3 A Surfeit of Guns

by P. F. Chisholm

  “Did the King have anything to say about the guns?” asked Dodd, who knew what Carey had been hoping for.

  Carey grunted, shook his head, looked about for a towel, saw that the courtyard of Maxwell’s town house had no such things, and wiped his hands on his hose.

  “Any luck with the German or the Italians?” he demanded harshly.

  Dodd shook his head in turn. “I dinnae think the German can still be alive,” he said positively, wishing he knew why the foreigners were important. “I’ve been up and down this bloody nest of Scots and not a hide nor a hair of him is there anywhere. Signor Bonnetti is supplying His Majesty with wine, but ye knew that already. How’s the King?”

  At least I didn’t nearly puke in his lap this time, thought Carey gloomily, but Jesus, it was close. What is it about me that makes him like me so? I don’t look anything like Lord Spynie, thank God. The aqua vitae burned pleasantly in his throat and he poured Dodd some, as well as more for himself. Dodd, he saw, was full of morbid curiosity about his audience and clearly fighting the impulse to ask nosy questions.

  “Drunk when I left him, drunk and maudlin,” snapped Carey. “Come on, let’s go out and ask some more questions.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon on Irish Street, starting at one end and going into every armourer’s and gunsmith they could see.

  As it turned out, the first one was typical. “Nay, sir, I canna undertake yer order,” said the master gunsmith, with his broad hands folded behind his leather apron and a bedlam of bellows, furnace, hammering and screeling metal behind him.

  “Not even if I pay you forty shillings sterling for each pistol and fifty shillings for the calivers?” pressed Carey, holding one of the sample wares from the front of the shop and looking at it narrowly.

  “Nay, sir, it’s impossible,” said the master gunsmith firmly. “Not if ye was to pay double the amount, I couldnae do it. Not before Lammastide next.”

  “How about by Michaelmas?”

  The master gunsmith sucked his teeth. “I tellt ye, it’s impossible,” he said, “I’m no’ dickering for a price, sir, I could get what I asked, but I canna make enough guns for the orders on my books as it is.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “See ye, sir, we allus have full order books, because in Dumfries we make the best weapons in the world, and my shop here makes the best, the finest weapons in a’ of Dumfries. I have none but journeymen makers, here, not a part of yer gun will be made by a ‘prentice, and the lock will be made by meself or my son-in-law that’s a master gunsmith as well. My guns shoot true, they dinna misfire, and they never blow up in yer hand. I’ve turned down bigger orders than yourn fra the Papists, because I canna fill them.”

  “Could you not take on extra men?” Carey asked.

  The master gunsmith’s red face took on a purple hue. “What? Untrained? Cack-handed fools that canna tell one end of the stock fra the other? No, sir. And ye’ll not thank me if I did, for the weapons they made would be as like to kill ye as yer enemy. We make the finest weapons in the world here and…”

  “I thought Augsburg had good weaponsmiths,” said Carey provocatively.

  The master gunsmith spat magnificently. “Sir,” he said. “I’ll thank ye to leave my shop. I’ll have nae talk of German mountebanks in this place, ye might sour the metal. Go to Jedburgh for yer weapons if ye’ve a mind to, but begone from here. Out.”

  Carey went meekly enough, rubbing his lower lip with his thumb and looking pleased. He tried two more shops, the second of which was full of the choking indescribable stench of the flesh being burnt off horse hooves in a dry cauldron, so that the hooves themselves could be used to case-harden the gun-parts. They retreated from the place in some disorder and stopped at a small alehouse to drink aqua vitae to clean their throats. Carey sent Red Sandy Dodd on with Sim’s Will Croser to carry on the questioning. Dodd stayed with him.

  “Sir,” he said tactfully. “What do ye plan to pay for the new weapons with?”

  Carey spread his hands. “Consider the lilies of the field,” he orated. “They toil not, neither do they spin.”

  “Sir?”

  “I only want to know if the Dumfries armourers could fill an order like that and it seems they can’t. Which is interesting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Interesting but not surprising.”

  “Ay, sir.”

  “Do you know what I’m talking about, Dodd?”

