***

Walking alone at dawn into the rough encampment of Johnstones in the part of Dumfries south of Fish Cross, Dodd had not been recognised at once. This was a relief to him since he still had a number of kine and sheep at Gilsland that had once belonged to various Johnstone families. When he insisted that he had important information about the Maxwells that he would give to the laird only, they brought him through the tents to the best one, which had been brightly painted and carried two flags.

The laird was breaking his fast on bread and beer. He was a bony gangling young man with a shock of wiry brown hair and his face prematurely lined with responsibility. His great grandfather, the famous Johnny Johnstone, had been able to put two thousand fighting men in the saddle on the hour’s notice, but the King of those days had taken exception to such power being wielded by a subject. Johnny Johnstone had been inveigled into the King’s presence on a promise of safeconduct and summarily hanged. Now the power of the Johnstones was much less and their bitter enemies the Maxwells were stronger than them.

‘Your name?’ asked the laird.

Dodd took a deep breath and folded his arms. ‘Henry Dodd, Land-Sergeant of Gilsland.’

Johnstone’s brown eyes narrowed and his jaw set.

‘Ay.’

‘I’m here with Sir Robert Carey, Deputy Warden of the English West March.’

‘Mphm. Last I heard, ye were staying with the Maxwell.’

‘That’s why I’ve come to ye, sir,’ said Dodd. ‘Maxwell’s got the Deputy Warden arrested on a trumped-up charge.’

‘Well, ye shouldnae’ve trusted him, should ye?’

‘You’re right, sir,’ said Dodd bitterly. ‘But Sir Robert wouldnae listen to me.’

There was a very brief cynical smile. The Johnstone finished his beer.

‘And?’

‘Did ye know that the Maxwell recently bought at least two hundred firearms, powder and ammunition off Sir Richard Lowther in Carlisle?’

Johnstone wiped his mouth fastidiously. ‘I had heard something about it. What of it?’

‘Would it interest ye to know more about the guns?’

‘It might.’

Dodd stood there with his arms folded and his whole spine prickling, and waited.

Johnstone smiled briefly again. ‘What d’ye want for the information?’

‘Your support, sir. Your protection against Maxwell for myself and Sir Robert. Your counsel.’

Johnstone took his time thinking about this, looking Dodd up and down. He had a fair amount to consider, to be fair to him. What Dodd was offering, unauthorised and unstated, was a possible alliance between the Johnstones and the Wardenry of Carlisle. It wasn’t merely a matter of information.

‘Hm.’

It all depended on whether the laird had any of the daring of his great grandfather. He would be taking a chance on Dodd’s faith, and the faith of Sir Robert, although Dodd thought he would also be quite grateful for the information as well, once he had it. But there again, the laird could then discard Dodd and Sir Robert if he chose: they were both taking a chance on faith.

Johnstone stared into space for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said without preamble. ‘Ye have my backing agin the Maxwells for you and your Deputy Warden, and my counsel for what that’s worth.’

So easily? Dodd was still suspicious. But there was nothing else he could do: he simply had to hope that the laird was a man of his word, unlike Lord Maxwell.

He coughed. ‘The Maxwell’s weapons are all bad, worse than useless. They explode on the second firing. Maxwell knows this now and he’s got rid of them, but his men have practically no guns as a result.’

Johnstone was sitting utterly still. ‘Ye’re sure of this?’

‘On my honour, sir.’

Johnstone held his gaze for a long moment more. Then he banged his folding table with the flat of his hand and jumped to his feet. ‘By God,’ he laughed. ‘Let’s have them.’

After that, Dodd was almost forgotten as Johnstone strode from his tent trailing a flurry of orders and the camp began to stir and buzz like a kicked beeskep. Dodd knew he had just broken the strained peace between the two surnames and rekindled what amounted to open civil war in the Scottish West March. It was extremely satisfactory.

***

Carey had been in prison before. Paris had been expensive and in the end his creditors had caught him and thrown him in gaol until his father could send him funds and a scorching letter through the English ambassador. At the time he had been in the depths of misery, cooped up in a filthy crowded communal cell and away from his fascinating Duchesse (who, he found out later, had tired of him in any case). But it had only lasted a couple of weeks and he had not been chained nor in darkness.

He tried to do something about his hands, flexing them and trying to shift the wooden manacles, which made his shoulders cramp and his fingers buzz with pins and needles. He had found out all he needed to know from the German, whatever he was really called—Hans Schmidt was clearly not his name—through a painful process of question and answer, guesswork and elimination. He had been merciless in his quest for hard facts and the exhausted man now slept, moaning softly every so often. Perhaps it would have been sensible to sleep as well, but he couldn’t, not with the stink of wine and pain in his nostrils, and the overwhelming pit of fear in his bowels.

