But what if it did? What if Spynie was closely associated with a man who needed to be told not to kill Solomon? What then?
Spynie turned over for the fourth time and tried to think. What could he do? Maybe ask Hepburn, forbid him…No, don’t be ridiculous. If he truly was trying to kill the King, why would he listen to Spynie? In fact, if Spynie had realised what he was trying to do, might he not kill Spynie himself? He was good at that, after all.
Spynie actually put his fist in his mouth to stop himself from crying out. He wanted to protect the King, but suddenly, now it came to it, his bowels had gone to water and his head was spinning. This wasn’t what he had meant when he had said he would die for the King. He wasn’t sure what he had meant, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this.
And maybe Hepburn was innocent. Maybe he really was just a mining engineer from Keswick where a lot of them spoke Deutsch…
Oh, God.
Spynie turned over again. I’m ill, he thought frantically, I’m sick, I’m not well. I’ll keep my chamber. I’m feeling sick and I need to shit, I’m ill.
Deep inside him was a better part which said he should get up, collect his henchmen, and arrest Hepburn tonight. He ignored it, as he always did, and soon the little voice quietened.
He couldn’t sleep, though.
***
Young Hutchin Graham had found a dairymaid at Court who would let him suck her tits and was very happily doing that in the back of the palace dairy while doing his best to sneak his other hand up under her kirtle. She spotted him, smacked it down and slapped his face. “I told ye, only above the waist!” she said, popping the tit out of Hutchin’s mouth and stuffing it back into her stays. “No more fun and games for ye today, young fellerme lad.”
“Whit about tomorrow?” asked Young Hutchin pathetically, and got another slap.
“Ah’m no’ gaunae spoil myself for a reiver and that’s that, so ye can tek what I gi’ ye or go sell yer bum tae Spynie.”
“I wouldnae do that,” protested Hutchin. “Whit dae I want wi’ a man? It’s girls I like, two of them fer choice, in the one bed and then Ah could suck the tits of one and the other…”
The third slap resounded and Hutchin’s head bounced lightly off the wall while Mary, if that was her name, flounced off. Hutchin sighed because Mary had very nice plump white breasts and enjoyed him sucking them.
He got up and limped out of the dairy towards the stables where he checked on the horses and found Dodd there as well, seeing after Whitesock for the night. Dodd grunted at him and kept on brushing the horse down, though his coat was already like satin.
“Whit’s wrong wi’ ye, Sergeant?” Young Hutchin asked cheekily, knowing he was risking a serious buffet and getting ready to dodge. “Ye’ve not said mair than four words all the time we’ve been here and none o’ them wis thanks, yer face is like the rainy day they’ll hang ye on, and ye punched Red Sandy yestereven for nothing mair than asking ye how ye were.”
Dodd grunted again and didn’t answer, so Hutchin took the precaution of climbing up onto one of the hayracks and added, “Are ye still sulking over they Elliots, eh?”
Dodd’s face tightened and became even darker. “I am not sulking.”
“Well, at least I’ve doubled yer count of words. And by the way, ye are sulking, my Aunt Netty used tae sulk jest like that, drove my Uncle Jim wild it did, for ye couldnae get anything oot o’ her of why, jest grunts and a shoulder and sour looks, ay, like that one yer giving me now, though I ken verra well it’s just the Elliots.”
Dodd grunted and went to Whitesock’s other side.
“And ye willna drink wi’ anybody and when yer eating ye willna say anything and…”
The tail was taking Dodd’s attention now. Whitesock snorted and tipped a hoof. Unusually among horses, he liked having his tail seen to and never kicked out over it.
“Ye shouldnae ha’ punched Red Sandy,” pronounced Young Hutchin from the very top of the hayrack. “It disnae matter if ye sulk at the Courtier, but Red Sandy’s yer blood and he means well. And I know two more families of the Elliots came in to compose as they dinna like the Courtier’s fancy ways wi’ besieging and they don’t want it tae happen to them and he’s got his warrant oot of it.”
