‘Whatever you wish, my lord,’ she said eventually, taking refuge in pliancy. It didn’t mollify him. His fingers bit deeper, hurting her. He might be short, but her husband was very strong for all his ill-health and his gout.

‘Ye can stay,’ he hissed. ‘Stay and watch. And keep your countenance, bitch.’

She curtseyed to him and said, ‘Yes, my lord.’ The stone hanging from her heart swayed and chilled. He was planning something ugly, and he wanted her to see. Oh, my God, Robin, take care, be careful... Lord Jesus, look after him, guard him...

The courtiers were enjoying themselves, cheering on either the Johnstones or the Maxwells, depending on their affinities and their wagers. There was a blurring in Elizabeth’s eyes and she stared at the field in a general way, trying not to focus on Carey. The herd of two-legged cattle thundered past them again, shouting confusedly. Occasionally a faster runner than the others would burst from the ruck and run in one direction or the other with the ball bobbing at his feet and then generally two or three of the other side would launch themselves at him, punch him or wrestle him down, the ball would run free and a yelling shouting heap of men would struggle for possession until somebody else burst from the ruck and the process began again, leaving the occasional body prone on the broken sod behind them. She couldn’t help but catch sight of Carey every so often, generally kicking the ball away from him to James Johnstone and on one occasion leaping in, fists flying, to a more than usually vicious contention for the ball near one of the goal-holes.

She couldn’t warn him. She could only watch helplessly and pray.

When it did happen the thing was so confused she had no clear idea how. One moment the ball was in the air and Carey was in the centre of a pyramid of men all trying to leap and head it one way or the other. The next moment, the ball was in play down the other end of the field and Carey was lying on his side with his knees up to his chest, writhing silently. She saw Sergeant Dodd and the rather beautiful fair-haired Graham boy run out from the crowd and bend over him solicitously, then help him off slung between their shoulders, his face still working and his legs not seeming able to support him.

Sir Henry trod heavily on her foot and combined both a satisfied grin and a scowl.

‘I said, keep your countenance, wife.’

Elizabeth looked down at him and for a moment felt strangely remote from him and herself, as if she was staring down at an ugly squat creature from some mountain peak. If she had had any kind of weapon in her hand at the time, she would have killed him and burned for it gladly. Sir Henry seemed to recognise her hatred, paused, perhaps even recoiled a little.

She could no longer see Carey, who seemed to be sitting by the fence with people round him. She had seen no blood when he was helped off the field, but she knew enough not to put reliance on that. Please God, let him not be hurt badly.

‘Did ye hear me, bitch?’

She looked back at her husband, the man she had been so determined to serve dutifully as a good wife when the match had been arranged ten years before, the man she had tried so very hard to please because God required it of her. Quite suddenly, like a lute string tuned too far, her loathing broke and transmuted itself into cold, indifferent distaste.

‘Yes, my lord,’ she said, not bothering to hide her weariness of him and his posturing.

‘I paid one o’ the Johnstones to grab his bollocks,’ said Sir Henry. ‘That’ll learn him to keep his gun in its case.’

‘Did you, my lord?’ she said tonelessly. Sir Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose you got Lord Spynie to convince the King to have him play?’

‘What are friends for?’

‘Yes, my lord.’ She turned slightly away and swallowed a yawn—from nervousness, not boredom, but Sir Henry didn’t know that and she could feel the anger vibrate in him again. He told her to keep her countenance, but in fact he wanted her to break down and weep and beg him to have mercy. She had even tried it years before, but she never made the mistake of repeating experiments that failed. He sneered at her sometimes for being as stiff-necked as a man, and she thought bitterly that no man would stand for what she stood for, no, not a galley slave in the French navy. No man would have to.

He will beat me again tonight, she thought, still distant from herself, her body gathering and shrinking inside her clothes with well-learned fear, her mind strangely unmoved. Perhaps she was at last getting used to it.

Instead of bowing her head as she usually did, consciously trying to placate him, she turned and looked in Carey’s direction though she couldn’t see him since he was still sitting on a rock. What was the point of trying to placate someone who enjoyed beating her? She carried on looking, ignoring the fingers bruising her arm and shifting her feet to avoid Sir Henry’s, until she saw Carey standing, still pale, still coughing, but not obviously dying. He was shaking his head.

This is a stupid thing to do, she thought to herself; I don’t even like football.

‘My lord, I am feeling a little faint with the heat,’ she said to her husband in a voice loud enough to be heard by the other courtiers nearby. ‘By your leave, I’ll go back to our lodgings now as you so kindly suggested.’

