P. Chisholm - A Surfeit of Guns

“Throw ‘em in a bog.”

“Don’t do that, my lord.”

“Will ye take them back then?”

Carey smiled thinly. “I don’t think so, my lord. But will you keep them here for a couple of days?”

“Why?”

Carey looked opaque and tapped his fingers on his saddle horn. “Just in case, my lord, just in case. You never know what might happen.”

Maxwell grunted sullenly. “What am I to dae about the Johnstones?” he demanded to know.

“Entirely your affair, my lord. But if I were you, I’d let them sweat until you’re ready.”

“And stay bloody Warden all that time?”

Carey made a self-deprecating half-bow from the saddle. “It might not be so bad,” he suggested. “Perhaps you and my lord Scrope could even agree on a Day of Truce and clear up some of the bills that have been accumulating for the past sixteen years.”

Maxwell glowered at him. “Good God, whatever for?”

“For peace, my lord. For the rule of law.”

The sneer on Maxwell’s handsome features was magnificently comprehensive. “While I’ve my men at my back, I’ll make my ain laws and my ain peace.”

Carey said nothing. Maxwell was silent for a time which seemed very long to Dodd’s stretched nerves. Carey sat patiently, seeming intent on the stitching of his riding gloves, the growth of the nearest tree.

Maxwell jerked his horse round and came close to him.

“Well?” he demanded.

“What can I do for you, my lord?” said Carey softly.

“I want my money back.”

“What?”

“Ay.” Maxwell leaned on his saddle horn and spat words. “The Deputy Warden of Carlisle sold me a pile of scrap-iron that half-killed my cousin, and I want my money back.”

“Not this Deputy Warden,” said Carey.

Maxwell shrugged. “Who cares. Ye get me my money back. I want it and it’s mine.”

“From Lowther?”

“I never said that. From whoever. D’ye understand me?”

There was something almost amusing about one of the richest lords in the Scottish West March demanding his money back like an Edinburgh wife waving a bad fish at a stallholder, almost but not quite. The fact that the whole thing was ludicrously irrational and unjust hardly mattered when they were surrounded by Maxwell’s kinsmen and Maxwell himself looked like a primed caliver ready to go off at any minute. Dodd began praying fervently. Please God, let the Courtier keep a civil tongue in his head, please God…

“I’ll do my best, my lord,” Carey said, prim as a maiden.

“Ye’d better.”

Maxwell turned his horse foaming back towards the wagon and shouted orders, then whipped the beast to a canter in the direction of the road to Dumfries. Perforce, Carey and Dodd rode with them, less escorted than guarded now.

***

They returned quickly to Maxwell’s townhouse, recipients of a double-edged hospitality. Carey strode into the stall where Thunder stood stamping and tossing his head impatiently and found Hutchin there already.

When the boy turned to greet him, they saw a magnificent black eye, a bust lip and pure rage.

“Oh, Lord,” said Carey, wearily stripping off his gloves. “What happened? Did Lord Spynie…”

The boy spat. “Red Sandy and Sim’s Will got intae a fight.”

“How?”

“Wee Colin Elliot was in the Black Bear wi’ some of his kin and when Red Sandy come in, Wee Colin asked him if he’d lost any sheep lately and Red Sandy went for him. An’ they’re both in the town lock-up now. It wasnae my fault,” finished Hutchin self-righteously.

“Who’s in the lock-up? Wee Colin as well?”

“Nay, sir. Just Red Sandy and Sim’s Will, of course.”

Carey glared at Dodd as if it was his fault his brother was an idiot.

“That’s all I bloody need,” said Carey. “Come on, we’ll go and see them.”

They were stopped at the gate to Maxwell’s Castle by a stern-faced Herries.

“Ye canna all go out,” he said to Carey. “My lord Maxwell says one of ye must stay here.”

“As a hostage,” said the Courtier, coldly.

“Ay, if ye wantae put it that way.”

Carey looked at Dodd and Hutchin, calculating. “Then it’s you, Dodd, I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can do to bail your brother.”

Dodd wanted to protest at being left in the middle of a heaving mass of Maxwells, but could see there was no point. It was better for Carey to have freedom of action since he at least had some friends among the Scots. Hutchin was a bit young to play the hostage and a Graham furthermore. It had to be him. He nodded gloomily.

“Ay,” he said. “I’ll be wi’ the horses.”

Carey hurried down the street, Hutchin trotting at his heels, until he came to the small round lock-up by the Tolbooth. As expected, it was packed full of brawlers, half of them still drunk, and it took a while for Sim’s Will to struggle out of the crowd and peer through the little barred window.

“Well?” said Carey, furious at this complication.

“Ah…Sorry, sir,” said Sim’s Will, looking very sheepish. He was battered, though not too badly, considering the idiocy of taking on a pack of Elliots on their own ground.

“How’s Red Sandy?”

“No’ so bad. He lost a tooth but he found it again, and he’s put it back now and his nose stopped bleeding a while ago,” Sim’s Will said.

“Tell me how the fight started.”

Sim’s Will recounted a very pathetic tale in which Wee Colin Elliot had snarled scandalous and wounding insults about Red Sandy and Sim’s Will, impugning their birth, breeding, courage and wives. To this unprovoked attack Sim’s Will and Red Sandy had responded with mild reproach, until the evil Wee Colin had sunk so low as to attack the sacred honour of the Deputy Warden, at which point, driven beyond endurance, Red Sandy had tapped him lightly, almost playfully, on the nose and…

Carey rolled his eyes. “Red Sandy hit Wee Colin Elliot first.”

In a manner of speaking, allowed Sim’s Will, you could say that, although the way Wee Colin Elliot had been ranting you could see it was only a matter of seconds before…

“I don’t suppose you found out anything of use before that, did you?” Carey asked.

Sim’s Will Croser’s face was blank for a moment before, rather guiltily, recollection returned. “Ah. No, sir,” he said.

“No rumour of somebody suddenly having quite a lot of guns where before they had none?”

“Nay, sir. Nothing like that. And we did ask before we met…”

“Wee Colin Elliot. God’s truth. Well, you can tell Red Sandy I’ll do what I can to bail you out of there, but since the matter’s ultimately a decision for the Lord Warden of this March, I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Ay, but is that not Lord Maxwell?” said Sim’s Will. “Red Sandy said ye’re friends wi’ him.”

“Well, I was. I’ll see what I can do.”

An attempt to talk to the King at the Mayor’s house produced the information that His Majesty was out inspecting some of his cavalry and likely to go hunting after that.

And so Carey found himself heading for the alehouse known as The Thistle, as crowded as any of the others with the King’s attendants and minor lords. The common room was a bedlam of arguing, dicing and drinking and as no one stopped him, he and Hutchin quietly went and climbed the stairs to the next floor. Four doors off a narrow landing faced him and after listening for a moment, he tried the one on his right. No answer, so he tried the next one and heard Signora Bonnetti’s voice answer, “Chi e? Who is?”

“C’est moi, Emilia,” said Carey, trying the latch and finding the door bolted.

A moment later it opened a crack and Carey stepped through, firmly stopping Hutchin with a hand on the chest.