‘Hm,’ he said.

‘Is that all? Hm? I think that’s what happened, don’t you?’

‘Ay, perhaps.’

‘Why don’t you agree?’

‘I didna say I dinnae agree.’

‘You don’t look as if you do.’

It occurred to Dodd that perhaps one of the things you learnt at Court was bald-headed persistence. Certainly Carey had that. He gave up trying to keep his counsel. After all, the Deputy kept saying he wanted to know Dodd’s opinion.

‘Ay well, sir, it’s in the character. He’s no’ a clever courtier like yourself, sir, Andy isnae. He’s a fine wrestler and a bonny fighter...’

‘So everybody keeps telling me.’

‘But he’s no’ a clever man. If he was angered enough to kill Jemmy Atkinson then he wisnae cool enough to think out all yon about gloves and knives.’

‘Perhaps Pennycook helped him.’

‘Ay. Perhaps. Will ye ask him yet?’

Sighing deeply Dodd finished his quart and followed Carey on his self-imposed mission to prevent the Deputy getting a knife in the ribs before he had a chance to do for Lowther.

***

They went straight to Maggie Mulcaster’s house, across the road from the shut-up Atkinsons’ place, and found Kate’s little girl Mary sitting by the door very slowly shelling peas. She had her tongue stuck out and she held her breath every time she pressed open a peapod which made her gasp occasionally when she forgot to breathe again.

Mary looked up at Carey and immediately flinched back. Her face crumpled up and she started to cry. The bowl slipped off her knees and Dodd bent down just in time to catch it from going into the mud.

Dodd squatted in front of her and put the bowl down on the doorstep.

‘Mary, Mary,’ he said gently, ‘d’ye know me?’

She nodded, very big-eyed. ‘You’re Mrs Dodd’s bad-tempered husband.’

Carey, who had looked glum at finding the little maid frightened of him, grinned at this, though Dodd failed to see what was funny.

She nodded and then shook her head. ‘She’s gone to fetch in Clover. She said it wis soft to leave her in our garden since there’s nobody there and she’s need of the milk as well for the extra pack of weans the Deputy put to her, the southern bugger, and what was he thinkin’ of arresting Kate and her a poor widow and us poor orphans. And I’m shelling peas,’ she finished with a sunny smile.

It faded and she shrank back again because the Deputy Warden had sat himself down on the step beside her. He took off his hat, put it beside him and scratched vigorously at his head. There wasn’t room for Dodd so he leaned against the wall.

‘Is it true you know the Queen, sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Carey simply. ‘She’s my aunt.’

Mary’s mouth opened, revealing a gap where she had lost one of her teeth.

‘What does she look like?’

Carey took a penny out of his belt-pouch, tossed it up and showed her the head.

‘She looks like that only her skin is pink and white and her hair is red.’

‘Does she really have a hundred smocks and kirtles and petticoats?’

‘More like a thousand.’

Mary’s mouth opened wider. ‘Why?’

‘People give them to her because they know she likes to look pretty.’

‘What colours are they?’

‘Most of them are black and white with some different coloured trimming, but some of them are cloth of gold or cloth of silver and a lot of them have pearls sewn on them loose enough to drop off when she walks.’

‘Why?’

‘So people will pick them up and keep them and remember her by them.’

‘Will she come here?’

‘It’s very unlikely. She doesn’t travel so much now she’s... er... a little older.’

Dodd had learnt enough about the Queen from Carey by now to know that mentioning her age was skimming dangerously close to treason as far as Her Majesty was concerned.

‘Is she very old?’

‘She was already a grown woman and Queen when I was born. But she’s still beautiful,’ said Carey diplomatically.

‘Will she die soon?’

‘It isn’t polite to talk about it.’

‘How many gowns has she got?’

‘A couple of hundred, most of them made of velvet.’

‘Like your doublet?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like your clothes. They’re pretty. Do you have lots of pretty clothes like the Queen?’

‘Not nearly as many,’ said Carey straight-faced. ‘And not a tenth as pretty.’

‘Why are your hose so fat?’