Dodd gave Whitesock a carrot. “Finished?” he asked.
“Nine,” said Young Hutchin triumphantly. “I dinna wonder at ye petting yer horse so, he’s the only friend ye’ll have left, ye fool. How the devil will ye get yer surname to back ye if ye’ve punched every one o’ them?”
Dodd paused and then started fiddling with Whitesock’s mane. The hobbies doubled up in the two nearest stalls were watching cynically, you could almost hear them tutting.
“Ye dinna understand,” Dodd managed to say.
“Ye’re telling me I’ve nae feuds? I’m a Graham, ye’re telling me I dinna ken about feuds and battle and killing? I’m a Graham.”
“Have ye killed yer man yet, Young Hutchin?”
“Not sure,” said Hutchin, his eyes like slits. “Mebbe. I stuck him wi’ me dagger, mebbe he lived, mebbe not, the bastard.”
“Ah wis younger nor ye the first time I killed a man, I knowed he was deid because he bent over and all red shining blood cam oot of his mouth and ma friend got the ither one right in the back and so we got away.”
“Ay?”
“We were happy, laughing and then later Daniel said, d’ye think he wis married? I said I didna know nor care and then later…well, I thought about it.”
“What was it started the old feud up again?”
Dodd sighed. “Three sheep and a cow that went missing fra the Elliots’ herds and so they raided us for our cattle and my dad killed Wee Colin Elliot’s dad wi’ his lance.”
“Good work,” said Young Hutchin. “And then it was a blood-
feud, o’ course.”
“Ay.”
“But ye won, did ye no’? They had to come in and compose?”
“Ay.”
“So what’s changed since then?”
Dodd wouldn’t answer that and walked out of the stable, wishing he hadn’t said so much to Young Hutchin. It was true. The Elliots had come into the West March of England as part of a trap to catch the Courtier, but so far as he knew, they had not raided the Dodds since the peace.
But they were Elliots. That was the trouble right there, they were Elliots and he hated every one of them, severally and collectively. They were Elliots and he could still hear them laughing as they cut the throats of his uncles and his cousins.
He would have given a lot for a pipeful of Moroccan incense and tobacco which made him feel so peaceful, as he stood by the door of the stables and listened to Young Hutchin trotting briskly about, talking nonsense to the horses, bringing them their nighttime buckets of water.
Good God, he had forgotten to give Whitesock his bucket. He went in and found Hutchin had watered the horse along with the others, and so he walked out again. The ball of black rage was still sitting there in his stomach making his meat taste of nothing, dust and ashes in his mouth, and for the first time in his life he wondered if he was the only one who had it. Did other men not have it? For example, the Courtier, did he have such a thing?
Well, I’m damned, he thought bleakly, I know that, why wouldn’t I have a black ball of rage in my gut? God, I wish I could have a pipe of tobacco.
Hutchin wandered out and nodded at him. “Now then, Sergeant,” he said, as if they hadn’t had a conversation, which Dodd appreciated. He got his tongue and voicebox to work. “Good night, Young Hutchin,” he said gruffly.
“I’m no’ sure,” said Young Hutchin, “but I think that makes fifty words.” And he disappeared into the night.
***
Janet watched Widow Ridley with her fluffy white hair around her grubby cap like a starburst as she put herself on the outside of a meat and oni
on pie with vigour, despite having only two teeth, one on each side of her mouth, to bite with. She managed with a great deal of mumbling and sucking.
“Now,” she said, “I’ve minded me of the other tale I came to tell ye.”
“Ay,” said Janet absent-mindedly. She was thinking that this particular batch of meat pies wasn’t one of her best and was wondering why.
“These men that spoke to Sergeant Dodd and gave him money, Ah’d seen them before, so I had.”
