P. Chisholm - A Surfeit of Guns

Hutchin bit his lip, weighing up his choices. If he ran off, he was as good as killing the Deputy, or worse. He had heard the words of the warrant through the ceiling boards, the ugly frightening phrase ‘high treason’. Sir Henry Widdrington had read it out loudly enough. They did worse than hang you for high treason, he knew, though he had never seen it done. They hanged you first, then they took you down while you were still alive, cut off your cods and burned them in your face and slit your belly and pulled out your guts and then cut you in four bits like a woman making a chicken stew. He had heard tell that if the hangman wasn’t bribed beforehand, he’d let you down before you were more than a little blue and then…Hutchin had seen hangings and more than his share of men dying, but his imagination balked at this. It was true, he had a morbid curiosity to see it done at least once, and envied the apprentice boys in Edinburgh who had more of a chance, but not to the Courtier. He liked the Courtier, soft southerner though he was, and after all, Carey had come after Hutchin when he had been inveigled away from the stables by the young man in tawny taffeta. Carey had appeared at the upstairs window like an avenging angel, while Hutchin was fighting and dodging for his life, had climbed through, punched one of the men and kicked another, giving Hutchin the chance to bite the other man holding him and head-butt a fourth. That had been a good fight, though Hutchin personally would have liked to see Carey’s sword bloodied instead of merely used as a threat.

Never mind, the fact was he had been there as if he were an uncle or an elder brother or something, not just a southern courtier. And Young Hutchin had repaid him by spying for his enemy, Sir Henry Widdrington. That annoyed Hutchin profoundly. He had been taken like a wean by Roger Widdrington, he had naively believed the tale about Lady Widdrington, him -Hutchin Graham, most promising son of the canniest surname on the Border. It was infuriating and shaming. And hardly a word had Carey said to curse him for it, though he was facing arrest by the very man he had no doubt horned, and plainly due to Hutchin’s treason. And now Young Hutchin had the means of freeing him. Or not.

God damn it, thought Hutchin, they were still turning over Carey’s room, what the Devil’s taking them so long? Do they not know how to find good loot in a room? Stupid bastards. He started to pick his teeth with his fingernail. Perhaps he’d be here all night. Perhaps by the time they had finished, the King’s men would have broken Carey’s long legs in the Boot and put him out of hope of ever walking again. Perhaps after a session with Scottish torturers, he would prefer to die, even by hanging, drawing and quartering?

Young Hutchin was getting tired of thinking. He realised that at last the thumps and bangs had stopped. Still moving cautiously, he picked his way through rat droppings and ancient clothes chests to the loose slates and pulled a few out. There was a gutter that seemed firm enough. The curve of the roof hid him from the yard where Widdrington’s men were gathering. With painful slowness he eeled his way out through the small hole and lay full length on the roof, gripping with the toes of his boots and his fingers. He inched his way down until his foot met the edge of the leads, and he could rest his weight on it a little and go sideways to the place where the roof of the bowling alley joined the main building. Although this was a fortified town house, there was no roof platform here for standing siege, only some crenellations and elaborate chimneys, more for show than for use, and a nuisance to climb over.

The bowling alley roof was newer and had no crenellations. At least it was at a flatter pitch and by lying full length and gripping the ridge with his arms at full stretch he could inch himself along and so gain the change from shingle to thatch where the stables began. Arm muscles bulging at the extra weight round his middle, Hutchin let himself down off the bowling alley roof by means of the gutter, watching the pinnings creak and pop. He dropped onto the thatch before the whole lot could come away. The thatch was rotten and he actually went part way through, his feet dangling sickeningly in space, his hands grabbing at one of the cross-ties. A couple of horses whinnied and snorted below.

“Och, the hell with it,” Young Hutchin said to himself, knowing the stables were only one storey high, and he let go of the cross-tie and let himself slide through and rolled into the thick straw between two alarmed horses. Brushing straw and reeds off himself he calmed the animals down, patting them and swearing at them gently under his breath, until he felt the iron prod of a sword in his back and stopped dead.

“Stealing horses again, eh, Young Hutchin?”

“Sergeant Dodd,” said Young Hutchin, his stomach lurching back from his throat with relief.

“Ay. And ye woke me up, ye little bastard.”

The sound of a yawn followed this, so Hutchin cautiously turned about. Sergeant Dodd had bits of straw in his hair and his eyes full of sleep. The hand not holding a sword was scratching fleabites on his stomach and his foul temper in the mornings was legendary.

“It’s a pity the men in the yard didnae do the like then,” Hutchin said in a triumphant hiss. “Sir Henry Widdrington just came with a Royal Warrant and arrested the Deputy Warden.”

The sword didn’t move, but Dodd blinked slightly. He moved to one of the half doors, still keeping his sword pointed at Hutchin, opened it a fraction and looked out. He was just in time to see the last Widdringtons leave the yard and the Maxwells on guard shut the gate behind them.

“What was the charge?” asked Dodd after a moment’s pause.

“High treason and…er…trafficking with enemies.”

Dodd whitened and looked out into the empty yard again.

“I told him,” he muttered. “I told the fool.”

“Ye mean it’s true?” asked Hutchin, impressed. “Is the bill foul then?”

“Near enough.”

“Jesus. What shall we do, Sergeant?”

Dodd appeared to be thinking while he stared at Hutchin. Hutchin hoped very much that the Sergeant wouldn’t notice the thickening round his middle.

“Well, we canna rescue the Courtier this time by calling out the Dodds or even the Grahams,” he said with finality. “This is official business. Who was it came to arrest him?”

“Sir Henry Widdrington and his kin.”

“Was it now? That’s odd.”

Hutchin Graham nodded. “And they were in an awful hurry and it didn’t sound like they knocked him about much.”

“How did you get away?”

“The Courtier put me up under the roof through the trapdoor when he heard them and gave me this to take to Lady Widdrington.” Hutchin showed him the ring on his thumb which he had been admiring for the size of its red stone and the letters of some kind carved in it. “Is it a ruby, d’ye think?”

“Ay, no doubt.”

“What are the letters?”

“RC for Robert Carey,” answered Dodd at once, impressing Young Hutchin for the first time with his clerkly knowledge. “Did he give ye anything else?” Dodd asked casually. Hutchin shook his head. “They’ve got it then,” he said sadly.

“Got what?” asked Hutchin with artful ignorance.

“Nothing to concern ye, lad. Come on.”

“Where to?”

“Out of here first, and out of the town too. I dinna want to end up in the Dumfries hole with the Courtier.”

Hutchin shook his head. “I’m for going to Lady Widdrington,” he heard himself say. “That’s what the Courtier wanted me to do, and that’s what I’ll do.”

“Ye’ll come with me, lad.”

“Where are you going?”

Dodd thought for a moment. “If the Maxwells are agin ye, who’s most like to back ye?” he asked rhetorically. Hutchin nodded. It made sense to try the Johnstones. “Do you know a good way out of this place? Is there a garden gate?”