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 u
ntil 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.
“Pick him up,” Spynie hissed.
Carey was hauled upright again, forced to sit on the stool again, his head shoved down again. It didn’t seem possible, they were going to do it and his gorge rose. Once more he held his breath and tried to get ready.
There was a clatter and a creak behind him which he couldn’t identify.
“Lord Spynie,” came a new voice, wintry and measured. “Sir Henry Widdrington, release that man.”
It was the voice of King James’s foster-brother, the Earl of Mar. A pause, then the men holding Carey down let go. Very very carefully he let out his breath, lifted his head off the barrel-end and looked straight up at the Earl. For the moment he couldn’t stand, he wasn’t sure of his legs. The Earl’s face was hieratic and stern, but neither sympathetic nor surprised.
“I want to see my cousin the King,” Carey whispered.
“Ay,” said the Earl of Mar and jerked his chin at one of the courtiers in unspoken and imperious command.
After a moment’s hesitation, and with no gentleness, the man unlocked the wooden manacles from Carey’s wrists so he could bring his hands round and rest the agony of metal on his lap.
He was not surprised to find he was shaking, astonished that there was no blood. The Earl of Mar was bending in front of him, unscrewing the thumbscrews which made his swollen fingers hurt worse than they had before, leaving livid pressure marks behind. He had to bow his head and stop breathing again while Mar took them off the broken ones. Mar saw the swelling and bruising, the unnatural bend, and took time to glare at Spynie, before taking out his handkerchief.
“I’ll bind these two to the third for the moment,” he said. “Can ye hold still while I do it?”
“Yes,” said Carey remembering Long George. When Mar had finished he stood up, cautiously. He was lightheaded, the pain in all but his broken fingers was beginning to change to a dull throbbing and for some reason, he was desperately thirsty.
“You’ll come wi’ me,” said the Earl of Mar. “The King wants to see ye.”
He couldn’t help it: he gave a triumphant grin to Lord Spynie and Sir Henry Widdrington, both of whom were looking stunned and afraid. His sudden joy wasn’t only because he had kept the use of his right hand; it was because of what the Earl of Mar’s intervention told him about Elizabeth.
He came joltingly back down to earth when he moved to follow Mar and the chains on his ankles almost tripped him up.
“Like this, my lord Earl?” he asked falteringly.
Mar looked him consideringly up and down. “Ay,” he said.
“But…”
“The King said he wanted tae see ye. Naebody said anything about releasing ye.”
Carey was about to argue, but then stopped himself. He rested his broken hand carefully on the better one and told himself worse things could easily be happening to him than having to clank in chains through the Scottish court in nothing but his filthy shirt and hose, with a bloody face and no hat on his head. It was no good. The humiliation of it on top of everything else made him feel sick with rage, until he could hardly lift his feet enough to follow the Earl.
Lord Spynie moved to follow them out, but the Earl of Mar stopped him.
“You and Sir Henry are under arrest, my lord,” said the Earl. “Ye can bide here together until His Highness is ready for ye.” And he shut and locked the wine cellar door in their faces.
That Carey was also still under arrest was made clear by the Earl of Mar’s men in their morions and jacks, carrying polearms like the Yeomen of the Guard at the Tower, who were waiting to surround him at the top of the stairs. He went with them, for the first time in his life wishing he were not so tall. He wanted to hunch down so they could hide him, but forced himself to stand up straight and concentrate on moving his feet so the chain didn’t trip him up. The stairs were hard to manage, he had to pause every so often to get his balance and his breath back. Once he did trip, but the guards waited for him and although he saw faces he had known, they didn’t seem to recognise him, perhaps because of the blood and dirt he was wearing.
At the door to the King’s Presence chamber, Carey stopped, balking completely. The Earl of Mar turned and glared at him.
“What is it?”
“Let me wipe my face, at least,” begged Carey. “I cannot see His Majesty like…”
There was a dour look of amusement around Mar’s mouth. “Och, never ye mind what ye look like,” he said gruffly. “He’s no’ sae pernickity as yer ain mistress.”
“But, my lord…”
&nbs
p; The Earl of Mar tutted like an old nurse and banged on the door. A young page with one oddly ragged ear opened it to them and blinked at the apparition without expression. The guards left him at the door and stood there, not to attention, but simply waiting in case they were needed.
In they tramped, Carey more acutely embarrassed than he could have imagined: every minute of training during his ten years’ service at Queen Elizabeth’s court told him that it was not far off blasphemy to appear in front of royalty in such a bedraggled state. Without the assured armour of well-cut clothes and a good turn-out he felt as tongue-tied and confused as any country lummox. Her Majesty would have been throwing slippers and vases at the smell of him by now.
Something deeper inside him suddenly rebelled at his own ridiculous shyness, anger rising at his craven fear of disapproval by someone who was, whatever God had made him, still only a man.
The man in question, who could sentence him to a number of different unpleasant deaths, was standing by a table, stripping off his gloves, with wine stains down one side of his padded black and gold brocade doublet. He was watching Carey gravely, consideringly.
Realising he was standing there like a post, Carey made to genuflect, remembered in the nick of time that he had chains on his ankles and went down clumsily on both knees in the rushes, jarring his hands.
“Sir Robert, I’m sorry to see ye like this.”
He was expected to respond. How? What would work with Queen Elizabeth might annoy King James and vice versa. On the other hand he would never ever have been brought so easily into the Queen’s presence after a charge of treason had been made. Even in a letter, abject contrition would have been the only course. But this was not a brilliant, nervy, vain and elderly woman, this was a King three years younger than himself, who would almost certainly be King of England one day. King James might be unaccountable, with odd tastes, but he was at least a man.
“Your Majesty, I’m sorry to be like this,” Carey said, trying for a glint of wry humour.
3 A Surfeit of Guns Page 24