3 A Surfeit of Guns: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (28 page)

“What shall I shoot?” he asked.

“The knot in the middle of that oak over there.”

Carey smiled a little tightly, raised the caliver to his shoulder, brought it down and fired.

Giovanni went to inspect the hole left by the bullet while Carey cleaned the gun. The long fingers were shaking again, which reassured Giovanni: it was right and proper for a man probably committing high treason out of greed to be nervous.

“Good,” he said, coming back. “It fires a little to the left, I see.”

“Perhaps my aim was off.”

“You are modest, monsieur.”

Giovanni took the caliver, which was still hot, examined the pan and the barrel and then nodded.

“The shape of the stock is unusual,” he said. “Almost a German fashion.”

“I understand that some Germans work for the Dumfries armourers,” said Carey.

“And this is from Dumfries?”

“Indirectly.”

Giovanni waited for further explanation on the guns’ provenance and got none.

“Well, monsieur,” said Carey politely. “Are you satisfied, or shall I fire another?”

Giovanni went over to the wagon, pulled out a pistol, looked it over and put it back. He did the same with a number of the other weapons. They seemed well enough.

“No,” he said. “I am satisfied.”

In fact, although he was pulling out guns and looking at them, flicking the locks and squinting down the barrels, in his relief Bonnetti was thinking far ahead, about the next stage. He would have the weapons greased and packed in winebarrels for the journey on barges down the River Nith to Glencaple where he had a small ship lying ready. Given God’s grace (which surely would be forthcoming for such a noble cause) he would cross the narrow sea to Ireland in two stages, stopping off at the Isle of Man. Providing he met no English or Irish or Scots pirates, and the weather was calm and the ship sprang no leaks, he might be back in a month or so, God willing.

Carey confirmed the legendary reputation of the English for avarice in the way he dickered over the hiring fee for the wagons to take the guns into Dumfries. The Lord Maxwell was even willing to furnish guards and men to help load the weapons on barges, again for a fee. It would have to be done that night, Carey said, for there were no guarantees and the King himself might well decide to confiscate the weapons if he heard what was happening, since he had need of them too. At last it was all agreed and Giovanni was the proud possessor of eighteen dozen assorted guns which he could now send to the O’Neill in Ireland. He felt quite light-headed with the relief of it. And he also had a valuable lever to use against the noble English official who had sold him the weapons: as the Englishman mounted up and rode away, Giovanni was already framing the letters he would send to his brother in London and to the King of Spain in his palace at San Lorenzo and thinking about how he would return to this miserable northern country next year and begin to apply a little pressure. Dodd was still awake in a corner of Maxwell’s hall when Carey finally returned, although it was well past sunset and he was yawning fit to crack his jaw. He had spent an uncomfortable and tense day cooped up in the crowded house, finding that whatever he did and wherever he went, two large Maxwell cousins went with him. At any moment he expected an order to be given and himself hustled into some small cell and the door locked. It would almost be a relief, he tried to convince himself, because then at least he would know where he stood. But he knew too much about the accidents that could happen to any man held hostage by a Border lord, and he knew as well that there was nothing he could do to help himself. He had to rely on Carey finding some way to mollify Lord Maxwell and pay him off, and for the life of him he didn’t see how that was possible.

In the end, he had taken refuge from being followed and watched by sitting in a corner of the hall, next to Maxwell’s plateboard set with gold and silver dishes, put his feet up on the bench and started whittling a toy out of a piece of firewood.

As it happened, Carey came in with Lord Maxwell himself, both of them laughing uproariously over some joke and Maxwell at least quite drunk. There was much backslapping and bonhomie: Dodd wondered if the Courtier could tell how false it sounded, but he looked drunk as well. Maxwell disappeared through the door into his parlour, shouting for meat and drink.

Dodd examined the little fighting bear he had nearly finished and kept his feet on the bench. Carey came over to him, humming a court tune, while Hutchin trailed yawning over to the fire, kicked himself a space amongst the pageboys and curled up into sleep like a puppy.

“Well?” asked Dodd grimly.

