Robin sat for half a heartbeat, as if considering something very seriously. Then he finished his wine, stood up and made his most courtierly bow to Lord and Lady Scrope.
“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Sir Simon,” he said with freezing civility in a voice loud enough for the rest of the table to hear, “but I’m afraid I’m thick-headed at the moment. I was fighting reivers most of yesterday night and so if you will forgive me, my lord, my dear sister, I’ll go to my bed.” Philadelphia managed a gracious nod and a bright smile. “Good night, Mr Scrope, Mrs Scrope. God speed you back to Berwick, Sir Simon.”
Mary watched him stalk out of the council chamber with regret written all over her face: it was perfectly true, Philly thought affectionately, her brother was a fine figure of a man in his (as yet unpaid-for) black velvet suit, though his hair was presently shaded between black and dark red from the dye he had used for his Netherby disguise. Who could blame Mary Scrope if she wanted a spot of dash and romance to liven her life in the dull and practical north?
Saturday 8th July 1592, night
It was Sir Richard Lowther’s turn to patrol and he had long gone. Once again the night was sultry and dark with cloud, though the rain still refused to fall. Solomon the gate guard was sitting and knitting a sock with his one arm, one needle thrust into a case on his belt to hold it steady, a second ticking away hypnotically between his fingers and the other two dangling. He was away from his usual lookout on the Captain’s Gate, sitting quietly by the north-western sally-port where he could see into the castle yard. There was a stealthy sound to his left and he turned to look.
Two men crept out of the Queen Mary Tower, one tall and leggy, the other short and squat. The tall one was carrying a dark lantern, fully shuttered so only occasional sparkles of light escaped. His face made a patch of white against darkness as he looked up at Solomon, who lifted his shortened upper arm and nodded.
Carey hadn’t felt it necessary to explain why he had paid Solomon to keep watch, but it was no surprise that he and his short henchman padded quietly to the Armoury door. Carey was trying a key in the lock, but it seemingly no longer fitted. He stepped aside and the smaller man took something in his hand and jiggled it into the keyhole. Shortly afterwards there was a stealthy sequence of clicks and the door opened.
There was a sound from the barracks. The taller man tensed, touched his companion on the shoulder. Out of the barracks door came the unmistakable slouching rangy form of Sergeant Dodd. He padded across the courtyard, there was a low conversation and then they all disappeared inside the armoury.
Solomon nodded to himself. He had served under the new Deputy’s father, Lord Hunsdon, during the revolt of the Northern Earls, and he remembered Carey as a boy of about nine, perpetually in trouble, normally hanging about the stables and kennels while his tutor searched for him. The boy was father to the man there, no doubt about it. He grinned reminiscently. On a famous occasion, the young Robin had decided to try reiving for himself, along with his half-brother Daniel. The thing had ended unhappily, with Lord Hunsdon having to pay for the beast and the boys eating their dinners standing up for days afterwards.
Down in the armoury, Carey carefully unshuttered the horn-paned lantern and looked about at the racks.
“Well, they’re here at least,” he said to Dodd softly, as dull greased metal gleamed back at him from all around.
“Ay, sir,” whispered Dodd. “Shall we go now?”
“Not yet, Sergeant.”
Carey nodded at Barnabus who carefully took down the nearest caliver and handed it to him. “We’re going to mark them, carve a cross at the base of the stocks.”
“All of them, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“But it’ll take a’ night…”
“Not if we get started now.”
“Ay, sir,” said Dodd with a sigh.
There was quiet for a while, with the occasional clatter of a dropped weapon and a curse when somebody’s hand slipped. At the end of an hour and a half, Dodd put his knife away.
“Will that be all, sir?”
“Hm? Yes, I think so. Barnabus, did you bring those calivers I gave you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give them here then.”
Carey took two guns at random from the middle of the rack and replaced them with Barnabus’s weapons. He held up the lantern and although the replacements had darker-coloured stocks, they would likely not be noticed by someone who was simply counting weapons.
From outside came a low significant sound of an owl hooting. Carey shuttered the lantern immediately, put his fingers to his lips. Feet crunched past the armoury in the yard, someone yawned loudly outside. They stood like statues.