He thought back to what he had done, wondering if he had made a mistake. Perhaps... perhaps he had acted hastily, dealing on his own initiative with the Italian. Perhaps he should have talked to the King first. But the King had either lied about the guns or genuinely not known what was going on. And the opportunity had been there to be seized, with no time for careful letters to London. Naturally he would file a report back to Burghley when it was all over, but... He had not expected to be arrested. He had not expected Young Hutchin to be so willing to spy for the Widdringtons. Perhaps his greatest mistake had been prancing back to Maxwell’s Castle so blithely, trusting Maxwell at all. But he had done what the Maxwell wanted, he had gotten the man his money back and Lord Maxwell had been full of gratitude and favour. Seemingly. Damn him to hell.

He had been caught rather easily. Perhaps he should have fought: but that would have given Sir Henry the excuse he needed to shoot. And what was his legal position anyway—arrested on a false warrant for a crime of which he was in fact guilty? Technically.

Gloomily he thought it would make no difference anyway: possession was nine-tenths of the law and King James would no doubt wink at the fact that he had probably not actually seen the warrant himself.

Carey tried hard to stop his mind from running on to the further consequences: the grave letters back and forth from Edinburgh to London while he and the German rotted in Dumfries. Almost certainly, the Queen would insist on his extradition for questioning by Sir Robert Cecil’s experts, like Topcliffe. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Carey swallowed hard, terror taking on a new and even uglier dimension. Queen Elizabeth was a Tudor and took any hint of betrayal extremely seriously indeed. She also took it personally. The fact that she had liked him would make that worse, not better.

He simply could not stay still and his backside was freezing and numb from the stone-flagged floor anyway. He struggled to his feet, causing the German to groan protestingly, stamped and swayed on the spot in the darkness, like a horse in its stall, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head and trying to get some feeling back in his hands.

Another appalling thought hit him. Perhaps Hutchin had not been coney-catched by Roger Widdrington. Perhaps Lady Widdrington had indeed been the one paying him for information; perhaps Carey’s chasing after the pretty little Signora had turned Elizabeth utterly against him. Perhaps she had bought back her husband’s favour by giving her would-be lover up to the wolves. No. Surely not. She would never... She might. Who could tell how any woman’s mind worked? Even though it had been nothing but a light-hearted dalliance he could hardly be expected to turn down, she might be unreasonably jealous, she might be angry enough. In which case his sending Hutchin to her was worse than useless...

He was standing like that, quite close to mindless panic, vaguely wondering how it was possible for him to be sweating while he was also shivering, when the door rattled and creaked open. He had to blink and squint from the light of lanterns. The German didn’t because his eyes were too swollen. In fact his whole face was a horrible foreboding, like an obscene cushion, pounded until it was barely human. No wonder the poor bastard had had difficulty speaking. His arms had been chained to a bolt above his head, his fingers were also grotesquely swollen and black, as was his right foot and ankle. Carey looked away from him.

Sir Henry again, three henchmen at his back, Lord Spynie at his side. Lord Spynie was at the head of a different group of three men, luridly brocaded and padded as were all King James’s courtiers. Had none of them heard of good taste?

Spynie looked extremely pleased with himself, but also a little furtive. Carey wondered again if he had really been arrested by the King’s warrant, or did Spynie have access to some legally trained clerks and the Privy Seal of the Kingdom? Given James’s sloppiness with his favourites, surely it was possible? Lord Spynie came up close to him, sneered something he couldn’t quite catch in Scots and spat messily in his face. Rage boiled in Carey, it was all he could do to keep from childishly spitting back.

Two Widdringtons gripped him under the arms while one of Spynie’s men dragged a little stool into the middle of the wine cellar floor, next to a barrel on its end. On the barrel top, as on a table, another courtier with a puffy eye ceremoniously placed a bunch of small things made of metal.

Carey recognised the courtiers. Two of them still bore the marks of his fist, and one had Hutchin’s toothprints in his arm. They all crowded the little space of the wine cellar and fogged it with their breath and heat, and the smoke from their torches and lanterns.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Carey, his mouth completely dry and his stomach gone into a hard knot of recognition. Those were thumbscrews lying on the barrel top.

‘Why are his legs free?’ demanded Lord Spynie.

‘We havenae brought leg-irons,’ said a courtier. ‘Shall I fetch some?’

‘No,’ said Spynie. ‘Use his.’ He pointed at the German still slumped against the wall. A key was produced, and the chains holding him to the ring in the wall were unlocked, allowing him to crumble down into a lying position at last. He lay still as a corpse, hardly breathing.