A Clash of Spheres

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Buttering up the Queen, so I heard,” said Sir Henry with the scowl his face always wore when he thought of his wife. “And learning Danish, God save us. I’ve not missed her.”

  “Just so long as she doesn’t interfere again,” said Spynie, also scowling. The stupid bitch’s interference in the summer was a large part of the reason why Spynie was not now drinking the King’s wine in the King’s Privy Parlour and kissing the King long and lingering on the mouth. For some inexplicable reason the King had not liked their proceedings at all. You would think the disgusting Englishman was some kind of relative. Worse, it had somehow turned the King personally against Spynie as though it was all Spynie’s fault. He still hoped to get back in the King’s good graces and in his bed, but the old delightful intimacy was not there any more and nor did the King laugh at Spynie’s jokes, which annoyed him because he worked hard at them.

  Just for a moment Spynie toyed with the idea of seducing Sir Henry. Probably he would have to get him drunk first because Spynie suspected the old man was still a virgin that way and then…But his stomach always rebelled because Sir Henry was such an ugly old man. Useful but old and gouty and might well turn squeamish too. No, tonight it would be Jeremy, who was in the full flower of his so-temporary masculine beauty and was not at all a virgin, nor squeamish.

  Also recently Sir Henry had started smelling of old piss which Spynie didn’t approve of at all. The King smelled terrible too but there was something exciting in that, an animal smell like a boar.

  Still Sir Henry was useful, remember that, and while Spynie was not the King’s Minion any more he needed useful people totally devoted to him and his interests. He wondered again who was the King’s latest—or did he have one? Spynie hadn’t noticed anyone new at Court who was pretty enough despite the way powerful nobles brought likely boys and lads in their family to Court to see if they could catch the King’s eye, just as they would with their daughters if he had been interested in women. They were wasting their time with the boys, James was not interested in children either.

  Spynie smiled at Jeremy, beckoned him over and kissed him on the mouth, a sign that the choice of the evening was made.

  Some naughty spirit made him say to Sir Henry, “Would you like to take one of my boys as your bedfellow, Sir Henry?”

  And bless the old man, he looked puzzled and said, “No, I prefer to sleep alone because of my gout. Thank you.” Was that a look of panic under the puzzlement?

  The twins were still assiduously playing the lute but the two new boys, one only eight, looked at each other and the eight-year-old shuddered. Poor ugly old man, no one wanted him.

  Spynie beckoned the youngest two boys over and told them to clear away the food but leave the wine.

  He had the beginnings of a plan now and he decided to ask young Matthew, one of his henchmen, to fetch him Jonathan Hepburn. He thought the plan quite a good one and felt a tickle of excitement at the base of his stomach, the feeling he got when he was removing someone who stood in his way. Carey would be dead in a couple of days.

  ***

  Early next morning, Carey took Anricks off with him to the best mercer in town where he dallied for what seemed to Anricks like several hours over different kinds of damask and taffeta and velvet. Then he went to the best tailor in town, as recommended by Maitland where Anricks made good on his promise to buy Carey a new Court suit in the latest Scottish fashion, despite the eye-watering price of nine hundred-ninety pounds Scots, including the cloth.

  Carey then was very completely measured and since he hadn’t used that tailor before, Mr Arbroath the Master tailor, promised him a shell in coarse linen by the following day, before they even spoke about the fabric or the trim which Carey hadn’t been able to decide on at the mercer’s.

  And it was on the way back from the tailor with Carey still burbling on about some damask from the Low Countries which had taken his eye and was even more wonderful than some other damask and leafing through about twenty swatches that all seemed very similar, when it happened.

  The first thing that Anricks noticed was that the tailoring related burble had stopped and the next thing he noticed was that Carey had also stopped in the middle of the Linenmarket.

  In fact he was standing stock still so the Edinburgh crowds had to part for him, his face shining with happiness.

