3 A Surfeit of Guns

by P. F. Chisholm

  No, it wasn’t only his heartbeat. Hooves pointed the metre: soft unshod hooves on the turf. Carey peered through leaves cautiously and saw horses pass like shadows nearby. There was a pause and another shadow departed, on foot, loping like a wolf in their tracks.

  “Sir!” That was Dodd’s scandalised hiss. “Sir, wake up!”

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he hissed back quickly. “I was thinking.”

  “Oh aye. Well, they’ve come and gone whilst ye was thinking and Red Sandy’s gone off after them. Ye can let your hobby up to stamp about a bit now.”

  Knowing he was bright red and still hindered by the effects of thinking about Elizabeth, not to mention the cramp in his instep, Carey staggered to his feet. The horse lurched up and shook out its mane, Carey brushed astonished ants off his boots and got bitten half a dozen times.

  They stayed in the bushes, for what seemed like another hour while Carey tried to keep his mind on his job and off his fantasies. Girls he had known at Court flitted irritatingly to and fro before his mind’s eye—he surely was in desperate need of a woman. Sorrel nuzzled at him with his broad low-bred nose, and Carey patted him absently.

  At last they heard pelting feet, a single man, sprinting down the hill towards them. Dodd cocked his head, led his horse out of the bushes.

  Red Sandy himself arrived, breathing hard.

  “Bastard Elliots, about seven of them, all mounted,” he whispered triumphantly. “Wee Colin Elliot’s wi’ them. They’ve taken twelve sheep off one of the Routledges an’ they’re on their way.”

  In the distance the sound of protesting baas floated to them, and horses.

  Dodd’s mouth thinned and his face lengthened, which meant he was delighted. He and Carey swung up into the saddle together and Carey opened his guncase again. Behind them, he heard Long George cursing as he burnt his fingers trying to relight a slow match from the little clay pot of coals he carried on his saddle bow.

  “Keep the light hidden,” Carey said and got a protesting “Ah know that, sir.”

  His heart settling to a steady fast thumping, Carey came up close to Dodd.

  “This wasn’t done by any arrangement, was it?”

  “With Elliots, sir?” Dodd was scandalised and Carey remembered that the Sergeant’s surname had a fifty-year-old blood-feud running with the Elliots.

  “No, obviously not. Well then, let’s see if we can catch a few to hang.”

  Dodd nodded dourly. Clearly, taking the trouble to capture Elliots was not his highest priority. Carey grinned at him, the prospect of a fight raising his spirits as always.

  “One or two will do,” he amended.

  Was that the faintest flicker of an answering smile at the edge of Dodd’s mouth? Probably not.

  The sheep arrived first, milling about confusedly and baaing. Dodd and he rode between them, straight at the reivers, while the rest came around from both sides of the flock. For a moment there was confused shouting; the reivers weren’t sure what was happening: Carey fired both his dags, missed both times. A couple of arrows whipped into the ground, Sim’s Will rode past with his lance in rest and his horse tripped over a sheep.

  “A Tynedale, a Tynedale, Out, Out!” roared Dodd happily, barrelling lance first at the widest mounted shadow.

  Carey hauled his sword out, felt rather than saw something coming at him through the night, turned his horse and struck sideways. The sword went into something, there was a splash of hot blood and the blade stuck. He twisted and wrenched it out. Then a horse cantered past on his other side, its rider jumped onto his back and hauled him to the ground, giving him a headful of spinning lights and a nasty twinge from the ribs he had cracked two weeks before. A snarling face was lit up briefly by a bright red flash; dimly somewhere in the distance he heard a very loud bang and a sound of shrieking, but he was too busy to wonder who had been hit.

  He elbowed his enemy in the face while neither of them had any nightsight, rolled to loosen the man’s grip and brought his sword hilt down on the white patch of face he could just see under the helmet. He tried to get to his feet, there was a blow on his side, the man was trying to grapple his neck, he managed to pull his dagger free with his left hand as he twisted away and stabbed under the man’s arm, heard the grating of metal and a gasp. This time he could get his legs under him, he raised his broadsword up and swung down, there was a satisfying meaty thunk and the man’s head came off. He hopped backwards quickly to be away from the blood.

