‘Was it one of Bothwell’s men?’

There was a telltale little gasp. ‘How did ye know?’

‘If it was one of the men from about here, ye could marry him and if he was married already he could take the bairn for you.’

‘I may lose it yet.’

Carey said nothing. Privately he believed that only women who longed for babes ever lost them: the more embarrassing a child was likely to be, the more certain its survival. Unless the mother went to a witch, but he thought this girl not ruthless enough for that. And not brave enough.

‘They say pennyroyal mint will shift it. Do you have any about you, cadger?’

‘No,’ said Carey, coldly. Mary Graham sneered at him and went on with the other two teats. The cow shifted experimentally and tipped her hoof. Mary banged unmercifully on the leg and the cow lowed in protest.

‘Would you marry the father if he asked?’ pressed Carey, hoping she wouldn’t slap him.

She didn’t quite: she scowled at him and turned her shoulder to him.

‘Not if he was the Earl himself,’ she whispered fiercely.

Carey nodded. That at least removed the prime suspect, but it confirmed that she must know who killed Sweetmilk. Not that she was likely to tell, even if her father beat her which he no doubt would. Poor lass.

He let her finish milking the cow and when she rose from her stool and rubbed her back, he too rose to go.

‘Make yourself useful, pedlar,’ she said to him, ‘take this over to Mistress Graham for me.’

Embarrassed into women’s work, Carey took the buckets and carried them out of the byre. Without a yoke to take the surprising weight and steady them he slopped some of the milk and Alison Graham sniffed at him, lifted each one and poured it out and sent him back to swill the buckets with water and take them in to Mary again. He knew perfectly well she’d tell him nothing more and he wasn’t her servant, so when he had done as he was bid, he walked out into the dawn again and yawned and stretched.

‘What will you do about Mary’s bairn?’ he asked Mrs Graham when she snorted at him like an irritable horse.

‘Why? Are you offering for her hand?’ demanded the mistress. ‘She’ll take it if ye do.’

‘Er... no...’

‘Then leave her alone. She’s enough to contend with.’

‘Yes missus,’ said Carey meekly.

FRIDAY 23RD JUNE, DAWN

Dodd was sitting glumly in the cell recently vacated by Bangtail, looking at the neat pile of turds in the corner. He had worn out his fury kicking the stout door and now his toes were sore as well as his stomach and his face and he hadn’t had breakfast.

The rattle of keys did not make him look up, since he expected it was Lowther come to gloat.

‘Wake up, Dodd,’ snapped his wife’s voice, ‘unless ye want to bide there until your hanging.’

‘Lowther’s put one of his men at the gate,’ said Lady Widdrington, ‘but Lady Scrope tells me there’s another way out of the castle, some secret passage to the Tile Tower.’

This was the first Dodd had heard of it, but he supposed it wasn’t the kind of thing generally bandied around. Lady Widdrington put a purse into his hand, and when he got into the passage, he found his wife had piled his jack and sword and helmet into a corner. He drank the ale from the bottle she handed him and gave her a kiss.

‘We haven’t much time,’ said Lady Scrope. ‘My husband says he’s got an ague and won’t do anything, and Lowther’s got the whole castle locked up tight.’

‘It’s too late to stop the Grahams getting to Netherby even on foot,’ said Dodd gloomily.

Janet was helping him into his jack, Lady Widdrington handed him his helmet and sword, even Lady Scrope was helping with the lacings. It was an extraordinary situation to be in.

‘I know that,’ said Lady Widdrington impatiently. ‘All we can do now is stop Bothwell from hanging him when he finds out.’

‘How can we do that?’ asked Dodd. ‘He’s an unchancy bastard to meddle with, that Earl and I dinna...’

They seemingly had a plan. Surrounding him with their skirts and selves, and with one of Lady Scrope’s velvet cloaks over his head, they simply walked him quickly round to the empty inside of the keep, through the servants’ quarters and to the place in the wall where the well was enclosed, supplying independent water to all the keep. Janet unbolted and pulled down the shutter.

‘Through there,’ said Lady Scrope.

‘What?’ asked Dodd, appalled.

‘If you climb through the gap,’ said Lady Scrope brightly, ‘and feel about with your feet, you’ll find the rungs of a ladder set into the wall. Climb down until you find another hole in the wall on the opposite side. That’s the entrance to the tunnel that goes to the Tile Tower.’

Dodd peered through the hole, which was black and smelled very wet and mouldy.

‘Christ Jesus,’ he said. To his surprise, no one told him not to swear. He would have thought there would be a chorus.

‘When you get to the Tile Tower,’ continued Elizabeth Widdrington coldly, ‘it’s up to you how you get out of the city, but I doubt Lowther knows of this since it’s knowledge passed from Warden to Warden. So he’ll expect you to try for the gate. I’ll have Bangtail try and make the attempt, and no doubt he’ll wind up in here which will serve him right.’

‘What for?’

‘For existing,’ said Janet.

Dodd wasn’t sure if it had been Bangtail who punched him in the kidneys when he was arguing with the Grahams about being locked up in his own jail, but wasn’t inclined to give anybody the benefit of the doubt.

‘What then?’ he asked. ‘If it’s too late to warn Carey to be out of Netherby and Scrope willna move, what can I do?’

They told him. He hated the sound of it, but he had to agree there didn’t seem anything else to be done. Lady Widdrington gave him one of Carey’s rings in case he needed to produce proof. Janet produced a rope which she passed around his middle and then kissed his face.

‘God keep you, husband,’ she said.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Dodd, blinking at the hole he was supposed to climb through. Would his shoulders go, or would he be left stuck and kicking? He poked his head through, eased his shoulders, and found that with some wriggling, they fitted. Some bits of stone slipped and fell: there was an awfully long wait, it seemed, before the splash. The place was pitch black. He spread his arms wide, feeling about, and sure enough there were rungs in the wall a little to the side.

Pulling back with long streaks of mould on his back and chest, he found a lantern being lit by Elizabeth Widdrington. As he was about to snarl he couldn’t be expected to do anything without light, he was nonplussed by this. They really expected him to do it.

Oh God, what would they do if he refused? He looked at their soft white faces, set like saints’ faces in an unreformed church, and decided he didn’t want to find out. And besides, he wouldn’t put it past Janet to go herself, she was in such a rage and what she would say to him afterwards, he hated to think. A short life and a miserable one, whatever I do, thought Henry Dodd glumly.

He brought up a stool, climbed on it, poked his shoulders through again and felt for the rungs of the ladder. The first one he found and tested for its strength, promptly came out of the wall at one side.

‘The mortar’s rotten,’ he said, thinking maybe he could survive Janet’s fury.

‘Get on with it,’ hissed Lady Widdrington, ‘someone’s coming.’

It was all very well for her, she wasn’t risking her neck in some horrible deep well... The second rung seemed firm enough to take his weight. He swallowed hard, got a grip on it with both hands and heaved himself through the little hole, the sword on his belt catching and scraping.