A Clash of Spheres

by P. F. Chisholm

  Carey’s legs were a bit bruised from the crushing, but, for a wonder, nobody had stuck him with a horn. He rode up to the old cow, took the rope from round her neck and gave her a slap on the shoulder in thanks. He got a glare that reminded him of his mother, which made him want to laugh.

  All eight of his men came trotting up, some of them with prisoners who would ransome very nicely. None of the prisoners was Wattie Graham, but Fire the Braes was furious.

  “They’re ma ain cattle ye’ve reived from me, ye bastard!” he shouted and Carey looked mildly offended.

  “They’ve got a wonderful range of brands,” he said, “Pringle, Storey, Ridley, I think that one is an English Armstrong.”

  “They’re mine, damn ye!”

  “No, I think you reived them, Archie.”

  “Ay,” bellowed Archie, his hands tied behind his back in fists. “Ay, Ah worked hard to reive them and they’re all mine, stolen fair and square!”

  He realised that Carey was laughing at him and so were some of the men, especially Andy Nixon, the square Carlisler who often now was second in command. “Och, piss off, ye lang streak o’ puke.”

  Nixon lifted his fist but Carey shook his head. “Well now,” he said conversationally, as Perkins and Garron and East, commanded by Nick Smithson, tried to do something about the fences so the cows wouldn’t wander off again. “What were you doing waiting in ambush under Eden Bridge like a bunch of goddamned trolls, only not so pretty? How many of you were there?”

  “At least forty…Ah’ll tell ye nothing.”

  “Well, you will after I’ve put you in the Licking Stone cell for a bit,” said Carey, his voice oozing sympathy which made Red Sandy and Bangtail start snickering again. “It’s not much fun, I’m told. It’ll be much harder for you to talk to me once your tongue has swollen to twice its size with licking a few drops of water off the rough stone wall.” Although from the way it had been raining recently, Carey rather thought Fire the Braes’ real problem would be not drowning. However Fire the Braes was not to know that.

  “Och,” Fire the Braes said as Nixon attached him to the other two prisoners by a rope and jerked on it. “Ay, it was all Grahams, for the brave ye put on us last month, taking and hanging our cousins and guests…”

  “For murder. And mentioning Lord Spynie.”

  Archie shrugged, “So what? And Ritchie of Brackenhill put the price up on ye, tae fifteens pounds and a helmet, so we’ll no’ be the ainly ones…”

  “Forty men?”

  “Mebbe thirty.”

  “That’s what I thought. And someone had a try at me last week in Bessie’s, only Bessie’s wife saw him and cracked his skull with a jug.”

  “Ah dinna ken,” said Fire the Braes sulkily.

  “They say your tongue bleeds as well and then clots and so it cracks open…”

  “Jesus, will ye stop? I came in wi’ Wattie for the money and the fun of it, and now ye’re threatening me wi’ the Licking Stone cell and I’ll no’ have it, any of it.”

  “It’s been busy all month and then in the last week it’s gone silent as the grave, what’s that about?”

  “Ah dinna ken!” shouted Archie and tried to lunge at Carey who backed his horse a couple of paces while Andy Nixon and Bangtail hit the reiver a couple of times to quieten him and teach him manners.

  “So, let’s see, we’ve got Fire the Braes, Sim’s Jock Graham…”

  Bessie’s Andrew Storey hurried up to him. “There’s one shot dead, three of them got trampled by the kine, one’s still alive and the other two died, four ran intae the town, the rest forded the river upstream and ran for Liddesdale, Wattie Graham with them.”

  “Where’s young Hutchin Graham? I swear I saw his hair.”

  “Dinna ken sir, probably ran intae the toon as well.”

  “They’ll be at the postern gate arguing with Solomon Musgrave by now. Separate out the horses, we can always find a use for them and some of them have no brands on them.”

  He trotted to the northern town gate, the Scotch gate, where he found it shut, the postern gate shut tight and the gate guards denying stoutly that they had seen any Grahams, that there had been any Grahams anywhere—that Grahams existed, that there was a postern gate at all, and if there was, that it had ever been opened all night and certainly that there had ever been five people who might have gone through on payment of an irregular toll and certainly weren’t Grahams….

