P. Chisholm - A Surfeit of Guns

“Not too much,” she warned, watching his adam’s apple bob. “I haven’t finished yet.”

“What the hell else is there to do?”

“I can make your other fingers feel better if I release the pressure of the blood under the nails.”

He was cradling his left hand against his chest and swaying slightly.

“How?” he asked, not looking at her.

“By making a hole in the nails.”

“Oh, Christ. Are you working for Lord Spynie?”

He meant it as a joke, though it was a very poor one. She tried to smile and failed. She was not enjoying this, although she might have thought she would, given the stupid man’s cavortings with Signora Bonnetti.

“It doesn’t hurt so much,” she managed to say. “My mother did it for me when I caught my hand in a linen chest lid.”

Now he was offended for some reason. “Get on with it then,” he growled.

She got the strongest needle out of the hussif case, sharpened it on the carborundum and slipped the cobbler’s handstall on. There was a candle and tinderbox by the little fireplace. She lit the candle and heated up the end of the needle. The blood that came out from under his thumbs was sullen and dark, so she thought he would keep those nails, but when she drilled through into the nailbed of his right forefinger, the blood spurted up into her face and Carey yelped.

She mopped herself with her makeshift apron, pressed to make sure it was all out and attacked the final one, leaning well away. There was pressure under that one as well. She cleaned them both up, once more fighting the distraction of his body. At last she bade him put just his right hand in the cold water again and wrapped a compress round the thumb of his left hand.

“Are you finished?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll make you a sling when you’re dressed, but I see no point in bandaging your right hand when the bruising doesn’t need it. You can take it out of the water when it stops throbbing. What you need now is to sleep.”

He shook his head, as much to clear it as to dismiss the notion. “What’s the rest of your tale? Who helped make the transfer on the Border? Was it the Littles? And why did they give guns in payment to the Littles who helped them?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Carey explained about Long George and his new pistol and Elizabeth shrugged cynically. “I have no doubt that Long George simply stole one. What else do you expect?”

“All right. So the Scottish weapons are now on the Newcastle wagons and coming into Carlisle with Sir Simon. What happened to the English weapons?”

“Apparently my husband took them north again to Reidswire where he handed them over to Lord Spynie’s men.”

Carey sighed and tilted his head back. “Of course, where else? Put like that, it’s bloody obvious.”

“What is?”

“Everything. Who has our guns, where the bad ones came from, why they were swapped, who killed Long George.”

“Well, I’m glad somebody understands what’s been happening,” said Elizabeth tartly.

He grinned at her, ridiculously pleased with himself again, and kissed her smackingly on the lips.

“You are a woman beyond pearls and beyond price,” he told her, putting his arms around her with great care. “I love you and I will never never chase Italian seductresses again.”

She tried to hang onto her anger, but she couldn’t. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she muttered and he laughed softly.

“Was that tale about your husband what you told the King, to get me out? About the swapping of the firearms?”

“I told him more than that,” she snapped, still unwilling to be mollified. “I told him what you did last month to stop Bothwell’s attempt at kidnapping him. Anyway, all I needed to do was tell him what Spynie was up to. You know the King likes you.”

Carey shrugged, then grinned, tightened his arms around her bearlike. She could feel his heart beating against hers.

“Magnificent, beautiful, capable woman,” he whispered. “Come back to Carlisle with me. Leave your old pig of a husband, come live with me and be my love.”

For a moment she struggled with temptation, more amused than offended by his rapid recovery. He found her mouth, began kissing her intently. Why not, she thought, why not? I’ve taken my punishment for it, why shouldn’t I take the pleasure? She was letting him overwhelm her, she didn’t care that she had the taste of the blood from his lip in her mouth, that he smelled of blood and sweat and surprisingly of wine…And then one of the splints on his fingers jarred on one of the raw places on her back and they both winced away together. He was puzzled, she was suddenly enraged with herself and him.

“No, no, no,” she snapped, jumping up and straightening her cap with shaking fingers. “How can you want me to break my marriage vows that I made in the sight of God?” The words sounded pompous and false because they were false; she knew she would have broken any vow in the world if she could have done it without destroying him.

His face was nakedly distressed. “Because I am so afraid,” he said, quite softly. “I’m…I’m afraid that Sir Henry will kill you or break you before he dies. And I love you.”

Infuriatingly, the door unlocked, opened and two boys and a manservant processed in carrying food: a cockaleekie soup, bread, cheese and some heels of pies, plus a large flagon of mild ale. The manservant stretched his eyes a little, to see her standing beside a half-naked man, even if she was fully dressed.

“Now,” she said, turning to the Scot as businesslike as she could manage, considering that she was trembling and close to tears. “What’s your name?”

“Archie Hamilton, ma’am.”

“Well, Archie, do you think you could act as Sir Robert’s valet de chambre?”

A short pause and then, “Ay, ma’am, I could.”

“Excellent. Clear the table, lay the food. I shall leave while you help him to dress. Be very careful of his hands.”

She walked out with the boys carrying the bowls of dirty water, waited in the little passageway and fought to get control of herself. At last Archie re-emerged and she went in again, quickly made a sling for his arm. They had laid the table for two and she sat herself down again at the other end of the bed, so the table was between them, and dipped some bread in the soup.

Carey was in a plain black wool suit of good quality though a little small for him, with a plain shirt and falling band, a short-crowned black felt hat on his head. He was still pale and moved his left arm as little as possible, but somehow, despite it all, he was in good spirits. He ate and drank as if he were not facing another dangerous interview with the King of Scotland. Elizabeth could only nibble and sip.

“What’s wrong, my lady?” he said. “This is good; it’s from the King’s table, I think. Are you very offended with me?”

She shook her head, but she could see he had thought up something amorous and courtly to say by way of apology and further invitation.

“If I burn with love…” he began and she interrupted him brusquely.

“You’re still a prisoner,” she said. “I can’t think how to get you out.”

He smiled, winced and touched his lip, drank his ale very carefully. Sometimes he was so easy to read: there went the courtly phrases back into the cupboard in his mind marked ‘For soothing offended females (young)’.

“Never you worry about it,” he said, switching to irritating cheeriness. “I know the King and he’s a decent man. It’s hardly treason to sell your enemy eighteen dozen booby traps.”

“Who were they for?”

“The Wild Irish, I expect, poor sods.”

“Don’t you feel sorry for them?”