When he sat down the third woman, whom he recognised with a sinking feeling as Janet Dodd, helpfully took his walking stick and laid it on the ground near her foot. Lady Scrope sat down next to him, still trapping his arm, while the tall one continued to pin his soul to the back of his head with her eyes. Janet Dodd crossed her arms and tipped her hip threateningly.

‘I’m s-sorry, Mrs Dodd,’ he stammered at once, deciding immediate surrender would save time, ‘I had no idea the horse would cause you such trouble. I’d have cut my throat before I sold it to you if I’d known, truly I would...’

‘Well, tell us who you bought the horse from and we’ll forgive you,’ said Lady Scrope gently.

‘And tell the truth,’ added the tall woman.

Reverend Turnbull bridled a little as he sat. ‘Madam,’ he said with as much dignity as he could muster, ‘I am a man of the cloth and...’

‘As capable of lying as any other man,’ snorted the tall woman.

‘Now Lady Widdrington,’ said Philadelphia Scrope reprovingly, ‘I’m sure the Reverend will tell us the truth. You will, won’t you?’ she said winningly to him. ‘I’ll get into trouble with my brother if I give him the wrong information.’

‘And so will you,’ added Lady Widdrington ominously to the Reverend.

Turnbull shook his head. ‘I bought the beast from a cadger named Swanders and I’d no reason to think him reived at all. He said he was from Fairburn’s stud in Northumberland and had been sold because of an unchancy temper and...’

‘Why didn’t they geld him then?’ enquired Lady Widdrington.

Turnbull coughed. ‘I didna think to ask, your ladyship, I admit it, I was a trusting fool but the Good Book teaches us that it’s better to trust than to be ower suspicious.’

‘Does it?’ said Lady Widdrington with interest. ‘Where does it say that?’

Turnbull’s mind was blank. He could barely make out the words of the marriage service and much of the Bible was a wasteland to him.

Lady Scrope got him off the spot.

‘Do you know where this man Swanders may be?’

Without question he was halfway back to Berwick by this time, no doubt laughing at Turnbull as he went.

‘I dinna ken, your ladyship, I wish I did and that’s the truth.’

‘Oh, ay,’ muttered Janet.

‘What did you pay for the horse?’

‘Er... four pounds English,’ lied Turnbull. ‘See, I didna expect to make much profit and it was all to go to the repair of the church roof, which lets in the weather something terrible.’

‘Oh be quiet,’ growled Janet Dodd. ‘You know you paid two pounds for the creature and so do we.’

How did they know, wondered Turnbull, when God had made them poor foolish women? How dare they show such disrespect to a man of the cloth?

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now,’ said Lady Scrope soothingly. ‘You can give what’s left of your three pounds profit back to Janet Dodd and then claim the money off Swanders the next time you see him.’

Turnbull’s mouth fell open with dismay.

‘B-but it’s all spent,’ he protested.

‘Is it now?’ said Lady Widdrington. ‘And what exactly did you spend it on?’

A happy night at Madam Hetherington’s bawdy house, among other things, but Turnbull couldn’t bring himself to say so. He muttered the first thing that came into his mind.

‘Charity?’ said Lady Widdrington. ‘Well, that’s very Godly of you. Mrs Dodd, when do you think your husband and some of his patrol would be ready to come and talk to Reverend Turnbull?’

‘Oh, I can run and fetch him now,’ said Mrs Dodd, turning to go, ‘I’m sure if the lads pick him up and shake him something will fall out.’

‘Och Chri... well, I might have some of it about me.’

The ladies turned their backs obligingly as Turnbull unstrapped the pouch from his thigh and the bright silver rolled out in the crusting mud. Lady Widdrington scooped up most of it and gave the money to Janet Dodd.

‘You can owe the rest, Mr Turnbull,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t want you to be travelling the Border completely empty-handed.’

‘No. I thank you,’ said Turnbull feebly.

‘Good day, then. I expect you’ll want to be out of Carlisle before Sergeant Dodd tracks you down,’ said Lady Widdrington and added formally, ‘God go with you.’

‘Ay, well, good day, ladies.’

Turnbull trudged up the wynd feeling as if he had already walked ten miles and wondering how one started proceedings against witches. He thought he heard the sound of laughter behind him but decided he must have been mistaken.

‘You know what I find so odd?’ said Lady Scrope after a while. They were gathered in a private room of the Bear and Ragged Staff, near the drawbridge gate of the castle. The windows of their private room overlooked the moat so they could watch the pleasant sight of the fish who were a thrifty source of food to anyone that could catch them and were therefore as cunning as foxes.

‘What?’ asked Lady Widdrington as she cautiously drank the beverage sold to her as wine.

‘Why didn’t this man Swanders go to Thomas the Merchant Hetherington? Or if he did, why didn’t Thomas the Merchant buy such a beautiful piece of horseflesh as this Courtier was supposed to be?’

‘Ay,’ said Janet slowly, ‘now that is odd.’

‘He’ll have known we’d have paid good money for the animal,’ Lady Scrope went on. ‘Seven or eight pounds, likely enough, if he was good; God knows we’ve been searching out decent horses ever since the old Lord got sick.’

Lady Widdrington put down her goblet. ‘Shall we ask him?’

WEDNESDAY, 21ST JUNE, 12 NOON

Thomas the Merchant Hetherington happened to be completing his accounts for some important clients when his servant came in to announce that the Ladies Scrope and Widdrington would like to see him. He was honoured and a little puzzled. He was a man who could see a way to make money at anything: the kind of man who bought up and forestalled barley when there was going to be a bad harvest, who paid cash down in advance for the entire shearing of the West March sheep and then joyfully twisted the cods of the Lancashire woolbuyers who came to do business with him and him alone because there was nobody else. However, stay laces and pots of red lead for improving ladies’ appearances he left strictly to the common cadgers and pedlars, since they were small, retail items and invariably low profit. He dabbled in horses but only because he loved them.

The ladies came in and he bowed low.

‘How may I serve you, your ladyships?’ he said in a voice as unctuous as he could make it.

‘We are here on the same errand,’ said Lady Scrope, ‘in search of good horses.’

You and me both, thought Thomas the Merchant.

‘We heard that Mrs Dodd had bought a beautiful animal from the Reverend Turnbull and we were wondering if you knew where it came from?’ said Lady Scrope blithely. Lady Widdrington frowned at her across the room.

‘Surely,’ said Thomas the Merchant with a warm smile, ‘this is really a matter I should discuss with your husband, my lady Scrope, since...’