A Suspicion of Silver

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Who, sorr?”

  “Quiet now. We’ll play the game a little longer.”

  The whole of the Steelyard was searched and nothing at all was found out of place, not even the normal crewmembers’ contraband. Herr Kaufmann was looking pleased with himself underneath the grave public displeasure on his face.

  “My company vill request the League to write to the King about this infringement of our privileges,” he said.

  As the King’s Gentlemen gathered themselves together and prepared to march out, Mr Anricks snapped his notebook shut, put it away and looked coldly at Hochstetter.

  “I note that you have bales of tobacco in your warehouse, Herr Kaufmann,” he said to the merchant. “May I ask who supplies them?”

  “That is a mystery off my trade,” said the Herr Kaufmann promptly, “I could not possibly…”

  “I recognise the seals as being those of my uncle Dr Hector Nunez who imports tobacco from New Spain to England. However, I was not aware that he was also supplying Edinburgh. Given that the King is implacably opposed to the herb, I surmise that the tobacco is an unauthorized side deal? Hm?”

  The Herr Kaufmann said nothing again. Anricks waited quite a long time and then said, “I will be writing to him. What would you like me to tell him?” More silence. “I will also be informing Mr Secretary Cecil that you were given a prime piece of intelligence regarding the King of Scots, which you suppressed instead of bringing it to the attention of the authorities.”

  “I did not sink it was important…”

  “You were wrong. And you tried to lay violent hands upon me and Herr Ritter Carey, also something I object to.”

  “Er…A mistake…?”

  “Yes,” said Anricks, turning his back on the merchant and going to a block to mount his pony.

  They rode back past the links where a couple of golf-mad noblemen were arguing over balls lost in the snow, and Carey and Leamus tracked the reversed hoofprints all the way to Edinburgh and a little way further. At Hobson’s stables they found a nag that had been completely reshod the day before but it wasn’t conclusive even though at Hobson’s nobody usually shod a horse that hadn’t thrown a shoe, because it cut into the profits. The groom claimed it was for the snow and the nag was indeed now roughshod.

  The next day, Carey took Leamus out on the Great North Road to try to find more traces of Hepburn, but there had been heavy snow in the night and all footprints were erased. That trail was literally cold. And as Carey said, there was no proof of where Hepburn had gone, Amsterdam or south, because either the Sea Beggar or the reversed shoes on the horse could have been a feint. From Amsterdam he could have gone anywhere at all. From Edinburgh he could have gone south to London, southwest to Carlisle or Keswick, he could even be somewhere in the Highlands, biding his time before he circled round and took ship from Leith. His name was read out at the Market Cross in Edinburgh and at Leith, with the horn being blown thrice, putting him at the horn, making him an outlaw and any man’s prey, but of course that only held in Scotland. The King’s letters to Mr Secretary Cecil in London would take a while to reach him, even if Cecil reacted immediately. Besides, after the blizzard on the night of the 2nd to 3rd of January, all the roads were covered in deep snow and nearly impassable.

  They were waiting for Dodd now. Whitesock and Dodd’s hobby had been gone from the stables since New Year’s Eve, his jack and helmet and sword were also gone, and when Carey asked Janet Dodd if she knew where he was, she said she thought she did and would like to stay in Edinburgh until he came back, if possible.

  Carey was enjoying himself, playing cards with all the hangers-on at James’ Court and taking their money, so he decided to give Dodd another week to finish whatever his business was.

  Radegunda Hochstetter liked to breakfast very early in her own kitchen, in her beautiful house on her island. The maid, Maria, had already gone out in the dark and snow to where Frau Radegunda’s bakery was giving good smells to the air. She brought back a selection of breads, one made with almond flour which Radagunda particularly liked. She had butter to go with it, heavily salted and past its best but still edible, and cheese and some slices of proper sausage and mild ale from her own brewery. She couldn’t shake the habit of being first up and first out and first at work because she was the mistress.

  The snow had stopped for the moment and the sun was coming up at last, sliding its rays under the grey lid of clouds promising more snow. She felt restless so she stood and went out into the courtyard where she could see the sun between the outbuildings, ignoring the new white blanket covering the countryside, and the cold wind. She had her fur-lined gown, didn’t she?

