“Ay. Ye don’t.”
Carey was already mentally drafting a complete report to Mr Secretary Cecil, although there was no point trying to send it because nobody was moving anywhere on the bald treeless hills, nor on the snowbound roads. The confirmation that Hepburn was indeed in Keswick, made the blood rise in his veins. Perhaps he would be able to kill the assassin after all, which would make the future King of England both happy and, perhaps, grateful. “My bet is that Jonathan Hepburn or Hochstetter is on the island, but…”
“Could ye find him if he was?”
“I hope so,” said Carey. “We can’t go into the island houses behind a boot and a hammer, the way we could if we were searching for a Papist priest. But I could at least look and learn where he isn’t.”
“Ye ken Frau Radagunda dotes on him. He’s her favourite son.”
“So you said.”
“We could swear ye out a warrant because of the possibility…”
“The probability…”
“Possibility, Sir Robert, that poor Mr Carleton helped with the attempt on the King. At least it gives us a possible murderer when before we had to adjourn the inquest. I’m certain Carleton wouldn’t have known it was against the Scots King…”
“So am I, Mr Allerdyce. I don’t see Jonathan Hepburn sharing that tidbit with anybody.”
Allerdyce sighed again. “I’m fair scunnered wi’ all this,” he said. “And I hope it wisna Joachim, but some stranger come down fra the Border country. But.”
Carey did his best to look sympathetic.
Suddenly there was a peremptory knock on the door. One of Allerdyce’s apprentices opened it and there stood Mrs Carleton looking enraged, holding tight to her son’s hand. He looked frightened and kept trying to escape.
“Was höre ich da..?” demanded Mrs Carleton, “Joachim ist der Mörder meines Mannes?”
“Ah, Mrs Carleton, will ye no’ come in and sit down…?” said Allerdyce smoothly. “And we can…”
With effort, Mrs Carleton switched to English and continued in a low furious voice, “How can you think Joachim killed my husband, it’s a stupid idea, very stupid. My husband was like a father, like an uncle to Joachim, one of his family…Joachim was always in and out of the smithy, learning to make things, Mr Carleton loved Joachim like his own son…”
“Did Joachim love your husband back?” asked Carey mildly.
“Of course he did, they were so close…”
“Well, perhaps you can come up with a better explanation for what happened,” said Carey, suppressing his first impulse which was to tell her that she was a woman and knew nothing and should be silent and let men do the thinking. Since he had met and got to know Elizabeth Lady Widdrington he had learnt that that approach never worked very well, even if the woman did in fact shut up at the time.
Mrs Carleton pulled up a stool and sat down.
“Mr Josef,” said Carey, “do you still have the notebook?” Josef removed it from his doublet pocket and held it out to Carey, who took it. “Thanks to your son who let us see this, your late husband’s latest notebook. Do you see how two pages have been torn out here?”
She nodded, suddenly looking uncertain.
“Did your husband often tear pages from his notebooks?”
“No, never. He kept everything, every sketch, even if it never worked. In his chest in our bedchamber he kept his notebooks going back to when he was an apprentice. He said you couldn’t tell when it might come in useful.”
“So would he have torn out the two pages?” repeated Carey. Mrs Carleton looked down and shook her head.
“Nein,” she whispered.
“Yet here they are torn. Now, Mrs Carleton, this is a method I learnt from the late Sir Francis Walsingham, to find out what might have been written that was later torn out. It only works for blacklead, where there is pressure of the point on the next page, not really with a goose quill and ink which is too smooth on good paper.”
He proffered the notebook to her and she looked at the page with the faint lines on it. She paled and pressed her hand to her heart as if the sketching was elvish.
“Nothing magical here,” Carey reassured her, “you just blow finely powdered blacklead or charcoal over the page and a little sticks in the grooves left by the pressure of your hand on the page before. Do you see?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I remember the two half globes. He made them of waste lead, out in the yard where the fumes could escape, eating butter to protect himself. Last summer. It took a long time to make the moulds and build the internal reinforcing since they were so heavy. Josef was staying with his grandparents.”
