Anricks snorted. “No, the nurse is feeding it.”
“Of course.”
“That will hold him for about three hours and then it’s all to do again.”
“All night as well?”
“Urrgh,” said Anricks again.
As he rubbed his bread around the bowl and cut some cheese from the wedge on the table, Anricks added, “Still, here we are at last, thank the Almighty, and it is no longer my problem. I will rest and recover for a few days and perhaps pull some teeth before I go south to my wife in Bristol.”
Joachim came in through the kitchen door, lifting the latch quietly with his long eating knife and sliding round the door, shutting it equally quietly behind him. The fire was curfewed and the room very dark, but suddenly he stopped. He knew there was a person sitting waiting at the table. For him?
It was so dark, he couldn’t think who it might be. His mother? She had done that to him sometimes, when he was a youth.
No, the shape was too tall. Emanuel? Mark?
“Joachim,” came the deep dull voice of the Schmelzmeister. For God’s sake, that was all he needed, he had already had an aggravating day and a worse night, and here was another pompous old fart telling him what he should and shouldn’t do. “I want to speak with you.”
“Oh, God, what now? Your niece Sylvia…”
“Committed suicide because you, Joachim, got her with child and then refused to do the right thing and marry her.”
“It wasn’t me. How many times do I have to…?”
“It was you, Joachim. I saw you.”
“That was somebody else with curly hair. Not me.” He was starting to feel indignant about the accusation even though it had been him. God, five and a half years had passed, couldn’t the idiot forget it? She was just a girl.
“Well, never mind,” said Mark Steinberger unexpectedly, “maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe it wasn’t just you, although she was a virgin. But it was you who killed John Carleton, our smith, a couple of days after New Year’s Eve. Mr Allerdyce told me. Wasn’t it? It was you who came to him wearing a white cloak and a mask, you drank with him before sun up while you waited for the swordblank to heat, it was you who knocked him on the head with a hammer and then…” Mark Steinberger shook his head and his voice was thick with disgust, “…then you stuck the spit up his arse as if he was a suckling pig.”
Joachim stood still, he couldn’t risk moving because he was wet through to the skin and couldn’t afford for Steinberger to notice. He was starting to shiver as well and he clenched his teeth so they wouldn’t clatter. It was very dark, maybe he would get away with it. Damn it, he should have gone to Pastor Waltz, not home; the Pastor was terrified of him thanks to his information from Frau Magda, and would do whatever he said.
“He was your friend and you killed him because he made the lead spheres for the attack on King James, so he couldn’t betray you—as if he would have. As if he would ever have betrayed you because he loved you, Joachim, just as Frau Radagunda loves you. Why it is a man so utterly worthless as you can make so many people love and admire him, I do not understand.”
He wanted to argue, wanted to argue against Steinberger’s words, but couldn’t squelch, couldn’t move so much as a muscle, couldn’t think what to say. There was a soft pitter patter of drops of lake water, falling on the floor. Damn it!
Mark Steinberger stood up. “Leave,” he said. “Go away. Take your habit of killing somewhere else and leave us in peace. Emanuel wants nothing more to do with you, nor does Daniel nor David. Not even Annamaria wants to see you.”
He creaked to the door that Joachim had just come through, opened it, paused. Had he noticed that the latch was wet?
“By the way, Little Radagunda, Poppy, is back in Keswick with her baby, I saw her ride in. I’ll be very interested to hear what she has to say about you.”
He walked out, shut the door gently. Joachim let his breath out. Maybe Steinberger hadn’t noticed that the door was wet and the floor was splattered with water. Then he remembered what Steinberger’s parting shot had been. Little Rady, Poppy was back in Keswick?
Carey was sound asleep when there came a tapping on his door at around two a.m. He answered the knock with his sword in his hand, and found Bangtail and Red Sandy, looking excited.
“Hey, sir,” said Red Sandy, not too much the worse for drink this time, “guess what?”
“What?” said Carey cautiously, rubbing his eyes.
