Free A Murder of Crows: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery by P. F. Chisholm

still red. I knew him at once even on a …at that distance.”
    “No priest then,” said Hunsdon.
    Lady Hunsdon snorted. “Hardly. He was a Papist though.”
    “He was the man you were in London to meet?”
    “Yes, my lord. I wanted to find out more before I broke the matter with you, but events are now ahead of me. I discovered from my sister’s husband that there have been some very dubious land-deals happening in Cornwall and Richard Tregian was up to his neck in them. He was in desperate need of money to pay his recusancy fines, to be sure, but there was more to it than that. There was Court money involved. The land around the Fal has tripled in price in the last three years, but additonally there have been some very surprising purchases further north in the tin-mining areas near Redruth. I would have gone to Sir Walter Raleigh as President of the Stannary when I had consulted you, my lord, but Sir Walter is in the Tower for venery, I find. I wanted to warn Richard away from whatever deals he was doing and I brought Letty up to town with me in the
Judith
to talk some sense into him.”
    “Was there any question of treason involved, my lady?”
    Lady Hunsdon bowed her head. “Letty says not, but I simply don’t know.”
    Lord Hunsdon sighed heavily. “Sir Robert?” he said formally to his son.
    Carey looked at Dodd briefly, then at his mother, before he answered his father quietly. “We watched Richard Tregian die yesterday under the name of Fr. Jackson. He was gagged and had been tortured. The hangman gave him a good drop so he was quite dead by the time they came to draw and quarter him.”
    Lady Hunsdon nodded. “Thank God for that at least.”
    “How do you know he was tortured?” asked Lord Hunsdon.
    “His wrists were swollen and showed the print of bindings with swelling above and below. I would say the rack or the manacles.” Carey’s voice was remote.
    There was a long moment of silence. “What statute was he sentenced under?” asked Lord Hunsdon.
    “Henry VIII’s Praemunire.”
    “Nothing more?”
    “Now that I think about it, the announcement was very short.”
    “He made no sign?”
    “He was in no state to do it before he was hanged and moreover he was gagged.” More silence. “I wonder whose authority was on the warrant?” Sir Robert added softly.
    “It will have been genuine and the authority unexceptionable or Her Majesty would not have signed it.”
    “Heneage?”
    Hunsdon shook his head. “Not necessarily. Sir Robert Cecil or Lord Burghley himself could have been involved, or even my lord the Earl of Essex. Someone of lesser rank could also have originated the warrant, such as the Recorder of London or the Constable of the Tower. Of course, I could do so if I needed to.”
    “Was yer man not tried?”
    After a pause Lord Hunsdon said reluctantly, “Obviously not, Sergeant.”
    “So what was Richard Tregian actually doing?” asked Sir Robert, leaning his elbows on the table. Nobody had touched any of the elaborate sweet dishes, but Dodd, who had a less delicate stomach, reached for a pippin and started munching it. He liked apples and you didn’t get many of them on the Borders because raiders kept cutting or burning orchards down. “Buying land from cash-strapped fellow-Papists and then selling them on to a courtier or two? Or informing on Papists and getting a cut from the lands when they were confiscated?”
    Lady Hunsdon shook her head. “I don’t see Richard informing—and even if he did, he wouldn’t last very long in Cornwall. They don’t like blabbermouths there. I would say it was the first. He may even have been an agent, using his principal’s money and then taking a cut.”
    “Well there’s nothing treasonous about that,” boomed Lord Hunsdon. “Perfectly legitimate thing to do, I use agents myself. Keeps the prices down a bit.”
    “My lord, I dinna understand,” Dodd put in. Lord Hunsdon looked enquiringly at him. “Only, this land was to be