‘Yes, sir.’

‘Give them here then.’

Carey took two guns at random from the middle of the rack and replaced them with Barnabus’s weapons. He held up the lantern and although the replacements had darker-coloured stocks, they would likely not be noticed by someone who was simply counting weapons.

From outside came a low significant sound of an owl hooting. Carey shuttered the lantern immediately, put his fingers to his lips. Feet crunched past the armoury in the yard, someone yawned loudly outside. They stood like statues.

There was the sound of muttered conversation, a scraping and clattering of firewood bundles and then the heavier, laden footsteps walking away again. Moments later came another owl hoot.

‘The baker, of course,’ said Carey to himself and yawned. ‘We’re finished here, gentlemen.’ Dodd surreptitiously mopped some sweat off his forehead while Carey slipped the lantern shutters closed and went to the door, peered out cautiously. A cat was sitting in the middle of the empty yard, watching something invisible. It too yawned and trotted away as the three men slipped out of the armoury.

‘I’ll meet you an hour before dawn, then, Sergeant.’

‘Ay, sir,’ said Dodd on another martyred sigh.

Solomon was turning the heel of his sock when he heard the lock snick shut, and then one set of soft footsteps approaching. The once amateur reiver turned Deputy Warden loomed over him in the darkness, smelling of black velvet, metal and gunoil.

A small purse made a pleasant chink on the ground beside him.

‘Are ye satisfied, sir?’ asked Solomon when he was safely past the tricky bit in his knitting.

‘Hm? Yes, for the moment. Will you be at the muster tomorrow?’

‘Ay, sir, I’m on the strength after all. Garrison, non-combatant.’

‘Anything or anyone I should watch out for?’

Solomon’s sniff was eloquent. ‘Where should I start?’

Carey laughed softly. ‘I know I’m not popular.’

‘Ay. Ye can say that. What was ye at wi’ the guns, sir?’

There was a long silence while Carey considered this. After a moment Solomon realised why and chuckled again.

‘Och, sir, ye’ve no need to fear my tongue. Who was it opened the gate for ye when ye and yer half-brother brought back that cow?’

Carey coughed. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘I’d forgotten that.’

‘Had ye? Yer dad failed his purpose then, which wouldnae be like him.’

Apart from a reminiscent snort, Carey didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘I’ve marked the guns so that if I ever capture a reiver carrying one of them, I’ll know where it came from.’

Solomon almost dropped a stitch as he choked with laughter.

‘Ay,’ he said. ‘Ay, ye’ll know.’

Carey thought this was tribute to his ingenuity. There was smugness in his voice as he went back to the ladder.

‘Good night, Solomon.’

‘Ay, sir,’ wheezed the gate guard, shaking his head.

SUNDAY, 9TH JULY 1562, BEFORE DAWN

Dodd found Carey was either up before him, or more likely hadn’t bothered to try and snatch an extra two hours’ sleep at all. Probably very sensible of him, Dodd thought sadly to himself as he tottered over to the well to slake his thirst in the dark blue predawn. He hated drinking water in the morning, especially from a bucket, but it was too early for the buttery in the Keep to be open and he was desperate. One of the stable lads was waiting in the courtyard, holding two of the horses from the stables, who were stamping and shaking their heads unco-operatively. The boy was yawning enough to split his face.

‘Now then,’ croaked Dodd.

‘Morning, Sergeant,’ said the boy with a cheeky grin.

Dodd grunted and washed his face, shivering at the coldness and slimy taste of the water, dried himself on his shirt-tails. He had slept in his hose after their midnight raid on the armoury, which always left him feeling ugly, quite apart from his sorely missed rest.

‘Ahah,’ said Carey, appearing at the door of the Queen Mary Tower with his dags in their case and Barnabus behind him with a heavy bag no doubt containing the borrowed calivers. ‘Good morning, Dodd. If you can get yourself dressed in time, you can come with us.’

He strapped the firearms onto the hobby in front of the saddle, and checked the girth. There were already ten leather flasks of gunpowder slung over the pony’s back. Dodd went back into the new barracks for his clothes, wondering what demon it was that got into the Courtier early in the morning and how he could kill it. Carey jumped into the saddle, just as Dodd slouched out of the barracks once more with his blue woollen statute cap pulled down to protect his eyes, lacing up his jerkin and hating people who were happy at dawn.

‘How long will this take, sir?’ moaned Dodd.

‘Only an hour or so,’ Carey explained, blowing on the glowing end of the coil of slowmatch he had slung over his shoulder. ‘I’m doing some target shooting. Are you coming or not?’

Dodd supposed he had to now. ‘Ay, sir.’

‘Well, hurry up, I don’t want a mob going with me.’

They went out through the sally-port to which Carey had the key and rode round to the fenced-off racecourse. Dodd had lost more money there than he cared to think about.

They left their horses at the other end of the course, securely tied. Then they went down to the end where the archery butts and the new shooting range were set up.

It turned out that what Carey really wanted was to see how well Dodd could shoot with the Courtier’s own wheel-lock dags. Dodd thoroughly disliked firearms, and once he had warmed a little to the argument was a stout defender of longbows.

‘See ye, sir,’ he said, as Carey demonstrated how to wind up the lock which spun a wheel against the iron pyrites in the clamp, making the sparks that supposedly lit the fine powder in the pan and thus fired the gun. ‘See ye, an arrow kills ye just as deid as a bullet and I can put a dozen in the air while ye’re fiddling about with yer keys and all, sir.’

‘Well, try it anyway, Sergeant.’

‘Och, God,’ said Dodd under his breath, who hated loud noises in the morning. He took the dag, sighted along the barrel to the target and fired. The kick was not as brutal as a caliver, but the boom and the smell of gunpowder made his eyes water. Carey had the armoury caliver and was loading it briskly, lit the match in the lock, put the stock on his shoulder, took a sideways stance and aimed the gun. The roar nearly blew the top of Dodd’s head off and a hole appeared in the target, irritatingly close to the bull. Dodd’s bullet had puffed sand and sawdust a yard below the target.

Behind them the market traders from the city were setting up their stalls ready for the muster, being chivvied into their proper pitches by harassed aldermen’s servants. They had looked up at the sound of guns, but turned back to their own affairs once they saw that nobody was attacking.

‘Firearms are the future, Sergeant,’ said Carey didactically, while Dodd carefully swabbed, charged, loaded and wound up the dag again. ‘Anyone who’s fought on the Continent knows that.’

‘The future?’ repeated Dodd, thoroughly confused.

‘It takes five years to make a longbowman and six weeks to make an arquebusier, it’s as simple as that. This time remember it isn’t a bow, you don’t need to aim low at this distance. Think of a straight line from the muzzle to the bull.’

While he talked he was reloading the caliver, each movement precise, identical and rhythmic. Dodd watched, recognising something new in the way he did it. Carey smiled.

‘Dutch drill,’ he explained as he finished. ‘I’m planning to teach it to you and the men once we get hold of the guns.’ He stood square to the target, lifted and lowered the caliver to his shoulder and squinted as he aimed.