  She stood and watched as her two youngest children came to breakfast. There was David, a hard-working quiet twenty-year-old, though regrettably spotty, and her youngest daughter, Elizabeth, aged eighteen, unaware of her beauty and quite shy. Both had been born in England, although David was not her youngest son. That was Elijah, who had been born six years after they came to this strange wet land, and her second child to die. He had always been fragile and fretful and a lungfever had eventually carried him off to limbo, no matter what she did, because he was, of course, unbaptised. She would never see him again, not even in Heaven, because his soul had not been brought into Christianity. Like his older brother Leonard, he was lost forever. The thought always shook her, brought back the doubts that could take her to Hell. Yet, Jesus Christ had baptised only adults: how could they do differently? She sighed and forced herself to think of something else, although she wondered sometimes if Elijah and Leonard were warm and dry in limbo? And at least they were safe from Hell.

  David and Elizabeth prayed briefly and broke bread in the old style. Her heart warmed a little at that; it was good to see some of the old ways continuing. The two of them spoke Deutsch as she insisted in her house, on her island. The little island, sometimes known as Vicar’s Island, in Derwentwater, would never hear the mongrel tongue of English while she lived.

  Mark Steinberger, the Schmelzmeister, was already at the smelthouses where they were starting a new campaign. His wife, her oldest daughter, Annamaria, was in her house near Crossthwaite which was nearer than the island to the smelthouses in Brigham, and also near to the road to Gottesgaab mine, their gift from God. It was carefully placed to avoid the acrid continuous smoke from both places, as much as possible. Veronica and Susannah were married and with their husbands in Newcastle and Hawkshead.

  Emanuel, her oldest son was currently at Workington to supervise the cargo that was due to go out in the next few days, and of course the essential cargo of good (she hoped) Irish charcoal coming in. She was impatient to see samples of it, the last lot had been terrible and so she had sought another supplier further south in Ireland, where there were more trees.

  Joachim was…still absent, along with his disgraceful sister. He had been absent for years. She had trained her heart to think of her wicked daughter, Little Radegunda, who called herself by the ridiculous unscriptural name of Poppy, as dead and in Hell. Sometimes she caught herself thinking of her middle son the same way, as dead. But as far as she knew, Joachim wasn’t dead, only absent, only gone from her side despite being such a clever boy, such a credit to her, such a skillful engineer. She allowed herself to think of him only once a day, feeling the longing in her heart for him only once a day, even allowing tears to rise to her eyes, although she never allowed them to fall.

  He was her little Joachim, her little curly-haired child, running around with his mop of hair and his cap always lost, birds-nesting, climbing, stealing pointless things for fun, always in trouble. She didn’t think of him when he had the measles. She closed her eyes and imagined him with all her strength, a warm shape in her arms, before they came to England, nuzzling his face into her neck and saying “Mutti, Mutti, Mutti…”

  She walked out of the courtyard and went to the boatlanding at the north side of the island. Sh
e didn’t do this every morning, exactly, only occasionally. She looked towards the dirty scatter of houses, the main street and English church just visible on the other side of Crow Meadow. You couldn’t actually see the smelthouses or the road to Gottesgaab mine from here, they were on the other side of town. You could see the smoke, of course; there was always smoke from the smelthouses and the acrid yellow smoke from the ore-roasting at the mine. It gave the town a prosperous air, she thought.

  There was a man at the Keswick-side boatlanding, talking to another man there, paying him. For a moment she felt a stab of hope in her heart, that this would be Joachim, but she was sure it could not be, although she didn’t know who it was, she couldn’t seem to recognise him, her eyes were no longer good enough. The man got in the boat by himself, shipped the oars expertly, started rowing himself across in the small skiff and she watched his back with its covering of white cloak, her heart beating hard for some reason. That was a very fine cloak—was it velvet?

