‘Bangtail,’ said Carey, full of regret, ‘if you were capable of thought, you wouldn’t be here. What possessed you? Never mind. You stay here under lock and key until we get the Sergeant’s horses back.’

‘In jail, sir?’ Bangtail protested.

‘In jail.’

‘I’ll give ye my parole.’

Carey shook his head. ‘I’d like to take it, but I daren’t.’

‘Och sir, don’t put me in the jail, it’s...’

‘If I have any more bloody rubbish from you, Bangtail, I’ll chain you as well. Now come on. And cheer up, I expect it’ll only be for a couple of days.’

WEDNESDAY, 21ST JUNE, 11 A.M.

The castle dungeon was extremely damp after all the rain and stank as badly as most jails. Carey shoved Bangtail into the last empty cell, slammed the door and peered through the Judas hole. Bangtail was sitting on the bare bench, chewing nervously on one of his nails.

One of Lowther’s men, whom Carey vaguely remembered was a Fenwick, came in carrying a bag full of loaves of bread and a small cheese. Behind him Young Hutchin was staggering under a firkin of ale. Both of them looked surprised to see him there, so he leaned against a wall and watched as they cut up the cheese and threw the food into each cell.

‘Hey,’ shouted Young Jock Graham, ‘where’s the butter, man? Lowther promised...’

‘Shut up,’ growled Fenwick, ‘the Deputy’s here.’

‘Well, I want to talk to him.’

‘It isna...’

‘I want to talk to Young Jock too,’ said Carey agreeably. ‘Let me in.’

‘Who’re ye?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Lowther?’

‘I’m the new Deputy Warden,’ said Carey. ‘I’m also the man that captured you and didn’t hang you on the spot. You should thank me.’

Young Jock grunted ungratefully and sank his teeth into the cheese. Three weevils popped their heads out and wriggled and he spat them into the straw and stamped on them, then swallowed the rest.

‘What d’ye want?’

‘I want,’ said Carey thoughtfully, ‘a full account of where your father has taken the horses he reived last night and also what he’s planning to do with them.’

Young Jock stared at him as if he was mad. At that moment, Young Hutchin knocked and came through the door with a leather mug full of ale, which Young Jock took and gulped down.

‘Now then, Young Hutchin.’ Jock was picking absent-mindedly at his ear.

‘I’m sorry to see you here, Jock,’ said the boy. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

‘Ay, you can find me the keys and a nice sharp dagger.’ Young Jock examined his fingernail for trophies.

Hutchin smiled and left while Carey hummed a little tune.

‘What are ye waiting for, Courtier?’ Jock was delving at his ear again.

‘I’m waiting for you to tell me what I asked.’

Young Jock spat messily near Carey’s boots.

‘You can wait there until you die, ye bastard, I’m telling you nothing.’

‘It could save your neck.’

‘Go to the devil, Courtier, my neck’s safe enough.’

Young Jock set himself to eating and Carey nodded, banged on the door to be let out and watched carefully while Fenwick locked it after him.

On his way out, he paused to shout through the Judas hole at Bangtail.

‘I want to know what’s going on, Bangtail, and you’ll tell me.’

‘I willna,’ said Bangtail feebly.

‘You surely will,’ said Carey ominously. ‘One way or another, with the use of your legs or without them.’

WEDNESDAY, 21ST JUNE, 11 A.M.

When she came down the steps of the Queen Mary Tower, Janet was met by Lady Scrope and a gentlewoman she didn’t know. She was intending to see after poor old Shilling who had run like a hero all the way to Carlisle and might need comforting, but when she curtseyed to the ladies, she found her hand taken and the Warden’s wife was speaking to her gently.

‘Mrs Dodd,’ said Philadelphia, ‘I’m sorry to hear of the raid, is there anything I can do to help?’

Janet flushed a little. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the new Deputy has promised he’ll get my horses back but whether he will or not...’

Lady Scrope grimaced a little. ‘Knowing my brother, he’ll half kill himself to do it if he promised to. Who was it sold you the beast that belonged to Sweetmilk?’

‘Reverend Turnbull, may God rot his bowels.’

‘That’s the book-a-bosom man isn’t it?’

Janet nodded. Lady Scrope exchanged glances with the other woman. A certain amount of mischief appeared on Lady Scrope’s pointed little face.

‘Shall we go and speak to him, then?’

‘It’s very kind of you to take so much trouble, Lady Scrope,’ she began, ‘but I think I can...’

‘Hush, Mrs Dodd,’ said Lady Scrope. ‘We only want to give Sir Robert what help we can to get back your horses.’

‘And this needs doing quickly because when Reverend Turnbull hears what happened, he’ll be out of Carlisle as fast as his legs will run,’ added Lady Widdrington. ‘Ah, look,’ she said kindly, ‘he’s heard already, I think. Is that him, Mrs Dodd?’

The Reverend Turnbull was at that moment shutting the door to the little priest’s house next to the church, wearing a pack on his back and carrying a stout walking stick. Janet nodded.

The Reverend Thomas Turnbull had had very little to do with real ladies in a not always reverend past, but he knew them when he saw them. With the Warden’s wife on one side, and a tall long-nosed lady on the other, he found himself accompanied into his church and sat down on one of the porch benches. It wasn’t that he didn’t think of running nor that he couldn’t perhaps have outrun them—ladies seldom or never ran, so far as he knew, and their petticoats would have tripped them up—it was that he didn’t somehow feel he could do it with the Warden’s wife holding his arm confidingly under hers and the tall one glinting down at him with a pair of piercing and intelligent grey eyes.