P. Chisholm - A Surfeit of Guns

“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 to 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.