Loud laughter made Dodd’s ears burn and he turned to snarl at whoever had frightened them. A blurred glimpse of an elaborate padded black and red slashed doublet and a wonderfully feathered velvet hat made him bite back his indignation. It was the tall man who had fired a caliver at a target surrounded by sandbags at the other end of the bowling alley. The barrel was smoking as he blew away the powder remnants from the pan.

‘Whae’s after ye and what did ye reive?’ asked the man, still laughing. ‘Ye baith jumped like frogs at a cat.’

Carey took in the magnificent clothes, dropped his sword back in its scabbard and managed a fairly good laugh and shallow bow in return.

‘We did, sir,’ he said in Scots. ‘Ye have the better of us. I am Sir Robert Carey, Deputy Warden of Carlisle, and I am in search of the honourable Lord Maxwell, newly made Lord Warden of this March. Would ye ken where we could find him?’

‘Ay, ye’re looking at him.’

Carey did a further, splendid court bow, the gradations of which Dodd was just beginning to appreciate, and took out of his belt pouch the exquisitely penned and sealed letter that Scrope had dictated and Richard Bell written the night before.

‘I am sent to bring congratulations to you, my lord, from my Lord Scrope, Warden of the English West March, with the hopes of a meeting soon to discuss justice upon the Border and in Liddesdale.’

Maxwell was a tall well-made man with dark straight hair and beard and hazel eyes under a pair of eyebrows that ran right across his face like a scrivener’s mark.

‘Well,’ said Maxwell, handing the letter to a smaller, subfusc man behind him in a plain blue stuff gown. ‘I’m honoured at the rank of the messenger, Sir Robert.’ He tilted a finger at the clerk.

The clerk coughed hard, unrolled the paper and began to read in a nasal drone that Scrope greeted his brother officer of the peace right lovingly and made no doubt that now justice would be done impartially and immediately upon the Borders and out of Liddesdale with such an excellent and noble lord... And so on and so forth. Dodd understood about half of it, despite it being seemingly written in English, but no doubt that was the lawyers’ part in the writing of it.

Meanwhile Maxwell was cleaning and reloading his caliver. Carey watched, looked at the target which already had a hole in it not far from the bull’s eye. Then as Maxwell settled the stock into his shoulder, squinted along the barrel and prepared to squeeze the trigger and bring the match down into the powderpan, he suddenly stepped forward with a cry and pinched out the glowing slowmatch end with his gloved hand. There was a flurry as Maxwell pulled away from him and Carey cursed, flapping his hand as the leather smouldered.

‘What the hell d’ye think ye’re playing at?’ thundered Maxwell, outraged. Carey reached over to one of the wine goblets standing on the table behind Maxwell and doused his fingers in the wine.

‘I’m very sorry, my lord,’ he said, swirling them about and wincing. ‘But that caliver’s faulty.’

‘It is no’,’ roared Maxwell. ‘It’s brand new.’

‘If you fire it again, it will burst in your hand,’ Carey said stolidly, stripping off his gloves and examining his fingers.

‘It willna.’

‘It will. I’ll bet a hundred pounds on it.’

‘It’s a new weapon fra... Ain hundred pounds?’

The Courtier hasn’t got a hundred pounds, Dodd thought; as far as I know he hasn’t got ten pounds at the moment, bar the travelling money.

Maxwell’s eyes had lit up at the thought of the bet.

‘On the next firing?’

‘The next firing. If you’ve fired it once already.’

‘Ay, that’s what had ye jumping about and pulling out yer blade.’

‘True. Nevertheless.’

‘Ain hundred pounds? English or Scots?’

Carey shrugged. ‘English, of course,’ he said, with the irritatingly self-satisfied air that Dodd had noticed he also wore when he was playing primero. Betting in English money had just raised the stakes by a factor of ten. Each Scots pound was worth only two shillings thanks to repeated debauchings of his money’s silver content by the impoverished Scottish King. ‘If you’ve got it, my lord,’ he added, sealing his fate as far as Dodd was concerned.

