“Who gave you so much to drink?”
The young jaw stuck out and the adam’s apple bobbed. “Nobody,” he said truculently. “Sir Henry’s still at the Red Boar.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about the arrest of Sir Robert Carey?”
He looked away sullenly, his ears red and his feet twining together as they dangled off the table. Elizabeth went to the almost empty beer barrel, pushed aside the scrawny creature trying pathetically to clean up spillages with a revolting mop and tilted it to get the last of the beer out into a leather mug.
“Drink that,” commanded Elizabeth.
“I’ll puke.”
“You will not,” said his stepmother drily. “You’ll find it has a miraculous effect. Go on.”
With an effort Henry drank, coughed again, wiped his mouth where the incipient fur on his top lip caught the drops and put the mug down.
“Go on, tell me.”
“Well, I had to do it, didn’t I? He’s my father, isn’t he?”
Elizabeth said nothing. Henry sighed.
“Sir Henry rousted us all out about midnight or one o’clock, said he had clear evidence Sir Robert was trafficking guns with the Italian wine merchant.”
“And how did he find out?”
“Roger got the tale from his pageboy.”
“On the pretext that I wanted to know?”
Henry nodded.
“Go on. I shall speak to Roger later.”
“And Sir Henry said Lord Maxwell had confirmed it and was very annoyed because he said Carey had cheated him on the deal. So we went up to the Mayor’s house with him, with father I mean, and waited about a bit and then father came down again with my Lord Spynie and the warrant. We went back to Maxwell’s Castle and Lord Maxwell let us in and we kicked Sir Robert’s door down and there he was with his sword in his hand and his hose and boots on, wanting to know what we wanted.”
“Did he fight?”
“No. Once he’d seen the Privy Seal on the warrant and the signature, he surrendered.”
“What did he say about it? Did he say he was innocent?”
“He didn’t get the chance.”
“How badly was he beaten?”
Henry coughed and looked away again. “Not badly,” he muttered. “I’ve had worse.”
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully. “And where is he now?”
“We took him back to the Mayor’s house again, to the wine cellar. Aside from the Dumfries gaol, which is full, it’s the only lock-up they’ve got here.”
“Where did your father go?”
“He’s off with Lord Spynie and his friends.”
“So you came here and drank yourself asleep, instead of telling me.”
“Father made me swear not to tell you.”
“Oh, did he?”
Clearly Henry did not understand the significance of that, but it lightened Elizabeth’s heart. If Sir Henry didn’t want her to know something that he knew would cause her pain, then there was an excellent reason for it. She could think of only one good enough.
“Smarten yourself up, Henry,” she said with a wintry smile. “Or at least comb your hair. Then find the steward. When I’ve talked to him we’re going to see the King.”
***
Walking alone at dawn into the rough encampment of Johnstones in the part of Dumfries south of Fish Cross, Dodd had not been recognised at once. This was a relief to him since he still had a number of kine and sheep at Gilsland that had once belonged to various Johnstone families. When he insisted that he had important information about the Maxwells that he would give to the laird only, they brought him through the tents to the best one, which had been brightly painted and carried two flags.
The laird was breaking his fast on bread and beer. He was a bony gangling young man with a shock of wiry brown hair and his face prematurely lined with responsibility. His great grandfather, the famous Johnny Johnstone, had been able to put two thousand fighting men in the saddle on the hour’s notice, but the King of those days had taken exception to such power being wielded by a subject. Johnny Johnstone had been inveigled into the King’s presence on a promise of safeconduct and summarily hanged. Now the power of the Johnstones was much less and their bitter enemies the Maxwells were stronger than them.
“Your name?” asked the laird.
Dodd took a deep breath and folded his arms. “Henry Dodd, Land-Sergeant of Gilsland.”
Johnstone’s brown eyes narrowed and his jaw set.
“Ay.”
“I’m here with Sir Robert Carey, Deputy Warden of the English West March.”
“Mphm. Last I heard, ye were staying with the Maxwell.”
“That’s why I’ve come to ye, sir,” said Dodd. “Maxwell’s got the Deputy Warden arrested on a trumped-up charge.”
“Well, ye shouldnae’ve trusted him, should ye?”
“You’re right, sir,” said Dodd bitterly. “But Sir Robert wouldnae listen to me.”
There was a very brief cynical smile. The Johnstone finished his beer.
“And?”
“Did ye know that the Maxwell recently bought at least two hundred firearms, powder and ammunition off Sir Richard Lowther in Carlisle?”
Johnstone wiped his mouth fastidiously. “I had heard something about it. What of it?”
“Would it interest ye to know more about the guns?”
“It might.”
Dodd stood there with his arms folded and his whole spine prickling, and waited.
Johnstone smiled briefly again. “What d’ye want for the information?”
“Your support, sir. Your protection against Maxwell for myself and Sir Robert. Your counsel.”
Johnstone took his time thinking about this, looking Dodd up and down. He had a fair amount to consider, to be fair to him. What Dodd was offering, unauthorised and unstated, was a possible alliance between the Johnstones and the Wardenry of Carlisle. It wasn’t merely a matter of information.
“Hm.”
It all depended on whether the laird had any of the daring of his great grandfather. He would be taking a chance on Dodd’s faith, and the faith of Sir Robert, although Dodd thought he would also be quite grateful for the information as well, once he had it. But there again, the laird could then discard Dodd and Sir Robert if he chose: they were both taking a chance on faith.
Johnstone stared into space for a moment. “Very well,” he said without preamble. “Ye have my backing agin the Maxwells for you and your Deputy Warden, and my counsel for what that’s worth.”
So easily? Dodd was still suspicious. But there was nothing else he could do: he simply had to hope that the laird was a man of his word, unlike Lord Maxwell.
He coughed. “The Maxwell’s weapons are all bad, worse than useless. They explode on the second firing. Maxwell knows this now and he’s got rid of them, but his men have practically no guns as a result.”
Johnstone was sitting utterly still. “Ye’re sure of this?”
“On my honour, sir.”
Johnstone held his gaze for a long moment more. Then he banged his folding table with the flat of his hand and jumped to his feet. “By God,” he laughed. “Let’s have them.”
After that, Dodd was almost forgotten as Johnstone strode from his tent trailing a flurry of orders and the camp began to stir and buzz like a kicked beeskep. Dodd knew he had just broken the strained peace between the two surnames and rekindled what amounted to open civil war in the Scottish West March. It was extremely satisfactory.
***
Carey had been in prison before. Paris had been expensive and in the end his creditors had caught him and thrown him in gaol until his father could send him funds and a scorching letter through the English ambassador. At the time he had been in the depths of misery, cooped up in a filthy crowded communal cell and away from his fascinating Duchesse (who, he found out later, had tired of him in any case). But it had only lasted a couple of weeks and he had not been chained nor in darkness.
He tried to do something about his hands, flexing them and trying to shift the wooden manacles, which made his shoulders cramp and his fingers buzz with pins and needles. He had found out all he needed to know from the German, whatever he was really called-Hans Schmidt was clearly not his name-through a painful process of question and answer, guesswork and elimination. He had been merciless in his quest for hard facts and the exhausted man now slept, moaning softly every so often. Perhaps it would have been sensible to sleep as well, but he couldn’t, not with the stink of wine and pain in his nostrils, and the overwhelming pit of fear in his bowels.