3 A Surfeit of Guns

by P. F. Chisholm

  Back still pricking like a hedgehog’s, Dodd gave Young Hutchin his horn with orders to wind it if one of the scurvy Scots so much as laid a finger on anything of theirs. Young Hutchin grinned and touched his forelock.

  The servingman was leading them through the crowded hall and out the back past the kitchens into a long low modern building tethered to the castle like a barge. Dodd followed Carey in through the door and blinked in the morning light coming through the high windows.

  The shock of the caliver blast almost by his ear nearly caused Dodd to leap under the table. Even Carey jumped like a skittish horse, whisked round and half drew his sword.

  Loud laughter made Dodd’s ears burn and he turned to snarl at whoever had frightened them. A blurred glimpse of an elaborate padded black and red slashed doublet and a wonderfully feathered velvet hat made him bite back his indignation. It was the tall man who had fired a caliver at a target surrounded by sandbags at the other end of the bowling alley. The barrel was smoking as he blew away the powder remnants from the pan.

  “Whae’s after ye and what did ye reive?” asked the man, still laughing. “Ye baith jumped like frogs at a cat.”

  Carey took in the magnificent clothes, dropped his sword back in its scabbard and managed a fairly good laugh and shallow bow in return.

  “We did, sir,” he said in Scots. “Ye have the better of us. I am Sir Robert Carey, Deputy Warden of Carlisle, and I am in search of the honourable Lord Maxwell, newly made Lord Warden of this March. Would ye ken where we could find him?”

  “Ay, ye’re looking at him.”

  Carey did a further, splendid court bow, the gradations of which Dodd was just beginning to appreciate, and took out of his belt pouch the exquisitely penned and sealed letter that Scrope had dictated and Richard Bell written the night before.

  “I am sent to bring congratulations to you, my lord, from my Lord Scrope, Warden of the English West March, with the hopes of a meeting soon to discuss justice upon the Border and in Liddesdale.”

  Maxwell was a tall well-made man with dark straight hair and beard and hazel eyes under a pair of eyebrows that ran right across his face like a scrivener’s mark.

  “Well,” said Maxwell, handing the letter to a smaller, subfusc man behind him in a plain blue stuff gown. “I’m honoured at the rank of the messenger, Sir Robert.” He tilted a finger at the clerk.

  The clerk coughed hard, unrolled the paper and began to read in a nasal drone that Scrope greeted his brother officer of the peace right lovingly and made no doubt that now justice would be done impartially and immediately upon the Borders and out of Liddesdale with such an excellent and noble lord…And so on and so forth. Dodd understood about half of it, despite it being seemingly written in English, but no doubt that was the lawyers’ part in the writing of it.

  Meanwhile Maxwell was cleaning and reloading his caliver. Carey watched, looked at the target which already had a hole in it not far from the bull’s eye. Then as Maxwell settled the stock into his shoulder, squinted along the barrel and prepared to squeeze the trigger and bring the match down into the powderpan, he suddenly stepped forward with a cry and pinched out the glowing slowmatch end with his gloved hand. There was a flurry as Maxwell pulled away from him and Carey cursed, flapping his hand as the leather smouldered.

  “What the hell d’ye think ye’re playing at?” thundered Maxwell, outraged. Carey reached over to one of the wine goblets standing on the table behind Maxwell and doused his fingers in the wine.

  “I’m very sorry, my lord,” he said, swirling them about and wincing. “But that caliver’s faulty.”

  “It is no’,” roared Maxwell. “It’s brand new.”

  “If you fire it again, it will burst in your hand,” Carey said stolidly, stripping off his gloves and examining his fingers.

  “It willna.”

  “It will. I’ll bet a hundred pounds on it.”

  “It’s a new weapon fra…Ain hundred pounds?”

  The Courtier hasn’t got a hundred pounds, Dodd thought; as far as I know he hasn’t got ten pounds at the moment, bar the travelling money.

  Maxwell’s eyes had lit up at the thought of the bet.

  “On the next firing?”

  “The next firing. If you’ve fired it once already.”

  “Ay, that’s what had ye jumping about and pulling out yer blade.”

  “True. Nevertheless.”

  “Ain hundred pounds? English or Scots?”