There was the sound of muttered conversation, a scraping and clattering of firewood bundles and then the heavier, laden footsteps walking away again. Moments later came another owl hoot.
“The baker, of course,” said Carey to himself and yawned. “We’re finished here, gentlemen.” Dodd surreptitiously mopped some sweat off his forehead while Carey slipped the lantern shutters closed and went to the door, peered out cautiously. A cat was sitting in the middle of the empty yard, watching something invisible. It too yawned and trotted away as the three men slipped out of the armoury.
“I’ll meet you an hour before dawn, then, Sergeant.”
“Ay, sir,” said Dodd on another martyred sigh.
Solomon was turning the heel of his sock when he heard the lock snick shut, and then one set of soft footsteps approaching. The once amateur reiver turned Deputy Warden loomed over him in the darkness, smelling of black velvet, metal and gunoil.
A small purse made a pleasant chink on the ground beside him.
“Are ye satisfied, sir?” asked Solomon when he was safely past the tricky bit in his knitting.
“Hm? Yes, for the moment. Will you be at the muster tomorrow?”
“Ay, sir, I’m on the strength after all. Garrison, non-combatant.”
“Anything or anyone I should watch out for?”
Solomon’s sniff was eloquent. “Where should I start?”
Carey laughed softly. “I know I’m not popular.”
“Ay. Ye can say that. What was ye at wi’ the guns, sir?”
There was a long silence while Carey considered this. After a moment Solomon realised why and chuckled again.
“Och, sir, ye’ve no need to fear my tongue. Who was it opened the gate for ye when ye and yer half brother brought back that cow?”
Carey coughed. “Lord,” he said, “I’d forgotten that.”
“Had ye? Yer dad failed his purpose then, which wouldnae be like him.”
Apart from a reminiscent snort, Carey didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’ve marked the guns so that if I ever capture a reiver carrying one of them, I’ll know where it came from.”
Solomon almost dropped a stitch as he choked with laughter.
“Ay,” he said. “Ay, ye’ll know.”
Carey thought this was tribute to his ingenuity. There was smugness in his voice as he went back to the ladder.
“Good night, Solomon.”
“Ay, sir,” wheezed the gate guard, shaking his head.
Sunday 9th July 1562, before dawn
Dodd found Carey was either up before him, or more likely hadn’t bothered to try and snatch an extra two hours’ sleep at all. Probably very sensible of him, Dodd thought sadly to himself as he tottered over to the well to slake his thirst in the dark blue predawn. He hated drinking water in the morning, especially from a bucket, but it was too early for the buttery in the Keep to be open and he was desperate. One of the stable lads was waiting in the courtyard, holding two of the horses from the stables, who were stamping and shaking their heads unco-operatively. The boy was yawning enough to split his face.
“Now then,” croaked Dodd.
“Morning, Sergeant,” said the boy with a cheeky grin.
Dodd grunted and washed his face, shivering at the coldness and slimy t
aste of the water, dried himself on his shirt-tails. He had slept in his hose after their midnight raid on the armoury, which always left him feeling ugly, quite apart from his sorely-missed rest.
“Ahah,” said Carey, appearing at the door of the Queen Mary Tower with his dags in their case and Barnabus behind him with a heavy bag no doubt containing the borrowed calivers. “Good morning, Dodd. If you can get yourself dressed in time, you can come with us.”
He strapped the firearms onto the hobby in front of the saddle, and checked the girth. There were already ten leather flasks of gunpowder slung over the pony’s back. Dodd went back into the new barracks for his clothes, wondering what demon it was that got into the Courtier early in the morning and how he could kill it. Carey jumped into the saddle, just as Dodd slouched out of the barracks once more with his blue woollen statute cap pulled down to protect his eyes, lacing up his jerkin and hating people who were happy at dawn.
“How long will this take, sir?” moaned Dodd.
“Only an hour or so,” Carey explained, blowing on the glowing end of the coil of slowmatch he had slung over his shoulder. “I’m doing some target shooting. Are you coming or not?”
Dodd supposed he had to now. “Ay, sir.”
“Well, hurry up, I don’t want a mob going with me.”