  She didn’t move to help him tie the boat up but as he looped the rope and tied it, hopped out of the boat onto the landing stage and came towards her smiling, she felt her heart beat even faster and her heart knew him before her mind admitted it or her old eyes could really see him. She took a step towards him, holding her arms out and he came to her and bowed and she reached up to embrace him, hold him, feel the heft and strength of him, her son, her little Joachim, the child inside, always inside, the body of the man around it but her little son, there in front of her, in her arms. She couldn’t believe it, had to believe it, didn’t dare trust that it really was him, had to trust because it was him, it truly was him…

  “Oh, Mutti,” he said fondly and gave her his handkerchief to mop her face and she was annoyed at herself for crying. In God’s Mother’s name, what was she doing? She hadn’t wept all the years he had been gone and now here she was, like a foolish old woman…

  “Joachim,” she said, stroking his face. “Geht es dir gut? Wo bist du denn gewesen? Was hast...”

  He put his finger on her lips and said, “Shh.” And then he asked something strange. “Is there anyone here from the Scots King’s court? I’m expecting a message.”

  “No,” she said, “nobody since before Christmas.”

  “No news?”

  “Just that the harvest was bad.” And that statement always sent a chill down her back.

  He looked down, his face stiff with concern. “Surely…” he began.

  “Surely what?”

  He paused and then smiled at her, what she always thought of as his trouble-smile, the smile he smiled when he was expecting trouble but wasn’t going to tell her what or why. She had seen it so often when he was a youth and she had needed to protect him over and over again, now she thought of it. It stole some of her happiness at having him back. She did not have him back, that was impossible. He was a man now, fully baptised, with his own fate to carve. She shouldn’t think of him as her little boy anymore. But she couldn’t help it.

  “Is there any breakfast?” he asked, touching her shoulder lightly and she smiled at him despite everything.

  “Of course, and the baker has made some loaves with almond meal in them.”

  She slipped her arm in the crook of his to go back to her house, leaning a little as she had done with Daniel Hochstetter, her dear lord and husband, dead nearly ten years.

  Carey was eating a very good breakfast of porridge and a cold goose leg, which counted as fish for the fish day, because geese hatched from barnacles. He washed down the salty porridge with ale. He was eating in Holyrood Hall, once the monks’ refectory, along with Red Sandy Dodd, Bangtail Graham, and Leamus. All around him racketed the usual din of a Court at breakfast, people helping themselves to porridge, salt cod, and soused herring, because breakfast was always less formal than dinner, here in Scotland.

  Red Sandy and Bangtail were talking and laughing quietly together, Leamus was staring into space, and next to them some men-at-arms were quietly playing dice on the bench, one of them cheating with highman and lowman dice.

  Carey was just wondering if it would be worth the effort and expense to take part in the Queen’s next masque, but decided it wasn’t. He could find as many opportunities to flatter the King more cheaply in the hunting field and that would actually be fun.

  Carey liked hunting. He was not as crazy for the sport as the King but few people were. He had just decided to take part in a hunt planned for the morrow when there was the sound of running clogs and Young Hutchin Graham burst into the hall through the double doors to the kitchen and sprinted up to Carey.

  “Sir, sir, Sergeant Dodd’s horse just come in. He’s wood, he willna let naebody touch him, and he’s got a bloody saddle.”

  Carey was already on his feet, his heart thumping.

  “Jesu,” he said and followed Young Hutchin out of the hall at a run, Red Sandy and Bangtail close behind him.

  In the stableyard there was an enraged squeal from the horse standing there trembling and wild-eyed. They could see the smears of brown all over the saddle, in his mane and tail. Carey tried for the bridle, which was half broken, and nearly got bitten.

  “Red Sandy, would you try?”

  Red Sandy nodded once, his tough young face shadowed. He stepped forward at an angle to the horse, his shoulders turned. Whitesock snorted and squealed. “Bangtail, will ye try and get the saddle off him whiles I distract him?”

  “Ay,” said Bangtail, moving the other way. “Happen it’s the smell o’ blood mithering him.”

  Red Sandy moved cautiously forward while Bangtail circled the other way. Leamus arrived and backed Red Sandy moving counterclockwise. Whitesock showed his teeth.

  “Now then, now then,” said Red Sandy quietly, “now then.”

