“Last heard of,” Carey said, “he was playing football in Liddesdale. He is now rumoured to have gone to the Highlands.”
“I’m not surprised, this Scottish drink is very fine. I would go to its source if I were him.”
Carey poured again from the bottle and toasted Anricks.
“There’s one good thing about the bloody man,” said Carey.
“What’s that?”
“He’s a Protestant. He says he was not engaging in witchcraft a couple of years ago, which may or may not be true, but at least he is not a bloody Catholic.”
For some reason Anricks smiled at that while Carey paced up and down the room.
“Well, but, Mr Anricks, this is all speculation, isn’t it? Are you sure it isn’t all some phantasy that we are frightening ourselves into fits with?”
Anricks sighed. “No, I am not sure,” he said. “It could indeed be all moonbeams and mist. Mr Secretary is doing his best to find out from Spain, there are little straws in the wind…A very interesting recent letter from your lady mother, for instance, saying that the Spanish had kidnapped three Irish pilots whom she freed in her ship…”
“Oh, God,” said Carey hollowly, “what’s she up to now?”
“She says she visited Mrs O’Malley to lay in some Irish aqua vitae and heard that four more had gone to Spain voluntarily for a lot of gold and the promise of land.”
“Where?”
Anricks shook his head and spread his hands.”Nobody knows. New Spain perhaps? There is so little to go on. Conclusive proof that this is all a phantasy and the Spaniards are not planning to put troops ashore at Dumfries would be most welcome to me, for then I could go home to my wife and children and enjoy the blessed tedium of life as a middling merchant in Bristol. But…”
“Yes,” said Carey, “but…”
He came over and sat on one of the other clothes chests, facing Anricks. He still had the Scotch drink in his hand, so he split the remnants between them.
“Well, Mr Anricks, I put myself at your disposal as the Queen asks. What would you like me to do?”
Anricks inspected the floor which had some very elderly rushes on it since Goody Biltock had gone south with Philadelphia Scrope and there was nobody to terrorise the castle servants.
“I want you to come with me to Scotland, to Edinburgh and the King’s Court.”
Carey’s eyebrows danced upwards. “Good Lord, has His Highness invited you?”
“He has indeed.” Anricks felt in his doublet pocket and produced a very official letter asking him to come to philosophise for the King at Court as soon as he could.
“Latin not Scots, eh? Very philosophical.”
Anricks gave a small smile. “It appears that Lady Widdrington told him of something I had mentioned to her and now he is all afire to have a proper dispute about it.”
“Oh? What about? Nothing theological, I hope.”
“Why?”
“Because His Highness considers himself a first-class theological brain and I don’t think I could stay awake long enough to cheer his victory at the end.”
“He is that good a theologian, is he?”
Carey smiled. “He is the King.”
Anricks smiled back. “I don’t think it is a theological matter, precisely. It is the question of the heavenly bodies like the Moon, the Sun, and the stars, and so forth. Do they move and if so, how?”
Carey squinted as he dredged his memory. “Something to do with crystal spheres? And they move around the Earth like a complicated onion. I’m afraid I was usually absent playing football when I should have been studying the globes.”
“Quite so. My opinion of it comes from Thomas Digges, his preface, where he refers to the theoretical suggestion of a Polish priest called Copernicus, oh, about fifty years ago.”
“Oh yes?” said Carey politely.
Anricks leaned forward with the enthusiasm he could never hide for the beautiful simplicity and rightness of the new thinking, which blew away all the ugly epicycles and epi-epicycles of Ptolemy and Aristotle’s system.
“You see if we place the planets around the Earth in the traditional er…complicated onion arrangements, some of their movements are crazy and make no sense. Why, for example, do Venus and Mercury reverse themselves every so often, in what is called by astrologers, movement retrograde.”
“They are dancing? There is a very complicated Court dance which claims to follow the movements of the planets…”
“Er…no.” Anricks couldn’t understand why nobody seemed to care about the sheer untidiness and ugliness of the old system. “Well,” he said, “perhaps I am a little crazy myself for setting such store by it. Briefly, Copernicus, his idea is that all the heavenly bodies move around the Sun—with one exception—which produces a scheme of exquisite order and righteousness.” The glass cups became planets along with a penknife and a couple of stones, the bottle the sun. “Here is the Sun, at the centre of everything, very befitting. First around him goes Mercury, which removes his retrograde quite, then Venus which removes hers. Then comes the Earth and around her flies the Moon. Then Mars, then Jupiter and Saturn and then we are at the fixed stars.”
Carey was staring fixedly at the cups, frowning. “The retro-
grades?”
“Well sir, see, if this glass is the Earth and this Venus and all spins around the Sun thus, for some of the year Venus moves to the other side of the great circle and, from our perspective, she is moving backwards. But all is as it was, it is just a trick of perspective.”
Carey was still staring.
“Do you see, sir? Do you see how the Earth moving and the Sun being fixed answers?” Anricks’ voice was timid. It was normally at this stage that people started to laugh at him.
Carey blinked owlishly. “Yes!” he said. “Yes, I do.”
Anricks was astonished. “You do?”