  “Ay, sir. Ye’ve the Maxwells and the Johnstones glowering at each other, all wanting guns. Ye’ve the Armstrongs, the Bells, the Carlisles and the Irvines wanting to protect themselves fra the Maxwells and the Johnstones, and each other, not to mention the Douglases and the Crichtons hereabouts. Ye’ve Bothwell buying armaments, and ye’ve King James’s army in town, also wanting armaments and ye’ve the Irish rebels over the water and they want guns too.”

  “And us,” added Carey softly. “One lot of good Tower-made weapons lost on the road from Newcastle, swapped for deathtraps, and one lot of deathtraps reived out of the Carlisle armoury under our noses. And where did they go, Dodd? Answer me that.”

  “I thought Maxwell had’em.”

  “He’s got the deathtraps, Sergeant, not the good weapons. Two hundred mixed calivers and pistols don’t disappear into thin air; somebody has them.”

  “Bothwell?” wondered Dodd.

  “God forbid. But whoever it was made the exchange is the man who murdered poor Long George.”

  “Ay,” said Dodd. “That’s a fact.”

  “Besides, I want them back. Some of them had snaphaunce locks and I want them back.”

  “Can the King not help ye, sir?” Dodd knew he was pushing it a little, seeing how upset the Deputy had been ever since his audience. Carey’s face darkened instantly, and he finished his aqua vitae in a single gulp.

  “Oh, bugger the King.”

  “Ay, sir.” Dodd kept his face absolutely straight, which was just as well for Carey glared at him suspiciously.

  Luckily Red Sandy and Sim’s Will returned at that point to tell them that for all the multitude of gunsmiths in Dumfries, there was not a single one that could fill their order. They went back to Maxwell’s Castle in awkward silence, Carey striding ahead with an expression of thunder on his face.

  Hutchin turned out to be in Maxwell’s stables, assiduously turning Thunder’s black coat to damask.

  “I should have brung some ribbons to plait his mane with, sir,” said the boy sorrowfully. “I couldnae find a haberdasher’s that had any the day, so I cannae make him as fine as the ither horses that’ll be in the masqueing.”

  Carey grunted and ordered Hutchin to wash his hands and come and brush his doublet and hose with rosepowder. Hutchin looked surprised but went meekly enough to the pump. Dodd followed him to wash his own hands and face. He had never before seen the Deputy in such an ill temper.

  “What the Devil’s got intae the Deputy?” Hutchin wanted to know. Dodd shrugged.

  “The King must have said something to upset him.”

  “What could it be?”

  “Well, I…”

  “None of your bloody business, Dodd,” snapped Carey’s voice behind them. “I don’t suppose either of you knows how to shave a man?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Hutchin, run down to the kitchens and fetch me some hot water. Boiling, mind. Dodd, did you bring your best suit as I told you?”

  “I’m wearing it, sir,” said Dodd with some dignity.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s homespun.”

  “Ay, sir. My wife’s finest.”

  “You’re the Land Sergeant of Gilsland. Can’t you afford anything better?”

  He’s drunk, Dodd reminded himself at this insult. “Happen I could, sir,” Dodd said coldly. “But it’s no’ what I choose to spend my money on.”

  Carey’s blue eyes examined him minutely for a moment. “Get it brushed down and I’ll lend you my smallest ruff.”

  “Am I t
o attend ye at this Court masque, sir?”

  “All of you are. Red Sandy and Sim’s Will can stay outside with the horses, but I want you and Hutchin attending me inside.”

  “Ye’ll have to forgive me, sir,” said Dodd still very much on his dignity, “I’ve no’ been to Court, like yourself, sir.”

  “You can learn. If Barnabus could, you can.”

  “Ay, sir,” said Dodd, blank-faced. “Will I take my sword?”

  Carey got the message at last, that Dodd was no servingman to order about, but a freeholder and a land-sergeant with as much right to bear a sword as Carey or Lord Scrope. He paused and his face relaxed slightly.

  “Yes, dammit, take your sword and try to look respectable.”

  “I shall look like what I am, sir,” said Dodd, with frigid dignity.

