Janet stood up. “Wee Colin Elliot,” she said with magnificent contempt and curtseyed. “Welcome.”
Christmas Day 1592
Anricks spent Christmas at John Napier’s house happily playing with the wonderful toys mathematical he called his Bones. After the Earl of Huntly had caused a fuss looking for someone who had trailed smelly footprints all over his chamber and failed to find anyone, the Court got itself together to process to St Giles. The King and all his Court and his Queen and all her ladies attended the Christmas Morning service at St Giles where Chancellor Melville excelled himself in the length, complexity, and tedium of his sermon, and gained the admiration of every minister who heard it. Since church-going was always compulsory on Christmas Morning, Simon Anricks and John Napier were there as well, giggling like a couple of schoolboys while they wrote notes to each other in mathematics. Spynie was nursing a hangover while the Maxwell, Huntly, Erroll, and Angus were all at a Catholic Mass said by Father Crichton in a private chapel at Holyrood, once used by the sainted martyr, Queen Maria. The King blandly insisted to the ministers that he had no idea where the Catholic earls went on Christmas Morning, silly boys that they were, because he was busy listening to the minister’s sermons in Edinburgh town.
Afterwards His Highness returned to Holyrood House and ate an immense dinner which included a swan stuffed with a peacock, stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a pigeon, stuffed with a blackbird, stuffed with a wren, which everyone admired.
Jonathan Hepburn was getting worried, he had to admit. He had two plans in play, one covering the other, either one could work. He had Marguerite to keep happy although she was becoming terrifyingly adventurous, he had the complicated and dangerous alchemical plot in hand, though not active yet, everything was in a delicate balance and here came the Deputy Warden, in long boots, trampling through, asking questions.
How the bloody man had laid hands on Hepburn’s sister’s stupid and dangerous letter, he didn’t know, but he had. The worrying message from his cousin in the Steelyard had made that clear—it was a real pity they had muffed the opportunity to arrest Carey and his odd little hanger-on and clap both of them in irons until it was all over. There might have been a bit of fuss from the King, but it could always be smoothed over by nice thalers, after all. However, his cousin had failed to act firmly enough.
But the family firm of Haug and Company now knew something was in play and Hepburn had received another letter from his brother in Keswick, asking querulously if it was true that he was planning to kill the Scottish King—and in a simple cipher as well, as if it being in Deutsch was enough to keep it secret. He had responded immediately that he was not, that it was a lie, that his sister must be mad and that nobody should pay attention to the vapourings of a widow about to have a baby. Until he could get to Keswick, that was all he could do.
He had to assume that the Scottish domus providenciae was alerted, but that they had kept it from the King as they normally did because of his cowardice, so the domus magnificenciae would be racketing on as usual. It was inconvenient and annoying but he thought he had proceeded cautiously enough that his original plans could continue.
He worried about it, though; he couldn’t help it. And yet, logic told him that the best thing to do was nothing. He avoided Carey as much as he could, until the man somehow caught him in the hall after the Christmas dinner and asked him if it was true that he was originally a mining engineer from Keswick.
“Ay, it is,” he answered with his best boyish grin, “only I got bored with digging and went to seek my fortune in the Netherlands.”
“Did you find it?” asked Carey lazily. “I mean your fortune?”
“Ah no,” said Hepburn ruefully, “not yet. I was young and stupid.”
Carey smiled. “I’ve often thought of taking ship to Flushing and selling my sword to the highest bidder. Whenever I get tired of being told what to do by idiots.”
“Hah!” Hepburn laughed. “Do you think that stops in the Netherlands? It doesn’t.”
Carey laughed, poured them both some wine from the nearest jug, took a drink immediately. Hepburn did too and made a face. As usual in Scotland, it was terrible.
