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It's late August, 1592. Sir Robert Carey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth from the wrong side of Henry VIII's blanket, remains at his post on the Borders at Carlisle. He has at last been confirmed by his monarch as Deputy Warden and is still deeply in love with Lady Elizabeth Widdrington while despising her elderly, abusive husband (will the man never die?). Carey remains estranged from his dour but lethal henchman, Henry Dodd, after Carey decided, much to Dodd’s bafflement, to take the high road during an incident at Dick of Dryhope’s tower and “honourably and skillfully avoided the bloody-pitched battle”.
The King’s courts are full of sycophants, former lovers bent on revenge, a would-be assassin, a toothdrawer (and philosopher, too) who all gather in Edinburgh, where a great debate on the differences between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems, and a demonstration of the planets will be staged. Then a clash of spheres mirroring the same at the human level ensues…
Cover
Welcome Page
About A Clash of Spheres
Letter from Sir Robert Cecil to the King of Denmark.
Late August 1592
Carlisle, early December 1592
August 1592
Autumn 1592
December 1592
Autumn 1592
Late autumn 1592
Carlisle December 1592
December 1592 Carlisle
December 1592 Gilsland
Sometime in autumn 1592
December 1592
December 1592 Edinburgh
Caerlaverock, December 1592
Edinburgh December 1592
Christmas Week 1592
Christmas Day 1592
Edinburgh, New Year’s Eve 1592
Edinburgh New Year’s Day 159(3)
Glossary
Cast of Characters
About P.F. Chisholm
About the Sir Robert Carey Mysteries
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Draft.
To His Royal Highness, Christian IV of that name, King of Denmark and Norway, etc etc. [His Highness is but 16 years and still under regency, be very sure we have all his titles here]
Your most Royal Highness, [check correct address]
You have asked me to make some description and account of Sir Robert Carey and his henchman Sergeant Henry Dodd, of whom you have heard little but rumours and the varied accounts of your spies at the Court of Scotland, which it is my pleasure to supply, being hopeful of your Royal Highness’ favour and regard, and being also certain that when once you have been apprised of Sir Robert’s character and circumstance, you will view him with as much favour as I do, no less and perhaps no more. [be sure the Danish translation is accurate here]
You say that your royal sister, Anne, Queen Consort of King James of Scotland, has written to you of the man, wherefore I will unburden myself perhaps a little less discreetly than I might otherwise have done.
Sir Robert is the seventh surviving son of my Lord Chamberlain, Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon. It is worth making some explanation of Baron Hunsdon’s antecedents since they are material to the character of Sir Robert.
To be blunt, Your Highness, it is more than likely that Baron Hunsdon is in fact Henry VIII’s natural son, by his erstwhile mistress, Mary Boleyn, older sister of the more famous Ann. [a little touch of scandal may entertain His Highness] Thus Baron Hunsdon is both cousin and half-brother to our most revered Sovereign Liege, Elizabeth of England, Wales, Ireland and France.
The royal bastardy means that Baron Hunsdon has no claim whatsoever to the throne and nor do his numerous children. Happily, My Lord Baron is not in any way ambitious but serves his mistress the Queen a great deal more faithfully and effectively than most people realise, who think him but a Knight of the Carpet. [perhaps excise, not relevant] Most of his children are or have been at Court and often high in favour.
Sir Robert first served Sir Francis Walsingham as a youth in embassies to Scotland and France. During the Scottish embassy he received great favour from the young King, your brother in law, James of Scotland. During the French embassy, he seems to have disgraced himself through his carnal appetites with some of the most puissant ladies of the French Court, which ended in a debtors’ prison from which he was extricated with some difficulty and more expense by his esteemed father. I am aware of at least two probable bastards and there may be more. [more to entertain His Highness! Nb. One possible bastard may be a Guise instead.]
He returned to England and served the Queen at Court, although not without incident. There was a fistfight with Sir Walter Raleigh over a tennis match before either of them had become knights, and several duels. He became an MP and gave satisfaction therein.
Against the Armada, he served with his friend, the Earl of Cumberland, on the Elizabeth Bonaventure, where he was able to render incidental but important service to the Queen before succumbing (although not fatally) to a jailfever on board ship. He had also served the Queen in an unusual manner, during the final days of the Queen of Scots, but I am not at liberty to disclose details. [excise?]