“There’s a packtrain going out of town fra the smelthouses, they’ve been loading them up since midnight, and I heard tell fra one o’ the drovers that’s a friend o’ mine, that the packtrain goes out at night about every month and they end up in the Debateable Lands.”
“Do they now?” said Carey, hauling on his arming doublet and leather hose and his jack at speed. “What’s the load?”
“Metal and heavy.”
“Gold?”
“Nay, sir, Leamus took a peek and it’s white, no’ yellow.”
“Silver?” said Carey to himself as he slipped his flask of aquavitae into his doublet pocket and shook Tovey awake.
“You have to stay here and tell everyone I’ve got an ague, a quartan ague,” he told Tovey four times. “I’m leaving you here too, Red Sandy, so someone will have some authority.”
“Aw, sir…”
“You’re in command until I come back. I want you to make sure everybody knows how sick I am. You can’t get drunk. Where’s Leamus?”
“He’s hiding near the smelthouses, keeping an eye on the ponies. They havena gone yet.”
“Good.”
He hesitated over his helmet and then took Red Sandy’s greasy statute cap since the tall beaver hat would hardly be better than a helmet and Red Sandy sighed and said he would have to buy a new one. Carey gave him sixpence from Cecil’s funds to pay for it. He took his long poignard but not his sword since it would clatter and catch in brambles, though he felt naked without it. Red Sandy stayed behind at the Oak Inn.
The town was empty so early in the morning. Carey stopped at the side door of the inn and told Bangtail to run to the baker and get three large loaves of bread while he slipped into the common room and snaffled three horn cups. Bangtail arrived back with the three loaves still hot from the ovens in a hemp bag and then they walked quickly through the footprinted lanes to the northeast corner of the town where they could hear the stamping and occasional whinny of protest and the stealthy chink of metal. Then Carey and Bangtail crept as quickly as they could from building to building until they saw the line and the drovers hefting the small packs and strapping them on carefully. Wattie Graham and his relatives watched in the light of a couple of lanterns by the fence and Mark Steinberger and Mr Emanuel were next to a torch, making notes in a ledger.
Carey grinned wickedly and hunkered down. Leamus was there at Carey’s shoulder. His legs and feet were bare, his boots hanging around his neck.
“I’m thinking no horses,” Carey whispered.
“Best not, if ye don’t want to be seen,” breathed Leamus.
“Nice trail for us, though.”
Leamus just smiled.
For all it was supposed to be secret, Wattie, it seemed, could not be quiet, though he tried to shout in a whisper. “Come on, come on,” he was saying, “Ah wantae to get some land between me and Keswick, will ye get on?” Somebody said something about waiting until the bastard courtier was gone home and Wattie snorted. “Nay,” he said, “they’re running out o’ silver and besides, yon courtier’s tucked up and snoring in his bed.”
Carey streaked his face with icy mud and did the same for Bangtail who didn’t protest. Leamus already had mud on his face.
The ponies were lined up and the next moment they started forward with a jingling and snorting, heading along the Penrith road eastwards until they turned off left to go north and eastwards along a we
ll-used drover’s trail that soon led into sparse woodlands. Carey and Bangtail slipped through the woods to one side of the path and Leamus turned up every so often to warn them of turns and stops.
As the sky started lightening at last with the late winter dawn, Wattie turned aside a little to three small stone shepherd’s huts. The ponies were circled and a watch set by the Grahams, so Carey pulled back a little way and prepared for an uncomfortable day.
Leamus had his knife out and was trimming two large saplings, pulling them down and pegging them and piling branches and bracken on top which made a kind of rough shelter. He rolled inside and Carey paused, then did the same, dozing off on his side until Bangtail shoved in and Leamus went out to keep watch on Wattie.