  For an hour there was a whirlwind of shaving and combing hair, powdering and brushing of velvet, checking of ruffs and polishing of boots and blades. It finally dawned on Dodd, as Carey stood in a clean shirt, critically examining his black velvet suit, that one of the things eating the Courtier was the fact that he wasn’t able to dress fine enough for a Court feast. For a moment Dodd almost laughed to see a man as put out by his lack of brocade and gold embroidery as any maid short of ribbons. He swallowed his amusement hastily, quite certain the Courtier wouldn’t see it that way.

  By the time they were ready strains of music were coming up from Maxwell’s hall and Maxwell and Herries horsemen were assembling in the courtyard with torches. Looking down on it from the turret room next to Maxwell’s solar, where Carey had a truckle bed, you could tell that this was no raid from the ribbons and ornaments on the horses and the splendour of some of the clothes. You could also tell from the way they lined up and sorted themselves out that raiding was more usual to them than masqueing.

  He followed Carey down the winding stairs and found Red Sandy, Sim’s Will and Hutchin Graham waiting with the horses, polished and smart and shining so he was quite proud of them, really. The Courtier inspected them with narrow eyes and nodded curtly, before going off to talk about precedence with the Lord Maxwell. He came back wearing a black velvet mask on his face which did nothing to disguise him but did make him look ridiculous, in Dodd’s opinion.

  The masked cavalcade streamed out of the gate of Maxwell’s Castle and down through the market place of Dumfries where the townsfolk stood shading their eyes from the golden evening to see them.

  They waited outside the townhouse where the King was staying for half an hour before the cavalcade of Scottish courtiers and lords and ladies came glittering from the gate to mount the horses waiting in rows. For the first time, Dodd saw womenfolk among them and was shocked: they were wearing the height of French fashion, most of them, their hair shining with jewels and their silken bodices begging for lungfever with the acreage they left bare, their faces decorated into birds of paradise with their own delicate jewelled and feathered masks. Even Lord Spynie helped a woman to her horse, which must have been his wife, and amongst the crowd, Dodd spotted Sir Henry and Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, though she was wearing English fashion that made her more decent. Both of them were masked, Sir Henry expansive with bonhomie and solicitously helping her to her pillion seat behind him. She did not look well, Dodd thought, her face pale and tired under the velvet, with her lips clamped in a tight disapproving line. He stole a glance at Carey but Carey was busy keeping a skittish Thunder under control in his reasonably honourable place behind and to the right of the Lord Maxwell.

  They rode in stately fashion down from the Mercat Cross, past the town lock-up and the Tolbooth, past the Fish Cross until they could hear the watermill on the Millburn. Then they turned right and came back again up Irish Street to the Townhead while speeches were made at intervals and the musicians in a wagon clattering and squelching along behind, played music from the French court.

  By the time they got back to Maxwell’s Castle the long summer evening was worn away and the sky in the west gone to purple satin. The horses lined up stamping in the courtyard, far too many of them with all the attendants as well, and the higher folk separated themselves to go into Maxwell’s hall.

  Carey beckoned Dodd and Hutchin to him and they went in to the feast after Lord Maxwell and his attendants.

  Dodd had seen feasting before but not on this scale, and not with this kind of food, most of which he did not recognise at all. Dodd found a seneschal placing him well below the salt with distant Maxwell cousins, while Hutchin was ordered to stand behind Carey like the other pageboys, to fill his goblet, pass his napkin and hold the water for him to wash his hands between courses. Carey was on the top table, not far from the King, exerting himself to be pleasant and taking very little from the silver- and gold-plated dishes that passed him. He had a plump, comfortable woman on his right to whom he spoke gravely; she seemed to enjoy the conversation well enough. Sir Henry wasn’t as close to the salt as Carey, not being there in any official capacity and not having any tincture of royalty in his veins either. He looked irritable now, under his velvet mask, as if he found Carey’s higher placing than himself a calculated insult, rather than the normal effect of precedence.

  The noise was bedlamite, for no one stopped to listen to the musicians and the King under his cloth of estate was visibly rolling drunk. Dodd watched with disapproval.

  Even below the salt the bread was white and the meats soused in sauces full of herbs and wine and garlic, stuffed with strange mixtures heavy with spices. Dodd ate very little, and only what he could identify with certainty, but the beer was good enough and he drank that.