“So how did Allemaynes come to be digging holes in the hills around the Cumberland lakes?” Carey asked. “I know Allemaynes are the best miners in the world…”
“No, I’d say the Bohemians are, but anyway. The Queen invited us back in the sixties, and my family’s firm decided that there were good signs that there might be metals there, so we came, my father Daniel Hochstetter and one hundred-fifty miners from Augsberg. Have you been to Keswick, Sir Robert?”
“No,” said Carey, very friendlywise, “I haven’t. It’s only sixty miles from Carlisle so I’m afraid I have to make some excuse and my excuse is that all the cattle-raiders, robbers, and murderers are in the opposite direction. Why do you call yourself Hepburn, if your name is really…er…Hocksteader?”
“That’s why,” said Hepburn. “Who can pronounce Hochstetter? I find it hard to say myself and I’ve had plenty of practice. My Lord Bothwell gave me permission to use his surname when I was working for him.”
“Ah.” Carey was having some trouble drinking the wine. “And did you ever know a man called Hans Schmidt, the gunsmith?”
Hepburn didn’t let his smile become fixed, allowed himself to look puzzled, then reminiscent, as if Schmidt had no importance. “Slightly,” he admitted. “Not very well and it turned out he wasn’t a gunsmith at all, didn’t it? Where is he now? I’ve not seen him since the summer.”
Now that was good. Carey looked away and his face twitched a little. “Oh, I think he’s dead,” he said. “He made an enemy of Lord Spynie after all.”
That was what Hepburn had heard and it was good news. “He was a coneycatcher and not a very good one,” he said callously. “Bold but stupid.”
“Yes,” said Carey. “Tell me, do you know a woman called Poppy—Prosperpina Burn?”
Hepburn paused for just a second, frowning in thought. “No, should I?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s not at Court, I think.”
“No, she’s the widow of a Scottish minister of religion who was murdered about two months ago—I hanged his murderers myself.”
Hepburn lifted his cup in toast. “Well, I’m delighted that justice was done,” he said respectfully, but saw no answering smile.
“Thank you,” said Carey gravely. “Is it true that you are arranging the scenery for this year’s New Year Masque?”
“Yes, I am,” Hepburn said, happy to get away from areas where he had to lie, back to areas where the truth was the best concealment. “I can show you my plans, if you like. You see, I want the King to be in the middle with the Earth above him…”
“You don’t hold with Copernicus his theory that all goes around the Sun?”
“Of course not,” said Hepburn, a little testily. “Mr Anricks has worked up a very pretty theory about it, but in fact William of Ockham made it clear two hundred years ago that if we have two answers philosophical, we should always pick the simplest. Not in human affairs, perhaps, but certainly in philosophy. The Sun manifestly rises in the east and obviously sets in the west and appears to go around the Earth, which clearly seems to be the centre of all. Why not agree with the simple answer that that is in fact what it does, instead of some Papist flight of fancy that has every planet flying around the Sun and the Earth itself flinging itself through space?”
“Well…”
“Depend upon it, if we were rolling around the Sun, the seas would show it and the winds would show it and why wouldn’t we ourselves feel the motion?”
“Well, Mr Anricks is very convincing….”
“Madness often is. He may be convinced himself but that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“No…”
“Are you watching the fireworks this evening?”
“Of course, if they’re on…”
“It’s looking like snow to be sure, but I think it will hold off until the last rockets have been fired.”
“Oh, why? Scottish weather isn’t usually so co-operative?”
Hepburn couldn’t tell him that the Demiurge would see to it so he laughed instead, looking round at the small knots of gentlemen and ladies talking and some dice games starting up. “In fact I must ask you to excuse me, Sir Robert, because I’m helping with setting some of the fuses and suchlike, although the Han family have most of it in hand.”
“The Han family?”
“The Chinese, who are the best firework makers in the world, and their French managers. We are lucky to have them. They are related to the family that makes the Queen’s fireworks in England and they even say it was the Chinese who invented gunpowder—when everyone knows it was a Papist monk looking for a cure for constipation.” Hepburn paused and grinned. “And he found it.”