  Anricks followed where he was looking and found a little group of richly dressed ladies, who had just come out of the milliners’ street and were talking in a mixture of a Germanic-sounding language Anricks didn’t know, and broken Scotch as they walked along.

  In the middle of them was Lady Widdrington, gravely repeating something like a verse, her face relaxed and remarkably pretty, in her usual severe doublet-style bodice and kirtle and with a fur trimmed black velvet gown over the top, her cap covering her hair and a not quite fashionable hat on top.

  She felt someone’s eyes upon her, looked round and saw Carey.

  First she stared back and her face too lit up so it was as though two invisible sunbeams were spearing down from the grey sky to light their faces alone. One of the maidens with loose fair hair elbowed another blonde in a married woman’s cap and hat, and the whole gaggle of them also stopped.

  Carey was the first to recover the use of his wits and he bowed low and elegantly to all of the ladies, who of course curtseyed back in a group, except for Lady Widdrington who was two seconds behind the others.

  Then Carey strode over and asked Lady Widdrington to introduce him to so many beautiful ladies, and were they the Danish Queen’s ladies and how wonderful it was that they were and how did they like Scotland?

  It was well done, thought Anricks, for he did not really speak to Lady Widdrington at all once the introductions were made. Yet he found out that Lady Widdrington was currently staying with the Queen’s household, and where that was and regretted that the Queen wasn’t a good rider and so would not ride to hounds in the hunt the day after, and finally dragged Anricks into introductions as the philosopher who would be disputing on the movements of the heavenly spheres. Most of the girls shuddered at the idea of the Earth moving instead of the Sun, except for one who remarked that she knew of an astrologer living on an island who was studying that very thing.

  And then Carey made his bows again and the girls all curtseyed, the maidens all made eyes at Carey, and off they went. The minute they turned the corner, Carey scowled and led the way to a boozing ken where he sat and called for double-double ale for both of them.

  Anricks was agreeable and took a pull of his ale which he found quite strange tasting now he was used to hopped Bristol beer. Carey stared into space, then turned to him.

  “You know of course that Lady Elizabeth Widdrington is the woman I am going to marry?”

  “Yes, I know, Sir Robert. If I didn’t know before, which I did, I would have known at once from your faces.”

  Carey smiled briefly. “However,” he said, “the fact that Lady Widdrington is here in Edinburgh means that her foul husband, Sir Henry, is also infallibly here, which is very bad news for me and quite a problem for you.”

  “How so?”

  “Sir Henry and Lord Spynie are normally in cahoots as the Scots say and they want…”

  “To kill you. Yes, I had surmised something of the sort.”

  “Do you not see that as a problem?”

  “Sir Robert, I don’t. If they succeed in killing you, I shall be sorry but I will continue with my disputation as a means of getting close enough to King James to find out his thoughts on the Catholic plan against Scotland, if it exists.” Carey smiled. “And if they do not succeed in killing you, why then, I shall continue with my disputation with your help. I don’t see your putative murder as affecting me greatly, one way or the other.”

  Carey chuckled. “Philosophy?”

  Anricks smiled too. “And if I should unfortunately get killed in mistake fo
r you, or die of plague or in a bear attack or some such, then I expect Sir Robert Cecil will find some other poor fool to dig into the matter. I doubt we are as important as we think we are.”

  Carey raised his jack to Anricks and they both drank.

  “However it is also philosophical to take precautions and this puts a different complexion on tomorrow’s hunt.”

  Carey raised his brows. “You think Sir Henry and Lord Spynie will try something?”

  “Of course they will, it is a golden opportunity. Men such as you, Sir Robert, break their necks while hunting every day of the week and I would imagine, Lord Spynie’s men are prospecting for a convenient place as we speak.”

  “Yes.”

  “We should sit and draw up a list of likely ways they might try to kill you at the hunt—I would also advise a gorget under your doublet.”

  “It’ll be infernally uncomfortable.”

  “Not as uncomfortable as a wire snare pulling tight on your bare neck, which I regard as second only to a rope between two trees in likelihood.”

  “True.”

