‘He’ll beat me if I’m abess... abs... not there,’ came the pathetic bleat.

‘And nae more than ye deserve,’ said Solomon Musgrave primly. ‘Shame on ye, to be so drunk. Go to sleep.’

‘She was only a ’atter’s dooooorter an’ she...’

Quietly Solomon went along the sentry walk, picked a slim javelin from its sheaf, went back and listened to the adventures of the Hatter’s Daughter for a few seconds until he was sure of his aim, then threw. There was a satisfying whipchunk sound, and the vibration of the wooden shaft. The caterwauling stopped. After a moment, Barnabus’s voice came again.

‘Wotcher do that for?’

‘I said I would.’

‘You could’ve killed me.’

‘Ay. Next time I willnae miss. Go to sleep.’

There was more sullen muttering and cursing, then shuffling and rustling sounds. Solomon Musgrave squinted down and saw that, from the look of it, Barnabus had picked up the javelin, rolled himself up in his cloak with his back against the wood of the door, pulled his hat over his eyes and gone to sleep. A noise that combined the music of a pigpen and the regularity of a sawpit rolled up towards him.

Solomon Musgrave sighed. ‘Ah wish Ah’d known the man sounded better drunk and awake.’

Feeling sorry for the Deputy who presumably shared a room with that awful noise, he went back to his contemplation of the heavens.

MONDAY, 3RD JULY 1592, EARLY MORNING

‘I’ll fetch your father his porridge,’ said Kate Atkinson. ‘And then I’ll come and show you a new stitch.’ She sighed. She needed more help in the house, but her husband refused to allow her to waste his money on idle girls so she could sit by a window and plot like his bitch of a half-sister.

‘I done this one almost straight,’ said little Mary proudly. ‘Look.’

Kate Atkinson looked and agreed that it was much straighter than the one above and in a little while all her stitching would be completely straight. The child wasn’t likely to be a beauty, with her mousy hair and sallow complexion, but she would have a good dowry and unimpeachable skills in housewifery; she should make a good enough match.

Suppressing the knowledge that her own marriage had been a good enough match according to her mother, Mrs Atkinson took the bowl of porridge, sprinkled salt on it, laid it on a tray with a mug of small ale and steeled herself to the unpleasantness that awaited her upstairs. He had been drinking half the night. She knew he had; she had woken in the dark to the pungent smell of beer and the lolling body of James half shoving her out of bed. The watch-light had burned down wastefully and he hadn’t even drawn the curtains to keep out the dangerous bad airs of the summer. She muttered to herself about it as she climbed the stairs carefully.

It was a long time before she came down again, and when she did she was as white as linen. Her hands shook as she found her husband’s black bottle of aqua vitae in the lock-up cupboard and took a couple of painful swallows.

Ten minutes later, Mary Atkinson trotted self-importantly through the broad streets of Carlisle, carefully lifting her kirtle away from the little midden heaps all around. Mrs Leigh their next-door neighbour waved to her and asked how she was, and she explained that she was very well as her mam had told her to do, before trotting on. She avoided the courtyard with the Fierce Pig in it and said hallo to three cats and a friendly dog, which took a little time. She also waved to Susie Talyer but couldn’t stop to skip with her because she was taking a Message.

She was picturing herself walking up St Alban’s vennel to Mr Nixon’s door and banging on it and explaining her Message, when she was very disappointed to see Mr Nixon coming down the street towards her. He looked funny; his mouth was all swollen, his eyes were bruised and he was walking with a limp and his arm in a sling. It was sad she wouldn’t be able to knock on his door now, but she could still take her Message and she liked him, so she squealed his name and when he looked, she ran straight for him and cannoned into his legs.

Mr Nixon made an odd little squeak-grunting noise and held onto her tightly.

‘Don’t do that!’ he growled at her.

Her face crumpled and puckered and tears started into her eyes.

Mr Nixon sighed, let go of her arms and patted her head.

‘There,’ he said awkwardly and rather hoarsely. ‘Dinna cry, Mary my sweet, I’m not angry at ye, only ye hurt ma legs which is sore this morning.’

She might get a penny off him to quiet her, so she cried all the harder.

‘Is yer father in?’ he asked her cautiously, without taking proper notice of her tears.

A bit surprised that her magic power hadn’t worked this time, she nodded and gulped. ‘But me mam said for ye to come anyway, she said ye mun come right now and never mind what ye’re at, she said she needs ye bad.’

Mr Nixon’s face looked very odd and he stood still for a long while. He looked angry and afraid at the same time.

‘Me dad’s still asleep,’ she said helpfully. ‘He wouldna wake when mam yelled for him. She said he’d drunk too much last night.’

‘Did he, by God?’ said Mr Nixon in a nasty voice. He put his left hand on his dagger hilt and made the lift and drop movement that even Mary knew was the prelude to a fight. She took the arm that wasn’t in a sling and started pulling him after her.

‘Ye must come, Mr Nixon, please,’ she said. ‘Me mam’s very upset, her face is as white as her apron, it is so, and she wouldna show me the new stitch like she promised, so please come.’

Mr Nixon’s face took on a new set of lines under the bruising, his lips went all thin and into a straight line.

‘Ay,’ he said. ‘I will.’

‘I did it, mam,’ she said plaintively. ‘I did the Message.’

Her mam looked at her vaguely as if not seeing her. ‘Go help Julia with the buttermaking,’ she said, as if Mary had not just delivered an important message for her. Mary was thinking about crying again, but Mr Nixon did a sort of smile for her and nodded. ‘I’ll give ye the money for a penny bun if ye go off like a good lass now,’ he said, so she held out her hand and after a pause he put the penny in it and she trotted off to the scullery where the paddle in the milk was finally beginning to make the plunk plunk noises that heralded butter. Perhaps she could get some buttermilk to drink as well.

Kate Atkinson blinked at Andy Nixon for several seconds after her daughter had gone. Her mind seemed not to be working properly, or at least it was some while behind what her eyes saw. She didn’t look as if Atkinson had beaten her, or he had kept away from her face if he had. She frowned suddenly.

‘Andy, what happened to your face... and your arm?’ she asked.

‘What d’ye think, Kate?’

‘I... don’t know.’

‘Och, work it out, woman.’

‘Did something fall on you?’

Andy Nixon managed a mirthless smile. ‘In a manner of speaking. Four men, if ye want to know.’

‘What?’

‘Your husband paid four men to beat me last night.’

It seemed impossible but her face grew whiter. Both hands went to her mouth.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Ay,’ agreed Andy. ‘Ah was comin’ to tell ye we canna go on; I willnae come to see ye any more. Not for a while, any road. I’m going back to my father.’

Well, he hadn’t expected her to like it, but whatever he had expected it wasn’t a peculiar high-pitched little laugh.

She saw it frightened him, so she swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

‘Come and see him,’ she said, taking his good arm and leading him to the stairs.