  Somebody still mounted came riding towards him with a lance, black shadow on a bigger shadow, the shadow of a lance. Carey’s world focused down to its point and time slowed. He waited until the last possible minute, then threw himself sideways into the horse’s path. The hobby reared, frightened of the movement, one of the hooves caught him a glancing blow on the helmet, he caught the nearest stirrup, reached up, hefted the man out of the saddle and onto the ground. They both tangled in the lance-haft and fell down together and just as Carey got on top of the man, and was preparing to stab him lefthanded in the throat, he realised it was Sim’s Will Croser.

  For a moment he simply knelt there stupidly as his sight cleared. Then he got up.

  “Are you hurt?” he demanded.

  “Nay,” said Sim’s Will. “Sorry, sir, Ah mistook ye.”

  Both of them were on their feet, Carey picked his sword off the turf, looking around for enemies but none were left. Hooves thudded off in the distance. He wiped his blade down with handfuls of grass and sheathed it. The body of the man Carey had killed was still bleeding into the ground, four horses were trotting around shaking their heads. Further off the shrieking was fading to gasps. Carey went over to the source of the sounds where two others of his men were standing by helplessly. Dodd cantered up and dismounted.

  “They’ve run,” he snarled. “We got two of them, I think, but it seems my brother canna count. There were at least ten. And Long George is hurt bad.”

  That was an understatement. Long George Little was kneeling on the ground, hunched over and making short gasping moans. He looked up at Carey like a wounded dog, his face spattered with black mud. With a lurch under his breastbone of sympathy, Carey saw George was cradling the rags of his right hand against his chest. All the fingers were gone, the thumb hanging by a piece of flesh with the splintered bone sticking out of the meat. Long George had his other hand gripped round the wrist, trying to slow his bleeding.

  “Anybody else hurt?” Carey asked.

  “Nay,” they all answered.

  “Who’s got the bandages?”

  All of them shrugged. Carey suppressed a sigh. “There’s a dead man over there,” he snapped, pointing. “Go and cut long strips from his shirt.”

  Red Sandy trotted off with his dagger and came back a few minutes later with some strips of grey canvas in his hand. Carey tied up what was left of Long George’s hand and made a tourniquet with the rest of the strips. Long George gasped and whimpered as he did it, but managed to hold still with his eyes shut, while Dodd patted his shoulder. A trickle of blood came from his mouth.

  “Well, we rescued the sheep,” said Red Sandy brightly. “That’s something.”

  “Thank you, Red Sandy,” said Carey repressively. “Can you ride your horse, Long George?”

  “Ay, sir, if ye give me a leg up,” whispered George.

  Red Sandy and Dodd helped him over to his horse, lifted him on, while the rest caught the other loose horses and linked them together. Long George was already starting to shiver, something Carey had seen before: when large quantities of the sanguine humour were lost, a Jewish Court physician had told him once, then the furnace of the heart began to cool and might cool to death. Warmth and wine were a good answer, but they could give him neither until they got to Carlisle.

  Carey rode up close to the shaking Long George. His face was badly hurt too, he realised now: what he had taken for mud on the right side of it was a mess of cuts and burns that had laid his face open to the gleaming white bone.

&nbs
p; “Can you ride as far as Carlisle?”

  “Nay, sir, take me home. My farm’s by the Wall, not far fra Lanercost.”

  “Of course. Red Sandy, do you know where?”

  “I know,” he said sombrely.

  “Good. Red Sandy, you take the Elliots’ horses and help Long George get to his home.”

  “Ah wantae go home, sir.” George didn’t seem able to register anything except his injury. Tears were running down his face as he spoke.

  “Of course you do.”

  “Only, there’ll be the harvest to get in and all…”

  “Don’t worry about it. Here.” Carey found his flask of mixed wine and water and helped Long George to drink it. He choked and his teeth rattled on the bottlemouth. “Red Sandy, a word with you.”

  “Ay, sir.”

