A Suspicion of Silver

by P. F. Chisholm

They set off into the hills north and east for Carlisle again, planning to stop at an inn on the way, the sky heavy with snow clouds but Carey thought it was too cold to snow yet. Still he moved them on, Red Sandy silent and tightlipped, Tovey bouncing awkwardly, and Leamus off his horse which he said was a little lame, his big bare feet slapping on the rocks and grasses and the hummocks of snow. His boots and hosen were packed onto one of the spare ponies.

  Eventually, next day, Carlisle loomed into sight and when they came back into the keep, Carey found Janet there, waiting for him.

  “He willna wait,” she said to Carey. “He wants to fight Wee Colin and he’s nowhere near ready. Wee Colin will wait, he won’t. Will ye come and talk some sense intae him?”

  “Where is he? Stobbs?”

  “Nay, he rade hame like he said he would, on Whitesock, and it half-killt him. That was last week. This week he’s been trying to wield a sword and it’s half-killing him again.”

  Carey was appalled. “He must still be wood,” he said. “Is he hoping Wee Colin will go easy on him and then he’ll kill him that way?”

  “Ay,” grunted Janet, “that’ll be it.”

  “I’ll come,” said Carey. “Tomorrow, with his brother.”

  Red Sandy was an uncomfortable companion on the sixteen miles to Gilsland, saying barely two words the whole way. Carey was a little surprised at it, but it seemed that the Dodds were silent when they were upset.

  At Gilsland Carey found a weak and scrawny Dodd in shirt, woollen breeches, and a jerkin, all of which flapped on him, exercising with a veney stick while Janet stood and watched with her arms folded and her hands in fists. Red Sandy watched for five minutes, then shook his head and scowled. Carey picked up one of the veney sticks and attacked Dodd when the young cousin of Janet’s gave up, got a fighting grin from him and then they exchanged some blows until Carey got bored, pressed Dodd, disarmed him, and when he came back with his dagger, tripped him so he landed on his back and lay there gasping for five minutes.

  “Ye’re dead, Sergeant,” said Carey conversationally. “In fact, you’re dead twice over and ye know it. I’ve never fought Wee Colin but I know he’s better than a milkmaid—and so are you when you’ve not got a half-healed wound in your back.”

  Dodd pushed himself up to a sitting position, still heaving breath into his lungs.

  “Ye bastard…”

  “Do you want another bout?” asked Carey. “I don’t like beating up a sick man but I’ll do it if I can drive some sense into that thick stubborn head of yourn.”

  And he put himself en garde because you never knew with Dodd.

  “Ye’re telling me I canna fight Wee Colin?”

  “Not soon. Or not with swords,” said Carey smoothly.

  Dodd stopped heaving for breath for a moment. “What are ye saying?”

  “Ye can’t fight Wee Colin this year with a sword. Maybe in 1594 but not this year. But if you’re so desperate to get the fight over with that you don’t care if you live or die, you could fight him with a pistol.”

  “Whit?” said both Dodd and his wife together. Carey ignored Janet who was looking daggers at him.

  “I’ve heard of a duel being done this way in Allemayne. You use matched pistols. Fortunately, I have a pair. Each is loaded. You select your weapon, pace off ten paces, turn and shoot. If you hit the other man, he’s probably dead. If he hits you, you’re probably dead. Or both of you might die, so it’s just like a regular duel.”

  Janet started to speak. “Oh no,” she said. “No, we dinna want…”

  Dodd creaked to his feet with his hand to his back. “D’ye mean it?”

  “Certainly I do. We’ll ask Wee Colin if he’s willing for it and if he is, we could have the duel in a month.”

  “Why not sooner?” demanded Dodd.

  “Because, Sergeant, you need to practise every day with the pistols so your grip is at least as strong as a milkmaid’s, so you can stand straight and aim and fire without dropping the bloody thing, which you might, and I don’t want my nice dag damaged.”

  Carey got the first real smile he had seen from Dodd since Dick of Dryhope’s tower.

  “Ye’d do that?”

  “I think it would be better if you concentrated on getting well and fought Wee Colin in a year’s time…”

  “Ay, and I think…” said Janet.

  “Ah canna wait that long. Thinking of Wee Colin would…would wear me down, so it would.”

