Frau Radagunda was there on the boatlanding, cold fury on her face. “Was soll dieses Eindringen bedeuten?” she demanded. A scared-looking girl, her youngest daughter Elizabeth, translated for her—“What is the meaning of this invasion?” Carey had given the men his instructions and they trotted off round the island until one man was stationed every fifty yards or so. There were very few men on the island, and the women gathered near the tenth house and watched; the older ones with horror, the younger ones with interest. Carey had also taken the precaution of bringing every single boat from the Keswick side boatlanding to the island and setting a guard, so that nobody else could get on or off the island.
“We are looking for your son, Joachim Hochstetter,” said Carey to her, “on suspicion of the murder of Mr Carleton, Mrs Carleton, and possibly her son.”
“Ridiculous!” snorted Frau Radagunda and a great deal more in Deutsch.
On his signal, Carey had his men walk inwards from the island’s margin, poking in bushes. He personally inspected the brewhouse with its gleaming copper vessels and the bakehouse, which was quiet so late in the day. He went into each house and carefully up through the rooms, tapping the walls, checking the floorboards and ceilings, measuring the ovens in the bakehouse and the malting floor at the top of the brewhouse.
Frau Radegunda was now standing with her hands on her hips in front of a brightly painted and carved house front, the last and biggest. “Hier kommt ihr nicht herein. Das hier ist mein Haus und meine Insel. Verschwindet!” The girl translating was staring at the ground and her voice trembled, “You cannot come in, this is my house and my island. Get out!” she muttered.
“Frau Hochstetter,” Carey said carefully, “you know that by this warrant I have the authority to search this house and pull it apart if I so choose,”
She ripped it from his fingers, tore it up and stamped on it.
Carey sighed and became very cold. “He is here, isn’t he?” he said conversationally to her. “But you’re trying to delay me.” Her face flinched before the translation was finished which confirmed Carey’s belief that she knew much more English than she admitted to. “Pick her up and bring her with us,” he said to Bangtail and Red Sandy who did it with considerable effort while Frau Radagunda shouted Dutch at him.
They broke the door lock, and went into the house which was shining and neat, through the hall, quick look in the blameless parlour and the shining kitchen filled with copper pans out the back, up the stairs and through the bedrooms, found a narrow spiral stair in a cupboard and followed it to three attic rooms for servants, the largest of which had a made bed with a half tester, a white velvet cloak hanging on a peg, a chest and a remarkable collection of books among which was a copy of De Re Metallica. He checked the chest which was full of polite conservative clothes that a merchant or engineer might wear, and a couple of workmen’s hemp shirts and a leather mining tunic. Then he clattered down the spiral stairs again.
He smiled at Frau Radagunda who had stopped shouting and struggling and was standing stiffly in her hall.
“Vielen Danke, mein Frau,” he said to her, the only Dutch he knew and probably wrong. He swept a shallow bow to Frau Radagunda, who spat at him, walked out of the house and hurried to the boat landing.
“Sir Robert,” came an old man’s voice behind him, “may I speak with you?”
He turned, looked at a skinny old man in a respectable woollen suit and scholar’s gown. “Will it help me find Joachim Hochstetter?”
“It might.”
“And you are…?”
“Israel Waltz. I am the pastor here and also the barber surgeon.”
“And?”
“Perhaps I can help you find Joachim?”
“Excellent. Where is he?”
“You know that most of the women here are Anabaptists?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“The menfolk go to church in Crossthwaite. The women stay here or come to the island if they live in Keswick and they pray together in the tenth house.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“The men too are infected, but the women also pray to Saint Sophia and the Theotokos, the God-bearer and the Holy Wisdom of God made manifest in the World.”
“They are Papists?”
“No, Herr Ritter, I suppose you could call them Gnostics, if you know the word.”
