“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, honestly nonplussed.
“Drinking tobacco smoke,” he told her, “This is a pipe. It’s becoming fashionable in Edinburgh as well as London and Amsterdam and Brussels.”
She had never seen anything like it and made an expression of disgust. “How can you bear it?” she asked, “Don’t you want to cough? We have chimneys now, so we don’t have to breathe smoke anymore. Why do you…?”
“Mutti, it’s only a medicine,” Joachim told her in a patient voice. “Dr Nuñez’s pamphlet says it’s extremely healthy for the throat and lungs because it stops an oversupply of phlegm.” He puffed at the stem. “His Highness doesn’t like it though, perhaps he’ll ban it—or tax it.” He laughed then, a short laugh, that made her feel uneasy so she left him and tidied her spotless kitchen and swept away the crumbs, although Maria should do that.
And then she went to her husband’s office and sat down beside the desk on a stool, never the chair with arms which was now for her eldest son, Emanuel, and pulled the sheets of paper and the receipts and invoices towards her and began putting them in order. She had two sets of books to see to, after all.
She heard Joachim wandering around restlessly, heard him tapping something. She heard him go into the furnace room on the servants’ side of the ceramic stove that she and her husband had imported from Augsburg at hideous expense when they got tired of inefficient English open fires. He fossicked around and then opened the little door in it for adding fuel. What was he doing? He wasn’t a servant. It sounded like he was using the poker, pushing the coals around, then he put in more wood and slammed the little door, opening the grate below for the draught to light the new wood. She heard him sigh as if there was something heavy in his chest, and then heard his boots going upstairs to his bedroom in the loft.
She had to do it. She got up, went round to the servants’ side among the untidy piles of seasoned wood, opened the fire door in the ceramic stove and poked around. There were the remains of paper there and something yellow that smelled bad. She poked it all until it turned to ash, her heart beating. She didn’t know what it was and she would not ask, but it made her feel the old fear. She put in some more wood, turned and saw Maria staring at her, so she smiled haughtily and said, “There you are, the fire was going out,” and walked out of the furnace room again.
She could hear the creaking as Joachim paced in his room and she smiled because he would find it exactly as he had left it, except clean and tidy, and know from that how much she loved him.
The next couple of days hunting for Dodd were frustrating and cold, though at least it didn’t snow again. They lost the trail and asked at every tower and farmhouse, checked every ominous lump in ditches, found what Red Sandy thought was the trail again, lost it again.
Leamus disappeared for an afternoon and came back looking exactly the same, shaking his head. They stayed the second night at a tiny village inn and Carey asked at the pele tower where they said that no one had seen a man, wounded or otherwise, riding a gelding with one white sock.
Carey trotted back, wondering how much longer he dared give it, maybe one more day and they could go hungry on the way back. Red Sandy had been casting around and had found another trail, coming up from the south and west, of two horses, one unshod hobby, the other one Red Sandy swore was Whitesock hisself but laden. That went near a sheepfold built of stone and before that there were only the heavy-laden shod hooves, stumbling often. Leamus followed it on foot, but it was easy to see and wambled around the moors, stopping sometimes where there were tussocks of buried grass.
On the offchance they kept on following it, climbing into the moors where there were little hills all over the place and finally Leamus saw an ominous lump in the snow on one of them, and under it, red, where the birds had disturbed it. They dismounted. Carey paused and gestured for Red Sandy to go first. He gritted his teeth and went forward, bent and brushed the snow off the man’s face.
His breath came blowing out of him and he brushed the snow again. Yes, it was a man wearing a morion, but no, it was not Dodd.
“Hughie Tyndale?” said Red Sandy, his voice full of puzzlement. “Whit the hell…?”
Carey came up behind him, and with his gloved hands brushed more of the snow off until they could see the corpse of Hughie Tyndale, staring eyeless at the blue icy sky, his belly pecked and his throat gone, but still quite recognisable. The crows had given up trying to peck through his leather buffcoat.
“Damn it!” Carey burst out. “Another valet gone!”
Bangtail swallowed a snigger.
Carey kept brushing the snow and found blood all around, mixed in with the newfallen snow and frozen, brutally red like a stained glass window.
Carey looked at Hughie’s hands and found his sword still gripped in his right hand, found a discharged crossbow on the ground next to him. There was something bright poking out from under one of Hughie’s legs.
Carey moved the leg and found Dodd’s dagger still stabbed deep in the calf, at an odd angle.
“Red Sandy,” he said and found Dodd’s younger brother at his elbow.
“Ay,” said Red Sandy, thickly, “it’s Henry’s dagger. He’s had it since he were eight.”
Carey stepped back, looked at the scene. “Interesting,” he said. “The sword has no blood on it but the crossbow has been used. And I don’t see Dodd stabbing someone…” He looked again at Hughie’s leg, where the knife hilt was downwards of the blade, “Yes, the angle says it was stabbed upwards. So Dodd was on the ground, possibly on his face. Hughie was standing. Dodd had the bolt in him somewhere, probably, since the blood doesn’t seem to have come from Hughie, no holes in him. Except his calf which didn’t bleed much. What killed Hughie?”