He has been to war several more times and acquitted himself well, most notably under the Earl of Essex in France in 1591. There he was knighted by Essex for help in turning aside the Queen’s just wrath with her unworthy favourite.
Last summer in 1592, he decided to become his brother-in-law Lord Scrope’s Deputy Warden in the English West March, despite there already being an incumbent called Sir Richard Lowther. Certes, he was restless at Court and in need of knightly exercise, since he has proved to be an able soldier and a very much better captain than [deleted] many. He also owed considerable sums of money, in particular to his tailor, and there was an entanglement in London from which he urgently needed to flee. However there is also the matter of his extraordinary affection for his cousin, Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, née Trevannion, who lives in the north with her elderly husband, Sir Henry Widdrington, Deputy Warden of the East March.
I am not entirely clear about the progress of this love affair, but as Lady Widdrington is, by all accounts, a woman of principle and determination, it is yet possible that he has not breached her citadel and intends to marry her as soon as her husband is dead. This would be a very foolish mistake on his part because the lady only has a jointure of five hundred pounds and he currently owes three thousand pounds at least. It goes without saying that Sir Henry Widdrington regards him with considerable suspicion, jealousy, and loathing.
On arriving on the Borders, Sir Robert was immediately embroiled in an incident with the Graham surname, the upshot of which was that he somehow prevented the kidnapping of the King of Scots from Falkland palace by the 2nd Earl of Bothwell. Unfortunately, the precise circumstances are murky. Later that summer, after showing his capacities at coroner’s inquest in Carlisle, he journeyed to Dumfries to meet with the King of Scots while His Highness was on his Justice Raid against the Grahams.
Precisely what transpired at the Scottish Court, I have not been able reliably to make out, except that Sir Robert became involved with an Italian spy and had an affair with her; somehow earned the enmity of the King’s favourite and Minion, Lord Spynie, and also Lord Maxwell, current Warden of the Scottish West March; took extremely foolhardy and potentially treasonous action in the matter of some firearms; and emerged with quite severe injuries to his hands but the renewed favour of the King.
In the autumn, he was ordered to London by his father. There he became involved in a riot at the Fleet Prison during which Sir Thomas Heneage, Vice Chamberlain, had his nose broken [by Sir Robert]. During the ensuing lawsuits, he decided to leave London and head for Oxford, which was then expecting the Queen on her Progress, leaving his mother Ann Carey, Lady Hunsdon, and his henchman, Sergeant Henry Dodd, to deal with the consequences of his dispute with Sir Thos. Heneage, which they did ably and with dispatch. In the course of these events, I was able to be of some service to Lady Hunsdon, a matter of great satisfaction to me.
At this point it is worth mentioning his henchman, Henry Dodd, Land-Sergeant of Gilsland who is serving as one of the sergeants of the Carlisle Castle guard.
I have had the pleasure and interest of meeting Sergeant Dodd in his own person and he is considerably more than the simple dour Border reiver he appears to be. It seems he should be the headman of the Tynedale Dodds but is not for reasons that are obscure but connected with a feud between the Dodds and the Elliots in the 1570s. [too much admission of ignorance?]
While he was in Oxford, Sir Robert was commissioned by the Queen to investigate a very delicate matter. During the Queen’s Entrance in State into the City of Oxford, Sergeant Dodd saved the Queen’s life, for which he was well-rewarded.
Shortly after his return to the Borders, with some ex-soldiers of My Lord Essex’s, Sir Robert was involved in an incident at a tower known as Dick of Dryhope’s, in which he called out the Carlisle trained bands, but honourably and skillfully avoided the bloody pitched battle that seemed inevitable.
This has made his name on the Borders and the Queen has now been pleased to grant him his official warrant as Deputy Warden.
He is close to the Queen, who sometimes calls him “her Scalliwag”: to be given a nickname by Her Majesty is a signal of highest favour, so that I am proud to be known by her name for me, slighting though it is. However he has not yet successfully turned her favour into offices nor a pension nor a monopoly, from which I conclude he is either remarkably inept, unlucky, or else as unambitious as his sire. He seems mainly concerned with his affair with Lady Widdrington and with bringing peace to the Borders, rather than profiting personally by his office, a very remarkable and unusual circumstance. [can you think of another instance?]