Carey laughed again at that and so Hepburn hurried out of the hall. He was sweating lightly when he met the French Master Artificer and went to look at the arrangements in the gardens in the deepening dusk. All through the evening he found himself arguing both sides: he should kill Carey, to stop him interfering; he should not kill Carey, because he had fooled him. He set the fuses, advised on more than one for each rocket, checked the metal cages and tubes were firm, while the war went on in his head. From the fireworks platform at the end of the garden, by the storage sheds and lean-tos, he looked out at the Court assembling on the benches in the cold evening to view the fireworks, saw the torches flaring and pages running around with jugs full of mulled wine and beer, saw the musicians gathering in their carts, their Chapel Master coming to make final arrangements, saw the lads from the stables gathering as close as they could get to the fireworks, held back by ropes and scowling men-at-arms. Should he kill Carey or not?
The King and the Queen arrived with the King’s favourite nobles, including Lord Spynie, for a wonder, and the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. He had looked into using the fireworks to kill the King, of course. It would be a lot easier to kill Carey.
The music started, a new composition. On the beat, the Master Artificer lit the first fuse and watched as it burned towards the first array of rockets, before stepping back behind the metal shield. Hepburn took cover there too and found Carey standing there, talking to the Master Artificer animatedly in French as the rockets coursed their way into the pitch-black skies and burst into flowers of blue and white and gold and red.
Just for a moment, Hepburn was angry and then he relaxed. Of course Carey would come to watch the fireworks from the Artificer’s shield; that was where he could make sure none of the rockets had been misplaced, nor the Roman candles pointed horizontally instead of vertically. That was why Hepburn had not used the fireworks, in the end. There were too many people involved, too many hands; it was not controllable.
So he laughed with Carey, listened with satisfaction to the “oohs” and “aahs” from the crowd, shared some brandy from his flask. Carey now seemed more interested in the Earl of Huntly and even asked Hepburn if he had seen Huntly anywhere near the fireworks. Hepburn was able to answer with complete honesty, that he hadn’t and he thought the Earl would be very noticeable.
They stood surrounded by the peppery sharp stink of gunpowder and the smoke as the Scottish Court besieged Heaven with its ordnance of flowers and waterspouts and spinning wheels and a flag of St Andrew in blue and sparkling white at the end, all made of purest fire, all lasting a few seconds and then dying, unlike the mysterious stars hidden behind the sour-smelling clouds.
After the show was over, they shook hands and Carey ambled back to the main crowds of the Court where King James was drunk and shouting and the musicians kept playing until the falling flakes of snow sent everybody back into the hall.
Carey was thoughtful as he stood around in a group of other gentlemen, by a tapestry, watching the Queen’s ladies dancing a charming Danish dance together, very like an Allemande, in fact. He felt he had drawn a blank with Jonathan Hepburn, the man seemed as honest as anyone at Court could afford to be and friendlier than most. He dismissed the man from his thoughts because he was now certain the man to watch was Huntly and he was trying to think how he could work out what the earl was planning. Sadly, being mainly illiterate except for his signature, Huntly had probably not written notes on how to kill a king.
Then he caught sight of Anricks, deep in conversation with John Napier again, and went after him, brought him to bay just outside the hall.
Napier continued down the corridor, heading for the gate, saying he was for bed and perhaps a little more calculating, as if it were something he did for fun to relax him. However Carey had urgent business with Anricks.
“You know that the Dispute about the Heavens is set for New Year’s Eve and His Highness will dispute with you and Napier, as the defender of Ptolemy,” Carey said to him.
Anricks had clearly forgotten everything about it and stared back at Carey, going paler and paler.
“His Highness?” repeated Anricks.
“Yes, indeed.”
“Oh.”
“So how is your own speech progressing, Mr Anricks? May I hear some of it?”
