3 A Surfeit of Guns: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (32 page)

Carey had been in prison before. Paris had been expensive and in the end his creditors had caught him and thrown him in gaol until his father could send him funds and a scorching letter through the English ambassador. At the time he had been in the depths of misery, cooped up in a filthy crowded communal cell and away from his fascinating Duchesse (who, he found out later, had tired of him in any case). But it had only lasted a couple of weeks and he had not been chained nor in darkness.

He tried to do something about his hands, flexing them and trying to shift the wooden manacles, which made his shoulders cramp and his fingers buzz with pins and needles. He had found out all he needed to know from the German, whatever he was really called—Hans Schmidt was clearly not his name—through a painful process of question and answer, guesswork and elimination. He had been merciless in his quest for hard facts and the exhausted man now slept, moaning softly every so often. Perhaps it would have been sensible to sleep as well, but he couldn’t, not with the stink of wine and pain in his nostrils, and the overwhelming pit of fear in his bowels.

He thought back to what he had done, wondering if he had made a mistake. Perhaps…perhaps he had acted hastily, dealing on his own initiative with the Italian. Perhaps he should have talked to the King first. But the King had either lied about the guns or genuinely not known what was going on. And the opportunity had been there to be seized, with no time for careful letters to London. Naturally he would file a report back to Burghley when it was all over, but…He had not expected to be arrested. He had not expected Young Hutchin to be so willing to spy for the Widdringtons. Perhaps his greatest mistake had been prancing back to Maxwell’s Castle so blithely, trusting Maxwell at all. But he had done what the Maxwell wanted, he had gotten the man his money back and Lord Maxwell had been full of gratitude and favour. Seemingly. Damn him to hell.

He had been caught rather easily. Perhaps he should have fought: but that would have given Sir Henry the excuse he needed to shoot. And what was his legal position anyway—arrested on a false warrant for a crime of which he was in fact guilty? Technically.

Gloomily he thought it would make no difference anyway: possession was nine-tenths of the law and King James would no doubt wink at the fact that he had probably not actually seen the warrant himself.

Carey tried hard to stop his mind from running on to the further consequences: the grave letters back and forth from Edinburgh to London while he and the German rotted in Dumfries. Almost certainly, the Queen would insist on his extradition for questioning by Sir Robert Cecil’s experts, like Topcliffe. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Carey swallowed hard, terror taking on a new and even uglier dimension. Queen Elizabeth was a Tudor and took any hint of betrayal extremely seriously indeed. She also took it personally. The fact that she had liked him would make that worse, not better.

He simply could not stay still and his backside was freezing and numb from the stone-flagged floor anyway. He struggled to his feet, causing the German to groan protestingly, stamped and swayed on the spot in the darkness, like a horse in its stall, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head and trying to get some feeling back in his hands.

Another appalling thought hit him. Perhaps Hutchin had not been coney-catched by Roger Widdrington. Perhaps Lady Widdrington had indeed been the one paying him for information; perhaps Carey’s chasing after the pretty little Signora had turned Elizabeth utterly against him. Perhaps she had bought back her husband’s favour by giving her would-be lover up to the wolves. No. Surely not. She would never…She might. Who could tell how any woman’s mind worked? Even though it had been nothing but a light-hearted dalliance he could hardly be expected to turn down, she might be unreasonably jealous, she might be angry enough. In which case his sending Hutchin to her was worse than useless…

He was standing like that, quite close to mindless panic, vaguely wondering how it was possible for him to be sweating while he was also shivering, when the door rattled and creaked open. He had to blink and squint from the light of lanterns. The German didn’t because his eyes were too swollen. In fact his whole face was a horrible foreboding, like an obscene cushion, pounded until it was barely human. No wonder the poor bastard had had difficulty speaking. His arms had been chained to a bolt above his head, his fingers were also grotesquely swollen and black, as was his right foot and ankle. Carey looked away from him.