Maxwell drew himself up and beckoned a servant over. Unlike Sir John Carmichael, he was a powerful magnate with ample funds from legal rents, blackrent and various other criminal activities. The servant went scurrying off and came back with a bulging leather purse. Maxwell counted out the money in good English silver.

‘What about ye?’ he asked insolently. ‘Have ye got it?’

Carey took off his largest ring, the one with a ruby the size of his finger nail in the middle of it and thumped it down on the table.

‘I think that’s worth about a hundred and fifty pounds, English,’ he said with fine courtierly negligence. ‘The Queen of England gave it to me.’

Maxwell smiled wolfishly, picked up the ring and examined it closely. Like most noblemen he was a good judge of jewels. He smiled again and put Carey’s ring back on the table where Dodd mentally bade it farewell.

They tied the caliver to one of the benches with rope, cleared the bowling alley of all hangers-on, servingmen and children. Lord Maxwell refilled the caliver with a full charge—though Carey offered to permit a two-thirds charge, so confident was he. At last Maxwell leaned over from behind the upturned table to put the slowmatch to the pan.

Dodd was already squatting down behind the table with his fingers in his ears. There was a different timbre to the cracking boom of the gun and the patter of metal hitting the wood in front of him. He thought he saw a bit of the stock go sailing up onto the roof. It had a cross scratched in it, which finally made sense of the Courtier’s actions.

Maxwell stood up to look at the remains of the caliver and the hollow it had made in the bench, with a face gone paper white.

‘Holy Mother Mary,’ he whispered. ‘Will ye look at it.’

Carey stood, picked up his ring. ‘My lord?’ His hand hovered over the Maxwell side of the bet.

Maxwell was still examining the remains of his new gun, while servingmen went running for stronger drink than early-morning beer and like Lord Maxwell some of them crossed themselves. Their lord looked up at Carey abstractedly. Maxwell was still pale as a winding sheet, a sheen of sweat on his nose as his imagination caught up with him, and small blame to him, thought Dodd. Carey had just saved at least his arm, perhaps his eyes and probably his life.

‘Ay,’ he said in a shaky voice. ‘Ay, take it, it’s yours, Sir Robert. Jesus Christ. Will ye look at it. Jesus.’

Carey swept up the money with a happy grin, poured it back in the purse and hung it on a thong round his neck under his shirt. He waved over one of the servingmen who had been peering bulging-eyed at the remains of the gun. One piece of barrel was stuck firmly in a beam, gone as deep as an arrow.

‘Aqua vitae for my Lord Maxwell,’ he ordered. He had found the goblet of wine and was swirling his scorched fingers in it again.

A servant in Maxwell livery brought the aqua vitae which Maxwell and Carey both tossed off like water. The Maxwell then came over to Carey and solemnly gave him his right hand.

They shook on it, and Maxwell clapped Carey on the shoulder. ‘That’s one in the eye for the Johnstones,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Cunning bastards.’

‘My lord?’ asked Carey cautiously.

‘Ye’ll eat wi’ us, of course. And yer Sergeant and yer men?’

‘I’ve only got a boy who’s with the horses at the moment. The others are with Sir John Carmichael,’ Carey explained innocently, to Dodd’s horror.

‘Ye brought nae men wi’ ye?’ asked Maxwell, puzzled at the idea of riding anywhere with fewer than twenty men behind him, and quite right too, thought Dodd, it was indecent.

‘The bare minimum, my lord. Short of an English army complete with horse and ordnance it seemed safer to rely on good faith. Sir John has been most hospitable.’

‘Och, no,’ said Maxwell. ‘He’s resigning the day and I’m Warden now. Ye’re my guest, Sir Robert, my friend and guest. Ye’ll sleep here tonight, by God. That was well done wi’ the slowmatch, man. Is yer hand sore? Will I get the surgeon to it?’

Carey was examining the blisters and blowing on them before dipping them back into the wine to cool them.

‘No, it’s only scorched.’