  Carey shrugged. “English, of course,” he said, with the irritatingly self-satisfied air that Dodd had noticed he also wore when he was playing primero. Betting in English money had just raised the stakes by a factor of ten. Each Scots pound was worth only two shillings thanks to repeated debauchings of his money’s silver content by the impoverished Scottish King. “If you’ve got it, my lord,” he added, sealing his fate as far as Dodd was concerned.

  Maxwell drew himself up and beckoned a servant over. Unlike Sir John Carmichael, he was a powerful magnate with ample funds from legal rents, blackrent and various other criminal activities. The servant went scurrying off and came back with a bulging leather purse. Maxwell counted out the money in good English silver.

  “What about ye?” he asked insolently. “Have ye got it?”

  Carey took off his largest ring, the one with a ruby the size of his finger nail in the middle of it and thumped it down on the table.

  “I think that’s worth about a hundred and fifty pounds, English,” he said with fine courtierly negligence. “The Queen of England gave it to me.”

  Maxwell smiled wolfishly, picked up the ring and examined it closely. Like most noblemen he was a good judge of jewels. He smiled again and put Carey’s ring back on the table where Dodd mentally bade it farewell.

  They tied the caliver to one of the benches with rope, cleared the bowling alley of all hangers-on, servingmen and children. Lord Maxwell refilled the caliver with a full charge—though Carey offered to permit a two-thirds charge, so confident was he. At last Maxwell leaned over from behind the upturned table to put the slowmatch to the pan.

  Dodd was already squatting down behind the table with his fingers in his ears. There was a different timbre to the cracking boom of the gun and the patter of metal hitting the wood in front of him. He thought he saw a bit of the stock go sailing up onto the roof. It had a cross scratched in it, which finally made sense of the Courtier’s actions.

  Maxwell stood up to look at the remains of the caliver and the hollow it had made in the bench, with a face gone paper white.

  “Holy Mother Mary,” he whispered. “Will ye look at it.”

  Carey stood, picked up his ring. “My lord?” His hand hovered over the Maxwell side of the bet.

  Maxwell was still examining the remains of his new gun, while servingmen went running for stronger drink than early-morning beer and like Lord Maxwell some of them crossed themselves. Their lord looked up at Carey abstractedly. Maxwell was still pale as a winding sheet, a sheen of sweat on his nose as his imagination caught up with him, and small blame to him, thought Dodd. Carey had just saved at least his arm, perhaps his eyes and probably his life.

  “Ay,” he said in a shaky voice. “Ay, take it, it’s yours, Sir Robert. Jesus Christ. Will ye look at it. Jesus.”

  Carey swept up the money with a happy grin, poured it back in the purse and hung it on a thong round his neck under his shirt. He waved over one of the servingmen who had been peering bulging-eyed at the remains of the gun. One piece of barrel was stuck firmly in a beam, gone as deep as an arrow.

  “Aqua vitae for my Lord Maxwell,” he ordered. He had found the goblet of wine and was swirling his scorched fingers in it again.

  A servant in Maxwell livery brought the aqua vitae which Maxwell and Carey both tossed off like water. The Maxwell then came over to Carey and solemnly gave him his right hand.

  They shook on it, and Maxwell clapped Carey on the shoulder. “That’s one in the eye for the Johnstones,” he said triumphantly.
“Cunning bastards.”

  “My lord?” asked Carey cautiously.

  “Ye’ll eat wi’ us, of course. And yer Sergeant and yer men?”

  “I’ve only got a boy who’s with the horses at the moment. The others are with Sir John Carmichael,” Carey explained innocently, to Dodd’s horror.

  “Ye brought nae men wi’ ye?” asked Maxwell, puzzled at the idea of riding anywhere with fewer than twenty men behind him, and quite right too, thought Dodd, it was indecent.

  “The bare minimum, my lord. Short of an English army complete with horse and ordnance it seemed safer to rely on good faith. Sir John has been most hospitable.”

  “Och, no,” said Maxwell. “He’s resigning the day and I’m Warden now. Ye’re my guest, Sir Robert, my friend and guest. Ye’ll sleep here tonight, by God. That was well done wi’ the slowmatch, man. Is yer hand sore? Will I get the surgeon to it?”

