3 A Surfeit of Guns: A Sir Robert Carey Mystery (8 page)

Two men crept out of the Queen Mary Tower, one tall and leggy, the other short and squat. The tall one was carrying a dark lantern, fully shuttered so only occasional sparkles of light escaped. His face made a patch of white against darkness as he looked up at Solomon, who lifted his shortened upper arm and nodded.

Carey hadn’t felt it necessary to explain why he had paid Solomon to keep watch, but it was no surprise that he and his short henchman padded quietly to the Armoury door. Carey was trying a key in the lock, but it seemingly no longer fitted. He stepped aside and the smaller man took something in his hand and jiggled it into the keyhole. Shortly afterwards there was a stealthy sequence of clicks and the door opened.

There was a sound from the barracks. The taller man tensed, touched his companion on the shoulder. Out of the barracks door came the unmistakable slouching rangy form of Sergeant Dodd. He padded across the courtyard, there was a low conversation and then they all disappeared inside the armoury.

Solomon nodded to himself. He had served under the new Deputy’s father, Lord Hunsdon, during the revolt of the Northern Earls, and he remembered Carey as a boy of about nine, perpetually in trouble, normally hanging about the stables and kennels while his tutor searched for him. The boy was father to the man there, no doubt about it. He grinned reminiscently. On a famous occasion, the young Robin had decided to try reiving for himself, along with his half-brother Daniel. The thing had ended unhappily, with Lord Hunsdon having to pay for the beast and the boys eating their dinners standing up for days afterwards.

Down in the armoury, Carey carefully unshuttered the horn-paned lantern and looked about at the racks.

“Well, they’re here at least,” he said to Dodd softly, as dull greased metal gleamed back at him from all around.

“Ay, sir,” whispered Dodd. “Shall we go now?”

“Not yet, Sergeant.”

Carey nodded at Barnabus who carefully took down the nearest caliver and handed it to him. “We’re going to mark them, carve a cross at the base of the stocks.”

“All of them, sir?”

“That’s right.”

“But it’ll take a’ night…”

“Not if we get started now.”

“Ay, sir,” said Dodd with a sigh.

There was quiet for a while, with the occasional clatter of a dropped weapon and a curse when somebody’s hand slipped. At the end of an hour and a half, Dodd put his knife away.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Hm? Yes, I think so. Barnabus, did you bring those calivers I gave you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give them here then.”

Carey took two guns at random from the middle of the rack and replaced them with Barnabus’s weapons. He held up the lantern and although the replacements had darker-coloured stocks, they would likely not be noticed by someone who was simply counting weapons.

From outside came a low significant sound of an owl hooting. Carey shuttered the lantern immediately, put his fingers to his lips. Feet crunched past the armoury in the yard, someone yawned loudly outside. They stood like statues.

There was the sound of muttered conversation, a scraping and clattering of firewood bundles and then the heavier, laden footsteps walking away again. Moments later came another owl hoot.

“The baker, of course,” said Carey to himself and yawned. “We’re finished here, gentlemen.” Dodd surreptitiously mopped some sweat off his forehead while Carey slipped the lantern shutters closed and went to the door, peered out cautiously. A cat was sitting in the middle of the empty yard, watching something invisible. It too yawned and trotted away as the three men slipped out of the armoury.

“I’ll meet you an hour before dawn, then, Sergeant.”

“Ay, sir,” said Dodd on another martyred sigh.

Solomon was turning the heel of his sock when he heard the lock snick shut, and then one set of soft footsteps approaching. The once amateur reiver turned Deputy Warden loomed over him in the darkness, smelling of black velvet, metal and gunoil.

A small purse made a pleasant chink on the ground beside him.

“Are ye satisfied, sir?” asked Solomon when he was safely past the tricky bit in his knitting.

“Hm? Yes, for the moment. Will you be at the muster tomorrow?”

“Ay, sir, I’m on the strength after all. Garrison, non-combatant.”

“Anything or anyone I should watch out for?”

