Something hit him like a mallet in the stomach. It was a block of stone off the roof, shrewdly thrown by Jock, and it took every wisp of air out of him. He tottered, tried to keep his feet, tried to draw his dagger, but Jock moved in, caught him briskly, steadied him, and kneed him hard in the balls.

He landed bruisingly on the hot parapet, agony flaring white in his eyes and no breath even to mew with pain; he tried but failed to puke. Locked in a private battle with what felt like a black spear in his groin, lancing up to his chest, he dimly heard Jock pushing his feeble barricade of firewood aside. There was a scraping sound as Jock pulled the flagstones off the trapdoor, and cursing because the metal and wood were hot, shot the bolts.

Carey was beginning to be able to uncurl when Jock kicked him in the head, grabbed the back of his doublet and some hair and dragged him over the stones, behind the angle of the roof.

‘Bothwell,’ shouted Jock, busily tying Carey’s wrists behind him with the ropes that had just been cut off his own arms, ‘I’ve got him. D’ye hear me? The trapdoor’s open, ye can come up.’

‘It could be a trick,’ came Bothwell’s voice. ‘Carey, what are you up to?’

‘He’s surrendering unconditionally,’ said Jock. ‘In fact, I dinna think he can talk at the moment, he seems verra preoccupied.’

‘What happened?’

‘Och, he’s a courtier, wi’ notions of honour and such, he only went and untied me arms.’

There was a lot of unkind laughter down below. Carey would have felt betrayed, but as Jock was giving him a scientific kicking while he spoke, he found he couldn’t think of anything except how to roll up tighter. There were sounds of hissing as water was poured over the fire, cautious scraping sounds of a ladder being brought.

Jock took a fistful of Carey’s hair and hauled his head back. ‘This is for the good of your soul, Courtier. Ah’m teaching ye not to beat up your elders...’

Carey blinked away the water springing out of his eyes and, out of pure stupid temper, spat in Jock’s face.

‘Och, Courtier, Courtier...’ said Jock regretfully, ‘ye’re a hard man to teach.’ He banged Carey’s face a couple of times on the stone and the ugly world and Jock’s ugly face went black.

Carey came to, still cross-eyed and dizzy, and tried to puke again. Jock had sauntered over to the parapet. He was peering out at the barnekin and horse paddock between fading drifts of smoke, still coughing. Carey must have made some sort of moaning noise, because Jock turned to him.

Privately Carey thought he’d had a great deal worse than Jock, but he couldn’t see any point in arguing and it was too much effort anyway.

‘Thought so,’ said Jock with satisfaction, still gazing outwards at something he could see over the parapet. ‘Thank God Sergeant Dodd knows what he’s at.’

One of Carey’s eyes was swelling shut and he could do no more than dully wonder through his multifarious pains why Jock had picked up the bow and the remaining arrows and had nocked one on the string. He was still where Jock had hauled him, out of sight of the trapdoor, uncomfortably half-curled, half-sprawled on the roofstones, his head jammed against the parapet wall and his knees pulled up. His hands had already gone numb. A tentative movement of his shoulders to try and free his head got him kicked again, so he stayed where he was. Then the trapdoor moved, shifted, was hefted out of the way.

The head and shoulders that appeared through the hole were Bothwell’s, and he was holding a dag with the match ready lit. He and Jock looked at each other for a moment.

‘Now,’ said Jock, ‘ye’re going to talk to Sergeant Dodd, my lord Earl, and in exchange for the men he caught and all our horses which he’s rounded up and has started on their way back south and for him agreeing to take himself and his men off again, we’ll give him his precious Deputy Warden. Onless ye want to give up on yer raid altogether, because if ye dinna agree then I’m out of it and so are all my kin.’

‘Why Jock? What do you care about one of Hunsdon’s boys? Has he got a knife at your back?’

Jock laughed. ‘Ye know me better than that, Bothwell. Nay, he’s down here on the floor by my feet, feeling right sorry for himself.’ Carey had tried to wriggle out of range while Jock was busy, so Jock gave him another kick in the back, but the arrow pointed at Bothwell’s heart remained rock-steady. Bothwell blinked through the final wisps of smoke, finally spotted Carey, who had decided to play dead for the moment despite the heat of the stones, and laughed heartily.

‘Untie him and let me shoot his right hand off, so he never troubles us again.’

Jock hesitated. ‘I’d let ye, my lord,’ he said, ‘but he didna kill me when he had the chance and I said I wouldna let you harm him.’

‘Ye’ve harmed him yerself, it looks like.’

‘That’s different.’

‘He wanted to use you as a hostage.’

‘Nay, I’m no’ a good hostage and he knows it. He is, though,’ grinned Jock. ‘Are ye fixed on fighting Sergeant Dodd and his men, Bothwell, or would ye rather save the powder for our raid?’

‘What did you tell him about it?’

‘Jesus, my lord, what do ye take me for, I told him nothing of it,’ said Jock sincerely. ‘We’ve been talking of family matters. It’s been verra interesting, eh Courtier?’ Jock kicked Carey in the ribs again and smiled blithely at Bothwell.

FRIDAY, 23RD JUNE, AFTERNOON

At last Bothwell climbed up to the fighting platform behind the sharpened logs of the Netherby barnekin and shouted for Sergeant Dodd. Dodd had glimpsed activity at the top of the tower and was wondering irritably if Carey had managed to get himself killed at the last minute.

‘I’m the headman...’ began Will the Tod.

‘Shh,’ said Dodd, ‘he thinks I’ve brought the Carlisle garrison too.’

‘But ye havna. Lowther...’

‘Let him think it. Ay my lord,’ yelled Dodd, ‘what d’ye want?’

‘We’ve got your Deputy Warden prisoner, Sergeant,’ said Bothwell.

‘Is he still alive?’

Bothwell grinned. ‘Ay. He’s not very happy, but he’s still alive. Tell me why I shouldnae cut his throat and be done with it.’

‘Prove he’s alive first,’ said Dodd, his voice hard with suspicion, ‘I’ve nae interest in his corpse.’

Bothwell nodded, leaned down and gave some orders. Two men appeared behind the pointed logs: Dodd recognised a battered Jock of the Peartree with his knife at the neck of an even more battered Robert Carey.

Dodd relaxed a little. Why on earth hadn’t they killed him when they caught him? Ah well, who could fathom the way the mad Earl’s mind worked.

‘What will ye give me for him?’ shouted Bothwell.

‘He’s only the one man,’ yelled Will the Tod in return, ‘and he’s no’ very valuable.’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Dodd, ‘he’s the Deputy Warden and...’

‘Och, Henry,’ said Will the Tod, not at all offended, ‘Janet’s right, ye know nothing of bargaining.’ He raised his voice again. ‘If ye give him to us, we might consider going away and leaving ye in peace.’

Dodd couldn’t quite make out expressions at that distance, but he rather thought that one of Carey’s eyebrows had gone travelling upwards again.

‘What about my horses?’ demanded Bothwell.

‘What horses?’ asked Will the Tod sweetly.

‘Don’t try my patience, Armstrong, ye ken very well which horses.’

‘D’ye mean the few nags that belong to ye, or d’ye mean all the peaceable innocent men’s horses ye’ve reived in the past week?’

‘I mean all the horses in the God damned paddock,’ shouted Bothwell, ‘or I’ll send him out to you in pieces.’