“And where’s Sergeant Dodd’s body?” asked Leamus softly.
They looked around as the sun westered and dropped, found nothing, not a trail, not a crossbow bolt, not a corpse. They circled outwards from Hughie’s body until they came to the deeper snow that was virgin to the ground, nobody had troubled it.
It was getting dark. Carey came back. “I think Sergeant Dodd may have survived long enough to walk somewhere,” he said, “but there’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing but moor hereabouts. He’s probably curled up in a ditch somewhere, covered in snow.”
“And deid?” asked Red Sandy.
“I think so. I’m sorry, but the blood didn’t come from Hughie…”
“Maybe Hughie were at summat different and…”
“How do you explain Dodd’s dagger?”
Red Sandy was silent.
“And it took us two days to get here, so probably the same for them, add a day for Whitesock wandering, us coming out, this is the third day at least…”
“Ay,” said Red Sandy, his chin to his chest. “Ay, well, will we bury your man?”
“The ground’s frozen,” Carey said thoughtfully, “he’s got Dodd’s dagger in him. I’ll take that, on the offchance, but…We could put some rocks on top of him, to stop him walking?”
“Let him walk,” said Red Sandy savagely. “What did he wantae kill ma brother for? He can walk all he likes across the moors.”
Carey said nothing.
“Sure and I’ll have his buffcoat,” said Leamus, “I need one.”
Carey made a gesture with his open hand up.
They waited while Leamus and Bangtail struggled the buffcoat off Hughie’s stiff body, having to break the frozen shoulders, and Bangtail decided to have Hughie’s good woollen doublet and get it altered to fit him. He undid the laces and started pulling it off and then stopped.
“There’s summat funny about his chest,” he said. “It feels a’ soft.”
Carey helped remove the doublet, found two letters in the front pocket, but it was already too dark to read the cramped Secretary script. Bangtail pulled up Hughie’s shirt.
Red Sandy stared at the brown marks, touched the jellied ribcage.
“Did Hughie kill my brother and the horse killed him?” he asked.
Carey looked again at the trampled red snow, the blurred marks.
“Perhaps.”
Red Sandy was silent a moment. “Well, good,” he said, “that’s a good horse.”
Leamus also quietly acquired Hughie’s sword and tutted because it was a little pitted with rust. There was nothing he could do about that immediately, so he slid it into the scabbard with difficulty and wrapped the belt round his waist twice, the baldric went once. Hughie’s buffcoat was much too wide for him but not too long. Bangtail folded up the doublet and put it in his saddlebag. When they had finished they looked at each other and nobody had anything to say.
Carey felt his heart heavy in his chest, as heavy and sore as if it was full of lead shot. Dodd had been something of a trial in the last few months since Dick of Dryhope’s tower. His stubborn loyalty had been bought by Jonathan Hepburn to kill Carey himself, although he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. And yet Carey already missed the man, felt nothing but sadness for his death.
They mounted up and Carey took them in a wide circle, looking for footprints, a strange hump in the snow, in a ditch, anything.
There was nothing.
At last with the dregs of the day fading from the sky and the cold sharpening its teeth on their ears and noses and fingers, Carey turned their faces north-east towards Edinburgh. It was full night before they found the drover’s road, but all of them had good nightsight and the stars bit down on them from a black sky so when he tried to give somewhere else for his sadness to live by going up to a canter on the straight bits that had once been Roman, they came with him, to a canter, up to a gallop, dangerous on a frosty night with snow lying, but he didn’t care and nor did they. In his imagination, Carey could see Dodd galloping grimly alongside them.
There were a few lights shining from Edinburgh castle and Holyrood house and Carey dropped his speed when he saw them, astonished to be back so soon, though he thought it was close to dawn. The hobbies were all breathing hard but seemed happy to run and make themselves warm on such a cold night, shaking their heads and blowing out as they came up the paved bit of road to the King’s palace.
The gate to the palace was shut, of course, but there was a watchman who sent for the seneschal who eventually allowed as how they might be who they said they were and could come in, this once, so long as they didn’t expect such disorderliness to be ignored again.
Red Sandy was hanging back. “Ah canna…” he said, taking a careful lungful of freezing air. “Ah canna tell Janet.”
Carey nodded. “I know,” he said sombrely. “I’ll do it.”
The church was still burning. The roof had collapsed again and Dodd was alone under the beams. His back was still burning fiercely and his breath came short and every single breath burned. He tried to stop breathing so he could die and be out of the pain, but it didn’t seem to help and the fire in his back was getting worse.
“We have tae get the bolt out,” said someone clearly, close to him. “Tonight.”
Somebody answered, further away. Nobody was there. Clearly they were demons.
“I’ll do it then,” said the voice quite calmly, “Hold him down.”
More rafters landed on his shoulders and hips, someone else held his arms. He tried to fight them but was too weak. Why was he so weak? What had happened? Was he wounded?
Maybe so, said an objective part of him. Or dead.