  Anricks finished his drink and smacked his lips judiciously. “I see this not as the kind of murder where they come after you mobhanded—or not yet. More a sneak attack.”

  “Well neither of my servants can ride well enough so it will have to be Sergeant Dodd at my back, despite the fact that someone has bought him.”

  “Perhaps I could do something to the purpose as well,” said Anricks, “although I am not sure what.”

  “Will you come hunting, Mr Anricks?”

  “Certainly not, sir. I am a philosopher and it is a well-known fact that philosophers do not hunt. Mr Napier does not either.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Chase after a pack of hounds, all day, on horseback, risking your neck although no one is trying to kill you—most unphilosophical. And besides philosophy is in itself a kind of hunt as we follow the tracks of the vagrant thought and search the coverts for the scent of the white hart of truth.”

  Carey applauded. “Nicely put,” he said. “Will you use that in your speech?”

  “I might,” said Anricks, “but I was going to start with a disquisition mathematical on the differences between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems. Mr Napier was helping me with it yesterday evening.”

  “Mathematical?”

  “Yes, you know, if there is a language of the universe, a language of the angels as Dr Dee calls it, I am certain it is mathematics. Sure, that’s the language the Almighty speaks, as Maimonides says.”

  “And there I was praying in English. Or should it be Latin?”

  “There is an argument for speaking Latin or Greek or even Hebrew to the Almighty so we remember He is unlike us, being eternal and all powerful, whereas we are short-lived as mayflies in comparison, and puny. Normally I think English is as good a language as any to speak to the Almighty in and comes as easily to my tongue as the Portuguese.”

  Carey nodded. “Personally,” he said cautiously, because philosophers are notoriously sensitive, “I would keep the Art Mathematica to an absolute minimum since His Highness understands nothing of it, and use words.”

  “Oh,” Anricks looked crestfallen, “are you sure? They say he’s very clever. I wrote something of my disputation late last night, inspired by Mr Napier’s wonderful new numbers, with the mathematics laid out very simply and clearly…though indeed there is something odd about…”

  “May I see it?”

  Anricks pulled some crumpled sheets of paper out of his sleeve pocket and handed them to Carey, who squinted, frowned, tried the sheets the other way up and focussed on them for a while.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last, “my arithmetic is good enough for siegework and artillery and playing cards, but I can’t make out any of this.”

  “Really?” said Anricks in a huffy tone of voice, “I thought it was all a bit easy.”

  Carey coughed. “Well maybe for you, but I am certain that His Highness will make even less of it than I did and if you try to win your dispute with mathematics, you are doomed.”

  “But Sir Robert, as Dr Dee says, the world is written in mathematics…”

  “Yes, but His Highness doesn’t speak Mathematics. You would be better saying it in Dutch.”

  “But that is the point, number is a universal language that needs no translation, once you understand the concepts…”

  “Mr Anricks,” said Carey gently and firmly, “since I may have my neck broken for me tomorrow, take heed of me today. Trust me, His Highness will be at best bewildered and at worst bored. Find a way to translate it into good Scots at least.”

  “But…Oh, very well!” And pettishly Anricks went out and threw the sheets of paper into the kennel running down the middle of the lane.

  They stood and walked down through the town to Holyrood House—nobody but a fool would try to get a horse through the streets of Edinburgh just before Christmas. It was like London.

  Back in the street they had just left, the boy who had been shadowing Carey and Anricks, carefully picked the sheets of paper out of the kennel, wiped the worst of it off on his breeks and trotted after them into the palace and gave them to one of Lord Spynie’s men.

  “I’m certain sure it’s in cipher, sir,” said the boy excitedly, completely forgetting Carey and Anricks’ prior conversation, “like the Pastor was telling us, or maybe alchemy or astrology cos it isnae normal, is it?”

  Lord Spynie’s man gave the boy a Scotch shilling and put the sheets away in his wallet. It looked like witchcraft to him. He didn’t think Carey was anything except a good Protestant, but you never knew with philosophers.