I am now extremely concerned at the state of politics at the Scottish Court, particularly with regard to the Catholic earls. I beg of you, Your Highness, if you have any information at all on the King of Spain’s intentions in Scotland, I pray you will tell me it. I have already dispatched a particularly effective and able pursuivant to the Borders and I am considering a journey north, which is not a matter I undertake lightly, owing to the infirmity in my bones from which I suffer. But I believe Spain is plotting against Scotland and England and would give my right arm to know more.
It goes without saying, all of this information is strictly private and not to be shared with anyone.
I remain Your Highness’ most assiduous and secret [?] servant,
Sir Rbt Cecil, Privy Councillor.
[not sent]
Their dalliance had progressed in a stately fashion from whispers and stolen kisses in corridors, to dancing while the musicians played for them alone in crowded sweaty halls and banqueting tents full of unimportant other dancers, to light-fingered explorations of stocking tops and codpiece and stays, to this. Marguerite was heavy-eyed and languorous and, thank the Mother of God, not inclined to talk too much. Meanwhile the man who said his name was Jonathan Hepburn and that he sometimes worked for the Earl of Bothwell, was lying flat on his back, utterly spent, letting the sweat dry on his skin.
She yawned, stretched like a cat, got up and went to the door of the little servant’s chamber, where the man whose chamber it actually was, waited patiently and counted his cash.
“Do you have any wine?” she asked in a voice that was tinged with a foreign language. For a wonder, it turned out that he did, and for a paltry English shilling would give them some. She brought in two pewter goblets of white wine. Hepburn sat up on his elbow and took the goblet, toasted her, and drank.
It was dreadful, acidic with a suspicious fishy aftertaste, but he got it down.
Of course, Marguerite was a married woman and it showed in the stretchmarks on her stomach and the dark aureoles of her very nibblesome nipples. She had given her lord at least one or probably more children. But her hair was blond and so was her crotch and she had a luxuriousness to her that Hepburn associated more with Southerners. It was business, all business, but, by the God of the World, sometimes you could mix business with pleasure. The fact that she was married to a very dull conscientious man by the name of Sir David Graham of Fintry was what was important. He was not a Border Graham, not one of the notorious clan of five brothers who had gone south in the 1520s, kicked the Storeys off their lands, and helped turn Liddesdale into the complete thieves’ kitchen it now was. He was from the northerly respectable Grahams. There were interesting rumours about him but the most interesting thing about him was a stone-cold fact. He was a Groom of the King’s Bedchamber, by hereditary custom.
“My dear,” Hepburn said in the caressing voice he used for all women, “what if your husband catches us?”
She frowned and plumped down next to him on the narrow servant’s bed with the sour sheets. “He would be very angry,” she said with a sigh, chewing her bottom lip, “He might kill you and hurt me. Or kill me as well.”
“Surely not, so old-fashioned?”
She shrugged and her voice took on a tinge of bitterness. “He killed a young man I looked at—only looked at, honest to God—and he was very cruel to me. The King hushed it up. He locked me in a storeroom where it was very cold and dark and there were many spiders.”
Hepburn nodded. That was what he had heard. Now, was the other rumour true?
“Perhaps we should not see each other for a while,” he said sadly, “so he doesn’t get too suspicious.”
She shrugged, quite French although she wasn’t French, started billowing linen over her head. “If you are already tired of me…” she said, her voice muffled.
Hepburn jumped up from the bed and embraced her. “How could I be tired of you?” he whispered and she tweaked him where he was demonstrating that he was not tired of her at all, which made him gasp and her giggle. No help for it, he had to take the risk. This last detail was simply too important to go on mere hearsay. “I’ll have to go to a priest this afternoon, but I don’t care…”
“What will he give you for penance? Fasting?”
“Perhaps,” said Hepburn who had fasted for religious reasons but not on any priest’s say-so. “Will you too have to find a priest? Or are you a Protestant…?”
“What? And now be utterly damned forever? I would never be so silly. I am a Catholic.” She grinned impudently at him. “I have found a very nice tame priest called Father Crichton who never gives more than a decade of Aves, a Paternoster, and a Gloria.”
Just for a moment, Hepburn had to hold his breath. Was Crichton actually here, in Scotland? He had had no idea, thinking the man was still in northern Spain. “Is he a Jesuit?”
“Yes, but he is nice,” She giggled and wriggled at the way he was stroking her breasts through the fine linen of her smock, “Not as nice as you, but nice.”
“He isn’t supposed to be as nice as me…” He was busy nuzzling her neck. “When did he arrive?”