“Ah,” said Anricks, reddening a little, “I own I have been studying mathematics and not writing my speech…”
“You only have a week,” said Carey, looking very unhappy.
“Yes, but these mathematical Bones are so beautiful…” And Anricks launched into a long abstruse explanation about squares and square roots, during which he accidentally fell into Latin and continued in that language, so that Carey’s eyes glazed over in minutes. To save himself from actually falling asleep in the face of Anricks’ enthusiasm, he asked if Napier had published a book of his new numbers. Anricks looked annoyed as he reverted to English.
“No, he is much more interested in his book about the Apocalypse,” said Anricks sadly, “which is worthy, of course, but still…He is far too modest about his new numbers, says they are only mathematical tricks to make calculating the Number of the Beast easier.”
“Well, I suppose that makes some sense at least. Will he assist you in the speech?”
“Ah no. We have differing opinions on the celestial spheres and will be on opposing sides.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Mr Napier is quite old-fashioned in some ways and seeks to keep some of Ptolemy: he avers that all the planets save the Earth do indeed go around the Sun, but then the Sun, and all the rest too, goes around the Earth.”
“Oh. Is that possible?”
“It is possible if the Almighty were quite insane,” said Anricks irritably, “but since the chief virtue of Copernicus is its simplicity and Napier’s notion is even more complicated than Ptolemy, I think we can dismiss it.”
Carey hid a smile. “Must things philosophical be simple?”
“Yes, Sir Robert, they must. Which is harder to do, complexity or simplicity? Which is more beautiful? Which makes sense? William of Ockham made all this very clear two hundred years ago.”
“Ah…”
“Well, Mr Napier’s fixed on it so he will speak about it. What happens after His Highness wins the Dispute?”
Carey smiled. At least Anricks was always realistic.
“There is to be a Masque of the Planetary Spheres and then all finishes with a dance of the Queen’s ladies who will dance whichever pattern the King judges is true.”
“Wearing very little?”
“Of course. And either they will circle the Earth, or they will circle the Sun or presumably they will circle Mr Napier’s Sun while it circles the Earth. Personally, I hope Mr Napier’s view prevails.”
“What?” Anricks’ face was horrified.
“I would delight i
n seeing the Queen’s ladies dancing around the Sun as he dances around the Earth. I think it could be quite funny, with plenty of collisions, especially as the ladies will all be very drunk.”
Anricks put his hand over his eyes and let out a low moan.
“And you’ve written your speech, have you?”
“Er…no.”
“Nearly finished it?”
“Ah…not exactly.”
“But you’ve started it?”
“Well…”
“Mr Anricks,” said Carey, putting his hand on Anricks’ arm and looking into his eyes very seriously, “you have six days. Get on with it.”
“But…”
“I, your bearmaster, say, Hup, hup, hup! Write your speech, Mr Anricks!”
***
Wee Colin Elliot tipped his helmet back on his head. “Mrs Dodd,” he said, “I’m told yer husband is in Edinburgh.”
“Ay,” she said, proud of herself because her voice was steady and she was talking to Henry’s blood-enemy. “Perhaps.”
“Where are yer kin?”
“Run away,” she said. “Gone home. They’re not here now.”
“Ay,” Wee Colin looked about him. “Skinabake Armstrong’s gone as well,” he said. “That’s lucky, is that.”
Janet said nothing. She stood beside the cart next to the silenced Widow Ridley and heard the few winter birds hurting the air with their hope. Would he kill her?
“Well, Mrs Dodd,” he said, leaning his arms comfortably on the saddlebow to talk down to her, “ye’ll come wi’ me.”
“Why?” said Janet, “What use are we tae ye, an old woman and the wife of Sergeant Dodd? D’ye think ma husband will pay a ransom for me? He willna.”
Wee Colin laughed, showing good teeth and a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Nay, Mrs Dodd, I ken that. He’d choke on it so he would. No, I want him to come to me, on his own.”
A Clash of Spheres Page 24