  At last trumpets blasted out. The King stood, the company at the top table stood and moved out of the hall, filtering through the passageway towards Maxwell’s bowling alley.

  “Where are we going?” Dodd asked himself and was answered by the Herries man that had been on his left.

  “There’s more food there.”

  “More?” He was shocked. “Good God, is the King no’ full yet?”

  And it was true; at one end of the bowling alley were more tables covered in white cloths and strangely carved and glittering glass dishes, with creams and jellies and brightly coloured and gilded gingerbreads gleaming like jewels under the high banks of candles. Amongst them went the womenfolk and courtiers, with little dishes made of sugar plate, picking and selecting from the red and green and pink jellies and comfits, like butterflies among flowers.

  Dodd stood by the tapestry-covered wall and watched with the other henchmen. Somewhere they seemed to have lost the King and some of the courtiers and he supposed they were having their own even more extravagant sweetmeats somewhere else.

  But then there came a blasting of trumpets and a strumming of harps so loud Dodd jumped and put his hand on his sword. Into the bowling alley came a kind of chariot, painted and gilded, pulled by men clad in strange clothes, and in it, with a gilded wreath on his head and some kind of gold breastplate on his chest, was King James. He was laughing and nearly fell out when the chariot jerked to a stop. One of the attending lords, wearing an extraordinary helmet with plumes on the top, made a speech in rhyme which seemed to be talking about Alexander the Great and some magical fountain. Dodd noticed that King James had his arm wrapped round Lord Spynie who was in the chariot with him, also decked out in a fake silver breastplate.

  The chariot paraded up and down the bowling alley, stopping every so often for another of the courtiers to make a speech in rhyming Scots, or for the womenfolk to dance in a way which somehow combined the stately and the lewd. No doubt it was all very cultured and courteous, though Dodd had rarely been so bored in his life: why could they not listen to a gleeman singing the old tale of Chevy Chase or making the backs of their necks prickle with the song of the Twa Corbies? What was the point of all the prosing about Alexander the Great, whoever the hell he was? Or have the women dance a little more: that was good to look on, though King James seemed more interested in cuddling up to Lord Spynie, God forgive him. Carey seemed
to enjoy it greatly: he laughed with the other courtiers at some of the verses and clapped when the King replied. Hutchin, who was still standing behind him, seemed on the point of falling asleep.

  At last the King got down from his chariot, which was wheeled away again, and helped himself to jellies and creams from a separate table. And then, just as Dodd was beginning to hope the thing was finished and they could go home to their beds, all the bright company followed the King back through the passageways into Maxwell’s hall.

  His servants had been busy clearing the tables and benches away, leaving the newly swept boards lit by torches and candles hanging from the great carved black beams of the roof. The musicians were up in the gallery and when the King waved his hand, they began to play a strenuous galliard.

  Dodd had no intention of making a fool of himself by dancing measures he had never learned, which was a pity because at last the women came into their own. They formed up, talking and laughing, and flapping their fans in the stunning heat from the lights, while the men paraded in front of them like cock pheasants.

  And there was Carey, a long streak of melancholy in black velvet slashed with taffeta, bouncing and kicking in the men’s volta, gallant and attentive to his partner in the galliard, stately as a bishop in the pavane. By some subtle method invisible to Dodd he managed to dance several times with the peach of the ladies’ company, a dark woman with alabaster skin, black hair in ringlets snooded with garnets, a perky little mask made of crimson feathers and a crimson velvet gown to match, whose bodice must surely have been stuck on with glue, because otherwise, Dodd could not understand how it stayed where it was.

  Carey was talking to her all the time as he danced and whatever he was saying seemed to please her, because she laughed and tapped him playfully with her fan. When the dance ended, she allowed him to escort her to a bench at the side of the room. Carey looked around impatiently for Hutchin, but his expression softened when he saw the boy on a stool by the door, fast asleep. He beckoned Dodd over.

  “Sergeant,” he said quietly. “Will you do me the favour of fetching a plate of sweetmeats for Signora Bonnetti, and some wine?”