She knew the King would have no interest at all in the few women attending him, unlike Queen Elizabeth. She also knew that now she had seen what Sir Henry had brought her to see, he would be less insistent.

Sir Henry looked briefly pleased at having made an impression and then hissed, ‘Ye can stay and watch till the end.’

She curtseyed gravely to him, as if he had said yes. ‘My lord is very kind.’

Without pausing, she turned and curtseyed to the King in his carven chair and then walked away over the Brig Port and back into Dumfries. Obedience to Sir Henry had never made any difference as far as she could see, so she would try pleasing herself for a change. Besides, she wanted to get some sleep before the evening. Behind her the football match continued with much shouting.

WEDNESDAY, 12TH JULY 1592, DAWN

Carey had slept very badly, partly because his balls were sore. In the long run, though, he had been well out of the football match which had descended into a pitched brawl at the end amid such confusion that nobody could tell which side had won. The King had been very displeased. The other reason for wakefulness was the fact that the truckle bed Lord Maxwell’s servants had found him was alive with fleas and six inches too short for his legs which dangled off the end even though he lay diagonally. On waking up he found that one of Maxwell’s enormous Irish wolfhounds had curled up next to him at some time during the night and could thus explain the strange hairiness of the dream women he had met in his sleep.

‘Good morning, bedfellow,’ he said politely. The wolfhound panted, yawned and slobbered a vast tongue lovingly over his face. There was shouting in the next room, something about a surgeon.

It seemed Lord Maxwell was already awake. He came in, drinking his morning beer while he put on his jack.

‘The King’s gone fra the town for the hunt already,’ he said without preamble as Carey swung his legs over the bed and sat up scratching and wiping dog drool off with his shirtsleeve. ‘I’m riding out to join him, if ye care to come?’

‘I said I would, my lord,’ Carey answered after a moment as he put on his hose.

Dodd appeared in his usual foul dawn mood, Red Sandy and Sim’s Will at his back, but there was no sign of Young Hutchin.

‘Not again,’ said Carey. ‘Did you see anything that...?’

‘He slipped off when he woke, said he wanted to find his cousins and to tell ye not to be afeared for him, he willnae fall for it twice.’

‘Bloody Grahams,’ muttered Carey as he put on his doublet and began buttoning the front. ‘Will it be safe to leave our packponies and remounts here, my Lord Maxwell?’

Lord Maxwell was already on his way down the stairs, irritable about something. He gestured.

‘They’ll be as safe as mine own. Are ye coming?’

Carey hurried to pull his boots on and follow the new lord Warden down to the courtyard, still rubbing his face and wishing he could shave. The wolfhound came padding softly after him, shaking herself occasionally. There was no doubt about it, Maxwell was in a temper and was looking at him with suspicion under those sooty eyebrows of his. What had Carey heard when he woke, something about a surgeon? Ah. Inspiration suddenly flowered.

‘The guns,’ he said aloud.

‘Guns?’ asked Maxwell, eyes like slits.

‘The two hundred-odd mixed calivers and pistols you have in Lochmaben, along with ammunition and priming powder,’ Carey enlarged coolly. ‘If you like, I’ll inspect them for you and tell you if they’re bad or not.’

It wasn’t how he had planned to find out for certain whether Maxwell had the guns from the Carlisle armoury, but springing it on him that way certainly got an answer. Maxwell was bug-eyed with surprise.

‘How did ye ken...?’

Carey sighed. ‘Somebody bought them,’ he said. ‘And you have the money.’

Maxwell leaned over the trestle table set up to feed the men, and cut a piece of cheese. ‘Why should I want so many guns?’ he asked with a failed attempt at being casual.

Carey laughed. ‘To wipe out the Johnstones, of course, my lord, once King James has gone back to Edinburgh.’

Maxwell sniffed and examined his fingernails elaborately. His other hand drummed a beat on the table.

‘How do ye know?’

‘I didn’t know for sure, my lord,’ Carey admitted, breaking open a penny loaf and throwing some crumbs to the doves from the cote on the roof who had come out cautiously in hopes of food. ‘Only, any man would like to end a feud in his favour if he could.’

Maxwell started examining the other fingernails now, while his right hand began stroking at his dagger hilt. Oh, not again, Dodd groaned inwardly. He had been too outraged at Carey’s question to speak, why can the bloody Courtier never let be? We’re in the Maxwell’s own townhouse and he’s March Warden forbye...