At sunset they took their cue from the Grahams and ate one of the loaves of bread between them, with water from a burn cleaned with a little aquavitae. Then the packtrain set off again, with much shouting from Wattie, climbing high into the hills, all the ponies tired and apt to kick, still heading north and east from the prickling stars. Carey kept further back since the woods were thinner so high up. When the train stopped again at sunrise, he wondered why Wattie didn’t just keep going for a while. He supposed that Wattie had tried speed and decided secrecy was better and nighttime helped with that. They lay out on the moors under piles of bracken and hoped they wouldn’t be spotted, but the Grahams were sleeping in a remote farmhouse with a small tower and only a couple of sheepdogs seemed interested. Carey gave them half a loaf of bread and the dogs decided that the three of them were friends and not after the sheep.
The third night, Carey knew they were near Carlisle itself, but the packtrain didn’t use the Eden bridge. Instead it headed eastwards and forded the river at a place that was near unfordable since the river was so high. They slipped into the Debateable Land after dark, wet to the waists and freezing cold.
Carey was keeping as close as he could to the last pony and when the animal finally stopped he nearly collided with the beast’s hindquarters, though the ponies knew they were there of course, and protested too. Just in time he threw himself full length into a stand of mixed bracken and gorse and watched the boots of the young Graham lad as he pulled up the straps on the pony’s pack, swearing all the while. Luckily Wattie was not inclined to pay attention although the drovers were unhappy.
Wattie was shouting in a whisper again.
“Just a little way more,” he was saying, “and then there’s food and beds for ye at Brackenhill.”
Carey nearly popped his head up at that but stopped himself in time.
“Brackenhill,” he said to himself. “Why Brackenhill, not Netherby?”
And then he knew and it made such beautiful sense, fitted in so nicely with everything else, he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing like a loon.
He could have gone back then, but they stayed with the ponies until they had theoretically gone into Scotland, filed through the gate of the large handsome pele tower with all its outhouses that was Brackenhill, as the false dawn peered up through more snow clouds. There was Ritchie Graham, by the gate, the Graham headman and oldest of the four brothers, a large man, wide as Henry VIII and a lot less handsome, greeting his brother with a clap on the back. Leamus came loping through the undergrowth like a hunting dog, with a happy grin on his face.
When he came up to them, Carey and Bangtail started trotting alongside him. At least running would warm them up and maybe even dry off their frozen lower halves. They had ten miles of the Debateable Land to get through before they could win over the Eden Bridge and when Carey saw what it was Leamus was holding cuddled to his side under his buff coat, he sped up to a run.
“You stole one of Wattie’s cakes of silver?” he said breathlessly, as they crested a rise.
“I did, sorr,” said Leamus and added something in Irish. “I could not resist it,” he explained, not very apologetically.
“Oh, Jesus,” Carey laughed, “Wattie will be fit to be tied again when he finds out.” And he kept laughing occasionally as they ran up and downhill in the dark along the well-used track that led to Carlisle, with Leamus ahead and Bangtail bringing up the rear.
They had the Eden Bridge in sight, like a caterpillar frosted with white, when they heard the ominous pounding of the Graham hoofbeats behind them in the distance and increased their speed. The cold dawn came up.
There was a mile to go and the Grahams were getting nearer fast. Carey craned his neck to look behind him, saw the ponies break from the woodland, five of them, thought about stopping to give battle, they were three against five, and the five mounted, maybe not…
Leamus was already ahead of him and he went to a sprint, impressed at the speed of the Irishman’s bare legs. Perhaps running without heavy boots on was easier? Bangtail was at his shoulder.
“Rouse the watch,” he said breathlessly to Bangtail as he went past.
They pounded across the bridge, Wattie and four Grahams galloping behind them, shouting and gaining fast. They couldn’t make it to the gate so it was time to fight. Carey drew his poignard and stood in Wattie’s path, the blood racing in his veins. Leamus scooped a couple of rocks from the ground and hopped up to the parapet. He threw both of them and hit one of the ponies which reared, causing confusion, while Carey threw a rock as well and missed completely but made Wattie duck. He could hear the banging on the gate and shouting as Bangtail roused the watch.