“Yes. But Mr Anricks, what holds them up? The crystal spheres?”
“Certainly. We can keep our onion, it just has the Sun in the middle and the Earth moving…”
“Clean contrary to how it looks.”
“Of course. I sometimes wonder if the Almighty is having a little fun with us.”
“What about in the Bible where it says that Earth is flat like a shield and the sky a tent?”
“That cannot be true, for didn’t Magellan sail all the way round and now Sir Francis Drake himself? Again it is a trick of perspective.”
“God is fooling us?”
“I prefer rather to think,” said Anricks quietly, “that the Almighty is gently testing us, giving us riddles to solve to entertain us.”
Carey laughed a delighted boy’s laugh that said he had gone looking for a beetle and found a frog. “Doesn’t it make you queasy to think that the Sun is still, whilst the Earth moves?”
“No, I rejoice in it…”
Suddenly Carey clapped his hand to his head. “Good God,” he said, “you’re the madman.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A long time ago, nearly ten years now, I had a swordmaster who complained of a friend of his who had a crazy notion about the Earth going round the Sun and how it made him feel seasick.”
“Was he a big heavy man with black ringlets, who yet could move lightly and featly?”
“Yes, and he made me lose my temper and knocked me on my arse for a demonstration of how temper could undo me. How is he? Is his name Mr Tucket?”
“No sir,” said Anricks quietly, “his name was David Becket and a truer friend did never live, I think. Alas, he died fighting in 1588.”
“I am sorry to hear it.” They had a couple of drops left of the Scottish drink.
Anricks raised his Venetian cup. “Then I give you, David Becket.”
“David Becket!” answered Carey, tipping his glass to get the last drop.
“But it’s clear then, you are the madman.”
“I am. And here I am planning to go to Edinburgh to dispute with a King about whether the Earth goes round the Sun. Quite, quite insane.”
“Maybe not” said Carey judiciously. “I think the King of Scotland will love the idea if you put it to him right. We’ll be there over Christmas.”
“I hope not.”
“We will. How many followers are you planning to take to Court?”
“I don’t know…Maybe one for me and one for you?”
“Quite, quite woodwild, Mr Anricks. I will need both my servants and at least four men-at-arms if we are not to look very paltry. And also we will be crossing the Middle March at the height of the raiding season. Unless you prefer to take the Giant’s Road east and then go up the Great Northern Road through Berwick to Edinburgh.”
“Although I have begun to build quite a practice at toothdrawing in the West March, I would prefer not to dare the Middle March again at this season,” said Anricks primly.
“So would I. So the Giant’s Road and the Great North Road it is then.”
“When should we leave?”
“It depends. Do you have any better clothes?”
“Better clothes?”
“Yes, Mr Anricks. The Scots King may be a barbarian who has never to my knowledge washed his body, nor shifted his shirt more than once a month and barely wipes his face and hands, but you are an English philosopher and must at least appear civilized.”
“Well…I…have some brocade doublets and hose and a velvet gown or two that my wife had made for me, but they are in Bristol and with the best will in the world, I doubt they could be here in less than a week.”
“Hm. We must see what the Carlisle tailor can do for you—we may catch him before he shuts up shop if we go now.”
And Carey swept Anricks off down the stairs, pausing only to lock his chamber door with newly rediscovered conscientiousness.
December 1592 Carlisle
It turned out that Anricks had plenty of money and could afford a brocade far too rich for a philosopher, especially one who was also a part-time toothdrawer. He had no idea of fashion at all, so Carey chose a nice fine wool in a dark cramoisie, since black and green accentuated his yellow complexion and made him look liverish. He put his foot down firmly on Anricks’ diffident hopes for tawny taffeta trimming and lining and settled on a narrow black brocade trim that only the expert eye would be able to discern as coming straight from the Low Countries. It was quite a surprise to find it in the Carlisle mercer’s shop.
At the tailor’s, he ordered a shell made and the suit cut out by the master tailor himself, found a perfectly respectable shirt with blackwork on the cuffs in the depths of Anrick’s pack and had it and a couple more wrinkled grey horrors laundered. Hughie agreed to do some of the sewing of the doublet and the journeymen did the rest.
In return Carey agreed to read Thomas Digges’ preface at least, which Anricks lent to him. He came back to Anricks with some questions. Anricks had been to visit the son of his patient, James Tait, who had nearly survived a knife in the guts, but had finally died, a week after the stabbing, of fever and pus in his intestines, to the extent that they swelled up until Tait looked pregnant. Strangely the external wounds had already healed. It had been a painful death and Anricks had been glad when the man had mercifully died. He had not had the chance to talk to Jimmy Tait since then and found him a little sad and thoughtful but also delighted with the metrical psalms he was learning and beginning to play the lute. Anricks got the impression that James Tait had not been an ideal father and would not be greatly missed, although the boy was anxious about his mother and determined to bring her and his sister and brother to Carlisle. But Anricks needed cheering up and so Carey did his best.
“Did you know that cannon don’t shoot straight?” Carey asked.
“They don’t?”