“Indeed,” said Carey. “This is a state secret, Mrs Carleton, at least in Scotland, so I beg you will not speak of it with your gossips, but those two lead hemispheres were used to hold vitriol which was to be poured all over His Highness of Scotland, thereby killing him or at best badly wounding him.”
“But vitriol burns…”
“Yes, it does. It set fire to a throne and a velvet robe.”
“Heilige Mutter Gottes,” gasped Mrs Carleton, her hand over her mouth, her face as white as milk. “But Joachim would never do such a thing…”
“A man called Jonathan Hepburn did all that. It was his idea. He brought the leaden hemispheres and inside, the vitriol that came from the ore roasting process to Court in Edinburgh. He was the artificer who made the props and the scenery for a Masque. He brought it in, the lead globe covered with paper and painted as the stable Earth that the Sun and planets circle around, put it on a high stand above the King’s throne. Then he left the Court with his assistants. I think they must have laid a trail to Leith and the assistants might well have gone on to the Spanish Netherlands, but I believe it’s possible Jonathan Hepburn came back here, where he came from, because his true name is indeed Joachim Hochstetter.
“The first thing he did was to kill his old friend Mr Carleton to cover his trail and then he probably sat down to wait for the news of the King’s death to get here—except that it didn’t for the good and sufficient reason that the King, by God’s grace and perhaps the poor efforts of myself and a friend, wasn’t dead or even hurt.”
He watched Mrs Carleton struggle to get control of herself. She looked as if there was an enormous battle raging inside her. She had let go of her son who had his face screwed up with disgust and was moving away from her. Watching her, watching the son, Carey suddenly knew the reason for the battle. Jonathan Hepburn was after all the man who had also seduced Sir David Graham’s fluffy-headed wife as part of his long plan. He had a taste for blondes too. Carey carefully kept his realization away from his face—and besides she would hardly admit to the five-year-old dalliance now, would she?
“I think Hepburn is here, somewhere, still here. He’s gone back to being Joachim Hochstetter,” he said very softly. “In fact, I’m sure of it. Do you…could you perhaps tell me where he might be?”
Mrs Carleton shook her head, her hanky pressed tight to her mouth. She curtseyed to Allerdyce and himself, and then left the house, almost running, followed more slowly by her son. Poor boy, no wonder he didn’t like Joachim; poor woman, sinner though she was, Carey thought. It was supposed to be just a fling, an amusement when she felt neglected by her own husband, so wrapped up in his smithying. He carefully didn’t think about Mrs Dodd, since that was a completely different circumstance.
“Ay, she’s lonely for poor John,” said Allerdyce who seemed to have completely missed the byplay. “And wi’ the smithy shut she’s naught to keep herself busy.”
“When will they reopen it?” asked Carey.
“I told ye, not till February. They’re waiting the full forty days before they start up the smithy fires again. That’ll be a sight to see when they dae it, they’ll fire all three up at midnight, wi’ made-fire fra a drill, the auld way, ye ken, and all the other sm
iths fra round about will be here and they’ll burn John’s gloves, ay, and his hammer they’ll melt down and set to and make summat in iron for to remember him by.”
It was pure chance that led Carey to take one of the ponies out for exercise that afternoon, along with a young man called Ullock, who was one of Allerdyce’s merchant apprentices to show him the way. There was no need of Red Sandy or Bangtail in peaceful Keswick and John Tovey was still reading his book in the Oak’s parlour where there was plenty of light. Carey didn’t have the heart to winkle him out.