  Janet rolled her eyes. “He’s no’ such a bad man, Wee Colin,” she said, “and if he wisnae yer blood enemy, ye’d likely be friends.”

  Surprisingly, Dodd looked down and his thin face was suddenly sad. “Ay,” he whispered, “but since he is ma blood enemy, Ah havetae fight him as soon as I can.”

  She rolled her eyes again.

  “Right,” said Carey. “I’ll send a messenger to Wee Colin to ask for a meeting to discuss the duel and see what we can arrange. I want you practising with calivers, so you get used to a bigger kick. I bet you haven’t got anything except serpentine gunpowder here, have you? I’ll bring you some milled, once you can actually hold the weapon straight for five minutes.”

  Three weeks later at the start of March, no sign of spring, in the coldest wettest part of the year which had forced a postponement the day before due to driving rain, Carey and Red Sandy and Wee Colin and two of his brothers and Dodd, of course, met on the Border on the Tarras moss. There was nothing visible for miles save brown soggy hills and brown soggy valleys. The wind was blowing hard, but Carey had chosen the fighting ground with care so there was protection in a dip in the land. Neither Wee Colin nor Dodd was wearing his jack because what was the point of armour against a lead ball?

  Carey had brought the folding table he used for musters and a camp stool, sat down and loaded both his pistols with the little waxy grey balls: charge and wad and ball and wad, taking infinite pains with the ramrod and using the finest milled powder. They would use one charge and Wee Colin’s second, his brother, was happy with this.

  When both were loaded to his satisfaction, Carey offered the guns to Dodd, since Wee Colin was the challenger. He took the nearest and it looked a little less clumsy in his hand now he had spent every day for three weeks learning to shoot. Wee Colin took the other and Carey stepped back, his cloak flapping in the wind and a grim expression on his face.

  The two men backed each other and paced ten paces. They turned and faced each other. Carey was watching Dodd closely: he saw Dodd take aim, pointing his finger the way Carey had taught him, and then saw him move the heavy barrel infinitesimally and fire. Wee Colin fired at the same moment and the two disappeared into white smoke.

  Red Sandy ran to his brother who was still standing, looking down at himself in surprise.Wee Colin was also looking surprised.

  “Gentlemen,” said Carey, moving between them, “do you want to take another shot, since ye both missed?”

  Dodd shook his head once. After a pause so did Wee Colin.

  “Ay, it was a wonder neither o’ the wheel-locks jammed nor misfired,” said Wee Colin. “I prefer a snaphaunce lock meself, less to go wrong. But no.”

  “So do I,” admitted Carey, “but these were so expensive, I can’t abandon them.”

  “I think ye could convert them into snaphaunces,” said Wee Colin. “I know a man in Dumfries ye could ask.”

  “That’s uncommon kind of you, Mr Elliot, thank you. Sergeant Dodd, are you happy that honour is satisfied?”

  Dodd looked up at Carey with a very odd expression on his face, and moved his boot a little. “Ay,” he said. “Ah am.”

  “Mr Elliot?”

  “Ay.”

  Carey collected his dags and put them in their cases on his pony. Red Sandy had lost his tense miserable expression and Dodd seemed to be trying to swallow a smile of relief.

  “A toast,
gentlemen,” said Carey, producing little silver cups for everybody and pouring out from a flask in his doublet pocket as the wind strengthened and the rain started to fall again. “I give you The Dodds and The Elliots, may the peace hold and friendship grow.”

  Wee Colin raised his cup. Dodd did the same, everyone drank the whishke bee.

  The Elliots went north and the Dodds and Carey went south.

  “If only we could deal with all feuds on the Border like that,” said Carey brightly, as they came in sight of Gilsland. “Just the headmen, fighting it out in a duel, clean and quick, not fifty riders each side thundering into battle. My life would be so much easier.”

  Dodd fell back a little and tilted his head at his brother. “What’s sae funny?” demanded Red Sandy, seeing his lips twitch.

  Dodd showed him a little ball of paper that was singed and torn. Red Sandy took it and it was the size of pistol shot and coloured with blacklead and wax.

  “That bounced off o’ my doublet,” said Dodd, with a grin. “The courtier loaded Wee Colin Elliot’s dag with a wad of paper. That’s what’s funny.”

  “Yes, but…” Red Sandy began and then swallowed his words. “Ay,” he said, “that’s funny.”