“I don’t, I’m afraid. Now Pastor Waltz, this is all very interesting but…”
“Joachim is very close to his mother who is the daughter of a noted Anabaptist pastor. As happens with heretics, he started studying dangerous texts. The last time I spoke to him he laughed at me for being faithful to…to God. He said that the God of the Bible, Jehovah, is a monster. He says that if a man said and did the things that the Bible says that God said and did, we would call Him a madman or a demon and spurn Him. His mother and the other women are crazy to whine after God, or Jesus Christ, for that matter. The Devil is the only real power and men should do his will, even though he is evil and seeks the destruction of everything good.”
“I never heard anything more perverse. Now, Pastor…”
Waltz nodded. “But persuasive. There are many passages in the Old Testament that make me feel Joachim may be right…”
“So where is Joachim Hochstetter?”
Waltz was staring fixedly at the ground. “He says the Catholic church is clearly the Devil’s creature…”
“There I can agree with him…”
“So he says it doesn’t matter if he pretends to be a Catholic and it doesn’t matter what he does.”
“Herr Pastor, will you get to the point?”
Waltz grabbed his arm. “What do you think? Do you think it’s right that God is really the Devil?”
Carey sighed and shook him off, his eyes scanning the island for anything unusual, any sign of Joachim. The last thing he wanted was an abstruse theological discussion with the poor confused minister. But he could see nothing, all was quiet, Frau Radagunda standing with her arms folded and a ferocious scowl on her face, the boatman fishing peacefully in the reeds, still smoking his pipe, the Keswick men he had borrowed looking bored and wanting to go home.
He blinked and put his hand on his sword and wordlessly asked the Lord Jesus for help in rescuing a bewildered soul.
“Pastor, look at Satan in the Gospel where he tempts Our Lord,” he said slowly. “He’s a trickster, a coney catcher, a liar. He tries to get the Redeemer to bow down and worship him—and Jesus says, “You shall worship the Lord your God.” If Satan was actually God, why would he have said such a thing? And the Son of God would be likely to know if he was God anyway. Instead Jesus just says, you shall worship the Lord your God—clearly different.”
Waltz was looking strained. “Then why is God so cruel?”
“I can only say that perhaps He seems cruel from our perspective but not from a heavenly perspective. So, where is Joachim?”
He could see Bangtail coming towards him from the Frau, probably to ask him when they could go back to the inn, and then saw Bangtail’s expression change to alarm and horror. He started sprinting towards him, shouting, the words indistinct and then Carey heard “Ware the gun!” just as Bangtail cannoned into him and Carey heard the boom of an arquebus behind and to the right of him. Bangtail knocked him over and landed in the mud on top of him. Carey rolled out from under, got up and chased the boatman who was trying to reload the arquebus he had hidden under a sack.
Just as Carey came near the reeds, picking up and throwing stones at the boatman as he went, the man dropped his weapon and dived full length into the icy lake, ducking down and swimming into the reeds. Carey found himself floundering in the rushes, striking round him with his sword. He lost sight of the boatman and when his men arrived he had them search, knowing that they wouldn’t find anyone.
Then he heard a howl from where he had b
een standing to discuss theology with the pastor, a terrible animal-like cry. He ran back cursing, drenched to the waist and the arming doublet completely ruined with its second dousing, so it was just as well he hadn’t worn the olive brocade, and found Red Sandy kneeling beside Bangtail, tears pouring down his face.
He looked at Bangtail’s chest and there was a hole, surrounded by splintered ribs with the blood bubbling out. A jack couldn’t keep off an arquebus ball at that range, good though it was against a sword or axe, even an arrow at the end of its flight. That was the exit hole.
The bubbles in the blood said Bangtail would die, was dying, while Red Sandy clasped the English Graham to him and howled like a dog. There was no point trying anything, Hepburn or Hochstetter’s aim had been good. So Carey stood there, his sword in his hand, turned his back on Red Sandy and Bangtail to give them some privacy, sick at heart and angry with himself for falling for Pastor Waltz’s patter, absolutely enraged at himself for not spotting Jonathan Hepburn in his disguise as the boatman.
After what seemed like a short time, Allerdyce came hurrying up, his face strained. “Is he…?”
“Ay,” said Carey, “my man is dying. A good man, shot by Jonathan Hepburn or Joachim Hochstetter, disguised as the boatman. Did you know it was him?”