Sir Henry again, three henchmen at his back, Lord Spynie at his side. Lord Spynie was at the head of a different group of three men, luridly brocaded and padded as were all King James’s courtiers. Had none of them heard of good taste?

Spynie looked extremely pleased with himself, but also a little furtive. Carey wondered again if he had really been arrested by the King’s warrant, or did Spynie have access to some legally trained clerks and the Privy Seal of the Kingdom? Given James’s sloppiness with his favourites, surely it was possible? Lord Spynie came up close to him, sneered something he couldn’t quite catch in Scots and spat messily in his face. Rage boiled in Carey, it was all he could do to keep from childishly spitting back.

Two Widdringtons gripped him under the arms while one of Spynie’s men dragged a little stool into the middle of the wine cellar floor, next to a barrel on its end. On the barrel top, as on a table, another courtier with a puffy eye ceremoniously placed a bunch of small things made of metal.

Carey recognised the courtiers. Two of them still bore the marks of his fist, and one had Hutchin’s toothprints in his arm. They all crowded the little space of the wine cellar and fogged it with their breath and heat, and the smoke from their torches and lanterns.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Carey, his mouth completely dry and his stomach gone into a hard knot of recognition. Those were thumbscrews lying on the barrel top.

“Why are his legs free?” demanded Lord Spynie.

“We havenae brought legirons,” said a courtier. “Shall I fetch some?”

“No,” said Spynie. “Use his.” He pointed at the German still slumped against the wall. A key was produced, and the chains holding him to the ring in the wall were unlocked, allowing him to crumble down into a lying position at last. He lay still as a corpse, hardly breathing.

One of the Widdringtons who had brought him here took the irons and knelt to lock them round Carey’s ankles.

“Sit down, traitor,” said Lord Spynie.

Carey looked at him, knowing dozens like him at the Queen’s court. Alexander Lindsay, Lord Spynie was a young man, around twenty years old, and already beginning to lose the freshness of his beauty. He had a young man’s cockiness and sensitivity to slights, and he had acquired a taste for power as the King’s minion. Now he knew he was losing it, although he was not intelligent enough to know why. But he was hiding his uncertainty. Carey could read it there, in the way he stood, the way his hand gripped his swordhilt, just as if Spynie was bidding up his cards in a primero game. Instinctively Carey felt it was true: this was unofficial, a favourite taking revenge, not King’s men about the King’s business.

“I appeal to Caesar,” Carey said softly, pointedly not sitting.

“What?”

“I want to see the King.”

Sir Henry backhanded him across the mouth, having to reach up to do it.

“I’ll want satisfaction for that, Widdrington,” Carey said to him, anger at last beginning to fill up the cold terrified spaces inside.

Sir Henry sneered at him. “Satisfaction? You’re getting above yourself, boy. Tell us what we want to know and we might recommend a merciful beheading to the King.”

“If your warrant came from my cousin the King, then he is the one I will talk to,” Carey said coldly and distinctly, hoping they could not hear how his tongue had turned to wool. “If it did not, then you have no right to hold me and I demand to be released.”

Spynie stepped up close. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded rhetorically.

Carey smiled. “Your fame is legendary even at the Queen’s Court,” he said, sucking blood from the split in his lip. “You are the King’s catamite.”

Spynie drew his dagger and brought it up slowly under Carey’s chin, pricking him slightly.

“Sit down,” whispered Spynie.

“I can’t,” Carey said reasonably. “Your dagger’s in the way.”

Spynie took the dagger away, pointed it at Carey’s eye.

“Sit down.”

“Why? You can talk to me just as well if I’m standing. Take me to the King.”

“Where’s the Spaniard gone?” demanded Sir Henry suddenly.

Carey shrugged. “I’ve no idea,” he said. “And as my lord Spynie knows perfectly well, he’s an Italian.”

“You admit talking to him then?”

“Of course. One of my functions as Deputy Warden is to discover what foreign plots are being made against Her Majesty the Queen.”

“How much did ye sell him the guns for?”

