Barnabus looked about him and evidently found this a bit hard, but he decided to say nothing, which was wise of him, Dodd thought, considering Carey’s expression of disgust. At that moment there was a complicated rattle of keys and the gaoler let Lady Scrope into the cell. She looked around, sniffed and shouted over her shoulder, ‘Mr Barker, bring a bucket and spade in here.’

Dodd helpfully moved out of the cell so there was room for Barker who came in eventually with a bucket and spade borrowed from the stables.

‘Pick that up and take it out of here,’ said Lady Scrope, pointing imperiously at the turds by the drain.

‘That, my lady?’ said the youth unhappily.

‘Yes, that. It’s causing bad airs. Quickest way to get gaol fever in a place, which you could catch as well, William Barker, and die of, what’s more. So clean it up.’

‘Me, my lady?’

Lady Scrope put her basket down on the wooden bench next to Barnabus and her hands on the bumroll padding out her hips.

‘I’m not going to do it and nor is my brother. Barnabus can’t because he’s been chained. So that leaves you or Sergeant Dodd to fight it out between you, and personally, I’m backing Dodd.’

Dodd put his head round the door and fixed Barker with a glare that settled the matter. Mumbling that it wasnae his job and an insult forbye, Barker used the spade and bucket and slumped out of the door.

‘I’ll stand guard while you put that on the midden heap,’ said Dodd, wondering briefly if this were some complex way of breaking Barnabus out of jail. No, why be so elaborate about it? If he was going to defy all of Scrope’s authority and the law of the land into the bargain, the Deputy Warden could simply unlock the doors.

Philadelphia turned to Barnabus and briskly examined his eyes, mouth and ears, felt his forehead and wrist and demanded that he undo his doublet buttons and lift his shirt so she could inspect the bruises on his body.

Carey whistled with sympathy and muttered something about bringing a suit for assault against Lowther on Barnabus’s behalf.

That made Carey look depressed and thoughtful for a moment. His sister took the cloth off her basket and brought out a couple of black leather bottles. Barnabus rolled his eyes as she poured two horn cupfuls of what looked like bogwater.

‘Don’t look so worried, Barnabus,’ Philadelphia added. ‘My lord Warden has already refused Lowther permission to put you to the question so nothing else is going to happen to you.’ Barnabus swallowed stickily. ‘Now what else is wrong with you?’ she demanded, putting her hand on his forehead again. ‘You’re running a fever. Have you got a headache?’

‘No, my lady,’ croaked Barnabus. ‘I’m sore, but...’

‘Stick your tongue out.’

Barnabus did and Philadelphia squinted at it critically. ‘Hm,’ she said. ‘Have you been vomiting or purging, or passing blood in your water?’

Barnabus hesitated and looked at Carey.

‘Not blood, my lady.’

Philadelphia frowned. ‘What then?’

‘Er... nothing.’

‘Barnabus,’ growled Carey. ‘If you’ve...’

‘Shut up, please, Robin,’ said Philadelphia to her brother. ‘Now please don’t play me for a fool, Barnabus. You’re not well and you have to tell me everything that ails you. I’m worried you might be coming down with a gaol fever.’

Remembering the gaol fever he had caught on board ship after he had gone to fight the Armada in 1588, which had almost killed him, Carey looked carefully at Barnabus again, then shook his head.

‘No. You see, Philly, he’s been in gaol before.’

‘Born there,’ said Barnabus with some satisfaction. ‘It can’t be gaol fever, my lady. I’ve had both kinds and it’s like the smallpox; you don’t get it twice.’

‘Well then, what’s the matter with your water?’

‘Er...’ Barnabus looked at the ground. ‘I’m pissing green, my lady. And... er... it hurts.’

There was a penetrating silence. ‘I expect it’s because of Lowther...’ Carey began.

‘Unless Lowther’s a worse man than I take him for, that’s not Lowther. That’s the clap.’

Neither Carey nor Barnabus knew where to look, while Dodd by the door listened in fascination.

‘It’s that bawdy house, isn’t it? Madam Hetherington’s? The one Scrope sneaks off to occasionally?’

Both Barnabus and Carey made an extraordinary strangulated noise.

‘And I suppose you’ve got a dose too, have you, Robin?’ demanded Philadelphia in withering tones.

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Carey with great emphasis. ‘For God’s sake, Philly...’

‘Don’t swear. Well, Barnabus, there is nothing whatever anybody can do for the clap, no matter what they say, except let nature take its course. You should drink as much mild beer as you can and eat plenty of garlic to clean your blood. You’ll have to give him lighter duties until he’s better, Robin. Anyway, he should rest for today and I think his nose may need resetting eventually. Drink this.’

Barnabus meekly drank down one cup of bogwater and looked relieved when the other cup turned out to be a lotion to put on his nose and face. Carey recognised the smell as the same stuff Philadelphia had been painting him with all the previous week. As far as he could tell it had done him no harm.

Baker came back from the midden and at Philadelphia’s bidding, put the bucket inside the cell where Barnabus could reach it and use it. Carey snapped his fingers for the bunch of keys he carried, took it and unlocked the chains around Barnabus’s ankles.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Barnabus, rubbing his legs and stretching. ‘I hate to scour the cramp-rings.’

‘Nobody chains my servant,’ said Carey ominously, ‘except me. So watch it, Barnabus.’

They came out, Carey still carefully not meeting Philadelphia’s eyes. Dodd was as straight-faced as he knew how, though he thought that Barnabus was getting undeserved soft treatment.

‘Have you fed the other two prisoners, Mr Barker?’ he asked.

‘Oh ay, sir. They got garrison food, same as Barnabus.’

Poor bastards, thought Dodd. When Janet turns up I’ll send her in with some proper vittles.

‘Did ye want to talk to ’em, sir?’ he asked.

Carey thought about it. ‘No, I don’t think so, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘I need more information.’

And where was he proposing to get it if he didn’t even want to talk to his prisoners, Dodd wondered sourly, but didn’t ask. Philadelphia remained quiet as they walked out of the dungeons and into the silky morning sunlight, all washed clean by the rainstorms of the previous day. She looked about and sighed.

‘You called me from checking over the flax harvest, Robin,’ she said. ‘So I’m going back to it.’

Carey nodded, with the expression of a man who wants to say something comforting but doesn’t quite know how. He remembered the report he had written for Scrope and gave it to Philadelphia to pass on to her husband. She tossed her head, took it and marched off across the yard, trying to pull her apron straight as she went. Dodd felt he was not called upon to comment and so he followed Carey silently as he strode down to the Keep gate and past Bessie’s into Carlisle town.

WEDNESDAY, 5TH JULY 1592, MORNING