“He came with my Lord Maxwell and his Italians in April or May, I think, to help with the new Armada but stayed at Caerlaverock. Now he is at Court and everyone who is not a stupid Lutheran or Calvinist goes to him.”
That Armada, too, if it existed, had been wrecked by storms.
“My priest is old-fashioned and strict. Perhaps I could confess to your nice Father Crichton?”
She giggled again. There was something so relaxing about a feather-headed woman with stunning blond curls down her back. “Why not?”
Emilia had been dramatic and very sexy and had been completely resistant to his plan, which she thought stupidly risky. And then she had suddenly gone off with the Deputy Warden of the West March, Sir Robert Carey, so she could buy his guns and take them to Ireland, as if that was less risky.
“Wherever did he find you, Sir David Graham?” he wondered to himself in the Deutsch of his childhood and she answered him in Low Dutch. “In the Spanish Netherlands, of course, where I was living in a very boring village full of very boring Protestants.”
“But you are from Antwerp,” he guessed shrewdly and was rewarded by a kiss on the mouth which he enjoyed immensely. “Originally.”
Her face suddenly crumpled like a child’s. “I don’t want to think about poor Antwerp,” she whispered, her mood changing like a cloud crossing the sun, “I never want to think about it.”
Hepburn looked at her carefully. She must have been a child at the time of the Spanish Fury in Antwerp. Had she been there?
“My dear…” he began.
“Never! I never want to think about it!” she shouted in Low Dutch and hit him in the chest with her fist, as if he were another man entirely. Hepburn put his arms around her to quiet her and found she was kissing him greedily, desperately, scratching his back. After one second of hesitation—what had brought this on?—he went with it and took her again, like an animal, while she moaned and tears pushed their way out under her eyelids and finally she screamed so he had to put a hand over her mouth. He took it away when she bit him and she then looked at him with old eyes and said, “Never say that name to me again.”
“All right,” he said, managed a light smile and she smiled back at last. Jesu, who could fathom women? It was beyond him.
There was an anxious knock at the door.
“Sir, my lady, I must go serve the Queen in half an hour,” came a voice.
“Give us ten minutes,” said Hepburn, picking his hose up from where he had folded them and laid them down carefully. Marguerite was already at her petticoat forepart, buttoning and pinning with a will.
They came out separately, went in different directions. Marguerite hurried to the Queen’s chambers where she sat on a corner cushion and gossiped with one of the Queen’s plump Danish women. Jonathan Hepburn went down to the buttery to get himself a quart of ale to help him recover and with thinking out the next stage in his very elaborate plot that would end with James VI of Scotland dead, and Scotland and England in murderous chaos.
The Grahams took up position under the Eden Bridge at about four o’clock in the morning, as near as anyone could guess, with the sky perpetually leaking rain. The water was freezing cold and high as well and the horses all protested about it as they splashed in and stood there sulkily, huffing and puffing.
“He’ll be back before five, I guarantee it,” said Wattie. “Naebody’ll want to be oot in this any longer than they have to.”
The bridge itself would not keep you dry, because it had been raining long enough for the stones themselves all to be leaking in the places where they had worn and there were potholes going right through. It was an old bridge. Some said the builders of the Giant’s Wall had made it for a sort of warm-up for the Wall itself.
Archie Fire the Braes pushed another man called Sooks Graham out of the one remaining dry spot there. Well dryish. His pony was wet obviously and so were his legs and boots. There was a whispered sequence of snarls, and then Sooks shoved another man out of a slightly drier spot and so on down the line to the youngest one there who philosophically stayed under the last bit of parapet which gave no shelter at all but did conceal him from anyone crossing the bridge at night.
“And ye’re sure he’ll not be there?” said another man.
Wattie grinned and scratched under his helmet rim. “Ay, certain sure. He took offence at the doings last month and he’ll no’ come in wi’ us, but he willna help the Courtier, see ye.”
The youngest had a rough iron cap over his golden hair which was lent him by his cousin Sooks, since the colour was such a liability at night despite being dirty. He lifted it and scratched like Wattie at a place where it rubbed.
“He’ll have the other men of the guard, though.”
“Ay,” said Wattie cheerfully, “It’s Sergeant Dodd I worry about.”
Young Hutchin nodded and wondered what it was about Sergeant Dodd that made everybody so careful of him and wondered how he could get some of that stuff himself.
“What about the new men from the South he’s brung in?” he asked.