“My lord Maxwell is quite happy now,” said Carey with a bright smile, checking the silver jugs next to Dodd. He found some aqua vitae in one and drank it straight down.

“Whit about Red Sandy and Sim’s Will?”

“They can stay the night in the lock-up to teach them sense but my lord Maxwell says he’ll bail them tomorrow morning and we can leave whenever we want.”

Well, it sounded promising, if you could trust a Scottish baron, which personally Dodd didn’t believe possible.

“How did ye do it, sir?”

“Acted as an honest broker and found a buyer for Maxwell’s scrap iron.”

“Who?”

Carey smiled and tapped his nose like a southern coney-catcher.

“Ahah.”

By God, he’s full of himself, thought Dodd, and what poor unfortunate bastard did he persuade to buy the damned things? The Johnstones? The King?

“Ye didnae sell them to the Johnstones?” Dodd asked in dismay. They had to pass through Johnstone land to get home and he could imagine the vengefulness of that clan if a few of their number had had their hands blown off.

Carey tutted at him and sat down beside him on the bench. “No, of course not. In any case, I think it’s the laird Johnstone that made the original swap for the Tower weapons. I’ve heard he’s well-armed which is what panicked Maxwell into stripping Carlisle bare.”

“Nay, I dinnae think so, sir.” Dodd was shaking his head as he thought it through. “The Johnstones have been well-armed for a month or more. That’s why Maxwell hasnae taken them on yet.”

“It’s what I heard, anyway. You can rest easy, the guns won’t be staying in Scotland or England to plague us.” He laughed and drank some more Scottish aqua vitae. “They’ve gone to the best people for them and I’ve made enough on the deal to pay you and the men next month.”

What the hell did he mean by that? Who could he…The Italian lady? He’d sold wagonloads of firearms to a Papist? Good God, he couldn’t be such a fool. Surely? Yes, he could, came the despairing thought, because when you put Carey under pressure, there was no telling what he might suddenly decide to do.

“Are ye drunk, sir?” asked Dodd pointedly. “Because if ye arenae, ye’re plainly tired of life and it’d be a kindness to put a dagger in ye.”

“Lord, Sergeant, what’s your problem? You’ve come over all prim.”

“Prim, sir, is it? Ye’ve just sold the entire load of Carlisle’s weapons tae the Italian wine merchant that any fool can see must be working for the King of Spain and…”

“What the hell do you think we were going to do with them? Take them back to Carlisle? Use them?”

It was disgraceful. “And which poor creature did ye get to fire one of the bloody things?”

“Me.”

Dodd shook his head and finished the last of the beer. “Ye’re mad, sir,” he told Carey flatly. “Ye think ye’re being ower clever, but ye’re no’. Ye cannae deal weapons wi’ a foreigner like that, especially not a Papist, it’s treason. And why did my lord Maxwell not deal with ‘em direct, eh?”

“Didn’t have time to think of it. He only knew the weapons were bad this morning.”

“Time enough, I’d say. He was the one brung the foreigners here to Scotland, he could have done the deal hisself and not lost any of the gold to ye. Did ye think he’s too stupid? Nay, he’s too clever…”

“I don’t remember asking your opinion, Sergeant.” Carey’s voice was cold, perhaps a little slurred. How much booze had he put down his throat in the twenty-four hours or more since his interview with the King of Scotland? It wasn’t that he was reeling or even unsteady, only he must be more affected by it than he seemed, to have pulled a mad dangerous trick like this one, full of the ugly scent of treason and trickery.

“Ay, sir,” said Dodd. “Nor ye didnae, but if I see a man riding full pelt for a cliff edge, I wouldnae be human if I didnae call out to him.”

Carey was rechecking the jugs, and doomed to disappointment. “Oh, rubbish, Sergeant. I thought you’d be more grateful to me for rescuing your idiot brother from gaol and you from being a hostage. Where else was I going to get the money to calm Lord Maxwell down? Rob the King’s bloody treasury?” Carey grinned again. He was irrepressibly and ludicrously pleased with his own cleverness. “Mind you,” he added. “That’s a thought, isn’t it? I’ll bet His Majesty’s got his funds in a chest under his bed at the Mayor’s house guarded by naught bar a couple of bumboys.”