Allerdyce shook his head. “Nay, d’ye think I’m that good at lying?”
“I don’t know, Mr Allerdyce. Is it really Hochstetter?”
“It is. It’s Joachim, all right. Two of my men recognised him, bald though he is now.”
Maybe he was telling the truth. Everyone on the island must have known, though. All of them. And every one of the Hochstetters, including Annamaria Hochstetter’s husband, Mark Steinberger.
Carey heard footsteps, turned and found that Waltz had wisely made himself scarce. Emanuel Hochstetter was getting out of the same boat that had brought Allerdyce and was approaching slowly, with young Mr David behind him. Carey advanced on him.
“The boatman was Joachim Hochstetter, your brother, Mr David’s brother,” he said to Mr Emanuel. “I won’t ask why you didn’t betray him to me. I know why. He was one of your own, your kith and kin, and he had such plausible stories about how I had falsely accused him of the assassination attempt on the King of Scots and that all he would do here was lie low. He has just tried to kill me and by the…act of God killed my man instead.”
Mr Emanuel swallowed. His anxious face looked fifty years old or more.
“You’ve had time to get a letter from Leith Steelyard, that there was such an attempt and that Joachim disappeared from Court just before it happened,” Carey went on relentlessly. “His assistants went through Leith but not Joachim himself. You know that Mrs Carleton was killed…”
“No, it was suicide…”
“You should stop listening to Joachim. Look at the body, Mr Hochstetter, and then perhaps you can enlighten me on how Mrs Carleton strangled herself and afterwards travelled to Derwent Water, lay down there in six feet of water, and then piled rocks on her own body.”
Mr Emanuel said nothing, looking down.
“We’re convening an inquest for her on Monday and reopening the inquest for Mr Carleton, and if we can find young Josef’s body, we’ll convene one for him too, make a nice set of it, and the murderer of all of them will be named as Joachim Hochstetter,” said Allerdyce coldly. He was glaring at Mr Emanuel. “And Sir Robert’s man too. Why d’ye think we dinna like ye Deutschers, eh? Apart from the way yer kobolds ruin the woods and land?”
Carey coughed and hoped there wouldn’t be any riots. He turned back to Red Sandy who had laid Bangtail’s body down, his own chest all covered with blood, and was shutting Bangtail’s eyes with shaking hands. Leamus was approaching with a litter of oars, his statute cap held against his chest and his face solemn. He and Red Sandy heaved Bangtail’s corpse onto it and returned to the boatlanding. Red Sandy was silent now and grey-faced, stumbling after the litter into the sunset.
“Ay,” said Allerdyce, watching them go, “it’s hard to lose a friend.”
Carey caught himself and hurried after the litter. “Red Sandy,” he said to the man who seemed not to hear him. He was muttering fiercely to himself.
“Where’s the bastard gone? Eh? Where? He’s thought it through, he allus does, he likes killing. Dinna fancy getting killed for sure. He knew where he was swimming for.”
Now that was true and interesting to contemplate. Carey nodded and then touched Red Sandy’s shoulder. “I will never forget what Bangtail did,” he said, “because he saved my life. He was…”
“…nobbut a reiver, a Graham…”
“Yes, he was. And also he was a brave and generous man who took that arquebus ball for me.”
Red Sandy sighed from his guts, shook his head as if to clear it, stumbled on after the litter, helped to move the corpse gently into the boat and then knelt on one knee beside it to go across the water. Once he looked back and shouted, “Ay, he’s gone somewhere warm.”
Of course he had but where?
Carey lifted his head and breathed, “The smelthouses.”
They were surrounded by a stout wicker fence with two gates in it to let the road through. The gates were locked, the charcoal fires burning and reeking inside like the mouth of Hell and Carey hammered with his fist on the gate and Mr Allerdyce stood with his thumbs in his belt. “Open in the name of the Queen!” bellowed Carey and took an axe to the gate, hit it once with a satisfying crunch.