“What guns?”

Spynie lost patience and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Where’s the gold?”

“What gold?”

“The gold Bonnetti gave you for the guns?”

“It surprises me,” Carey said looking down at Spynie’s grip, “that you think he had any money left at all, after being at the Scottish court for as long as he had. The bribes to all of you gentlemen must have been costing him a fortune. Take me to the King.”

“What were you doing in the forest this afternoon?” gravelled Sir Henry.

“Hunting. Take me to the King.”

“Where’s the fucking gold?” shouted Lord Spynie. “You got it from him, I ken very well ye did, so what did ye do with it?”

“Take me to the King and I’ll tell him.”

Spynie finally lost control and started hitting him across the face with the jewelled pommel of the dagger. As if that were the signal for all pretence at civilisation to disappear, there was a flurry of blows and hands grabbing him, his arms were twisted up behind his back until he thought they would break. By sheer weight of numbers they made him sit on the stool and they forced his head down until his cheek rested on the barrel-top. It smelled of aqua vitae. Cold metal slipped down over the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand behind him and tightened. He went on struggling uselessly, blind with panic, not feeling it when they hit him.

Then somebody was tightening the things on his hands until shooting pains ran up his arms, until he knew beyond doubt that his fingers would break if they tightened any further and then they did and more pain scudded through his hand. It was astonishing how much pressure it took to break a bone. There was more metal slipping onto the fingers and thumb of his right hand, tightening, biting, until his palms contracted reflexively and he shut his eyes and gasped.

“Now,” hissed Lord Spynie. “Ye’ve one more chance. Half a turn more and your fingers will break and ye’ll never hold a sword nor shoot a gun again. Where’s the gold?”

“Take me to…my cousin the King.”

Spynie banged Carey’s head down on the table, bruising the place where Jock of the Peartree had cracked his cheekbone the month before.

“The King doesnae ken ye’re here. It’s me and my friends, naebody else. I’ll give ye ten minutes to think about it.”

Carey had stopped struggling. He did think about it, despite the shrieking from the trapped nerves in his fingers, and he decided he had nothing whatever to lose by keeping silent until he had to talk. If Young Hutchin had indeed gone to Lady Widdrington it would give her time to act, if she wished, and if he had not, it would give the boy a chance to get into the Debateable Land, away from Spynie and his friends, which would be some satisfaction at least. God help me, thought Carey, how long can I hold out?

He turned his head so his forehead was resting on the table and tried to marshal his strength for the next step. It came sooner than he expected, which was no doubt intentional. The half turn was made on the forefinger of his left hand, with a vicious sideways jerk, and the bone broke. He couldn’t help it, he cried out. The next finger took a full turn before it went. He jerked and gasped again but there were too many people holding him down. Saliva flooded his mouth, his stomach was too empty to puke. No wonder Long George had wept when his pistol burst.

“Where’s the gold?”

“Fuck off.”

They were going to break the fingers of his right hand. Never to hold a sword again, never to fight…

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held it, so he wouldn’t scream when the next finger broke, he was on the edge of screaming already…

For a moment he thought he had, a long drawn-out roar of despair and rage. The men holding him let go momentarily and he caught a glimpse of someone charging at Lord Spynie, a shambling hobbling creature with a monstrous face, flailing his way through the courtiers, launching himself at Lord Spynie with a magnificent headbutt, blood flowering on Spynie’s astonished, affronted face. Carey half-stood, cheering the German on and had his feet swept from under him so he slammed over onto his side, causing a stabbing pain through his ribs, and lost himself in whitehot agony when his hands hit the floor. Someone trod on him, he was helpless with his feet tangled in chains, somebody else kicked him and then the mêlée opened out and he saw the German falling, threshing like a gaffed fish with a dagger in his throat.

Spynie was dabbing at his nose with a lace-edged handkerchief and breathing hard. He stepped back from the kill and the German’s body was rolled over, out of the way, next to the wine barrels. Mentally Carey saluted the man.