  ***

  Dodd was in an old storeroom that still smelled faintly of cheese and was made cramped by multiple shelves, but already had a bed and truckle in it. He gave Bangtail and Sandy the bed and took the truckle for himself, because he didn’t want to sleep next to his brother who was a notorious kicker and roller-over and besides, he was still annoyed with him. Leamus, the Irish deserter, looked around, clearly decided against asking to sleep with Dodd, wandered out in his loose-limbed way and wandered back with a palliasse, a pair of sheets, and a blanket. He cleared a bit of floor of rushes, inspected the wall and floor minutely, put the rushes back and placed the palliasse equally carefully on top, tucked in the pair of sheets and blankets and then wandered out again. Dodd put his doublet and hose from Oxford on a shelf, hoping it wouldn’t get too cheesifyed, got into the truckle and turned away from the bed so he could sleep.

  But he couldn’t. Bangtail and Sandy talked for a while and then went to sleep. Leamus came back with a loaf of bread and a pottle of ale which he put on another shelf, undressed quietly, folded his jerkin for a pillow, muttered to himself for a while and then got into his bed and fell asleep. Had he been praying? Dodd shrugged. He didn’t care if the man was Catholic or Protestant or both, so long as he did what he was told, which so far Leamus always had.

  However he had a problem because Carey had bidden him to the hunt tomorrow and Hepburn had stopped him around the back of the stable block and said he could go but must drop back once the silver trumpets began to blow. It added more bad feelings to the brawl inside him because it went against his grain to betray a man like that. It was as if the dependable black ball of rage was still familiarly there but on top of it sat something green and growing like grass that said he shouldn’t do it, despite Carey being the man who let the Elliots get away—despite all that, he shouldn’t do it.

  Next morning, Leamus was up first and brought in a bowl of water for them to wash in. He carved the bread into four hunks, produced a round cheese from Bessie from his pack, and poured out ale into their horn cups. Everyone was astonished at this and said thank you to him, at which he smiled a little and said, “My da’ always said that any fool can be uncomfortable. It takes a clever man to be
comfortable.” That was the longest sentence anyone had heard him say since the silly comment about Englishmen having tails, and then he went silent again.

  Dodd took the largest hunk of bread and cheese and drank the ale but said nothing, feeling ill. It wasn’t just the morning being morning, he had slept badly. So he was even more wooden and silent when it came time to go and meet Carey, found both of them had been given one of King James’ Arab crosses each to ride in the hunt, and almost forgot himself to talk about the beautiful bay animal, which annoyed him again.

  She was beautiful, though, and he patted the arched neck and blew into the nostrils which horses liked, and admired the compact shape of her body and her delicate hooves. Would she be nimble enough in the forest—the shape of her and her short back promised speed, but how would she do with loose footing?

  Carey was inspecting his chestnut gelding too, passing his hands down the legs, lifting the hooves, feeling the hindquarters and getting nudged a couple of times for carrots, which he hadn’t got. “Oh you are beautiful,” said Carey to the horse, patting his neck and grinned delightedly across at Dodd. “These will go like the wind, Sergeant, you’ll see.”

  He couldn’t help a small smile in return, because this was a horse of a completely different nature to a hobby; even Whitesock would look awkward next to her. So it was true that the King had a wonderful stud at Falkland palace with Arab stallions and the Grahams hadn’t got the best of the herd.

  At the meet, there was a milling confusion of men and horses and servants and mounted attendants like Dodd, a cart full of musicians and a train of packhorses with the vittles. Spynie was there in his smart intricately cutworked black leather jerkin worn over a red doublet to show off the cutwork to advantage. There was a looming redheaded man in a feathered bonnet and a velvet doublet on a large handsome horse with some charger in him, whom Carey pointed out as George Gordon, the Earl of Huntly. Dodd knew the Lord Maxwell with his monobrow of course, and three more Maxwells at his back who were arguing loudly about whether a buck could be got to fight a horse and which would win.