“Ye bastard!” shouted Wattie, drawing his sword and pulling his morion down, “Ye God-rotted thieving bastard, I’ll hang ye for stealin’ ma siller…”
Carey dodged a lance from one of the Grahams, dropped and rolled under one of the ponies’ bellies, jumped up and just ducked in time as Wattie swung for his head and another rock from Leamus hit Wattie’s pony on the hindquarters and started him bucking. Carey scrambled away and over the parapet at the Carlisle end of the bridge and Wattie stopped there.
“It’s not…your silver,” Carey bellowed back, hoping to make the Graham waste more time shouting. “It’s the Queen’s silver!”
Wattie’s face went purple and he fairly gibbered.
City men were at last coming running out of the postern to Carey, several with arquebuses and others shooting longbows.
Carey was crowing for breath, but took off Red Sandy’s statute cap so Wattie could see him properly. The sheer disgust on Wattie Graham’s face when he saw who it really was that had followed him for three nights was worth every snore of Bangtail’s. Carey bowed, waved the cap and laughed breathlessly at the lot of them as they swore, milled their ponies round angrily and went back.
They ate breakfast at Bessie’s, which was the normal fare of oatmeal porridge since the Castle guard had not gone out on the trod that night and Carey decided to report to Scrope immediately before he went to bed. Scrope was looking very anxious.
“Yes, my lord,” he explained, trying not to yawn in the warmth of the fire in Scrope’s parlour. “The mine in Keswick produces a lot of silver as well as a little gold and plenty of copper—a fact they seem to have kept secret with some success, despite naming the mine Gottesgaab, God’s Gift. It seems that the Deutschers have an arrangement with the Grahams, through Wattie Graham of Netherby. They send the cakes of silver north to Brackenhill, to Ritchie’s counterfeiting operation there. Now I don’t think he uses much of the silver for coining Scots shillings, because they’re almost worthless. Clearly he’s not going to waste a lot of good silver on Scots money. I would say he uses the silver to make English shillings and sixpences which he then sends all over the north and also uses for usury, certainly in Carlisle, Newcastle, Berwick, and probably Durham too. I’d guess that the English shillings are actually quite good value although I doubt he keeps them as pure as the Queen does. There will be a margin between silver as silver and silver as shillings, and he keeps that as if he was the King himself. The Hochstetters get the shillings back, less a large fee for the
counterfeiting and the packponies and guards, and pay their miners and creditors with it. Which accounts for why the Grahams are so rich and powerful. I had wondered.”
“Ehm…were you thinking of telling Her Majesty all this?” asked Scrope, looking even more nervous.
Carey hesitated a second and then smiled. “I don’t know, my lord,” he said carefully. “I think Mr Secretary Cecil may suspect something because, after all, he commissioned me to inspect the mines.”
Scrope looked away and stared into space. “Only, you know, there is never enough Tower silver coin here in the North. That’s why we use Scotch shillings too.”
Carey’s eyebrows went up. “Well, my lord,” he said, “I shall have to be very careful when I report to him. It would never do if Sir Robert Cecil should take it into his head to come north, after all.” Scrope shuddered and shut his eyes. “It would be very bad for his back.”
Carey wrote a letter to his father that afternoon, using a private cypher, and after some thought decided not to send it off with the regular messenger, since Cecil was probably reading all those letters. Instead he gave it to Bessie for safekeeping until he could find somebody not owned by Cecil to take it. He ignored the noisy festival of Candlemas and fell into his bed in the Queen Mary tower shortly before sunset. As usual he woke before dawn feeling refreshed and only slightly the worse for spending three nights unnaturally on foot, though he had a couple of blisters and holes in his hose.
He found Bangtail and Leamus at early breakfast with the cake of silver between them, arguing over where to sell it and how much for, and advised a visit to the Carlisle silversmith and to check that the scales were fair when he weighed it. In the end, Carey went with them to make sure they weren’t cheated.
The silversmith clearly recognised the cake of silver, complained that it wasn’t pure and that it was sure to have lead in it…
A Suspicion of Silver Page 24