They rode out on roughshod ponies, and Carey went and took a look at the village of Braithwaite, at the foot of some high and brutal-looking mountains, hidden in mist and their shoulders dappled with snow, rode back and around, taking a look at the mouth of Newlands valley where Goldscope mine was. He considered going north to inspect Bassenthwaite Lake, but was put off by Ian Ullock’s laughing description of the likely mud on the bad road there and in the soft marshes between the two rivers, Derwent and Newlands Beck. So they rode sedately back over Derwent bridge, went southeast alongside Derwent Water where Carey got a view of the island with its freight of German houses from a different perspective and then continued round via Castlerigg where there was the remains of a castle, being mined for stone, and northeast again to a tiny hamlet called Goosewell where there was one of those mysterious stone circles built by the Druids with eldritch powers, according to Mr Ullock. Nobody would dare mine that for stone. They talked about metals and swords. Mr Ullock had Deutsch cousins that lived in Allemayne and was much taken with a story he had heard from them about a new way of fighting a duel, with guns not swords. Carey listened with deep interest and they were still discussing it as they rode downhill to the River Greta.
There were three mounted travellers riding sedately along the road from Penrith, two women and one man, one riding pillion behind the man, and the other riding sidesaddle by herself, and behind them a train of four packponies with a drover.
Carey blinked a couple of times and then galloped down to join them, flourishing his hat and bowing low in the saddle to the mounted lady.
“Mr Anricks, Mrs Burn!” he was saying as Ullock caught up. “I am delighted to see you safely come to Keswick…”
He bowed over Poppy Burn’s hand and tipped his hat to Anricks who had bowed in the saddle. The woman behind Anricks was clearly Poppy’s wetnurse, since she was holding a small white parcel that was already making angry noises, and chucking to it wearily.
“Now, now, little Jimmy, there there…”
“Waagh…” said the baby and Poppy made a wry face. “Uwaagh…”
While the baby warmed itself up with intermittent squawks and yowls, Carey looked along the line of patient packponies plodding along. “What’s in there?” he asked Anricks.
Anricks smiled. “Mrs Burn’s books.”
“Just books?”
“Mostly. And clothes and baby things.”
Carey looked in astonishment at the ponies who were carrying large heavy-looking boxes rather than packs. “Oh? Really?”
“Minister Burn, my husband’s legacy to me,” Poppy Burn said to him, “because he knew how I love them and had nothing else of value to give me than his library. I gave his jack and helmet and his weapons to his brothers who have more use for them. I sold some of his books to Cousin William Hume but I managed to keep all the books in Deutsch and some of the older English volumes. I was helping my husband by translating some of Luther’s and Zwingli’s works into good Scots and he quoted them in his sermons. We had to make a special trip to Wendron to get them all or we would have been here last week. Did you think I would leave such treasure to the next Curate? He can have the Scots Bible.”
“Of course, Mrs Burn,” said Carey. “It’s just I never heard of a woman owning so many books.”
“I understand that Her Majesty the Queen has an entire room at Whitehall just for her books. My Lady Widdrington loves books too,” said Mrs Burn haughtily. “She has to hide them from her husband because otherwise he might burn them as being of no use to a woman. I hope you are not of that opinion, Sir Robert.”
“No, no, of course not,” he said quickly, instantly changing what opinion he had had, which was the simple assumption that books were for men. It was indeed true that the Queen had a library in Whitehall and could often be seen with a book in her hand. If Elizabeth Widdrington loved books, books she would have, as many of them as he could afford to buy her as soon as they were safely wedded. He was already thinking of some courtly phrases about books and flowers and books and jewels. Good Lord, it shouldn’t be a surprise to him that Elizabeth was apparently something of a bluestocking, there was a serious side to her after all. He imagined her, sitting by the fire, turning the pages of a book and looking up when he came to her and kissed her…
He sighed. “Who paid for the packponies?” he whispered to Anricks.
“I did,” said Anricks. “I love books too and if she can’t keep them here, why, I’ll have them. I want to learn Deutsch in any case.”
“Ay, and I wish I could read Latin too,” said Carey. “Young Tovey has found some very useful things in a great tome he brought from Carlisle, De Re Metallica by Agricola.”
“There you are,”
He rode alongside Mrs Burn for a while, whose nose was in the air as she ignored him. She rode very well and he thought her courageous for the way she had dealt with her husband’s murder and the violence she had suffered. There was no sign of that now, nor much sign of her pregnancy either apart from the baby-parcel. “Ma’am,” he said finally, “whither shall I escort you in Keswick?”