Dodd for one did not see why he had to sit there and watch the Courtier preen. With sudden decision he removed his boots from the bench, put away his nearly-formed chunk of firewood and stood up. “I’m for my bed,” he said. “I cannae keep court hours. Goodnight to ye, sir.”

“Goodnight, Sergeant,” said Carey.

“Are we tae go back to Carlisle the morrow?”

“No, Sergeant, we haven’t finished yet.”

“And why the hell not?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Sergeant. I appreciate you disapprove of what I’ve done and frankly I don’t care. But you can talk to me civilly or not at all.”

Dodd grunted. He struggled for self-control because as often happened, the loquacious little devil inside him was in a good mind to give the Courtier a mouthful and see how he liked it. But Dodd had paid thirty pounds English for the Sergeantship and he knew his wife wanted the investment back: the truth was, he was more afraid of his woman than he was inclined to give the Deputy a punch in the mouth, a fact which made him feel even more tired than he already was.

“Why have we no’ finished, sir?” Dodd said after a moment, with heavy politeness.

“We haven’t retrieved the true Carlisle handguns from the Johnstones yet, Sergeant, the ones the Queen really sent us from the Tower armouries, and we’re not going until we do. Goodnight to you.”

Friday 14th July 1592, before dawn

If Sir Henry Widdrington had ever been priest-hunting with one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s men, things would have gone very differently, Carey often thought afterwards. Unlike the priest-finders, the Widdringtons had not properly scouted their target nor forewarned their helpers.

It was the shouting and ruddy light of torches in the black of the night that propelled Young Hutchin Graham out of his sleep by the fire. He ran to the window and squinted through stained glass to look out into the yard. The Maxwell guards were arguing with a square-shaped gentleman, hatted and ruffed and standing outlined in the open postern gate. There was a flash of white paper; the ominous phrase
In the King’s name
floated to Hutchin’s ears. Lord Maxwell himself and two of his cousins hurried through the dim hall, fully dressed and armed, to meet the men at the gate.

It suddenly occurred to Hutchin that he might have been a little too trusting of Roger Widdrington.

“Och, God, no,” he moaned, turned and sprinted through the parlour and up the spiral stairs to Lord Maxwell’s solar and through from there into the anteroom that had been given to Carey. The two enormous wolfhounds that he was sharing it with woke up and growled at him, and Carey himself sat up, blinking.

“What is it?”

“Sir, sir, I’m sorry, I thought it was Lady Widdrington, not Sir Henry.”

“What? What are you blabbering about? And what the Devil’s that noise?”

Hutchin swallowed hard and fought for control. “It’s Sir Henry Widdrington, Deputy. He’s got a Royal Warrant to arrest someone.”

There was the sound of the gate bolts being opened.

Noticeably, Carey didn’t ask who the warrant was for. His eyes narrowed to chips of ice.

“You’ve been passing information about my doings.”

“Ay, sir,” Hutchin confessed miserably. “To Roger Widdrington. I thought it was for my lady. That’s what he said.”

Carey was out of bed now, peering through the narrow window into the yard where Sir Henry and a large number of men were marching across between the horses and men camping out there, towards the hall door.

“You halfwitted romantic twat,” said Carey, feeling under his shirt and unbuckling a moneybelt. “Pull up your doublet and shirt.”

Mouth open, Hutchin did as he was told. Carey strapped it onto him, where it went round twice.

“Och, it’s heavy, sir,” said Young Hutchin Graham, waking up rather more and now beginning to take on a canny expression.

“It’s gold and a banker’s draft.”

“Christ.”

“Don’t swear. Come with me.”

Carey led the boy out into Maxwell’s solar where there was a trapdoor let into the ceiling. He hauled a linen chest underneath, stood on it, opened the bolts, shoved back the trapdoor and then boosted Young Hutchin up into the dark spaces above.