  Carey was examining the blisters and blowing on them before dipping them back into the wine to cool them.

  “No, it’s only scorched.”

  “How did ye ken sae fair the gun was bad?”

  “I have a feel for weapons, my lord,” lied Carey gravely. “And there are a number of faulty firearms somewhere around the Border at the moment.”

  “Where from?” Maxwell demanded, his eyes narrowed suspiciously again.

  Carey shrugged. “I’d give a good deal to know that myself. They’re not English make, nor Scots I think. One of my men was killed by one a couple of days ago.”

  Maxwell was staring at Carey. “Killed?”

  “Blew his hand off and he died of it.”

  The Maxwell’s jaw set. Carey was looking at the blisters on his fingers again while Dodd stared at the painted walls of the bowling alley and thought of Long George showing him the gun when they waited to go out on patrol, and how he had been envious at the man’s good luck. Carey smiled at Lord Maxwell.

  “Perhaps the Italians know something about it?” he ventured.

  “Nay…I doubt it. Jesus,” swore Maxwell again. “Jesus Christ. I wonder…”

  Carey sauntered to the silver plates of tidbits laid out on the table for Maxwell’s refreshment, took a small flaky pie and bit into it.

  “A number of them?” repeated Maxwell.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “All bad like that?”

  “Some of them worse. Some burst on the first firing.”

  “How d’ye know?”

  Carey swallowed, drank some wine, winced and coughed. “A couple of them came into my…er…possession and Sergeant Dodd did the same good deed for me that I did for you, my lord. I took another apart and there’s no doubt of it: the forge-welding’s faulty.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Maxwell monotonously. He was twiddling his moustache around his fingers and tapping his fingers nervously on his empty cup. “But they’ve the Tower mark on them?”

  Dodd was having difficulty keeping a straight face and by the grave impassivity of his demeanour, so was Carey. He shrugged.

  “It’s a famous mark and I’m sure it’s no more difficult to forge than any other.”

  “A number of them?”

  “A couple of hundred, my lord. I hope you’ve not been persuaded to buy any weapons for which you do not know the provenance.”

  The unctuous concern in Carey’s voice almost had Dodd exploding like a gun. So that was the way, was it? The Maxwell and Lowther between them had raided the Carlisle armoury at some trouble and expense and were now the proud possessors of a heap of scrap iron. Now that was poetical, if you liked. That could restore a man’s faith in God’s impartial providence.

  Suddenly the Maxwell waved to one of his liverymen and when the servant ran over, spoke low and urgently into the man’s ear. The servant whitened, and sprinted off in the direction of the stables.

  There was something indefinably different about Carey as he allowed one of the Maxwell women to salve his fingers, a deference that Dodd had not seen before. He smiled a lot and peppered his conversation with ‘my lords’, owned himself greatly impressed with the size and appointments of the new bowling alley, and asked flattering questions about the way Maxwell had had his fortified house made strong. Ay, thought Dodd, finally enlightened, this is the Courtier we’re seeing. He didn’t like it. Frankly he found it embarrassing, watching Carey lavishly butter up a Scotch nobleman, and dull, which was worse.

  Dodd finally caught Carey’s eye, who raised his brows at him. Dodd coughed.

  “Only I was thinkin’ of going and seeing how Young Hutchin was getting along wi’ the horses and all, sir,” he said awkwardly.

  “Good idea, Sergeant,” said Carey easily. “See if you can get yourselves some refreshments while you’re at it.”

  Dodd nodded his head, trying to hide his fury at being treated like some servant, turned on his heel and marched out.

  The horses, Thunder in particular, were not in the courtyard. One of the men hanging around finally told Dodd that they’d been taken to the stables. Dodd hurried to the stables, checked every stall and found his horse and Hutchin’s pony, but no sign of the black charger and no sign of Hutchin either.

  Dodd caught a groom as he rushed past with a bucket of feed in each hand.

  “The big black stallion that was here with the blond lad,” he said. “Where are they?”

  The groom shrugged. “I dinna ken.”

  Dodd didn’t let go. “I think ye do,” he hissed. “Or I think ye’d better guess.”