They went out through the sally-port to which Carey had the key and rode round to the fenced-off racecourse. Dodd had lost more money there than he cared to think about.
They left their horses at the other end of the course, securely tied. Then they went down to the end where the archery butts and the new shooting range were set up.
It turned out that what Carey really wanted was to see how well Dodd could shoot with the Courtier’s own wheel-lock dags. Dodd thoroughly disliked firearms, and once he had warmed a little to the argument was a stout defender of longbows.
“See ye, sir,” he said, as Carey demonstrated how to wind up the lock which spun a wheel against the iron pyrites in the clamp, making the sparks that supposedly lit the fine powder in the pan and thus fired the gun. “See ye, an arrow kills ye just as deid as a bullet and I can put a dozen in the air while ye’re fiddling about with yer keys and all, sir.”
“Well, try it anyway, Sergeant.”
“Och, God,” said Dodd under his breath, who hated loud noises in the morning. He took the dag, sighted along the barrel to the target and fired. The kick was not as brutal as a caliver, but the boom and the smell of gunpowder made his eyes water. Carey had the armoury caliver and was loading it briskly, lit the match in the lock, put the stock on his shoulder, took a sideways stance and aimed the gun. The roar nearly blew the top of Dodd’s head off and a hole appeared in the target, irritatingly close to the bull. Dodd’s bullet had puffed sand and sawdust a yard below the target.
Behind them the market traders from the city were setting up their stalls ready for the muster, being chivvied into their proper pitches by harassed aldermen’s servants. They had looked up at the sound of guns, but turned back to their own affairs once they saw that nobody was attacking.
“Firearms are the future, Sergeant,” said Carey didactically, while Dodd carefully swabbed, charged, loaded and wound up the dag again. “Anyone who’s fought on the Continent knows that.”
“The future?” repeated Dodd, thoroughly confused.
“It takes five years to make a longbowman and six weeks to make an arquebusier, it’s as simple as that. This time remember it isn’t a bow, you don’t need to aim low at this distance. Think of a straight line from the muzzle to the bull.”
While he talked he was reloading the caliver, each movement precise, identical and rhythmic. Dodd watched, recognising something new in the way he did it. Carey smiled.
“Dutch drill,” he explained as he finished. “I’m planning to teach it to you and the men once we get hold of the guns.” He stood square to the target, lifted and lowered the caliver to his shoulder and squinted as he aimed.
“Christ!” yelled Dodd and made a wild swipe with his arm which knocked the weapon out of Carey’s hands. It clattered to the ground and the match fizzed on the spilled powder.
“What the Devil do you think you’re doing…?” Carey demanded, cold and furious.
Dodd stamped on the match end with the toe of his boot and then picked up the caliver gingerly. He could feel his knees shaking and his stomach turning.
“Look, sir,” he said, trying not to stammer. “There’s a crack in the barrel.”
Carey looked and his face went white. He took the caliver out of Dodd’s hands, and turned it, traced the death-dealing weakness all along the underside of the gun.
“Thank you, Henry,” he said at last, in the whisper of someone whose mouth has gone completely dry. “I see it.”
Dodd turned, aimed the dag he was still holding and discharged it, this time at least hitting the target now he wasn’t trying. Carey was staring at the caliver which had nearly blown his hands and face to shreds. It was still charged. Dodd put the dags back in their case on Carey’s horse, as Carey began very carefully using the ramrod to scrape out the wad and bullet and shake the gunpowder onto the ground. When it was empty he blew out his breath gustily and small blame to him if he had been holding it in.
“And that’s something else ye have nae fear of wi’ longbows,” Dodd added, unable to resist making the point.
“True,” admitted Carey very softly. “True enough.”
Dodd met the piercing blue eyes and knew that both of them were thinking of Long George and his mysterious pistol.
They rode back to the castle in silence. Carey went straight up to the Queen Mary Tower, still holding the caliver and also taking the one that hadn’t been fired. When Dodd came up to fetch him, ready for duty at the muster, he found the Deputy Warden still in his doublet and bent over his desk.
“What are ye doing, sir?” asked Dodd cautiously, wondering if Carey had gone mad. The desk was covered over with bits of metal and various tools.