“No. Everyone thinks they do, but they don’t, nor bullets. When you are laying a cannon to fire at a distance, you must always allow for some curve. Just like with an arrow, but much less. Why is that?”
Anricks stared at him. “I don’t know.”
“But why don’t cannonballs go in a straight line until they run out of wind from the gunpowder and then drop?”
“I have no idea. What has that to do with the Earth going round the Sun?”
Carey smiled a little boy’s rueful smile. “Nothing. I was just wondering about it, all those circles. How about looking at the planets through spectacles? Could we see what they are made of?”
“Certes, there are people who are studying to grind the glasses fine enough, though at the moment there is a problem with rainbows and clarity.”
“What about the Sun? Is it a planet?”
“No, it seems it really is a huge great fiery ball in the sky.”
“What is it made of?”
“I don’t know. Sulphur, perhaps, since it is yellow.”
Carey nodded. “This is all part of your speech.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because you have to make the truth sound good to the King, otherwise he will turn it into a joke and get drunk. Or drunker.”
“And is the naked truth not good enough?”
“No, Mr Anricks, it isn’t. This is a public dispute, a species of theatre, and he may have some good scholars ranged against you to make you look foolish.”
“Is that so bad? Then he can defeat me and feel reassured at how clever he is.”
Carey laughed. “Yes, a good point. But you must give him a good show. If you do, he might make you his pet philosopher and keep you at his Court and that will give you the chance to find out what is going on with the Catholic earls.”
Anricks smiled. “I see.”
“Yes. You are the dancing bear and I am the bearmaster and whenever this dispute happens, whether at Christmas or New Year, you will give such a dance that King James will want more of it.”
“I do not want to be at Court for Christmas.”
“Who asked you, Mr Anricks? Nor do I, but I suspect we must.”
“You don’t want to spend Christmas at…”
“The key word is ‘spend’. Christmas at the Queen’s Court means at least one new suit and possibly some outrageous costume for a masque, although she is not as addicted to them as His Highness. Plus, I will certainly have to get His Highness a gift for New Year’s Day which will cost a fortune and completely wreck my finances…”
Anricks leaned over and touched him. “As my bearmaster, I believe I can finance you to a limited extent…”
Joy struck Carey’s face. “You mean I could have a new Court suit?”
“Well…”
“My old one is with my father in London and really it’s growing a little out of fashion now it’s more than a year old—I haven’t completely paid for it yet—but perhaps I could have something in the Scottish style with the padding King James likes…”
“Well…”
“Now the question is whether damask, brocade, satin..”
Anricks had the feeling he had somehow carelessly unleashed a monster, but thought Carey deserved something for the way he had instantly backed him—and, although he didn’t admit this to himself, for being one of the very few people who didn’t laugh at the new Cosmology. Considering the dangers and the difficulty of the Scottish Court, it was praiseworthy how quickly he had agreed…Was that suspicious? Sir Robert Cecil had been concerned that Carey might have done some kind of deal with King James on his own account. That could be one interpretation of the mysterious doings at the King’s Court while James had been on his abortive Justice Raid to Dumfries in the summer, although there were plenty of others.
Carey himself was happily burbling on about the different kinds of brocade that might be available and Anricks watched him, sitting at his ease in Bessy’s c
ommon room with the remains of his pie on the pewter plate beside him. Chestnut-headed of the dark red not the carrotty kind like Her fiery Majesty, Anricks thought the portrait of him he had had painted for his knighthood had done him no favours. It showed the tense cautious courtier with the fashionable shaved forehead in honour of the Queen, not the expansive, very slightly drunk Deputy Warden in front of him.
Sir Robert Cecil had spoken about Carey when he came personally to Bristol to ask…perhaps better the word “beseech”…Simon to come out of retirement and find out what was happening in Scotland, if anything. He had spoken of Carey with surprising respect, that he was no more a Knight of the Carpet than his father, that he was a remarkably able soldier and also had the ability that Walsingham had, of being able to winkle the truth out of complicated and opaque circumstances.
Cecil’s hunched back always pained him when he rode long distances, something he had never allowed to stop him. A jolting carriage was no better. He had sat uncomfortably on a pile of cushions in Simon’s parlour, eating the wonderful crisp wafers that Rebecca could prepare, and drinking the rich dark sweet red wine of Oporto. Cecil tilted his head so it was straight, even if his body wasn’t. Every so often he would stand and pace about, full of nervous energy.
“I have read all the secret reports on you, Mr Anricks, and I think there is not a man in England as well fitted to the work as you.”
“But I do not want to come out of retirement. I like being bored.”
Cecil closed his eyes a moment and smiled his remarkably sweet smile, then moved again, easing his back.
“I suppose money…”
Simon spread his hands, palms down. “I have plenty of money, far more than I need and if I were ever in want, my respected father, Mr Dunstan Ames, Deputy Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Poultry, would help me and if he failed, why then my uncle Dr Hector Nuñez would step into the breach.”
“Is that the Dr Hector Nuñez who is importing boatloads of tobacco from New Spain to London?”
“Yes.”
“And you would not be interested in a knighthood which you certainly deserve for your actions during the Armada…”
A Clash of Spheres Page 9