  Carey sighed, trotted back, brought in the three reivers on their feet and one slung over a pony’s back, along with the eight men who were all looking very pleased with themselves, as well they might, except for Perkins who was protesting at being nicknamed Falls off his Horse Perkins.

  August 1592

  The Maxwell castle of Caerlaverock was tucked away in a part of Scotland almost nobody ever went to, except the people who lived there, near Dumfries. It was beautiful, certainly, in the opinion of the owner, the current eighth Lord Maxwell, ably backed by the Maxwell surname and their Herries cousins. When they weren’t nose-to-nose with the Johnstones for the leadership of the Scottish West March, Maxwells had been known to make quite good West March Wardens, for a given and small value of “good.” Now the old feud had broken out yet again and nothing mattered, save killing all the bloody Johnstones in whatever way seemed most expedient to the Maxwell.

  He had had a splendid idea and was in the process of selling it to George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, the Earl of Erroll, and the Earl of Angus.

  They were at a private supper in his private parlour where the silver loot from his and his ancestors’ raids going back to before Flodden, shone softly in the candlelight. Father William Crichton squinted at the plate sometimes, recognising the chalices and patens robbed from monasteries during the Reformation, and some that looked to be English work, too.

  He said nothing about any of it. He was a Jesuit and they always took the long, the educated view.

  He was also the Maxwell’s house priest, because Maxwell, like most of the northern earls, held to the old Faith, not the new ridiculous religion that had swept the country in 1560 when Crichton had been a pious young lad.

  “Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus…” he intoned, letting the beautiful Latin carry him along. The polished table was spread with the first remove, and the lords had their heads bent. There was haggis, though it was really a peasant dish, a vast salmon from Maxwell’s river, a haunch of beef, quite possibly from the Maxwell’s own herds, venison from a hunt a week and a half ago, hung to perfection, quails, and some potherbs like turnips and neeps. Oh, and a sallet dressed with vinegar. Maxwell had an Edinburgh cook who had once worked in the Royal kitchens.

  Unusually, once the venison had been broken, the lords served each other and the servants filed out. One large young man with freckles pulled the door firmly shut behind him. Father Crichton heard him draw his sword and his two feet stamping down on the floor as he took up position.

  For the first ten minutes there was silence apart from the sound of knives and spoons scraping the occasional silverplate, napkins thrown over shoulders being applied to fingers, more manchet bread being asked for, silver spoons being used to sup the gravy made with red wine and a piquant sauce made of capers and lemon.

  For the next half hour everyone talked about hunting, with occasional diversions into fishing and golf, Edinburgh tailors, fishing, hunting, golf, and the feud with the Johnstones which the Maxwell claimed was going exactly as he wanted it to, despite the setback caused by the stupid interference of the Deputy Warden.

  The first remove was cleared by the servants filing in, and the second remove brought in with spitted chickens, blankmanger, more pathetic lettuce, quince cheese, and sheep and cow cheese with a magnificent cartwheel tart with twelve flavours of jam in it like a clock. They drank to Maxwell’s wife in thanks, although of course she was not present, having tactfully gone to visit her
mother.

  “Well,” said Father Crichton, who was very full, “perhaps we could begin?”

  “Ay,” said the Maxwell, rubbing the continuous eyebrow that went from one side of his face to the other. “Ye all ken why ye’re here…?”

  “Och,” said Huntly, leaning back and loosening his belt, “ye’re thinking of bringing the Spanish in again, are ye not?”

  The Maxwell was a little taken aback. “Well, I am, but…”

  “Ffft,” said Erroll, as he pulled out his purse and gave Huntly a handful of debased Scotch shillings. “I thocht sure it’s the French.”

  “The French are busy,” said the Maxwell primly. “It has to be the Spanish King.”

  “Ay,” said Erroll sceptically, “he’s sending troops, is he?”

