It was the voice of King James’s foster-brother, the Earl of Mar. A pause, then the men holding Carey down let go. Very very carefully he let out his breath, lifted his head off the barrel-end and looked straight up at the Earl. For the moment he couldn’t stand, he wasn’t sure of his legs. The Earl’s face was hieratic and stern, but neither sympathetic nor surprised.

‘I want to see my cousin the King,’ Carey whispered.

‘Ay,’ said the Earl of Mar and jerked his chin at one of the courtiers in unspoken and imperious command.

After a moment’s hesitation, and with no gentleness, the man unlocked the wooden manacles from Carey’s wrists so he could bring his hands round and rest the agony of metal on his lap.

He was not surprised to find he was shaking, astonished that there was no blood. The Earl of Mar was bending in front of him, unscrewing the thumbscrews which made his swollen fingers hurt worse than they had before, leaving livid pressure marks behind. He had to bow his head and stop breathing again while Mar took them off the broken ones. Mar saw the swelling and bruising, the unnatural bend, and took time to glare at Spynie, before taking out his handkerchief.

‘I’ll bind these two to the third for the moment,’ he said. ‘Can ye hold still while I do it?’

‘Yes,’ said Carey remembering Long George. When Mar had finished he stood up, cautiously. He was lightheaded, the pain in all but his broken fingers was beginning to change to a dull throbbing and for some reason, he was desperately thirsty.

‘You’ll come wi’ me,’ said the Earl of Mar. ‘The King wants to see ye.’

He couldn’t help it: he gave a triumphant grin to Lord Spynie and Sir Henry Widdrington, both of whom were looking stunned and afraid. His sudden joy wasn’t only because he had kept the use of his right hand; it was because of what the Earl of Mar’s intervention told him about Elizabeth.

He came joltingly back down to earth when he moved to follow Mar and the chains on his ankles almost tripped him up.

‘Like this, my lord Earl?’ he asked falteringly.

Mar looked him consideringly up and down. ‘Ay,’ he said.

‘But...’

‘The King said he wanted tae see ye. Naebody said anything about releasing ye.’

Carey was about to argue, but then stopped himself. He rested his broken hand carefully on the better one and told himself worse things could easily be happening to him than having to clank in chains through the Scottish court in nothing but his filthy shirt and hose, with a bloody face and no hat on his head. It was no good. The humiliation of it on top of everything else made him feel sick with rage, until he could hardly lift his feet enough to follow the Earl.

Lord Spynie moved to follow them out, but the Earl of Mar stopped him.

‘You and Sir Henry are under arrest, my lord,’ said the Earl. ‘Ye can bide here together until His Highness is ready for ye.’ And he shut and locked the wine cellar door in their faces.

That Carey was also still under arrest was made clear by the Earl of Mar’s men in their morions and jacks, carrying polearms like the Yeomen of the Guard at the Tower, who were waiting to surround him at the top of the stairs. He went with them, for the first time in his life wishing he were not so tall. He wanted to hunch down so they could hide him, but forced himself to stand up straight and concentrate on moving his feet so the chain didn’t trip him up. The stairs were hard to manage, he had to pause every so often to get his balance and his breath back. Once he did trip, but the guards waited for him and although he saw faces he had known, they didn’t seem to recognise him, perhaps because of the blood and dirt he was wearing.

At the door to the King’s Presence chamber, Carey stopped, balking completely. The Earl of Mar turned and glared at him.

‘What is it?’

‘Let me wipe my face, at least,’ begged Carey. ‘I cannot see His Majesty like...’

There was a dour look of amusement around Mar’s mouth. ‘Och, never ye mind what ye look like,’ he said gruffly. ‘He’s no’ sae pernickity as yer ain mistress.’

‘But, my lord...’

The Earl of Mar tutted like an old nurse and banged on the door. A young page with one oddly ragged ear opened it to them and blinked at the apparition without expression. The guards left him at the door and stood there, not to attention, but simply waiting in case they were needed.

