“Och, that’s easy. I’ll tell you, since you’re going nae further with it. We’re running a big raid deep into Scotland, to Falkland Palace, to lift the King and hold him to ransom for a big pot of gold. It’s about two hundred miles, so we’ve all needed remounts.”
Carey breathed cautiously. “Right,” he said, “you’re kidnapping King James.”
“Ay,” said Jock. “Bothwell says he’s worth the Kingdom if we can get him.”
“Right,” said Carey again. “Of course, Bothwell tried before at Holyrood and he didn’t manage it. That’s why he’s an outlaw.”
“He didna have us with him.”
“No. Don’t you think somebody might notice, a big pack of Border raiders riding into Scotland like that? Don’t you think they might take it into their heads to warn the King?”
“Not if we ride fast enough and keep to the waste ground.”
“And there are the horses, of course.”
“Eh? Oh ay, we’ve got enough horses now. We’ll be off tomorrow.”
“Is that so?” Carey’s voice was carefully casual. “No, I didn’t mean the little nags you’ve been reiving. I meant the King’s horses. But I suppose you’re not interested in them.”
“No,” said Jock, “we’re not. It’s the King we’re reiving.”
“Right.”
“What theory?” demanded Jock.
“Eh?”
“What theory were ye talking about before? Your theory concerning Sweetmilk.”
“You wouldn’t be interested.”
“How the Devil do you know that if ye won’t tell me what it is?”
Carey peeked over again, saw Bothwell, shot at him, missed and ducked down again as two more arquebuses cracked down below.
“I suppose the nearest cannon are in Carlisle?”
“Of course they are,” said Jock, “unless your friend Lowther’s bringing one up here.”
“No, he wouldn’t have any powder for it.”
“Is that a fact?”
“You know it as well as I do. In fact, I’ll bet the powder they’re shooting at us with is Carlisle’s finest.”
Jock grunted. “It’s no’ very good quality,” he complained, “and he charges something shocking for it. What theory?”
Carey sat down facing Jock, with his knees drawn up, examined the skinned knuckles on his right hand and flexed them. He hated punching people in the face, it always hurt your hand so much.
“Did you ever hear of a man called Sir Francis Walsingham, Jock?”
Jock nodded. “Ay, the Queen’s Secretary. Sir John Forster in the Middle March did him a good turn, oh, ten, twelve years ago.”
“I know. He’s dead now, but I was on an embassy with him to Scotland in the summer of ’83, it was the first time I went to King James’s Court.”
“What did you think of it?”
“It was well enough so long as I kept my arse to the wall and a table between me and the King.”
Jock laughed. “Took a fancy to ye, did he?”
Carey coughed and looked down. “You could say that.”
“Jesus, man, what are ye doing here? Your fortune’s made.”
Carey shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. In fact I damn near puked in his lap when I finally worked out what it was he wanted.”
Jock found that very funny. “What did Sir Francis think of it?”
“He was a strange man, you know, Jock. I’ve met my fair share of puritans, and most of them are hypocrites, but he was not. He was an utterly upright man. He worked night and day to keep the Queen safe, though he hated the thought of obeying a woman…”
“Small blame to him,” said Jock, “it’s unnatural.”
Carey thought of the iron grip most border women seemed to have on their menfolk, but didn’t say anything. He peered over the parapet and saw Bothwell and Wattie and the other men gathered together talking, while Old Wat of Harden walked up and down. To keep them on their toes he shot a couple of arrows at them. They scattered and dived for cover satisfactorily.
“When I told him what the King wanted from me, he saw to it that I was never alone with him again without it seeming he was doing it, if you follow. And I never knew him to take a bribe.”
“What never?”
“Never. When he died his estate was gone and he was deep in debt.”
“Why was he at Court then, if he didna take bribes?”
Carey shrugged. “To serve the Queen, he said, because she was the best hope for the True Religion against Papistry. To his mind it was immoral to take money for giving her advice he knew was bad, and immoral to take money for giving advice he would give anyway.”
“What’s your point?”
“He always told me that truth belonged to God, it was sacred. Every lie, every injustice was an offence to God because it was an offence against truth. The stock of truth in this life is limited like gold, and every time you can dig out a little more of it from the mud and the clay of lies, you bring a little more of God’s Grace into the world.”
“It’s a fine poetical sentiment,” said Jock consideringly, “but aye impractical.”
“He believed also, that like gold, truth was incorruptible and would always leave traces. And if you were prepared to dig and scrape a bit, you could find out the truth of anything.”
“What’s this got to do with Sweetmilk?”
“Somebody murdered him and got away with it. To me, that’s an offence against justice.”
“Justice, truth. What are we doing up here, lad, we should be in church.”
Carey ignored him. “It happened I got a good look at his body and I went to see the place where Dodd found it. It was all very odd.”
“Why?”
“The shooting for a start. There were powder burns all over the back of his jack, no sign of a struggle. That gives you a bit of truth right there.”
Jock swallowed and blinked at the sky. “Why?” he rasped. “It was a quick death, so?”
Carey shook his head. “It was more than that. The dag that killed him must have been right up behind him, close, perhaps less than a foot away. Would you let your enemy get so close to you with a loaded dag?”
Jock thought about it. “I wouldnae,” he said finally, “if he’s that close, you’ve a chance of knocking it away or hitting him before the gun can fire, and if he’s waving a dag at ye, it’s worth a try because he’s going to kill ye anyway.”
“Precisely,” said Carey pedantically, “no gun ever fires instantly: if it’s got a powder pan, the flash has to go down into the gun, if it’s got a lock, the mechanism has to unwind to make the sparks. Sweetmilk knew that as well as anybody.”
Jock nodded slowly. “Ye’re saying, he let whoever killed him come up close because he wasnae an enemy, he was a friend.”
“Exactly. Or at least someone he knew and had no reason to fear right then.”
Jock nodded again. “Go on, Courtier.”
Carey peered over the parapet again and saw men hurrying about with lighted torches and faggots of wood. He shot at them, and got one through the leg. He stayed there with his bow, wishing he was a better shot, peering over the parapet and trying to think himself into Bothwell’s mind.
“The next point is that he wasn’t robbed by whoever killed him.”
“He’d been robbed by the time we got the body.”
“Yes, that was one of Dodd’s men. I have the jewels and rings in Carlisle and I’ll send them back to you when I can.” He coughed. “If I can.”
“Wasna robbed, eh? He was wearing some good stuff.”
“I know. So why was he killed? It wasn’t a fight, it wasn’t to steal his jewels, or even his horse.”
“Ah, the horse. I should have known the beauty would be trouble.”
“There’s a reason why I don’t think he was killed for the horse, but I’ll come to it. The next point is where the killer left the body. Solway Moss, in a gorse bush.”
“Maybe that’s where he was killed?”
Carey shook his head. “No, he was killed somewhere else and brought there slung over a horse’s back, probably on your Caspar. He stiffened while he was bent over the horse, and there wasn’t any blood spattered near where he was found. And why Solway Moss? There are marshes, there’s the sea, any number of good places to put a corpse where it’ll never be found to cause you trouble. Why there?”