  “He will,” said the Maxwell positively. “He will because…”

  “He willna,” said Angus. “He disnae know nor care where Caerlaverock is, nor Lochmaben and…”

  “He sent another Armada aginst the English again this summer…”

  “Where is it?”

  “Well it met some bad storms in the Bay of Biscay and they’re refitting in the Groyne…”

  “Ay, like the last one,” said Erroll, drinking wine gloomily. “I swear the Queen of England’s a witch.”

  There was a chorus of agreement about the unnaturalness of storms in Biscay in summer and they drank confusion to the old bat who had England in her grip and seemed to have a personal hold on the stormy weather as well.

  “He might send another Armada next year, but…”

  “Willna do nae good, she’ll scatter that one too…”

  “Will ye listen?” shouted the Maxwell and they quieted. “Father Crichton here has a canny scheme that will help the King of Spain to win England and incidentally wipe out the Johnstones by the way.”

  Everybody laughed except Maxwell.

  “Ay, I thocht that would be in there somewhere…” said Huntly cynically.

  “Ay, and why not? Ye’ve some feuds yerself, Huntly…”

  “Hush,” said Erroll who had noticed Father Crichton stand up.

  He stood there for a moment, plain and unassuming, in a good suit of brown wool. “Ye recall the paper written by the King a few years back on the pros and cons of the Spanish having England?” It was obvious nobody did but this did not matter. “His Majesty of Spain has now seen a copy and finds it interesting.”

  “Ay, but King James isnae a Papist, is he?” asked a shocked-sounding Huntly, who was a Papist himself. “He’s a sodomite, sure, but…”

  “He isnae reformed neither,” sniffed Angus, which produced a laugh. “He’s neither one nor the other.” More sniggers.

  “My lords,” said Father Crichton with a small proud smile, “I think the one thing that we can be sure of is that the King is a…Jamesist.”

  There was a pause and then a lot of laughter at this dangerous witticism. Father Crichton waited it out.

  “The proposition is this, my lords,” said Father Crichton, “that we take the usual assurances and bonds of manrent from our tenants and families while the King of Spain sends men quietly over the winter months, in hundreds here and there, some via Ireland, until there are at least four thousand terceiros based around Dumfries.”

  “How will we feed them?” somebody asked.

  “The King of Spain will send food and money as well. While they are waiting they will need martial exercise and so my Lord Maxwell will lead them out…”

  “To wipe out the Johnstones?”

  “To deal with any disaffected elements in the area. Then when the spring storms have abated, the King of Spain will send a small Armada up through the Irish sea, using Irish and Cornish pilots, to meet us here. And in the summer of 1593 we march on England, down through the Western marches of Wales to Gloucester and Oxford. So the English willna ken they’ve been invaded until we’re at Oxford perhaps, and London is open to us.”

  Father Crichton had been thinking about this plan for many years. It had some features he did not plan to share just yet, but as a peaceful man who had never been in a battle and dealt amongst the high abstractions of maps and orders, he was modestly proud of it. He thought of it as invading the soft underbelly of England and he rather thought the English would surrender and do a deal, once they realised how rotten their land soldiers were. Their frighteningly able sailors would not be able to do anything once the terceiros were ashore. There were hints that some of the men at the Queen’s Court would be happy to do deals with the King of Spain and return to the arms of Mother Church. It was also said there was nothing an Englishman would not do for money.

  “Hm,” said Huntly, “what about King James? He’s allus looked forward to getting the throne of England.”

  “He may not be disappointed,” said Crichton carefully, because King James was indeed a problem, not least because nobody knew which way he would jump when it came to it—Catholic or Calvinist? “The King of Spain may prefer to rule through a vassal King, although he is the true heir through John of Gaunt and also his late wife, Queen Mary, not the bastard Elizabeth Tudor.” Father Crichton didn’t mention that Scotland could be swallowed later and converted back to the True Religion. “After he takes London, he will be King because everything flows from that, but there is more than one way to rule a conquest.”

  “It’s a long way to go, Dumfries tae London.”

