A Suspicion of Silver

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Yes, that sounds like Hepburn. Mr Allerdyce, can I ask you to keep this matter of Hochstetter quiet for the moment?”

  Allerdyce paused, shook his head and said, “He’s not here.”

  “No?”

  “I’ve certainly not seen him for years, ay, and not missed him either.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ay, Sir Robert, although us Keswickers don’t mix much with the Deutschers.”

  “Hm.”

  “If he were here, would ye arrest him?”

  “How can I,” said Carey,“seeing King James’ writ doesn’t run in this country? Mr Secretary Cecil has warranted me to report on the state of the mines, not Hepburn or Hochstetter’s soul.”

  “Have ye any proof Hepburn did the attack?”

  “It’s good enough to try him since he was the Artificer of the props and scenery for the Masque and he disappeared from Court without permission on the night it happened. And there’s evidence that he did it at the behest of the King of Spain and some Catholic noblemen of Scotland as well.”

  Allerdyce was silent and all around his head Carey could almost see the ghostly shapes of the things he wasn’t telling. He sucked his teeth and made clicking noises with his tongue, as if talking to a horse.

  “That’s a bad business. It’s all a bad business.”

  “If Joachim Hochstetter were here, where might he be?”

  Allerdyce sighed. “The island,” he said. “There’s ten or eleven good houses on it along of the brewery and the bakehouse and the mill. Only the Deutschers go there. If Joachim is here, that’s where he is.”

  “I just want to talk to him,” said Carey reassuringly. “Quite possibly Joachim Hochstetter isn’t really the man we’re looking for. Even if he is, I can’t arrest him, since he’s done no crime in England that I know of. Unless…”

  “Unless he killed Big John…” breathed Allerdyce.

  “Why should he?” asked Carey. “He’s a killer, but he usually kills for a reason.” There was a very good reason why, but Carey wasn’t certain enough yet to break the matter with Allerdyce.

  Allerdyce shrugged uncomfortably.

  “Is Joachim Hochstetter also a killer?

  Allerdyce looked very unhappy but he didn’t answer. Finally he said, “I didna like Joachim, never got on with him, even if I saw him grow up along of his brothers and sisters, even if he wis allus his mother’s favourite. I wis glad tae see the back of him and his sister.”

  Poppy Burn, Carey thought instantly, what happened there, I wonder? “And anyway,” he put in, “he isn’t here.”

  “No,” said Allerdyce with a guilty look on his broad friendly face. “No, he isn’t. Well well, what d’ye want to do now?” he added with forced good humour.

  Carey felt a thrill of excitement, just as he would at the first sight of fresh deer fewmets when hunting.

  “I’m planning to see the smelting end of the operation and then if the weather holds, travel out to take a look at Goldscope mine tomorrow,” he said. “And of course I want an excuse to visit the island.”

  “Ay,” said Allerdyce, “I’ll see whit I can do.”

  “You don’t find it completely unbelievable that Joachim Hochstetter could be an assassin?”

  “No, I don’t and it’s no’ just because he’s a Deutscher. I’ve got no quarrel with the Deutschers, me. There may have been some trouble when they first came but that was all settled a long time ago and most of it was down to the Earl of Northumberland anyway, dog in the manger that he was. He didna ken how to mine his lands nor know anybody that could, but he didn’t want anybody else doing it either. I was glad when he met the executioner. They’re all good citizens and they pay their taxes on the copper and the Queen gets her share of the gold they refine. It’s true that something has been the ruination of the woods hereabouts and the land’s gone sour and there’s some superstitious folk that blame them for the kobolds, but…nay, I’ve got nothing against the Deutschers.”

  “But?”

  Allerdyce’s face tightened. “Mebbe I’ll tell ye later.”

  “I wish you would tell me now, Mr Allerdyce.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you may be mysteriously dead later.”

  Allerdyce shrugged. “Well, Frau Radagunda is the one that’ll have to give ye her permission and I suggest ye dinnna share your thoughts about Joachim, for he’s the apple of her eye, so he is.”

  Carey sighed. “Thanks for the advice, Mr Allerdyce, I appreciate it.”