  “That pays for Dick of Dryhope’s tower,” said Dodd. “Even though I missed Wee Colin, that pays for it.”

  “Ay,” said Red Sandy, pokerfaced.

  They came to the gates where Janet was standing with strain and tension written all over her face that melted away to nothing as she saw her husband riding towards her and ran to him and kissed him.

  Carey reached Carlisle late the next day after doing a deal with Dodd for a good load of stones from the Giant’s Wall on his land to mend the Eden bridge again.

  He went up the stairs of the Queen Mary tower, whistling and feeling very pleased with himself and stopped when he found John Tovey standing there, looking anxious.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a girl here, sir. She says her name is Jane and she has a message for you.”

  “A girl?”

  “She says she’s come all the way from Widdrington, sir, and from the looks of her she has…”

  “How the devil did she get here? Who brought her?”

  “She says nobody, sir, because Young Hutchin’s locked up and so she came herself because she loves Lady Widdrington.”

  “But it’s nearly a hundred miles…”

  “Yes, sir. She said she walked and ran like you did when you went from London to Berwick and it worked and she’s here now. She’s in your study, sir…”

  “Well, that’s not suitable. I can’t have a maid in my chamber…”

  “Bessie’s there as well, sir, so it’s respectable.”

  “Oh. Well. Very good, Mr Tovey.”

  “She says it’s about Lady Widdrington, sir. She won’t say what’s wrong with her.”

  Carey strode into his chamber and found Bessie sitting on the chair and a sturdy looking girl with brown hair and rather a square face and a muddy kirtle and hob-nailed boots, sitting on a stool, clearly near to dropping with tiredness. Both of them stood up and curtseyed as he came in. Bessie was flushed and had a dab of flour on her chin.

  “Ah have never heard such a tale from a maid,” said Bessie, “but ye’d best hear her message yourself.”

  “Are you Sir Robert Carey?” asked the girl, looking up at him.

  “Yes, I am,” he said. “I remember you. Weren’t you in the dairy when I came to Widdrington a few years ago?”

  She flushed to her hair roots. “Ay, sir, I was, I am. Young Hutchin wanted to come but Sir Henry locked him up, so I said I’d carry it.”

  She stood up, felt inside her stays for a pocket and brought out something shining. Jane gave it ceremoniously into Carey’s hand. He looked at it as if he didn’t know what it was, but he did know. It was half of Elizabeth’s handfasting ring. There were two slim rings, one with a male hand on it, one with a female hand. You put them together and they clasped each other. He was holding the female hand.

  He went to ice immediately. Just as he had sent the Queen’s emerald ring to Elizabeth when he had desperately needed her assistance at the Scottish King’s Court the previous summer, so she had sent her part of her handfasting ring to him. It was a mute cry for help.

  He stared at Jane who was scowling. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  in no particular order

  * historical person

  in parenthesis: mentioned, not met

  Marty, Whitehall stableboy

  The Hochstetter family:

  Daniel*, Radagunda his wife née Stamler*

  Sons: Emanuel*, (Daniel*), Joachim, David*

  Daughters: Annamaria*, (Veronica*,

  Susanna*), Radagunda*, Elizabeth*

  Sir Robert Carey *

  Sorrel, Blackie, his usual hobbies

  Lord Scrope, Warden of the English West March*

  Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, Carey’s love*

  (Sir Henry Widdrington, her husband, Deputy

  Warden of the English East March)*

  Henry Dodd, Land-Sergeant of Gilsland,

  Carey’s henchman

  Whitesock, his favourite horse

  Sir Robert Cecil, Privy Councillor*

  Jonathan Hepburn/Joachim Hochstetter, an engineer

  Simon Anricks, a merchant and toothdrawer

  (John Napier)*, mathematician

  Mr Menzies, a Scottish lawyer

  Wattie Graham of Netherby, Border reiver*

  Young Hutchin Graham, nearly a Border reiver*

  Bangtail Graham, man-at-arms, Carlisle castle guard*

  Red Sandy Dodd, man-at-arms, Carlisle castle guard

  (Andie Nixon, man-at-arms, Carlisle castle guard)

  (Kate, his wife)