  “The Armada will resupply from the Irish sea,” said Father Crichton, who had never seen Wales except in maps and assumed it was basically flat with some rolling hills.

  They discussed the plan and Father Crichton brought out some specially drawn maps that showed as clear as day that it would be easy because nobody among the English would expect to be attacked from the northwest. The Queen would be guarding the south coast and the Cinque Ports as usual, not the approaches from the north. She trusted James and knew that he was considerably less martial than she was herself.

  “Ye know,” said Maxwell, “Queen James might even give his permission, seeing as the Spaniards would be only on the west coast and well away from Edinburgh and he disnae like a fight.”

  “Why should he give permission?” asked Huntly.

  “Well the King of Spain’s awfy rich, is he not? Why not bribe King James? I know he’s annoyed with the Queen of England because she’s cut his subsidy this year.”

  They all nodded thoughtfully.

  The Maxwell spoke up again. “And besides,” he said with a grin, “think of the plunder.”

  Father Crichton sat down again and listened with satisfaction as they talked about the rich pickings from the fat and easy lands of England. In a little while he would bring up the idea of assurances that they could give the King of Spain to convince him that they would do what he wanted, because the King of Spain had made a point about that. Philip II didn’t trust the Scottish nobles as far as he could notionally throw them, which wasn’t far since they were all fit young men and he was old and spent his days sitting at a desk.

  Father Crichton made a quick prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ would bring the holy work to a satisfactory conclusion, with the Mass once more being said all across the sad, spiritually thirsty lands of England and Scotland, and of course, himself as Lord Chancellor.

  Autumn 1592

  Sir David Graham of Fintry was feeling tired and sad. His back hurt from standing too much, his knees hurt from kneeling, his ears hurt from the howls of drunken laughter coming from the King’s privy parlour where the King was entertaining some of his favourite nobles with a late supper. The pheasant and partridge were in pieces and a custard had been thrown for no very good reason that Sir David could discern although everybody found it very funny and the King was saying “Splatt!” at intervals, with tears of laughter rolling down his dingy face.

  Lord Spynie was now prancing about with a tapestry wrapped ar
ound himself, imitating one of the Queen’s fatter ladies in waiting. The Queen wasn’t there of course, but in her own apartments with her ladies. Now Spynie had the tapestry as a cloak and was guying the Earl of Bothwell who had once been a friend of the King’s, and was now at the horn. Sir David had to admit that Lord Spynie was a very good mimic, if you liked that sort of thing. Personally, he didn’t.

  He sighed and shifted from one foot to the other. As one of the King’s Grooms of the Bedchamber, he was waiting to help His Highness to bed when he finally finished his hilarity and, since the King was in the room, he couldn’t sit down like Lord Spynie and put his feet up on the table. Or, no, to be fair, Spynie was still pretending to be Bothwell, flirting with an invisible witch with his feet up.

  He shifted again. He had a lot to think about, some of it connected with a highly intelligent and ingenious engineer who was also properly respectful of Sir David, unlike a lot of the young men at Court. He hadn’t really noticed the man until he had some particularly bad news about the thirty years a-building of his castle near Dundee. He had been upset and was telling one of his few friends at Court about it in an antechamber. Sir George Kerr hadn’t been able to do more than sympathise but a curly haired gentleman with pale grey eyes had stopped leaning against a wall and asked, with nice courtly respect, what the problem was.

  “Part of the curtain wall is falling down again,” said Sir David, mournfully. “I’ve turned off the masons but that didna stop it falling down again.”

  “Have you surveyed for running water?” asked the man.

  “Eh?”

  It turned out that the man’s name was Jonathan Hepburn, he had been the Earl of Bothwell’s man until the recent problems, and he was, among other things, a mining engineer. And so, the following week when Sir David was off-duty again, Hepburn had ridden to Dundee with Sir David and spotted that there was a small stream under the wall where it kept falling down. He had spent a few days organising the cutting of a small culvert to take the water away and all was immediately well. The rebuilt wall stopped falling down.