The church carried on burning silently around him, the roof starting to catch. Hadn’t it fallen yet? Rush lights and candles were there too, heating him up.
“Very still now,” said the woman’s voice.
Another white hot pain attacked his back, running straight down into the red fire in the middle. Reflexively Dodd brought his knees up, curled and more strange sounds came out of his mouth.
“Can ye move the light a bit…Ah. I can see the point of it,” said the woman’s voice, “I’ll cut it out. It’s stuck in something that looks like suet.”
Somebody else said something.
“Well he canna live with a crossbow bolt in his back,” she said, “and if I take it out, I might as well take all of it. One of the plates of his jack turned it aside a bit, but it’s deep.”
More white hot pain cut through him, filling his body.
“It’s good he’s curled…ah now…”
The pain grew and grew until it filled all the world, above and below, till it walked into his heart and stuck a spear in it. He couldn’t breathe.
Then it relented a little, just a little, went down to only agony. He breathed in sips. He heard somebody puffing a little. “Ay,” said the voice, “Now then, where’s the wad?”
More agony, more spears in his heart, more talk. “No, see ye, if ye dinna get all the bits of shirt and doublet and maybe jack outta him, he’ll die o’ the rot, certain sure, even if he disnae die of whit I’m doing now. There!”
What felt like fingers delved in the fire in his back and more white hot pain exploded. He tried to run away, escape, but all he managed was a movement of his shoulders which made him pant again. Ye’ve nae blood in ye, said the objective amused voice somewhere deep inside him, stay still, ye fool.
“Damn. Ah now, I’ve got it. Linen, cloth, ay, and leather. I think I’ll pack it wi’ moss and bandage him.”
More pain of the red kind and they somehow lifted him to bandage his stomach. He tried to fight the demons, hit out blindly.
“Jesu, Henry, will ye stop fighting, just the once? Just once, eh?” The voice was amused. “Save yer strength.”
He realised he knew the voice, but couldn’t recall the name. But he knew the voice and for some reason it made him feel afraid and sad, all at once. His mind shied away from remembering whose it was.
There was the smell of dried herbs, clown’s allheal, feverfew, he was laid back on his stomach again. The pain jangled and throbbed, the feeling of stickiness from the blood flowing. Somebody was snuffing out the candles thriftily.
Another mutter. “I dinna ken,” said the familiar voice, almost merry. “He could bleed to death tonight. He could die o’ the rot next week. Who knows? But Ah’ve done my best for him. Maybe he’ll live. More likely he won’t.”
He heard the sound of water or broth in a pot, they lifted him again, broth came into his mouth on a spoon, he gulped.
“It’s amazing he lasted long enough to get here, the way he wis bleeding. Did they catch his horse?”
He couldn’t hear the other person, couldn’t see the one who owned the voice he feared.
“Ay well, I didna think anyone would catch him, the beast’s wood. Come down, we’ll hae some supper and see how he is later.”
Dodd was left alone again in the church as it burned and crackled around him like straw. Soon enough the roof fell on him again and buried him under massive timbers in the dark, all of them burning red and red and red.
Joachim’s eldest brother, Mr Emanuel, should be told about his return, but he was at their quay in Workington, waiting for the charcoal supplies to arrive. Mark Steinberger, the Schmelzmeister, came in to dinner late at two, along with David, who was learning the essential art of smelting and assaying from him. Steinberger stopped still when he saw Joachim, froze like a deer facing dogs, then put his gloved hand down and touched the table with his forefinger, as if he needed support.
“Grüss Gott,” said Joachim, seeming amused and he smiled at Mr David, who smiled back, a little nervously.
“Grüss Gott,” rumbled Steinberger carefully, “I see you have come back to us.”
“Yes,” said Joachim, “I’ve had enough of the Court and Amsterda
m for the moment. How are you?”
“Much the same,” said Steinberger. “Are you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know,” said Joachim, “It depends…”
“There’s a chance he might be appointed to an office at the Scottish Court,” put in his mother. “Isn’t that wonderful, Mark, that little Joachim might have…?”
“Or something like that,” said Joachim, his face freezing for a second. “I am waiting for news of it, as a matter of fact. Has a messenger arrived from Edinburgh?”
Steinberger shook his head. “No one new has come into town because of the snow—except you now, of course. That’s since before Christmas. The packtrain is due, but it might be delayed. Where will you be staying, Joachim?”
“Here, I think,” said Joachim, “with Mutti’s permission.” And he smiled at Steinberger because his brother-in-law could do nothing about it, although his mother was obtuse enough to think that the smile was a friendly expression.
She smiled at him. “Where else? Though when you marry, of course, the company will build you a house.”
Joachim was irritated again. “I see no reason to hurry into marriage…”
“He is still the same,” she said to Steinberger, shaking her head, “still a boy. I’ve got my eye on a few girls for you already, Joachim, but we must look at some of the older ones that will bring a better dowry too.” Steinberger still stood as if he were made of stone. “When you get your Court appointment, Joachim, you can go to Court to serve the King while your wife will stay here, of course…”
A Suspicion of Silver Page 5