In they tramped, Carey more acutely embarrassed than he could have imagined: every minute of training during his ten years’ service at Queen Elizabeth’s court told him that it was not far off blasphemy to appear in front of royalty in such a bedraggled state. Without the assured armour of well-cut clothes and a good turn-out he felt as tongue-tied and confused as any country lummox. Her Majesty would have been throwing slippers and vases at the smell of him by now.

Something deeper inside him suddenly rebelled at his own ridiculous shyness, anger rising at his craven fear of disapproval by someone who was, whatever God had made him, still only a man.

The man in question, who could sentence him to a number of different unpleasant deaths, was standing by a table, stripping off his gloves, with wine stains down one side of his padded black and gold brocade doublet. He was watching Carey gravely, consideringly.

Realising he was standing there like a post, Carey made to genuflect, remembered in the nick of time that he had chains on his ankles and went down clumsily on both knees in the rushes, jarring his hands.

‘Sir Robert, I’m sorry to see ye like this.’

He was expected to respond. How? What would work with Queen Elizabeth might annoy King James and vice versa. On the other hand he would never ever have been brought so easily into the Queen’s presence after a charge of treason had been made. Even in a letter, abject contrition would have been the only course. But this was not a brilliant, nervy, vain and elderly woman, this was a King three years younger than himself, who would almost certainly be King of England one day. King James might be unaccountable, with odd tastes, but he was at least a man.

‘Your Majesty, I’m sorry to be like this,’ Carey said, trying for a glint of wry humour.

‘Ay,’ said King James. ‘No doubt ye are. What the Devil’s happened to your hands?’

Carey looked down at them. The Earl of Mar’s handkerchief splint hid his broken fingers which had settled down to a steady drumbeat throbbing, but the others were swollen and the ones that had felt the thumbscrews were going purple. His last remaining gold ring on his little finger was almost hidden by puffed flesh.

‘My Lord Spynie was impatient to hear his tale,’ explained the Earl of Mar.

King James’s eyes narrowed. ‘He’s nae right to torture one of the Queen’s appointed officials, let alone my ain cousin, does he no’ ken that? Why did ye let them take ye, Sir Robert, I had ye down for a man of parts?’

‘My Lord Spynie and Sir Henry Widdrington said they had a Royal Warrant. It had your signature on it. Naturally, in Your Majesty’s own realm I had no choice but to surrender.’ He omitted the detail of being outnumbered and outgunned.

King James made an odd sniff and snort through his nostrils. ‘A Warrant?’ he said. ‘With the Privy Seal?’

Carey nodded. ‘Yes, Your Majesty. And your signature.’

The King turned to the Earl of Mar.

‘He’s no’ to have access to the Seal nor the signing stamp any more,’ he said, ‘if this is how he uses it.’

The Earl of Mar’s face took on a patient expression.

‘Ay, Your Highness.’

‘And take the gyves off the man’s legs. He’s never going to attack me with his hands in that condition.’

Mar beckoned to one of the guards, who came over and took the chains off Carey’s ankles. He was not invited to stand, and so he didn’t. No matter, he had knelt for hours at a time while attending on the Queen in one of her moods.

King James went to the carved chair placed under the embroidered cloth of estate and sat down, ignoring the large goblet of wine standing on a table by his hand. His face had somehow become sharper, more canny.

‘Now then, Sir Robert. What was it ye were so determined to keep fra my lord Spynie?’

‘Your Majesty, may I begin the tale at its right beginning?’

The King nodded. ‘Take your time.’

Where the hell to start? Carey took a deep breath, and began with the German in the forest and Long George’s pistol exploding.

An hour later he had finished, his throat beginning to get infernally dry and croaky. King James had interrupted only to ask an occasional sharp question. Running out of voice, his knees beginning to ache and his left hand turned into a pulsing mass of misery, Carey finally brought himself into Lord Spynie’s clutches and left the tale there.