Solomon’s sniff was eloquent. “Where should I start?”

Carey laughed softly. “I know I’m not popular.”

“Ay. Ye can say that. What was ye at wi’ the guns, sir?”

There was a long silence while Carey considered this. After a moment Solomon realised why and chuckled again.

“Och, sir, ye’ve no need to fear my tongue. Who was it opened the gate for ye when ye and yer half brother brought back that cow?”

Carey coughed. “Lord,” he said, “I’d forgotten that.”

“Had ye? Yer dad failed his purpose then, which wouldnae be like him.”

Apart from a reminiscent snort, Carey didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’ve marked the guns so that if I ever capture a reiver carrying one of them, I’ll know where it came from.”

Solomon almost dropped a stitch as he choked with laughter.

“Ay,” he said. “Ay, ye’ll know.”

Carey thought this was tribute to his ingenuity. There was smugness in his voice as he went back to the ladder.

“Good night, Solomon.”

“Ay, sir,” wheezed the gate guard, shaking his head.

Sunday 9th July 1562, before dawn

Dodd found Carey was either up before him, or more likely hadn’t bothered to try and snatch an extra two hours’ sleep at all. Probably very sensible of him, Dodd thought sadly to himself as he tottered over to the well to slake his thirst in the dark blue predawn. He hated drinking water in the morning, especially from a bucket, but it was too early for the buttery in the Keep to be open and he was desperate. One of the stable lads was waiting in the courtyard, holding two of the horses from the stables, who were stamping and shaking their heads unco-operatively. The boy was yawning enough to split his face.

“Now then,” croaked Dodd.

“Morning, Sergeant,” said the boy with a cheeky grin.

Dodd grunted and washed his face, shivering at the coldness and slimy taste of the water, dried himself on his shirt-tails. He had slept in his hose after their midnight raid on the armoury, which always left him feeling ugly, quite apart from his sorely-missed rest.

“Ahah,” said Carey, appearing at the door of the Queen Mary Tower with his dags in their case and Barnabus behind him with a heavy bag no doubt containing the borrowed calivers. “Good morning, Dodd. If you can get yourself dressed in time, you can come with us.”

He strapped the firearms onto the hobby in front of the saddle, and checked the girth. There were already ten leather flasks of gunpowder slung over the pony’s back. Dodd went back into the new barracks for his clothes, wondering what demon it was that got into the Courtier early in the morning and how he could kill it. Carey jumped into the saddle, just as Dodd slouched out of the barracks once more with his blue woollen statute cap pulled down to protect his eyes, lacing up his jerkin and hating people who were happy at dawn.

“How long will this take, sir?” moaned Dodd.

“Only an hour or so,” Carey explained, blowing on the glowing end of the coil of slowmatch he had slung over his shoulder. “I’m doing some target shooting. Are you coming or not?”

Dodd supposed he had to now. “Ay, sir.”

“Well, hurry up, I don’t want a mob going with me.”

They went out through the sally-port to which Carey had the key and rode round to the fenced-off racecourse. Dodd had lost more money there than he cared to think about.

They left their horses at the other end of the course, securely tied. Then they went down to the end where the archery butts and the new shooting range were set up.

It turned out that what Carey really wanted was to see how well Dodd could shoot with the Courtier’s own wheel-lock dags. Dodd thoroughly disliked firearms, and once he had warmed a little to the argument was a stout defender of longbows.

“See ye, sir,” he said, as Carey demonstrated how to wind up the lock which spun a wheel against the iron pyrites in the clamp, making the sparks that supposedly lit the fine powder in the pan and thus fired the gun. “See ye, an arrow kills ye just as deid as a bullet and I can put a dozen in the air while ye’re fiddling about with yer keys and all, sir.”

“Well, try it anyway, Sergeant.”