  Carey drew him a little aside. “If his wife’s got her hands full with sick children, stay and help. When it’s getting on for morning, take the horses into Carlisle castle, find the surgeon and send him back to George’s place. Tell him I’ll pay his fee.”

  Red Sandy looked alarmed at that but only nodded.

  “You’re in charge.”

  Something very cynical crossed Red Sandy’s face and disappeared, though he nodded again.

  “Ay, sir. Dinna be concerned, I’ll see him right. I’ll bring my own wife to nurse him if need be.”

  “Good man.”

  They rode off at a sedate pace southwards. Carey noted that the other men were letting the deer down from its tree. Dodd had seen to the rounding up of the sheep and, no doubt, the stripping of the two dead bodies. Carey had no intention of burying them: let Wee Colin Elliot see to it, if he wanted.

  Saturday 8th July 1592, early morning

  It was an enraging business, taking the sheep back to the Routledge farm they had been raided from. Carey was an innocent about sheep and was astonished at how stupid they were, wiry and rough-coated creatures though these were, in contrast to the smug rotund animals that milled their way through London to Smithfield market every week. Dodd and the others worked around them making odd yipping and barking noises, like sheepdogs, and the whole process took hours. It was past dawn when the sheep poured over another hill and began baaing excitedly at the smell of home and at last moved sensibly in a flock in one direction.

  The farmer, who owned his own small rough two-storey peletower, already had a group of men around him, all talking excitedly, while the women saddled the horses.

  Carey, who had left the experts to their business, said to Dodd, “Looks like we’re just in time to stop a reprisal raid.”

  “Ay,” grunted Dodd. “It’s a pity.”

  “Not if you have to deal with the resulting paperwork, it isn’t. This is simpler.”

  It was, but not much. Jock Routledge seemed very offended that Carey had caught his sheep for him, no doubt because he had been planning to lift a few extra when he retrieved his own from the Elliots. He was also scandalised at the thought of paying the Wardenry fee.

  “Ye canna take one sheep in twelve, ye’ll ruin me,” he shouted.

  “I can in fact take one sheep for every ten, so you owe me an extra lamb,” Carey said. “I might remit the lamb if I get my rights quickly.”

  “Oh ay, yer rights,” sneered Routledge. “Why did ye not stop them at the Border then, eh? Dinnae trouble to tell me, I know well enough. Well, ye’ll not…”

  “Sir,” called Dodd from a few paces away. Carey looked round and saw he was slouching on his horse which was eating its way methodically through the pea-vines of a vegetable garden. In his hand was a lit torch. “Will I fire the thatch?”

  Carey held up his hand in acknowledgement.

  “Good man,” said Carey through gritted teeth. While messing about with the sheep he had had time to notice the burning ache in his side from the knifecut he had got the day before yesterday. Furthermore, his head hurt, his eyes were sandy, the ant bites were itching his leg and he’d bruised his half-healed ribs being thrown to the ground twice. “I’ve no intention of arguing. That animal there is mine and I’m taking her. Sim’s Will, get that…that… sheep.”

  “The fat four-year ewe, ay, sir,” said Sim’s Will riding over stolidly and nipping a nearby animal from the herd, although not the one Carey had pointed to. It bleated piteously at being separated from its mates.

  “Ye bastard,” growled Jock Routledge. Carey heard a crackling and saw that there were flames licking through the thatch of the house. He glared at Dodd who looked blankly back at him and moved away from the roof he had just set fire to. Luckily it was still too damp to burn well.

  Carey growled and turned his horse, led his men away from the farmstead, followed by shouts of anger and the hissing of water on the flames.

  As they continued south, following the course of the Eden towards Carlisle, Carey rode beside Dodd.

  “Sergeant, why did you fire their thatch before I asked you to?”

  Dodd blinked at him. “I thought that was what ye wanted.”

  “I was trying to get what I wanted without burning first.”

  Dodd was a picture of blank incomprehension. “Whatever for, sir?” he asked. “He’s only Jock Routledge. He pays blackrent to everybody, he might as well pay a bit to you.”

  “That was our fee for the night’s work.”

  “Ay, sir, like I said. And he’ll be more civil next time.”