“Och,” laughed Wattie, “who’s worried about a bunch o’ soft Southerners? Not me.”
Everybody sniggered a little. They stood in silence for a while, as the dripping eased off.
Wattie put a hand out. “Damn, it’s stopped raining,” he said thoughtfully.
Young Hutchin moved his hobby out a couple of feet and back in again. “Ay, it has.” It was still raining under the bridge, as the puddles on the bridge dripped through slowly, but outside it had eased off to basic miserable dampness.
Wattie sighed. It would have been a lot better if the rain had carried on but you could never rely on the weather, except to be as thrawn and contrary as it could. They would have preferred rain, so it had stopped raining. Well, the night was still as black as pitch and that would have to do. The men they were waiting for did not usually carry torches.
*
Carey was wet and uncomfortable but in good spirits. He had brought the four southerners who had learnt to ride well enough, and started teaching them the finer points of Border life. For a wonder, nothing very much was happening on either side of the Border, and just on the off chance and on impulse he had forayed into Liddesdale a way and found a remarkable number of cattle and horses penned up in a narrow little valley. He had taken a close look at them on foot by the light of his only dark lantern and found three different brands in four animals, grinned wolfishly, and given his orders.
Dodd was not there, being safely at home with his wife in Gilsland. To be honest, Carey was quite glad to be rid of him because from being a naturally dour and taciturn man, since the incident at Dick of Dryhope’s tower, Dodd had become… well, sulky was too weak and nebbish a word, really. If Carey got more than four words out of him in an evening, he was doing well. He had not expected Dodd to like what he had done but it was now more than a month in the past and he was getting tired of the whole thing.
Still, this would be good practice for the new men and the other Borderers would enjoy teaching them the arcane art of cattle-driving with the four-legged treasure they had found.
It being so dark and raining, of course the herds had protested loudly at being moved and gone in dozens of different ways, while the loose horses trotted about uneasily. A couple of calves got free and went exploring, and Perkins fell off his horse when he went after one of them, which entertained Bangtail, Red Sandy, and Sim’s Will no end. Bessie’s Andrew, no longer the youngest and least important man, started shouting, and then someone else’s horse stood on his hind legs while his rider cursed and beat about with the ends of the reins until he calmed down again.
“We should have brought the dogs,” said Carey, making a mental note to bring Jack and Teazle next time and see if Jack might make a better herding dog than he did a hunter. The men of the guard were now circling the cattle, making little yips and yarks until they finally got the cattle moving out of the valley and into the main run of Liddesdale, southwards. The horses went with the cattle, not liking to be alone and shying at everything.
Yes, it would take at least an hour longer to bring the stolen cattle in, but it would be well worth it and Carey felt he needed something to cheer him up. He was probably going to lose his place when Lord Scrope finally went south to his estates, and he could turn his share of the booty into much-needed cash.
He spotted two cows and a heifer making a break for it northwards and went after them with a high yip yip, galloped his pony round them and turned them about so they were running back to the main herd. He whacked the lead cow with the butt end of his lance and found Bessie’s Andrew there on the other side to encourage them a bit more.
The herd heaved itself together again and started moving west at a dignified lollop with a lot of question and response in the lowing. Most of them were English kine from the brands and it stood to reason they would prefer to go south to more familiar fields, so it was sheer obstinacy that was sending them west. Bangtail and Red Sandy galloped their ponies into the path and turned them with more shouted yips and yarks. All the cattle stood and bumped each other, lowing questioningly.
There was a bony old screw up the front, with a crumpled horn, tossing her head and barging other cows when they went the wrong way. He could almost hear her, “Ay, this way, ye lummocks,” and just for a moment tried to imagine the cow politics that had made her the leader but his usually vivid phantasy could not cope with this and he found himself laughing quietly at himself. Still, what was it Dodd had said about even goats having degree in their herds and refusing to follow an underling?
“Sim’s Will,” he said, “get that animal with the crumpled horn and bring her to the front. No, not that one, the bony one.”
It took a moment for Sim’s Will to get a rope round her neck and then Carey took the rope’s end and forged his way through the pungent beasts and the mud until he and the old lady were at the front. She bellowed loudly and set out for the south with decision, sniffing the air and mooing and, for a wonder, the others followed her at last in mostly the right direction.
An hour later, as they came over the last hill, he could just make out Eden Bridge and the Sauceries beyond and relaxed because they were nearly home.