“Oh?” Across the hall table, Janet caught the two girls’ eyes and reminded them with her eyebrows that they were to clear the trenchers that hadn’t been eaten, and the piecrusts, and clear the jacks and wipe the tables and take the leavings to the chickens. They sighed in unison and got up to do it.
“Ay,” said Widow Ridley, taking another sup of her ale. She had a powerful taste for ale, did the Widow Ridley, for this was her third jackful. She didn’t look at all drunk though. “They passed along the Giant’s Road, west to east, a couple of weeks ago, with a cart and three more men, and in the cart were strange magical things. There were strange leaden tanks that sloshed and slopped and there were things ye use for distilling like pelicans and tubes and heavy leather gloves wi’ chainmail on them, all wrapped in sacks.”
“How do you know?”
Widow Ridley chuckled. “I wis curious, so I looked,” she said. “Now one o’ the tanks had sprung a leak at a corner and fra the hole dripped oily stuff that had a magic spell upon it, for it made steam and smoke arise fra the cart-bottom where it dropped. I just happened to dip my finger in it, by accident, ye ken, and then my finger was on fire wi’ invisible flames so Ah had to wash it off wi’ water and it wis covered in blisters for a week and more and it’s no’ right yet.” She waved a red finger at Janet. “The men carefully poured this oily stuff into two round bowls they had with them, propped them on the cart and then set up a fire and mended the leaden tank and tested it wi’ water from ma well, and then poured off the water and it had taken the magic for didn’t it burn the weeds around my jakes so they havenae come back yet. And then they poured the oily stuff back in the tank and fixed the leaden lid upon it again.”
“How long did all this take?”
“Two days and they paid me for it, five shillings I got, English, and then they went on eastwards and they didna tell me where they wis going but I heard one o’ them say, Edinburgh. So now.”
And she sat back and held out her jack for more ale.
“That’s a very interesting tale,” said Janet. “Are ye saying the men were up to mischief in Edinburgh?”
“Why else were they so close-mouthed about where they wis going? I asked ’em four times and they told me lies each time, until I wis sitting in the jakes and heard them by accident. What’s they men that try to make gold?”
“Miners?”
“No,” said Widow Ridley, her voice far away, “though…”
“Alchemists.”
“Ay, that’s it. Alchemisty things they were and, now I think of it, I’ve heard they furriners down in Keswick speak like that cos they wis all speaking furrin with coughs and gasps, but then he spoke to me in English, quite Christianlike.”
“He?”
“The man that gave Sergeant Dodd money.”
Janet waited for the inevitable. “And they had funny hose on and they had tails.”
“Did they?”
“Ay, and then off they went along the Giant’s Road, talking furrin again.”
“And the alchemist…”
“Bought yer man, Mrs Dodd, ay.”
“Are ye sure?”
Widow Ridley bent over with laughter. “Ay, o’course, I know the look of a man being bought.”
It struck Janet that, placed where she was, the Widow Ridley may have had more custom than you might think and might also know a lot of smugglers.
Janet smiled very kindly at her and brought her a jug of her best ale. “Mrs Ridley,” she said, promoting her from Goodwife, “I should have talked to you long ago.”
“Ay. Cheers.”
“Can ye think of anything else about this alchemist?”
“Ay,” said Widow Ridley thoughtfully, “everything smelled nasty, kind of metal and sour. He was a nice-looking lad wi’ curly brown hair and grey eyes, quite square of the face, calls hisself Hepburn.”
What on earth did they have in the tanks? “And they were going to Edinburgh?”
“Unless I heard wrong. Which I might of, see ye, ma hearing’s not what it was.”
“Had you ever seen such things before?”
“Nay.”
“Thank you for telling me all this, Mrs Ridley, though I’m not sure what to do with it.”
“Yer man’s mixed up wi’ a witch and an alchemist. Ye should fare tae Edinburgh and fetch him back home before he gets in trouble. They’re fools, men are, allus going after the latest bauble. Go after him and fetch him back, like Janet did in Tam Lin.”
Janet smiled.