  He stood up, bowed to the Mayor and went out into the street. It was very cold and his ears tingled with the frost, and where there were cobbles, there was a sheen of ice on them and they were very slippery. Luckily there was plenty of frozen mud where his hobnails could get a better purchase. Tovey came trotting after him, looking through his sheafs of paper.

  That was when Red Sandy and Bangtail came running up to him, very excited at something but having difficulty explaining what it was because they were so drunk. Carey concluded that they had spent the entire night drinking with the drovers and then gone on drinking in the morning on the grounds of hair of the dog or some other famous principle.

  “Ay,” said Bangtail, beaming fatuously. “Ah niver heard the like…Would ye credit it, Red Sandy?”

  “Ah would no’.” Red Sandy pronounced with one eye shut.

  “Why’s he here, eh? Answer me that?”

  “Ah can no’.” Red Sandy said, trying the other eye.

  “Ay, and whit’s he doing here, for God’s sake?”

  “Ah dinna ken,” said Red Sandy sadly, sitting on the edge of the market water trough, tipping forward and puking onto the ground. Two skinny town dogs immediately stood up and took an interest. Then Red Sandy turned, took off his helmet and dunked his head in the trough but banged his head on the ice. He came up rubbing his head and cursing, found a rock, broke the ice, and then dunked his head properly and came up blowing. “Ay,” he said, putting his helmet back on, “tha’s better.”

  “Are ye aright?” asked Bangtail, holding onto his shoulder.

  “Ay, Ah think the ale wis poisoned…”

  “Nay, it were the fried sippets…”

  “Happen. It could be,” said Red Sandy, and both he and Bangtail nodded wisely.

  Carey was standing with his hands on his hips, looking severe and clearly having a lot of work not to laugh.

  “Tell me, goodmen,” he said delicately, “did the drovers give you anything…unusual to drink?”

  “S’funny ye should say that, sir,” said Bangtail, wagging a finger. “They gave us some stuff that tasted very strong, though they all swore it wisnae.”

  “Ah, and what was the stuff’s name?”

  “Wishy?” said Bangtail looking at the sky for inspiration.

  “Wishy kee?” wondered Red Sandy.

  “Whishke bee?” asked Carey.

  “Ay,” said Red Sandy, hawking and spitting. “Said it wisnae stronger nor good beer and made from respectable barley in Scotland.”

  Carey sighed and nodded. “And who was it you saw?”

  “Ay, it were a surprise to the baith of us,” hiccupped Bangtail. “I never thought to set eyes on the like.”

  “Never,” agreed Red Sandy. “Sitting in the alehouse over there wi’ all his cousins and nephews and…”

  “Who did you see?” said Carey at not quite a bellow.

  Bangtail held his forehead and blinked at Carey reproachfully. “Och, sir, not sae loud. Ye said yerself. Wattie Graham’s here in Keswick.”

  “What? Here now?”

  “Ay,” said Red Sandy, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jack. “Wattie Graham of Netherby. Here.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “The drovers said he’s often here for the special packtrain. And to check naeb
ody’s logging his woods in Borrowdale.”

  “Ay.” Bangtail swallowed and looked green suddenly. A moment later he was puking by the water trough. “Ye ken, Red Sandy,” he gasped, still bent over, “Ah think they drovers wis lying when they said the wishy wisnae strong.”

  “Ay, that could be it.”

  “Or the sippets.”

  “Nay, now I think on it, Leamus had some.”

  Carey sighed again and started unlacing his black velvet sleeves at the shoulder points, pulling them off one by one and giving them to Tovey who stood there looking puzzled. He handed over his tall hat. Then he rolled his shirtsleeves up to his shoulders as well.

  Then he grabbed Bangtail and Red Sandy by the greasy scruffs of their necks and ducked both their heads in the trough while Tovey stood well back and stared in wonder. The sound of the ice crunching against the stone was alarming and some of the burgers of Keswick were watching and grinning.

  Carey waited until the struggles became violent, let them up and shoved them away so they tripped over each other. “I want you sober right now and I haven’t the time to wait for it to happen naturally.”

  “Ye told us to go drinking with the drovers…” protested Red Sandy, saw the nasty glint in Carey’s eye and added a hasty “sir.”