Carey was muttering to himself. “Look at this,” he said eventually. “The barrel metal’s not thick enough and it’s not been hammered out straight. And the forge-welding of the underseam is appalling. Look, it’s got a hairline crack along its length, see, where the wood can hide it.”
“Is that the one that was faulty, sir?”
“No. This has never been fired.”
Never mind Carey, Henry Dodd himself might have pulled its trigger and ended up worse off than Long George. He felt queasy again.
“Ay.”
Carey was peering squint-eyed at another piece of metal. “This is very cheap and nasty,” he said, prodding it with one of his little tools. “See how it scratches. I doubt it was case-hardened at all. I can’t believe they ever came from the Tower. Nor even Newcastle.”
“Nor Dumfries, sir,” added Dodd, puzzling his poor aching head.
“Eh?” said Carey.
“Dumfries,” Dodd repeated for him. “Where the best guns in all Scotland are made, though ye’ll pay through the nose for them.”
Carey was staring into the middle distance, at the painted hanging of a siege which warmed the stone wall of his chambers.
“Interesting,” was all he said as he piled the bits into a cloth and wrapped it up, put it in a drawer of the desk.
“Are ye coming to the muster at all, sir?” asked Dodd hintingly.
“Hm? Oh yes. Barnabus!”
Dodd went to wait at the foot of the tower while Carey speedily changed out of his black velvet and into his second best cramoisie suit, plus his newly cleaned jack and straightened morion helmet. He came down the stairs two at a time and Dodd fell in beside him as he strode across the yard to where their troop was lining up.
“Do ye think they’re all alike, sir?” Dodd asked in a mutter.
“Almost certainly. I didn’t even look at which calivers I was taking.”
“The pistols too?”
“I think so.”
“But who could have done
it?”
“I’ve no idea. Never my brother, nor anyone at court. Maybe not Lowther either.”
“Why not, sir, seeing how he’d laugh if ye was maimed?”
“Because he was so quick to put his man in as acting armoury clerk. If it was him got at the guns, he would have made sure I appointed the clerk.”
“Your man might have spotted the difference.”
“I doubt it. I didn’t. On the outside they look fine.”
“What shall we do?”
“Nothing for the moment, since we’ll be late for church if we don’t move ourselves.”
Most of the men were hungover but relatively clean, their horses groomed and their lances and helmets polished. Dodd still didn’t see what the connection was between good soldiering and the state of your jack, providing it kept off swords, but had to admit it pleased him to see that his troop easily outshone Lowther’s and Carleton’s men who were dingy by comparison. Carey had them line up, checked them over, told one that his tack was a disgrace and so were his boots, complimented their latest recruit on the fact that he already had a morion and a jack and led them down early to the cathedral for Sunday service.
Sunday 9th July 1592, morning
The young King of Scotland rode into the West March town of Dumfries by the Lochmaben Gate at about eight in the morning, to be met by the old Warden, the mayor, the corporation and both major local headmen, Lord Maxwell and young James Johnstone. There was tension in the air between the headmen that would have given good resistance to a battleaxe, mainly because their two families had been at feud for generations and both their fathers had been murdered by the other’s relatives. At the moment, the Maxwells were ahead in the feud, the most powerful and wealthy Surname in the West March of Scotland. For this reason, the Maxwell was wearing a brocade doublet slashed with bright red taffeta, a lace-trimmed falling band and a shining back-and-breast-plate, chased with gold. Behind him were a hundred of his largest men, in their jacks, mounted in two rows of fifty, their highly businesslike lances tricked out with blue pennants.
The young laird of Johnstone was wearing a pale buff jack, a plain red woollen suit, and an anxious expression on his face, mainly because he had only fifty men behind him. The white pennants on their lances fluttered merrily enough, but fifty against a hundred is poor odds at the best of times, never mind what Maxwell could call on from his friends and followers in Dumfries, a town that he owned. At least, thought the Johnstone, most of my lads have good handguns and balls and powder to go with them. And surely even a Maxwell will not plan trickery when he’s to be made March Warden and the King is about, though God help us when the King is gone back to Edinburgh.
3 A Surfeit of Guns Page 6