“Och, God,” said Dodd under his breath, who hated loud noises in the morning. He took the dag, sighted along the barrel to the target and fired. The kick was not as brutal as a caliver, but the boom and the smell of gunpowder made his eyes water. Carey had the armoury caliver and was loading it briskly, lit the match in the lock, put the stock on his shoulder, took a sideways stance and aimed the gun. The roar nearly blew the top of Dodd’s head off and a hole appeared in the target, irritatingly close to the bull. Dodd’s bullet had puffed sand and sawdust a yard below the target.

Behind them the market traders from the city were setting up their stalls ready for the muster, being chivvied into their proper pitches by harassed aldermen’s servants. They had looked up at the sound of guns, but turned back to their own affairs once they saw that nobody was attacking.

“Firearms are the future, Sergeant,” said Carey didactically, while Dodd carefully swabbed, charged, loaded and wound up the dag again. “Anyone who’s fought on the Continent knows that.”

“The future?” repeated Dodd, thoroughly confused.

“It takes five years to make a longbowman and six weeks to make an arquebusier, it’s as simple as that. This time remember it isn’t a bow, you don’t need to aim low at this distance. Think of a straight line from the muzzle to the bull.”

While he talked he was reloading the caliver, each movement precise, identical and rhythmic. Dodd watched, recognising something new in the way he did it. Carey smiled.

“Dutch drill,” he explained as he finished. “I’m planning to teach it to you and the men once we get hold of the guns.” He stood square to the target, lifted and lowered the caliver to his shoulder and squinted as he aimed.

“
Christ
!” yelled Dodd and made a wild swipe with his arm which knocked the weapon out of Carey’s hands. It clattered to the ground and the match fizzed on the spilled powder.

“What the Devil do you think you’re doing…?” Carey demanded, cold and furious.

Dodd stamped on the match end with the toe of his boot and then picked up the caliver gingerly. He could feel his knees shaking and his stomach turning.

“Look, sir,” he said, trying not to stammer. “There’s a crack in the barrel.”

Carey looked and his face went white. He took the caliver out of Dodd’s hands, and turned it, traced the death-dealing weakness all along the underside of the gun.

“Thank you, Henry,” he said at last, in the whisper of someone whose mouth has gone completely dry. “I see it.”

Dodd turned, aimed the dag he was still holding and discharged it, this time at least hitting the target now he wasn’t trying. Carey was staring at the caliver which had nearly blown his hands and face to shreds. It was still charged. Dodd put the dags back in their case on Carey’s horse, as Carey began very carefully using the ramrod to scrape out the wad and bullet and shake the gunpowder onto the ground. When it was empty he blew out his breath gustily and small blame to him if he had been holding it in.

“And that’s something else ye have nae fear of wi’ longbows,” Dodd added, unable to resist making the point.

“True,” admitted Carey very softly. “True enough.”

Dodd met the piercing blue eyes and knew that both of them were thinking of Long George and his mysterious pistol.

They rode back to the castle in silence. Carey went straight up to the Queen Mary Tower, still holding the caliver and also taking the one that hadn’t been fired. When Dodd came up to fetch him, ready for duty at the muster, he found the Deputy Warden still in his doublet and bent over his desk.

“What are ye doing, sir?” asked Dodd cautiously, wondering if Carey had gone mad. The desk was covered over with bits of metal and various tools.

Carey was muttering to himself. “Look at this,” he said eventually. “The barrel metal’s not thick enough and it’s not been hammered out straight. And the forge-welding of the underseam is appalling. Look, it’s got a hairline crack along its length, see, where the wood can hide it.”

“Is that the one that was faulty, sir?”

“No. This has never been fired.”

Never mind Carey, Henry Dodd himself might have pulled its trigger and ended up worse off than Long George. He felt queasy again.

“Ay.”

Carey was peering squint-eyed at another piece of metal. “This is very cheap and nasty,” he said, prodding it with one of his little tools. “See how it scratches. I doubt it was case-hardened at all. I can’t believe they ever came from the Tower. Nor even Newcastle.”

“Nor Dumfries, sir,” added Dodd, puzzling his poor aching head.