  Bangtail slipped in behind, got two of the buckles on the girth undone before the horse felt him and kicked out viciously. Bangtail dodged the hooves; Red Sandy advanced.

  “Now then, Whitesock, ye knacker’s nightmare,” whispered Red Sandy. The horse looked sideways at him, his ears right back and squealed again. Bangtail got the last buckle undone, pushed the saddle and blanket right off onto the cobbles on the other side while Whitesock skittered away from him and sideways, kicking. Red Sandy dived in and caught hold of the bridle, was nearly lifted off his feet as the horse tried to rear and Bangtail caught one of the other straps. And then Whitesock seemed to recognise Red Sandy, and suddenly stopped still, his broad chest heaving and every part of him shaking.

  “Ay,” said Red Sandy, “whit are ye at, ye great lummock, whit are ye at? Eh?”

  Hutchin darted forward with a waterbucket, which Red Sandy caught up with his left hand, set it down, dribbled water on the horse’s nose and after some more tense moments, Whitesock dropped his head and started to drink in long thirsty gulps.

  “Young Hutchin, will ye go fetch…?”

  “Ay, a mash for him, I will.” Hutchin ran off, his clogs thundering.

  Red Sandy picked up a whisp of hay and started to rub down the horse’s muddy withers and the hay reddened with the blood there.

  Very gently, Bangtail brought up a rope halter, got it over Whitesock’s nose, and took the remains of the bridle and the bit off.

  Carey stepped round behind him, well away from the hooves, and inspected Dodd’s saddle.

  “That’s a very bloody saddle,” he remarked neutrally.

  “Ay, Ah dinna think it’s the piles,” said Hutchin as he trotted back with a full bucket. Nobody laughed.

  Carey looked at the sky. “Red Sandy, could you track Whitesock’s hoofprints in the snow?”

  “Ah can try,” said Red Sandy, his jaw-muscles clenched, “but Ah’m no’ as good as my brother. At least the nag’s shod, that’ll help.”

  “Right. We’ll saddle up now and see if we can find him.”

  Carey went to see the seneschal and explained wh
ere he was going so he could buy some supplies. Dodd had been gone nearly five days and so they might need supplies for at least five more. He went to his room, still found no Hughie Tyndale, who had also disappeared, and called his clerk John Tovey to act as his valet, at which Tovey was hopelessly unskilful and getting no better.

  An hour later they trotted out of Holyrood gate and found a nice clear line of shod hoofprints in the snow going straight across country past Arthur’s Seat and then circling round to the north.

  Joachim sat down to breakfast and ate like a man who was hungry but had a lot on his mind. Now the light was stronger, his mother could see he looked tired and worn out. She hadn’t seen him like that before, she couldn’t remember a time. He looked sad as well. What was wrong? Had his wicked heretic sister done something?

  She began to probe, asking after Little Rady or Poppy as she liked to call herself now, asking after his work at the King of Scots’ Court where he had been helping a courtier build his castle more strongly, according to his last letter. She knew each one by heart, kept the rare missives in a small carved wooden box. Of course she didn’t keep his sister’s letters, she burned them unopened and the undutiful little cow hadn’t sent any for two years anyway, since she had married that heretic minister of hers, choosing her mate for herself as if she were a peasant.

  Alas, tactful though she was, Joachim became more and more monosyllabic. Yes, Sir David Graham was the Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King James that he had been working for. Yes, he was an astonishingly ignorant fool, yes, he was married, yes, he was unfortunately a Catholic. No, Joachim had not married, he would not do that without her consent. Yes, he had helped again with the fireworks, his friends had gone to Amsterdam and eventually he would go there too…if no news came from Scotland. Oh just news. Important only to him. About the King of Scots. To do with the Court. Yes, in a way it was about an office, but it was secret. No, he couldn’t tell her. No, he could not tell her under any circumstances, didn’t she understand the meaning of the word “secret”? He stood, balled up his napkin in a way that had always annoyed her, and stalked outside. She shook out the napkin, folded it neatly and put it with the others. Then she went outside to join him. She found him taking out a small clay item, tamping some dried leaves into the bell-shaped end and then to her horror, setting light to it, drawing the smoke into his lungs and blowing it out of his nose!