  “I said drink with them, I didn’t say, get stinking and uselessly drunk with them. I want to catch Wattie before he leaves and I need men at my back, which has to be you two ugly louts since Carlisle’s sixty miles away. And where the devil is Leamus…?”

  “Here, sorr,” said the Irishman who had been leaning against a doorway on the other side of the street.

  “Are you drunk too?”

  “No, sorr,” said Leamus. “I have drink taken, ye might say, but we have the whishke bee in Ireland too, and I know the stuff of old.”

  “Well, why didn’t you warn Bangtail and…?”

  “I tried, sorr, but they didn’t listen.”

  “Arrgh,” growled Carey, drying his arms with a kerchief from his pocket, unrolling his shirtsleeves, and beckoning Tovey to put the doublet sleeves on again, which took some time. The town dogs approached Red Sandy and Bangtail’s leavings cautiously and then ecstatically started gulping up the puke. Leamus strolled past them saying something hospitable-sounding in Irish.

  Carey clamped his tall hat on his head and said, “Where’s Wattie hiding, then?”

  “He’s still in that alehouse, sign of the Thistle,” said Leamus, pointing to a cottage with red lattices some way up an alley. “He seemed a little upset.”

  “Ay,” said Bangtail, as he finished spitting frozen horse trough water. “He wis fair mithered to find ye in the toon and no mistake…”

  “Did you tell him..?”

  “Nay, sir,” protested Red Sandy, “we wouldna do that, but he knew me, o’ course and he asked the alewife wis there a long Court pervert wi’ pretty clothes in town and o’course the alewife said, ay, happen there is and he said, wi’ dark red hair and a stupid Southern way o’ talking and the alewife said, ay, and Wattie said, ‘och God, what’s that lang streak o’ piss of a Deputy Warden doing here, for Christ’s sake? That’s all I need…’”

  “And then we left because we hadna money left and naebody was buying any more,” finished Bangtail.

  “So he might still be here. All right.” Carey lifted and dropped his sword and poignard in the sheaths. Leamus did the same. Bangtail finished banging water out of his ears and Red Sandy stood fairly straight and said, “This way, sir.”

  They walked in diamond formation with Carey ahead, Bangtail at the rear, and Red Sandy and Leamus at Carey’s shoulders. Tovey trotted along, some way behind. At the alley they found five young ruffians with the long jaws and grey eyes of the Grahams, standing by the door doing their best to look hard—at which they were quite successful because they were hard. The Graham-pattern jacks and morions helped.

  Carey ignored them and headed for the door.

  “Where are ye going?”

  “Into the alehouse,” said Carey mildly, “to greet your master, Wattie Graham.”

  “And ye are?” said the other young thug with an insulting sneer.

  “Ay, he’s the Deputy Warden,” said Red Sandy, “and dinna ye forget it.”

  The lad spat on the ground.

  “We’re no’ in the Marches here,” he said.

  “Very true,” said Carey cheerfully. “You’re a long way from where you’re squatting the Storey family lands too. Please tell Mr Walter Graham that Sir Robert Carey, seventh son of the Lord Chamberlain, Baron Hunsdon, nephew of the Queen, courtier, ex-MP and quondam captain of the Earl of Essex’s troops in France, would esteem it a singular expression of friendship and good fellowship if he could speak with the said Mr Graham.”

  The lad banged through the door and they heard him say, “The Deputy Warden’s here, Uncle Wattie.”

  There was a murmuring inside and the lad came back and held the door open, looking sulky. Carey went through smiling, followed by Red Sandy and Leamus. He gestured for Tovey to come in as well and nodded at Red Sandy to stand by the door.

  Inside the small dark alehouse, Wattie Graham was sitting resplendent in bright tawny brocade, a remarkably fashionable hat on his balding head and a clay pipe in his mouth which was making him cough. The chair was the only one with arms and the alewife was standing behind him, looking nervous.

  Carey pulled up a barrel table and perched on that, while Tovey did his best not to shake at the assessing stares from Wattie’s Graham relatives, and Leamus leaned against the wall, watching with interest.

  Wattie glared at Carey.

  “Whit are ye doing here?” he demanded.

  “Tut, Wattie, I might ask you the same question.”

  “Ah’m visiting mah woods in Borrowdale, the which I inherited fra me dad.”