Mark Steinberger put his head round the gate and two of Allerdyce’s men blocked it open with polearms. Allerdyce waved the warrant in his face and shouted something complicated in Norman French, then Carey and Allerdyce both shoved through and the men of the town’s Trained Band spread out through the smelting houses. Carey waited in the central yard all piled with sacks of charcoal. A shout went up, Carey hurried over and found a broad patch of damp that had been part-mopped by a boy, and the boatman’s clothes held out on a pincer, still smoking from the fire but not quite burnt yet.
Carey sat down next to the cold cupellation furnace and stretched his legs. “Bring me Mark Steinberger,” he said. The man came in with one of the Keswickers, his face closed, shut tight. Carey considered him for a moment and then looked away, waiting patiently. Steinberger cleared his throat, but wisely kept silence.
“I don’t believe that you approve of Joachim Hochstetter, Herr Steinberger,” said Carey. “I think you are foolishly indulging your mother-in-law’s dangerous doting on her son. But the matter has gone beyond family feeling. Joachim threatens all of you, you know? He’s a killer and already at the horn in Scotland for attempting to kill the King of Scots.”
Steinberger said nothing.
“You have made your home here, bringing your wonderful mining skills and incidentally excellent beer and bread, you have brought prosperity as well as kobolds to this land. But now the Keswickers will remember that you are foreigners and speak a foreign tongue, and Sir Robert Cecil, the son of my Lord Burghley, a chief shareholder in the Company of Mines Royal, is starting to ask questions.”
Still Steinberger said nothing.
“I wasn’t ill of an ague, you know, Herr Steinberger,” Carey added conversationally. Steinberger’s face didn’t move.
Carey shook his head and leaned back in his still damp clothes. His heart was now beating slow and hard with anger and sorrow at Bangtail’s death. “No,” he said, “I went north and east following Wattie Graham’s special midnight packtrain, the one that left from here about five days ago. I’m not sure why it left when I was in town. Perhaps there was some kind of emergency at the destination in Scotland.”
Steinberger seemed to have been turned to stone where he stood. There was a rustle at the other end of the room. Carey ignored it, it sounded like charcoal settling.
“I wondered where they were going, so I followed them with a couple of my men,” he explai
ned, “all the way to Carlisle and past it, into the Debateable Land and on into Scotland where they brought the silver straight to Ritchie Graham’s tower of Brackenhill.”
Steinberger said nothing.
“That’s the silver you cupellate from the lead, once you get the lead and silver out of the copper, and then you cupellate again to get the gold out to give the Queen, as you have ever since you came here, perhaps. You admitted the copper and gold, noted it in the accounts, but you forgot the silver and sent it north through Wattie’s good offices to Ritchie Graham of Brackenhill who needs the metal for coining.”
“He says he has a warrant.”
“He does not have a warrant.”
“He showed me it, from Henry VIII.”
“That warrant expired when Good King Henry died.” Steinberger contemplated the floor again. “And none of that silver ever sees a customs officer. It comes back, some of it, as sixpences and shillings and pennies to pay the miners; some of it I’m sure goes into your coffers. Maybe some of it even goes to Augsburg. For Goldscope mine, like Gottesgaab in Allemayne, is a rich gift from God.”
“Not as rich as …”
“You and the other Deutschers are still here, Herr Steinberger. It’s rich enough. Perhaps the juices have hardened into equally rich veins in some of the other places where you’re mining. Don’t the damnable lying accounts say you are busy digging at eighteen different places? But not a penny of God’s gift of silver have you paid the Queen.”
Silence.
“I probably can’t catch Joachim Hochstetter until you give him to me,” said Carey. “He knows the area, he knows the people, perhaps he’s swived more of them than poor Mrs Carleton.”
“Mrs Carleton?”
“The smith’s wife who went missing a few days ago. Haven’t you heard?”
“Ve have two smelting campaigns running, I haf been very…”
“Mrs Carleton was throttled to death and then dumped in the lake with rocks on her. Maybe three or four days ago.”
For some reason that seemed to hit Steinberger hard. He stared at the floor, clearly thinking. “Vould…the man who did it, he might be vet?”
A Suspicion of Silver Page 26