“Will you come with me, Mrs Ridley?”
For answer, Widow Ridley stretched out her hand. Janet put two shillings English into it. Widow Ridley examined the money carefully, then put it in her stays.
“Ay,” she said, “Ah’d like tae know what they witches is at.”
***
Carey, faced with a mystery and nothing to get hold of, concentrated on the only thing he could.
He started by looking for Allemaynes. Apart from the ones at the Steelyard whom he didn’t want to tangle with again without a squad of pikemen at his back, there weren’t many. He had just come from the Tollbooth where they had the records of foreigners, mostly reputable merchants like Herr Kauffmann Hochstetter, or gunsmiths. He had followed up one lead and found a small house full of blond young men who invited him to join them for a beer and then gave him some extraordinary light-coloured beer which was weak as to flavour and quite weak as to the booze as well. It tasted…interesting. They were trying to start a brewery to make more but admitted they hadn’t got very far.
“Ve haf gut beer but not enuf,” said one of them seriously, and Carey agreed that it was a serious problem and went in search of more Allemaynes. For completeness he looked for Frenchmen as well and found a few and talked to them happily in French, enjoying the beautiful music of the language and the memories of the beautiful women who had taught him so much, some of it French.
He went back to the Court, found the King was hunting again and Anricks was talking to John Napier incomprehensibly about mathematics. He decided that Edinburgh was boring and he was bored and furthermore at a stand with the problem of who might want to kill the King and how, so he went out again to the best inn in town and decided to get as drunk as he could on the basis that this might make something happen.
He got into a game of cards with some men from the King’s troop, they were gunners and talking about cannonball weights and mortars and the terribleness of the serpentine powder they were supposed to use. When he put the question to them of how do you kill someone specific with gunpowder, they loved it.
“Ay, it’s easy to kill a lot of anybody,” said one of the gunners called Peter, “but killing one somebody is harder.”
“Nay, it’s no’,” snorted another gunner called Mick, “ye just use a lot and mek sure the gunpowder is under the floor of his bedroom.”
“Didna work wi’ Darnley, did it?”
“No, but they had it under the wrong room.”
“What about the fuse?” asked Carey. “It might go out.”
“Use several,” said a gunner called Harry. “Ye’d need to anyway.”
“So maybe your man is suspicious and they search the cellars.”
Peter shrugged. “Naething better than a fireworks display—all the gunpowder there. People are strange. If it’s labelled fireworks, naebody thinks it’s gunpowder.”
Now that was interesting. “Does the King like fireworks?”
“Ay he does, though he disna like guns, ye ken. There’s allus a fireworks display at Court at Christmas or New Year’s,” said Mick. “The Queen loves ’em. Every Christmas if it’s no’ pouring wi’ rain, or New Year’s if it was, there’s rockets and all sorts let off fra the gardens of the palace. The people come to watch fra outside though they can’t see everything so good as the King.”
“And he’s not worried about the bangs?” asked Carey, betting on a chorus and losing to a better chorus.
“Och, he’s nowhere near ’em, he’s at the front looking over the courtyard and there’s all mermaids and centaurs doing dances and the fireworks are just a part of it.”
Changing his mind about getting drunk, Carey went and talked to the firework makers who were in the process of setting up the racks and cages at the other end of the garden, well away from anything that could burn. He watched the strange yellow family with slits for eyes filling tubes with gunpowder and paper and mysterious glittery powders, and watched some men measuring out the lawns and hammering in stakes where the benches would be.
He talked to everybody, trying to get a picture of how you could kill a nervous King who wouldn’t have any kind of blade or weapon in his presence. It was surprisingly hard, now he thought of it, but it must be possible.
He even spoke to the Lord Chamberlain, and was thoroughly patronised. “Any man in the room, ay, and some of the women too would give their lives for His Highness…”
“Yes, of course, but…”
“That letter, which Maitland told me about, says dinna kill Solomon.”
A Clash of Spheres Page 20