Air of Treason, An: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (Sir Robert Carey Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

their houses, cruel though it was, because if you came within ten feet of them you could catch it and die and all your family with you. Half the purpose of the Queen’s summer progresses was to get her out of London and away from the plague.
    “We’ve got no money,” sniffled the boy. “He said we had to come because we haven’t got no money what with the theatres all shut and Mr. Byrd wanted singers.”
    Thomasina pulled a small purse from her saddlebag and threw it to the boy. “Get yourselves back to London,” she said to him more gently. “Keep away from people. If any of you are alive in six weeks’ time, you may apply to the Master of the Revels again.”
    The old man was shouting hoarsely again, making no sense at all, about how he was owed money and he had a new play and the rest would catch up with them. The boy started crying again. Neither of the Master of the Revels’ men had firearms and were standing there looking as if they were about to bolt.
    Carey rode up beside Thomasina and aimed his pistol at the man. It was a long shot and he hadn’t wound his other dag, so he rested the gun’s barrel on his left wrist and breathed out to steady his pounding heart. With those death-tokens on him, shooting the old man would be doing him a kindness.
    Another lad, with bandages round his neck, climbed trembling out of the cart and persuaded the old man back into it. Thomasina had acknowledged Carey’s backing with a quick glance and a lift of her shoulder. He saw she had a throwing knife in her right hand, from the sheaf she kept under her wide sleeves. Although she was only three-and-a-half-foot tall, her childlike round face had a few lines on it. She could still pass as a child if she wanted to, and perhaps she did. She had begun as a tumbler at Paris Garden and was as good with throwing knives as Carey’s previous servant, Barnabus.
    They took their mounts widely around the stricken cart, Carey keeping his pistol pointed at the mummers all the way. One of the Master of the Revels’ men stayed on the road to be sure the mummers didn’t try coming into Rycote again. No doubt all of them would die out there in the field.
    Thomasina was shaking her head and puffing out her breath as she slipped her knife back under her brocade sleeve. Once they had put some distance between themselves and the plague, Carey bowed to Thomasina from the saddle. “Mistress Thomasina,” he said to her, “what an unexpected pleasure!”
    “Ha! You’re not sickening for anyfing yourself, are you?” she snapped at him, “I heard your servant got plague and died of it.”
    “Mistress,” said Carey reproachfully, “do you think I would be coming to Court if I had knowingly been near the plague? That wasn’t what he died of.” And how the devil did she know that?
    “What about him ? Is that Sergeant Henry Dodd that I hear so much about?”
    Hughie’s mount pecked suddenly. “Er…no, that’s Hughie Tyndale, my new manservant.”
    Hughie’s mouth was half-open and he looked shocked. Perhaps he was recovering from his new master treating someone who looked like an overdressed little girl with such respect. Or maybe he was frightened by the plague.
    “Oh, ’e got plague then?” asked Thomasina.
    “Not as far as I know, mistress. There hasn’t been plague at Court, surely?”
    She shook her head. “We’ve been on progress since before it started to spread in London. If I had my way, I’d let nobody come near the Queen what hadn’t been in quarantine at least forty days and scrubbed with vinegar as well.”
    “Surely with the Court around her…”
    “It’s the idiot players and musicians all coming up from London to make their fortunes. As if there weren’t enough of them in Oxford already.” Her voice was changing back to the way courtiers spoke but she turned and fixed him with gimlet eyes. “So what are you doing here?”
    Carey almost coughed but stopped himself. “Really I’m on my way north for the