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

avoid it. Derisive shouts echoed over the water from the larger boat. The water was brown but not too bad-smelling, all things considered. Somerset House had its own well and in any case Dodd was sticking firmly to mild ale because it was good for his kidneys. He saw no need to take the suicidal risk of drinking expensive Thames water which was so full of ill humours and mud, although he was quite happy to eat the salmon from it when he wanted a cheap meal. The standard flapped in the breeze on the water.
    “What are you smiling at, Sergeant?” asked Carey, who seemed to be worried about something. Dodd realised he had indeed been smiling; he must still be a little drunk from the tobacco.
    “Nowt.” Dodd hastily averted his eyes from the thing.
    “Come on, it’s Father’s badge, isn’t it?”
    It had been. Dodd had been wondering, why did the Queen’s Lord Chamberlain, one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, choose as his badge the figure of what looked like a rabid duck?
    Carey stuck his lower lip out. “It’s a Swan Rampant.”
    “Ay?”
    “It’s in honour of my Lady Mother, if you’re interested.”
    “Ay?” Dodd was very interested, but tried hard not to let it show. “Is she still alive then, yer…ah…Lady Mother?”
    “Oh yes,” said Carey, not explaining any more. Dodd wondered where Hunsdon kept her as there was no sign of a wife at Somerset House. Perhaps she was tired: Dodd would have thought she would be after birthing the full Carey brood of eight living children, and possibly more pregnancies depending how many babes she might have lost.
    “So…ah…where is she?” asked Dodd in what he hoped was a tactful voice. After all, there was an official mistress at Hunsdon’s residence. “Prefers the countryside?”
    “You could say that,” answered Carey. “She has no interest in the Court and would have to attend the Queen if she lived in London, so…er…she doesn’t. She was here in ’88 though.”
    “Wise lady,” said Dodd, feeling sorry for her. It could be no easy thing to be married to the likes of lord Baron Hunsdon nor mother to his reckless sons. He pictured the lady in a manor house somewhere, living a dull but respectable life, embroidering linen and doing whatever else ladies did, whilst her husband philandered through the fleshpots of London.
    Carey nodded, still looking worried. Just once he cast a glance over his shoulder where the ship-forest of the Pool of London, on the other side of the Bridge, was disappearing round the bend.
    “I thought I saw…No,” he said to himself, “can’t be.”
    Dodd peered at the bridge himself but the crowded houses gave up no clue and nor did the carrion crows and buzzards squabbling over the new head there. He saw a flight of fourteen crows swoop up and attack the buzzards together, driving them away from the delicacy. He blinked for a moment. Did birds have surnames to back them? Crows all lived together in rookeries, of course, but did they foray out together against other birds like men? It was fascinating. He knew that the proper thing to call such an avian group was a “murder” of crows because of their liking for newborn lambs.
    More of Hunsdon’s liverymen were waiting for them at the Westminster steps. Carey and Dodd were led briskly not into the palace but to a small stone chapel tucked into the side of Westminster Hall, then down into the cool crypt. From the stairs Dodd smelled death, and so did Carey for his nostrils flared.
    A bloated corpse lay on a trestletable between the various tombs and monuments of the crypt. The body was surrounded by candles to burn out the bad airs. They were not doing a good job. Hunsdon stood before the corpse, hands on his sword belt, his Chamberlain’s staff under his arm.
    Carey bowed and so did Dodd. “My lord,” said Carey, “I was hoping that your business at the palace would be more pleasant.”
    Hunsdon scowled at his son. “Eh? What are you talking