P. Chisholm - A Surfeit of Guns

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?”

For a moment Dodd bridled at being treated like a servant again, but then he thought that if he was making up to a pretty woman like the Signora, he might not want to leave her alone for someone else to find either.

Coming back with a sugar plate piled with suckets and a goblet of wine, he gave it to Carey and then stood nearby, trying to eavesdrop on how you talked to a court-woman.

He grew no wiser because Carey was speaking French at a great rate and in a caressing tone of voice. The Signora answered him with little inclinations of her head and popped suckets in her mouth greedily. Smiling she pulled Carey’s head down near hers and fed him a sweetmeat and they both laughed in a way which was instantly comprehensible in any language in the world.

How does he do it, Dodd wondered enviously; how the hell does he draw the womenfolk like that?

He looked about the hall for the Widdringtons and found them, Elizabeth sitting wearily on one of the benches although she had not danced, and Sir Henry standing, rocking on his toes with his hands behind his back. Carey’s performance with the Italian woman was easy for him to see, although it didn’t seem to be pleasing him. Sir Henry bent down to Elizabeth and spoke to her, nodded in their direction. Elizabeth looked briefly, shut her eyes and said nothing. Sir Henry’s fist bunched, but his son came back from dancing a pavane and sat beside Elizabeth. He had the painfully careful movements of a boy who had broken a lot of furniture before he got used to his size, and it was touching how protectively he sat between his stepmother and his father. When he saw what Carey was up to, his spotted features frowned heavily.

Carey had more than one audience for his courtship of Signora Bonnetti. The King himself seemed interested in it, which surprised Dodd, for between kissing Lord Spynie on the cheek and applauding the dancers, occasional regal glances would come in Carey’s direction and then sweep away again. If Carey noticed all the attention, he didn’t show it.

I wonder where the Signora’s husband is, Dodd thought, but he saw nobody else among all the courtiers in Maxwell’s hall who seemed foreign.

As it happened, Carey was asking the Signora precisely that, to be rewarded by an arch look from under the crimson feathers on her face and a wrinkling of her nose.

“He has a flux,” explained Signora Bonnetti in her lilting Italianate French. “He was much too ill to come feasting for he cannot be more than five steps away from a close stool.”

“Poor gentleman,” said Carey with fake concern. “But how generous to allow his wife to come dancing and gladden this northern fastness with the fire of her beauty.”