  Carey growled but decided not to pursue the matter. While he rode he examined his side cautiously and found that something must have hit him there. He had a mark on his jack the width of his hand, but the metal plates inside had turned the blow. Unfortunately that was just where the knife slash was and from the tenderness he thought it was bleeding. It was only shallow, but it was scabbing into the bandages Philadelphia had wrapped round it and it pulled whenever he turned.

  Their fee was unwilling to be taken from kith and kin and was as much trouble to drive as the full twelve had been. It was well into the morning before they came to Long George’s small farm. As expected, Red Sandy was gone but the barber-surgeon’s pony was cropping the grass outside. Four children were sitting in a row on the wall, and not one of them had any kind of rash or fever. The three boys were muttering together, and the littlest, a fair-haired girl, had her hands clamped tight over her ears.

  “Now then, Cuddy,” called Dodd as they rode up.

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” said the eldest boy, politely, sliding down off the wall. His breeches were filthy and his feet were bare, his shirt had a long rip in it and his cap was over one ear. “Who’s that?”

  “The new Deputy Warden,” said Dodd sternly. “So mind your manners.”

  Cuddy pulled his cap off and made something of a bow.

  A strangulated howl broke from the farmhouse. The little girl winced, hunched and stuck her fingers deeper in her ears. Her eyes were red from crying.

  “They’re cutting me dad’s arm off,” said Cuddy matter-of-factly.

  “Will it grow back?” asked the youngest boy, fascinated.

  The howling rose to a shriek, bubbled down again. Cuddy unwillingly stole a glance over his shoulder, looked back at Carey who was staring at the farmhouse, waiting.

  Another scream which at last faded down to a sequence of gasps.

  “It’s over now,” he said, mostly to the little girl.

  She shook her head, screwed up her face and dug her fingers in deeper. Her bare feet under her muddy homespun kirtle twisted together.

  All of them listened but there was no more noise.

  “How did ye know, sir?” asked Cuddy.

  Carey coughed, looked at the ground. Somehow he felt the boy should know, that imagination would be worse than the facts.

  “The first cry is when the surgeon begins to cut. Then you can’t get your breath for a bit, but just as he finishes you can get out another yell, and then the final one is when they put pitch on the end.”

  “Oh,” said the boy, inspecting him for missing limbs. “Y
e’ve watched before then?”

  “Yes,” said Carey.

  “Who was it? Did he live?”

  “Oh yes. He’s got a hook instead of a hand now.”

  “Will it no’ grow back?” asked the smallest boy anxiously. “Will it no’ get better again?”

  “Ye’re soft,” sneered the middle boy. “It’s no’ like a cut.”

  “It will get better, but it won’t grow again,” Carey explained. The little girl had taken one finger out of her ear and was blinking at him with the tears still wet on her cheeks. “He should be well enough by harvest time, there’s no need to cry.”

  “If he doesnae die of the rot,” said Cuddy brutally.

  The girl nodded. “Ay, that’s what me mam said.”

  “Anyway,” Cuddy added, “she’s only crying because mam wouldna let her watch.”

  “Me mam said it’s your fault, if ye’re the Deputy,” accused the middle boy.

  “Call him sir,” snarled Dodd.

  “Is it yer fault, sir?”

  Carey took a deep breath and began to stride to the house.

  “Nay, ye soft bairns,” Dodd said. “It were the Elliots, that’s who we were fighting.”

  Cuddy nodded fiercely. “When I’m big enough I’ll find the man that did it and cut his hand off.”

  “That’s the spirit lad,” said Dodd approvingly.

  ***

  Long George’s farmhouse was one of those built quickly after a raid, out of wattle and daub, with turves for a roof and pounded dirt bound with oxblood and eggwhite for a floor. George was lying in a corner on a straw pallet covered over with bracken, gasping for breath and moaning. One man who looked like his brother and another older one who seemed to be his father, were standing next to him talking in low voices, while Long George’s wife tended the fire on the hearth in the middle of the floor to keep the broth boiling. Smoke shimmered upwards into the hooded hole in the roof. She stood up and wiped her hands on her apron and blinked at Carey as he stood hesitating in the doorway, his morion making a monster out of him.