A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery Read Online Free

because of the idiocy of his clothes and their tight fashionable fit.
    He pulled out the long clay pipe and started filling it with the mixture of tobacco and expensive Moroccan resin that Dr. Nunez had prescribed for them the previous week. Carey liked it enough to have made enquiries about importing some to Carlisle but it was eyewateringly expensive.
    Despite the fact that the practise of drinking herbal smoke was a highly fashionable London vice, Dodd rather liked it too. He took the pipe and drew some of the aromatic white smoke into his lungs and after a moment was blinking peacefully at the tumble of huts going down to the water.
    Carey chuckled. “It’s a mess, isn’t it? Last time I saw him, Sir Robert Cecil was talking about planting gardens down to the river. Of course you’d have to get the riffraff thrown out first.”
    “What? The lawyers?” Dodd said deadpan, and Carey grinned.
    “Good idea, as they won’t bloody work for us.”
    “Ye canna blame them. Heneage will have said to a few of them, tsk tsk, d’ye think the Careys’ll take care of yer kine and yer tower while you’re lawyering for that Dodd, tsk tsk, and the word will have gone round,” Dodd said knowledgeably.
    “Metaphorically speaking, but yes. Shortage of Readerships, strange famine of appointments to the serjeantcy, etcetera, etcetera. Quod erat demonstrandum.”
    “Ay. So. Will we do it ourselves?”
    “What, go to court? Certainly not.”
    “Why not? It canna be so hard if lawyers can do it.”
    Carey snorted with giggles and Dodd almost giggled as well, feeling pleasantly drunk from the smoke.
    “Sergeant, you’ve run wood. How long does it normally take you to draft one bill? An afternoon? And I’m certainly not studying the law at my age.”
    “Other young gentlemen study at the Inns of Court,” Dodd pointed out. One of the young gentlemen happened to be standing nearby wrapped in his black cloth robe, very like a crow, blinking at the ducks on the pond. For a moment Dodd thought he was familiar, but couldn’t place him at all.
    Carey took the pipe back from Dodd who had forgotten he was holding it. “Not me. I went to France and wapped a lot of French ladies,” said Carey coarsely. “We need a lawyer.”
    “All Heneage has done is reive our horses,” Dodd said.
    “Metaphorically speaking,” Carey corrected, waggling the end of the pipe at him.
    “So then we go after him on foot. We do it ourselves. Ay, so it’s slower but…”
    Carey shook his head and passed the pipe back to Dodd. “I keep telling you, this is not a Border feud, we do things differently in London. Perhaps Father could twist some arms, raise the fees…Maybe one of the Bacon brothers would take it pro bono if I asked nicely.”
    Dodd shook his head firmly and opened his mouth to argue but there was a soft cough which interrupted him.
    “Excuse me, sirs, but I couldn’t help hearing your discourse.”
    It was the young man in the lawyer’s robe. As the man made his bow, Dodd stared at him suspiciously, assuming this must be one of Heneage’s spies you heard so much about. The young man was average height, narrow built, with sandy hair under one of the newly fashionable beaver hats. Sharp blue eyes peered out of a face ruined by smallpox, worse even than Barnabus. His attempt at a friendly smile was actually twisted by the scarring. There was a shocking pit right next to his mouth, the size of a farthing.
    “Is it true that you are in need of a lawyer?”
    “Possibly,” said Carey, eyeing the man.
    He bowed again to both of them, making Dodd feel uncomfortable. “I am James Enys, at your service, sirs, barrister-at-law.”
    “And yer daybook is no’ full?” asked Dodd cynically.
    “Empty, sirs.” The man laughed without humour and spread his soft white hands. One of the fingers was dented by a ring newly taken off. “I have just hocked my last ring, sirs, and turned off my clerk.”
    “Are ye no’ rich then?” Dodd asked