  Carey’s eyebrows went up. “Did you really?”

  “Ay, Ah did.”

  “How did that come about?”

  “He did a favour for Lady Radclyffe in the sixties. Ye?”

  “I’m here on warrant from Mr Secretary Cecil to look at the mines and smelting houses and so on,” drawled Carey, tipping his hat back. “Would you like to read the warrant, it has an English translation?” he added, knowing full well that Wattie couldn’t read.

  “Whit?”

  “I really can’t imagine why, since I know less of mining and smelting than a newborn babe. But there you are. I expect the Queen got a notion in her head, or some such.”

  Interestingly, Wattie Graham looked suddenly furtive when Carey said that, which was interesting because he had made up the detail about the Queen on the spur of the moment. Why was Wattie, of all people, worried about the Queen?

  “So how’s Netherby?” Carey asked solicitously, poking at one of Wattie’s many sore spots connected with him. “Replaced the woodwork yet?”

  “Ay,” said Wattie, biting the stem of the pipe and breaking it and spilling hot tobacco all over his velvet trunkhose. He half stood and batted the coals away, leaving a couple of small holes.

  “And your adventure this Christmas. With the cows. Were any of them found to be yours in the end?”

  Wattie scowled even more mightily but didn’t answer because, of course, none of the Graham kine were unstolen.

  “It’s nice you’re so respectable now, Wattie…no, I’m sorry, Mr Graham,” said Carey. “As a gentleman, perhaps I could call on your help with my report to Mr Secretary on the state of the mines.”

  “Ah’m busy.”

  “Of course you are, of course you are,” sang Carey, standing up, sweeping off his hat and making a flamboyant but shallow bow to all the Grahams. “Good day to all!”

  He walked out with Red Sandy ahead, Tovey beside him, and Leamus last, and found Bangtail engaged in a staring match with all the Grahams, who were
in fact distant cousins of his. Carey gathered him up and swaggered across the cobblestones to the Oak where yet another string of packponies was lined up, nose to tail, munching at nosebags.

  There he found the youngest Hochstetter brother, David, waiting for him.

  “My mother and uncle sent me to guide you to Goldscope mine,” he said, his slightly spotty adam’s apple bouncing nervously. “You can meet the mine captain there. They think it will snow tomorrow or the next day so it is best to go now.”

  “Certainly,” said Carey with enthusiasm. “I have never seen a working mine before and I hope you will tell me all about it, Mr Hochstetter.” The lad flushed at being promoted from Mr David. “Give me a moment to change my doublet.”

  Twenty minutes later, back in his comfortable old arming doublet and jack with his morion on his head, Carey re-emerged from the inn looking as enthusiastically witless as you might expect a Court sprig to look.

  As he explained to Hochstetter the younger, he didn’t want to leave his vulnerable hungover men in the same town as Wattie Graham, so he took everyone, including Tovey. They made quite a party, though they didn’t bother with remounts because the mine was only a couple of miles away. Hochstetter himself had a very nice black palfrey that was roughshod for the snow and ice. As they rode along, Carey wondered if a roughshod horse went better than an unshod horse in snow, and if they could have a race to see which was in fact the best system, and suddenly Hochstetter lost his shyness and started talking about making the race with two of each kind of shoeing to make sure it wasn’t the peculiarity of the beasts that caused the winner and on second thoughts, they should unshoe the shod horses and shoe the unshod and run a second race for an even better measure…

  “Yes,” said Carey, “but it takes a while for a horse that’s been shod to regrow his hooves.”

  “True. Perhaps then the second race should take place the following year…”

  They passed close to Crossthwaite church and came to a made road that had cobblestones. They followed it and it led them out among the hills which were also bald and almost denuded of trees. They could see smoke from the mine furnaces lying in the valley they were heading for.

  “So, Mr Hochstetter…” Carey said as they passed through a clutter of sheds and barns. Great gouts of white and yellow smoke also came up from the northeast of the town where the smelting houses were, the air smelled sour and abrasive, and they could hear a rhythmic banging and creaking from both places. “Can you tell me how the metals come to be so deeply buried in the rock and why do we find them next to hills and mountains? I have always wondered about that. Surely if they were intended for our benefit by Almighty God, they wouldn’t be so hard to get at?”