*
Wattie cocked his head, accidentally tipping a helmet’s brim of water down his neck.
“What’s that?” he asked uneasily, “There’s a herd of cows there…”
“Bringing them in for market?” said Fire the Braes, who knew less than most about such things, as he had been at the horn since he was in his teens.
“At this time? The gate’s aye shut and will be for another two hours, whit’s the point of it?”
They hushed as the mixed lowing and sound of hooves came closer and closer. Suddenly the noises went up a notch with anxiety and the sound of hooves became confused, the drumming stopped just before the bridge. Wattie signalled the other Grahams to stay still and quiet.
“What the devil’s got into them?” demanded a Court voice just above them, “They were moving very nicely a moment ago, why won’t they go onto the bridge?”
A single horse’s footsteps rang above them, and Wattie was sitting his mount like a stone fountain, with the puddle water still running down, his head tilted and his mouth open.
That was when Hutchin’s mount, which had been bad-tempered all night, straddled his legs and let fly with a long stream of pungent shit, right into the water.
Dinna let him notice, Wattie prayed to his nameless god of reivers, go on yer flash Court sprig, ye dinna ken…He glowered at Hutchin who couldn’t really be blamed.
There was a scuffle as Carey turned his horse on a sixpence and galloped back to the herd, while his voice bellowed “Bring them on!” They stood still while the hooves went around to the back of the herd and then came the boom of a dag being fired into the air.
The lowing went up to near panic levels. The kine had heard gunfire before and didn’t like it. They tried to go back, found men with lances and ropes in the way, turned about and found the bridge was clear, but more frightening men on horses with lances and swords and bows were coming up the river banks on either side as Wattie’s relatives decided to take a crack at the valuable Deputy anyway, seeing they had come so far and spent two hours standing in the wet in the river. And seeing the Deputy was worth fifteen pounds on the hoof, dead or alive. Fire the Braes was shouting something incomprehensible about the kine, Wattie was bellowing purple-faced at them to stop and there was Carey in a panicking sea of cattle, finishing reloading his dag, putting it in its case and drawing his sword, whacking the arse of the cow with the crumpled horn with the flat of it and charging forwards.
She let out a moo that was more a battle cry and lurched forwards, tossing her head and looking for something to gore in revenge, found a pony in front of her and stuck the crumpled horn in, found a space clear of men and horses and barged into it, followed by all her sisters, nieces, cousins, and second cousins plus the strange cows and the strange horses, all following her in a chaotic bunch because she was in front and moving.
The press of them running onto the bridge barged the next horseman backwards, so the hobby lost his feet and the rider fell off, the third was ridden by Fire the Braes, who was laying about him with his lance, so they went round him and then took him with them. Another boom from behind confirmed their feeling that they did not like loud bangs and they wanted to get away from them, so they went up to a speedy trot and then a run and bowled over another horse as they stampeded over the bridge, their eyes rolling and their horns tossing.
And there was the blasted Deputy in the middle of it, plastered with dung from a nervous heifer, swapping blows with the still-shouting Wattie Graham and another cousin who came up from the other side, until Carey bent with a wicked look and tipped the man out of his saddle, then turned to deal with Wattie again. He found the kine had shoved him in the opposite direction and took a shot at him with his other dag, missed but hit somebody else.
Somehow he still had hold of the old cow’s rope, so he kicked his horse to keep up, and went with her while yet another Graham tried to go the other way to Liddesdale and got shoved off the bridge into the river while his horse did the sensible thing and scrambled to stay with the herd.
Just as the other Grahams turned to run, Carey caught sight of golden hair and bellowed, “Hutchin Graham, I want to talk to you!” but couldn’t go after him because he, too, was being carried along in the flood of animals. He kept his seat, caught up with the old lady again, as the cows came off the bridge and galloped down and into the Sauceries and trampled down the fences…And then they stopped because there was lovely soft rich grass there, nurtured by some of the town’s nightsoil, the meadows being kept for the garrison’s horses. And so they fanned out and started to enjoy the feast while the sun notionally came up behind the clouds.
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 god-damned 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 Mus-grave 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.
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, 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 plain 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 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.
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 around 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.
Sir David couldn’t help liking Jonathan Hepburn, he was so respectful, so interested. All the other Grooms of the Chamber, even Sir George Kerr, thought he was mad building a fortress with a tower at Fintry, when fortified houses were now all the fashion.