Why did Poley say, which corpse?” Dodd asked, the thought having just struck him. “Do a lot of deid men wind up in the Thames?”

“Of course, it’s very convenient if you don’t care about the dead person coming back to haunt you—no questions and no shroud money. Dead children too, dead babies. He could have been joking.”

“Or he could have known of more than one that he’d heard tell of or had to dae with.”

“He could. I think I should ask the watermen.” He stopped and frowned. “Except I can’t because I haven’t got Barnabus, damn it. They wouldn’t talk to me and if they did they’d lie.”

“Whit about the hangman?”

Carey smiled. “Hughes? Hm. I don’t know if the watermen would talk to him, but I wonder if…”

He immediately changed direction and headed northwards. Dodd sighed and followed, whilst Enys looked bewildered.

“Verrah impulsive gentleman, is Sir Robert,” said Dodd to the lawyer. “If ye’d like to tag along, I doot he’ll notice now he’s got a notion in his heid.”

Enys nodded, rammed his robe and the papers back into his brocade bag, slung it over his shoulder, and hurried after them.

Mr. Hughes lived near his normal workplace at Tyburn, in a pretty cottage surrounded by the shanties of the poor. He had his doublet off and his sleeves up and was working in his garden, carefully bedding out winter cabbage.

Carey stood by the garden wall watching with interest. After a while Hughes looked up and took his statute cap off.

“Well sir,” he said.

“Mr. Hughes, what would you say if I told you that the man you executed on Monday was the wrong one?”

“I’d say, they’re all innocent if you listen to…”

“No, I meant, genuinely was the wrong man.”