  The groom looked at Dodd’s hand on his arm. “And who the hell are ye?” he wanted to know.

  For a moment Dodd was on the brink of saying he was Sergeant Henry Dodd of Gilsland, which in those parts would have put the fat well and truly in the fire, but thought better of it. “I’m with the Deputy Warden of the English West March. The beast’s his own, and he’s presently sitting at my lord Maxwell’s table and talking about guns. D’ye want me to fetch him and say ye’ve let his tournament charger be reived under the neb of my lord Maxwell? Eh?”

  The groom paused. “A courtier came to the blond lad and asked him if he’d show the animal to my lord Spynie.”

  Dodd’s eyes narrowed. “And he went? Just like that? I dinna think so. Ye come wi’ me and we’ll talk to yer headman…”

  The groom coughed. “Well, the courtier gave the lad some money for it, not to make a fuss.”

  “Och, God. Put the buckets down, man, and come wi’ me.”

  Reluctantly, the groom obeyed.

  Carey, Maxwell and some of Maxwell’s cousins were in the great hall of the Castle, at table under the war banners, eating a haggis with bashed neeps, some baked pheasants and a boiled chicken.

  “What’s the matter, Dodd?” asked Carey, catching Dodd’s expression and then seeing the struggling groom.

  Dodd glowered with satisfaction at being proved right so quickly. “According to this man, Young Hutchin’s gone off with one of Lord Spynie’s men and taken Thunder to show him. Little bastard. Nae doubt of it, the lad’s planning to sell Thunder for ye, pocket the cash and run for it to the Debateable Land. That one wants his hide tanned for him.”

  Carey put down his spoon with a worried frown.

  “Gone off? When?”

  Dodd shrugged again.

  “Damn.” Carey was up off the bench and reaching for his swordbelt.

  “Ay,” Dodd said with mournful satisfaction. “Put a Graham in charge of a prime piece of horseflesh like your bonny Thunder and what d’ye expect, it’s putting the wolf in charge of the sheepfold, that’s what it is for sure…”

  “For God’s sake, Dodd, stop blethering; it’s not the bloody horse I’m worried about, it’s the boy.”

  “What does he look like?” asked Maxwell.

  “Blond, blue eyes.”

  Maxwell laughed coarsely. “Well, he’ll thank ye for it once his arse heals up. They’ll pay him well enough.”

  “Can I borrow a few of your men, my lord?”

  Maxwell�
�s face became serious. “Och, why bother? He’s only a boy and a Graham to boot.”

  Carey didn’t seem particularly surprised at this rebuff. He smiled sweetly at Maxwell. “Never mind the men, my lord. Where do you think they might have gone with him?”

  “Och, wherever. Spynie’s with the King, down by the market place in the Mayor’s bonny house with the arches. I heard tell his friends were lodging in the Red Boar beside it, that has the hole in the wall, but what’s the hurry…”

  Carey was already striding through the hall. Over his shoulder he called, “My lord, if you want to borrow one of my dags for the shooting competition, I’ll have to find Thunder first because they’re in a case on his back.”

  Maxwell had his mouth full and was still chewing, with a comical expression of annoyance.

  Dodd followed Carey through the crowds as he marched down the muddy street to the Red Boar, looking uncommonly grim. With some effort Dodd caught up with him just under the painted sign and asked, “Will I fetch Red Sandy and Sim’s Will, sir?”

  Carey paused, opened his mouth to answer and stopped.

  There was the sound of shouting and a boy’s shrieking of insults, suddenly muffled, from the upstairs private room. Carey put his head back and listened. Dodd heard a soprano yell of “Liddesdale!” followed by a couple of dull thuds, a crash as furniture went over, a deep-voiced cry of pain and more thuds and crashes.

  “No time, damn it,” said Carey. Some large lads were sitting stolidly by the inn door, playing dice and ignoring the commotion. Carey passed by them boldly, set his foot into the lattices on the wall, tested it for strength and before the lads could do more than stare, was climbing up to the first floor like a monkey on a stick. Dodd watched with his mouth open, as did the diceplayers. Carey kicked open the double window that the sounds were coming from, and disappeared inside. His broad Scots roar echoed down the street.

  “Get away from that boy, you God-rotted sodomites!”