She sniffed and said, “The Oak Inn, Sir Robert.”
“But won’t you be staying with your mother, Frau Hochstetter?”
She stared into the distance. “My mother hates me and has forbidden me from going on her island.”
“Why?”
Mrs Burn shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I went with my brother Joachim when he left five years ago, for the adventure and because I admired him then. My mother loves Joachim and now hates me—why is a mystery to me, but since she won’t talk to me, I can’t find out why.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, ma’am.”
“Yes.” Poppy was looking at the smelthouses as they passed by the stout wicker fence. “I may not be able to stay in Keswick if she continues her persecution of me. She is a very stubborn person.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have no idea, unless I marry again quickly.”
Carey nodded. “Lady Widdrington likes you, I think,” he said consideringly. “Perhaps you could become one of her gentlewomen, a companion to her?”
Mrs Burn looked at him sideways. “I think I would like that very much, Sir Robert,” she said. “Thank you for the suggestion.”
“And wasn’t Roger Widdrington quite…er…sweet on you?”
She smiled sadly. “His father forbad the match since I have no dowry or jointure for that matter, apart from the books. Roger Widdrington would have to take me in my smock.”
The first two things Carey thought of to say were lewd so he took refuge in silence. Or at least not speaking, since the baby had finished his warm-up and was now bellowing with rage. As they passed the gate to the smelthouses, Mark Steinberger came out to see what the noise was. He looked idly and curiously at Mrs Burn who was a pretty woman and looked well in her grey wool riding habit. He blinked, stared, and opened his mouth.
“Grüß Gott und einen guten Nachmittag, Schwager!” sang out Poppy, and Steinberger’s mouth stayed open as he watched them go past. “Hmf. Well, Annamaria will soon know that the prodigal daughter has returned. God help me.”
Ian Ullock returned to Allerdyce’s yard as soon as he could, rubbing his ears, but Carey bore them all company down Back Lane and across Packhorse Court and so to the Oak Inn where there was a flu
rry as Anricks dismounted first. Carey was off his horse instantly to hand Mrs Burn down from the mounting block and then she went to the wetnurse and put her arms up for the very loud baby, while Carey helped the wetnurse down too. Poppy lifted the howling parcel, sniffed his lower half and made a face. “Lord,” she said, “poor little James Postumus Burn.”
The nurse nodded, curtseyed to Carey and said, “I’m Mary Liddle, the nurse. I’ll need the parlour for to change the wee mite and to feed him in, what’s more.”
“Er…yes,” said Carey, not sure how you broke this to the innkeeper. Anricks was ahead of him and already parting with silver to ensure the parlour was cleared for them. Mary Liddle retrieved the baby from his mother, and marched into the parlour with him under her arm, where she put him on the table. “I’ll need a bowl of water, clouts of cloth, sphagnum moss…”
Anricks came past Carey with an enormous bag taken from the first packpony which Goodwife Liddle opened and started investigating, while the purple-faced baby roared from the table. Carey prepared to flee to the commonroom which was blessedly free from infants, but Mrs Burn stopped him. “Sir Robert,” she bellowed, “would you be kind enough to order the ordinary for both of us and two quarts of small beer as well, please—oh and make sure it’s from the Deutsch barrel in the kitchen, not the one behind the bar.”
Carey retreated to the male sanctuary of the commonroom, bringing Anricks with him. He ordered quarts of double beer for both of them, because Anricks in particular looked as if he needed it. He did. Half of it went down in one while Carey made their orders and listened to the ever-loudening outrage from the parlour that went to a crescendo and then reduced a little before finally stopping completely.
“Jesu,” he said, accepting two large bowls of bean pottage which Anricks laid into with a will. “How was the journey?”
“Urrgh,” answered Anricks.
A little later he added, “Mrs Burn is extraordinary for a woman who has only just been churched, but the babe…”
“Objected?” grinned Carey. “Why has it gone silent now? Have they killed it?”
A Suspicion of Silver Page 23
