Carey rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb. ‘This is no restful sinecure I think,’ he said.

‘Did you think it would be?’

Carey laughed. ‘Christ, no, or I’d never have come.’

‘Don’t swear, Robin, you’re getting worse than Father.’

‘He warned me that things were rotten here, but he didn’t know the details.’

‘How would he, staying warm in London with the Queen and messing about with players.’

‘Why Philly, you sound bitter.’

She put her face in her hands.

‘John does his best in the East March but...’

‘He makes an ass of himself from time to time and the Berwick townsmen can’t stand him, I know.’

‘We need Father to run a good strong Warden’s Raid,’ said his sister ferociously, ‘burn all their towers down for them. Then they’d behave.’

Carey put his arm round her shoulders and held her tight.

‘You don’t need Father, you’ve got me, Philly my dear,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘You won’t let him make you leave?’ She was blinking up at him with a frown.

Carey sucked wind through his teeth. ‘If the Queen orders me back to Westminster, you know I have to go.’

‘She won’t, will she?’

‘Not if we can forestall whatever Lowther writes to Burghley.’

‘You could send a letter with the Berwick men and have John put it in his usual package to London.’

‘Yes,’ said Carey, thoughtfully, ‘I’ll do that.’ He yawned. ‘I’ll do it in the morning before I go out with Dodd. There’ll be no time later, I want to inspect my men before I call a paymuster for them. And I must go to bed, Philly, or I’ll fall asleep here and you’ll have to turf Nurse out of her trundle bed and put me in it.’

Philly grinned at him. ‘Nonsense, she’d carry you down the stairs on her back and dump you with the other servants in the hall and then she’d give you a thick ear in the morning.’

‘She would,’ Carey said as he stood up, and kissed his sister on the forehead. ‘Thank you for your good word to Scrope.’

‘You don’t mind that I made him send for you?’

‘Sweetheart, you did me the best favour a sister could, you got me out of London and saved my life.’

‘Oh?’ said Philly naughtily, ‘And who was she?’

‘None of your business. Good night.’

MONDAY, 19TH JUNE, MORNING

Dawn came to Carlisle with a feeble clearing of the sky and a wind to strip the skin and cause a dilemma over cloaks: wear one, be marginally warmer and risk having it ripped from your back by a gust, or leave it off and freeze. Dodd put on an extra shirt, a padded doublet and his better jack and decided to freeze.

Carey was already in the stableyard when he arrived, between two of the castle’s rough-coated hobbies, checking girth straps and saddle leathers and passing a knowledgeable hand down the horses’ legs. He had on a clean but worn buff jerkin, his well-cut suit of green wool trimmed with olive velvet and his small ruff was freshly starched. He looked repulsively sprightly.

‘Do you never shoe your horses, Sergeant?’ he asked as Dodd came into view.

Dodd considered an explanation and decided against it. ‘No sir.’ Carey patted a foreleg and lifted the foot to inspect the sturdy, well-grown hoof. He smiled quizzically and Dodd relented a little. ‘Not hobbies, sir.’

‘I like a sure-footed horse myself,’ said Carey agreeably and mounted.

Privately deciding to send Red Sandy out to Gilsland to warn Janet of a possible raid by Jock of the Peartree if he hadn’t found the dead man by the evening, Dodd cleared his throat.

‘Different from London I doubt, sir.’

Carey was deep in thought. ‘Hm? London? Yes. Have you ever been there?’

‘No sir. I’ve been to Edinburgh though, carrying messages.’

‘What did you think of the place?’

Dodd tried to be just. ‘It had some fair houses. Too many...’

‘Scots?’

‘Er... people.’

Carey grinned. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many people there are in London. And every man jack of them with some complaint to bring as a petition to Her Majesty.’

‘You’ve been at Court, sir?’

‘Too much. However, the Queen likes me, so I do the best I can.’

Dodd struggled for a moment, then gave in. ‘What’s she like, the Queen?’

Carey raised an eyebrow. ‘Well,’ he said consideringly, ‘a scurvy Scotsman might say she is a wild old bat who knows more of governorship and statecraft than the Privy Councils of both realms put together, but I say she is like Aurora in her beauty, her hair puts the sun in splendour to shame, her face holds the heavens within its compass and her glance is like the falling dew.’

‘You say that do you, sir?’

‘Certainly I do, frequently, and she laughs at me, tells me that I am her Robin Redbreast and I’m a naughty boy and too plainspoken for the Court.’

‘Christ.’

‘And then I kiss her hand and she bids me rise and tells me that my brother is being tedious again and my father should get up to Berwick and birch him well, and that poor fool of a boy Thomas Scrope apparently wants me for a deputy in the West March, which shows he has at least enough sense to cover his little fingernail, which surprised her, and what would I say to wasting my life on the windswept Borders chasing cattle-thieves.’

‘What did you say, sir?’ Dodd asked, fascinated. Carey’s eyes danced.

‘I groaned, covered my face, fell to my knees and besought her not to send me so far from her glorious countenance, although if it were not for the sorrow of leaving her august presence, I would rejoice in wind, borders and cattle-thieves, and if she be so hard of heart as to drive me away from the fountain of her delight, then I shall go and serve her with all my heart and soul and try and keep Scrope out of trouble.’