A Surfeit of Guns by P.F. Chisholm

A Surfeit of Guns picks up the afternoon of the day after the end of A Season of Knives; P.F. Chisholm gives her protagonist Sir Robert Carey no time to rest. In fact, she sends him off on a night patrol that of course turns out to be eventful, though not in the ways that everyone present expects. Like the first two books about Sir Robert, A Surfeit of Guns gallops at a furious pace, through intrigue, clan alliances, hair-trigger tempers and the ubiquitous corruption of the lands near the border between England and Scotland. In this particular set of escapades, a shipment of guns has come up from the south, a delivery from Queen Elizabeth to the Warden of her borderlands so that he may better keep the peace. Unfortunately, Sir Robert — the Deputy Warden and the only one in those parts to have met the fearsome Queen in person — is away on the aforementioned night patrol when the guns come in. Bad luck for Carey? Or an unusually canny move by the usually somnolent Warden?

It is quite some time before Carey contemplates that question about his sister’s husband, and his nominal superior in the government of the Marches. Or rather, quite a lot happens before Carey contemplates that question, because A Surfeit of Guns, like its predecessors, takes place over a little more than a week, and events come fast and furious. It’s a delight to see Carey put things together, as they start out looking very odd indeed. Who is the mysterious German-speaker that his night patrol encounters? And why is the favorite of the King of Scotland hot on his trail? A lot happens before Carey begins to find the answers to those questions, too, and by that time he is in quite deep.

Deep, too, are the habits of the borders. When the Scottish king’s favorite heads back across with their quarry, Sergeant Dodd points out that it’s very likely another Scottish party will soon follow to scoop up some livestock from the English side and claim that they were part of what the lawful first party had recovered.

“You mean there might be a Scots raiding party following the Earl of Mar’s trail so they can claim they’re legally coming into England as part of the pursuit?” Carey asked carefully.
Dodd clearly wondered why he was belabouring something so obvious. “Ay, about an hour or so,” he agreed. “To let the … excitement die down, see.”
“I do see, Sergeant. Do you think they’ll come by here?”
Dodd’s wooden expression told Carey he had asked another stupid question.
“Only, ye can mix the trails about, sir.”
“Fine. What would you suggest, Sergeant?”
Dodd’s suggestion took shape …
“We can’t actually stop them coming south,” Carey said while the others cleared the ground of their own tracks. “They haven’T committed any crime and they’re following a lawful hot trod, so…”
Dod and his brother Red Sandy exchanged patient glances.
“No, see, sir, if we stop them before they’ve lifted aught, then we’ll get nae fee for it, will we? We’ll stop them after.”
“I see. Very interesting. Do you ever … arrange for raids, so you can stop them and get the fees for them=”
“Ay, sir,” said Sandy. “Why, last year the Sergeant and…”
Dodd coughed loudly.
“… ay, well, Lowther’s done it,” his brother finished, managing to look virtuously indignant. “But we wouldnae, would we, Sergeant?”
Even in the darkness, Dodd’s glare could have withered a field of wheat. (pp. 503–04, page numbers from the omnibus volume Guns in the North)

Along with deepening the understanding between Carey and Dodd, Chisholm retains the virtues of the first two books. She has always been good about making the complex web of relationships along and across the border clear; with two previous volumes of engagement with the recurring characters I felt more strongly invested in their actions and fates. I also appreciated them being themselves: Carey’s servant Barnabas skiving and thieving when he can, but also defending his master. In this book Chisholm also does a better job remembering just how short nights are in mid-July at the latitudes of the Scottish-English border, something that I thought she overlooked in the first two.

The action takes Carey across the border into the court of James VI, a canny monarch who knows his subjects well, even as he hopes to succeed Queen Elizabeth and unite his throne with the far richer English one. International perspective comes from an Italian merchant:

… hardly any of the illiterate savages of Scotland could speak Italian and many of them only spoke halting French with a nasal drawl that would have disgraced a Fleming. A generation ago they had been better cultured, when their alliance with France was strong and they had the wisdom of Mother Church to guide them. The foul heresy of Protestantism had sealed them up in their poor little country to stew in their own juices. And the King was no better than his nobles, though he at least had Italian and French (pp. 660–61)

Signore Bonnetti, it turns out, is also interested in guns.

By and by, Carey is to have an audience with the King, whom he knows from years past when he spent some time as a young man in James’ dangerous court. Before the audience, though, Carey shares some private moments with Lady Widdrington, his true love who is inconveniently both married and true to to her despotic husband. At least, Carey thinks they are private, but in truth King James likes to eavesdrop on people he is about to meet with, and so he does with Carey and Lady Widdrington.

Some might have held [eavesdropping] undignified in a monarch: James held that nothing a monarch did could be undignified, since his dignity came from God’s appointment.
This time, as he descended the narrow backstairs and stepped to his own suite of rooms, he wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or pleased. That Carey turned out to be a lecherous sinner was not a surprise to him, that Lady Widdrington was a virtuous wife astounded him. He was saddened that Carey was clearly a hopeless prospect for his own bed, but he did not want to make the mistake with him that he had as a younger and more impatient King with the Earl of Bothwell. And Carey had called him ‘a decent man.’ It was a casual appraisal, something James had been taught to think of as almost blasphemous, but the accolade pleased him oddly because it was spoken innocently, in private and could not be self-interested. And further, it seemed that both of them were honest. Yes, there was disappointment that his suspicions were wrong; but on the other hand, honest men and women were not common in his life, they had all the charm of rarity. (pp. 720–21)

King James is also very interested in guns. At the end of the royal interview, Carey is very close to sorting out just how many guns are floating around the borders, who wants them, who has them, what they intend to do with them, and what is likely to happen as a result. Plus he may even survive to tell the tale, despite several people’s dedicated efforts to prevent that outcome. A Surfeit of Guns is just as satisfying as its predecessors. There are seven more books in the series, and I am very happy there is so much more to read.

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I read A Surfeit of Guns as part of the omnibus volume Guns in the North, which is more readily available these days.