  Leamus MacRom, Irish kern

  Janet Dodd

  Widow Ridley

  Ritchie Graham of Brackenhill, gangster*

  Bessie Storey *

  (Nancy, her wife)*

  Mark Steinberger, Schmelzmeister*

  John Tovey, Carey’s secretary

  James Stuart, King of Scotland, 6th of that name*

  (Mrs Hogg, midwife)

  Shilling, a horse

  Joshua Davidson*, possibly a hallucination

  Wee Colin Elliot, headman of the Elliot surname

  (Roger Widdrington, son of Sir Henry)*

  (Lord Burghley) *

  Frau Magda, barmaid

  Long Tom Graham, unfortunate messenger

  Maria, maid

  Matthew Ormathwaite, carpenter

  (Sir Thomas Carleton)*

  Cuthbert “Skinabake” Armstrong*

  (Earl of Essex)*

  (Niall of the Nine Captives)*

  Mr Lugg, barber-surgeon

  Alyson Elliot, chatelaine of Stobbs tower

  Aloysius Allerdyce, Mayor of Keswick

  (Mr Nedham, shareholder in the Company of Mines Royal)*

  John Carleton, smith

  Rosa Carleton, his wife, and Josef, his son

  (Trevannion, Carey’s Cornish cousin)*

  (Journeymen smiths: David Butfell,

  Tom Atkinson, Melchior Moser*)

  (Apprentice smiths: Short Jemmie, Matty, Jurgen, Rob)

  Betty, a milkmaid

  Ian Ullock, merchant apprentice

  Poppy Burn or Radagunda Hochstetter

  Mary Liddle, a wetnurse

  James Postumus Burn, a baby

  Pastor Waltz*

  Ulrich Schlegel, mine captain*

  Hans Moser, mine captain*

  Jane, a dairymaid

  Herr Kauffmann Hochstetter

  (Dr Hector Nuñez, Simon’s uncle)*

 
Author’s Note

  There is a wonderful history book to be written about the Hochstetter family, Haug and Co of Augsburg, and the Company of Mines Royal, telling the story of early water- and horse-powered industrialisation and the first tentative steps towards capitalism. Unfortunately, I am not the person to write it because I can’t speak German and most of the rich original source material is in German, as are the accounts.

  Briefly, Daniel Hochstetter, the son of Joachim who got gold out of Crawford Moor in Scotland for Henry VIII, came to England in 1563 with six others with permission to survey the mineral resources of England. He came back in June 1564 with twelve workmen and took them to Keswick, where they had found copper ore which also contained silver.

  He came back in October 1566 to deal with one of his men, Leonard Stoltz having been murdered by the Catholic earl of Northumberland, just possibly for being an Anabaptist. English copper was made in September 1567 and the Company of Mines Royal was officially incorporated on 28 May 1568. A law case over the rights to the ore between Northumberland and the Crown was settled in the Crown’s favour, to nobody’s surprise apart from Northumberland’s, who rebelled shortly after.

  And from November 1571 to May 1572 Daniel Hochstetter brought his wife and family all the way from Augsburg to England. They stopped over the winter in London, where they went sightseeing, and went north in the spring. They settled on Vicar’s Island in Derwentwater, where they built a brewery, a bakery, a mill, and planted orchards and made a pig farm. They built stamping houses for crushing ore at Goldscope mine in Newham, smelthouses for smelting and assaying in Brigham and started mining for coal at a small village nine miles away called Bolton Low Houses. Many of the original miners went back to Germany in the 1570s when the mines were allegedly “failing of ore” but the Hochstetters stayed, although Daniel himself died in 1581. Mining continued in Keswick right into the seventeeth century, to the Civil War.

  I have based my account of sixteenth-century Keswick on Elizabethan Copper by M B Donald (1955), Elizabethan Keswick by W G Collingwood (1912), and Goldscope and the Mines of Derwent Fells by Ian Tyler (2005). The last is a rare, lively but, alas, footnote-free book, and I used Ian Tyler’s original sketchmap of Goldscope mine for Carey’s adventures underground. Agricola’s book on mining, De Re Metallica, in President Herbert Clark Hoover’s translation became my bible for the metallurgy and the astonishing wooden machines. There is in fact a major clue to the mystery towards the end of Book 3 of De Re Metallica and Wattie Graham of Netherby did in fact own Borrowdale woods, for some mysterious reason.