A Surfeit of Guns by Chisholm P F

Author:Chisholm, P F [Chisholm, P F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2012-05-08T21:00:00+00:00

“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?”

Hutchin thought about this professionally. “I heard tell from one of the other boys there’s a way by the new bowling alley, that Maxwell had built from the old monastery stone. The wall there’s nobbut the monastery wall and they werenae too choosy how they treated it.”

Dodd nodded. “If I can make it back to Carlisle, we’ll get the Warden to write to the King and see if we can ransom him out of there.”

Hutchin’s face twisted. “That’s nae good,” he said. “Once it goes to the Warden, then he’s done for one way or the other, for the Queen will hear of it.”

Dodd had put on his jack and his helmet, giving him the familiar comforting silhouette of a fighting man, though the quilting on the leather was different from the Graham pattern. Now he was busy bundling up the shape of a man in the corner where he had been sleeping, out of straw and his cloak.

“Lad,” said Dodd gravely, almost kindly, “we cannae spring the Courtier out of the King’s prison.”

“Why not? Ye saved him from my uncle when he was trapped on Netherby tower.”

“That was different. Your uncle’s one thing, the King’s another.”

“I dinnae see why,” said Hutchin stubbornly. “They’re both men that have other men to do their bidding, only the King’s got more.”

“That’s enough, Young Hutchin. We canna rescue the Courtier again because…Anyway, what can a woman do about it?”

“He wanted me to take the ring to Lady Widdrington, so he must think she can do something. And that…” said Hutchin virtuously, the decision somehow made for him by Dodd’s opposition, “…is what I’ll do, come ye or any man agin me.”

He slipped under the horse’s belly and whisked to the rear door that led to the midden heap. Sword still in his hand, Dodd didn’t try to stop him, so Hutchin checked that the backyard was clear and the Maxwells were watching outwards, and then turned again to the Sergeant with an impish grin.

“He gets in a powerful lot of trouble, doesn’t he?” he said. “For a Deputy Warden.”

“Ay.”

Friday 14th July 1592, dawn

Elizabeth Widdrington always woke well before dawn to rise in the darkness and say her prayers. In the tiny Dumfries alehouse where they were lodging, it was easier for her to do it: firstly her husband had been out much of the night and had not been there to disturb her sleep with his snoring and moaning and occasional ineffectual fumbling. Secondly the new belting he had given her on top of the old ones the night before had kept her from sleeping very well in any case.

Fastening her stays was always the hardest part, as she pulled the laces up

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