‘Kate, are ye mad? I dinna wantae see him. After what he had done to me last night, I willna be responsible for what I...’

‘Oh, shut yer clamour and come wi’ me,’ snapped Kate. ‘Ye’ll understand when ye see him.’

He did indeed. While Mary had done her message, Kate had already stripped the sheets off the bed, but left her husband half wrapped in the worst-stained blanket. Dead bodies were nothing new to Andy Nixon, but he had never before seen anyone grinning so nastily from his throat, with all severed tubes and the like showing as if he were a slaughtered pig.

Kate bolted the door behind him as he took in the scene. It was all too much for his aching head and aching body. He sat down on the clothes chest beside a tray of cold porridge, and put his face in his hand.

‘Oh, good Christ,’ he croaked.

‘Ay,’ she said. ‘What am I to do?’

‘What happened?’ he asked eventually, with a horrible cold suspicion fully formed in his heart. Atkinson had boasted of what he had done to his wife’s lover and his wife had taken a knife and...

‘Why? D’ye think I did it?’ Kate’s voice was shaking. ‘I left him as alive as you are, and after I’d milked the cow and skimmed the cream for Julia and made the porridge and seen to the children and sent them off to school, I came back and this is what I saw. And... and the blood all over everywhere.’

He was still staring at her and for all his trying, she saw the doubt in his eyes. Her hands clenched into her apron.

‘As God is my witness,’ she said, very low and intense. ‘I did not kill my husband.’

‘Ay,’ he said, still not able to deal with it. Kate laughed that high silly noise again.

‘I was going to ask ye if ye’d done it yourself,’ she said.

Andy’s mouth fell open and he felt sick. He hadn’t thought of that, but there was no denying the fact that he had wanted the little bastard dead as well.

‘But I didna,’ he said.

‘No more did I,’ she told him.

The two of them stared at each other while each could see the other wondering and wondering. Finally, Kate Atkinson made a helpless gesture and turned back to the corpse.

‘Well, he’s dead now. What’s to be done?’

‘I... I suppose I’d best get Sir Richard Lowther, and tell Fenwick to come for the body and...’

She whirled back to face him with her fists clenched. ‘For God’s sake, Andy, think!’ she hissed at him. ‘Who d’ye think they’ll say did it? You and me, for sure. You think the women round about here havenae seen us? Well, they have and they’ll delight in making sure Lowther knows the lot, and the Warden too. They won’t know how it was done for sure, but they’ll know I was in the house and that ye would likely be angry with him. What do ye think will happen? We’re not reivers, ye’re only Mr Pennycook’s rent collector and I’m just a woman. You’ll hang and I’ll burn.’

‘Burn?’ he said stupidly.

‘Ay. Burn. For petty treason. If you kill a man, Andy Nixon, and ye’re caught, that’s murder and you’ll hang for it. If a woman kills her husband, that’s no’ just murder, it’s petty treason. They hang, draw and quarter you for high treason and they burn ye for petty treason. So now.’

Andy Nixon was not a bad man, but neither was he a very clever one. He was broad and strong and quick in a fight, and he could withstand injuries that would have put a weaker man in bed, which was the only reason he could walk at all that morning. But thinking was not what he was paid to do by Mr Pennycook and, generally speaking, he left that to his betters. He gazed at the corpse and his mind was utterly blank.

‘Well?’ asked Kate Atkinson. ‘We canna leave him there. What shall we do?’

‘I don’t know.’ He blinked and bit the hard skin of his knuckles. ‘I could likely say it was me did it, and ye knew nothing of it and then I’d hang but ye wouldna burn,’ he offered as the best he could come up with.

Kate Atkinson looked at him for a moment with her mouth open. He shrugged and tried to smile.

‘I canna think of anything else,’ he explained sadly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

She suddenly put her arms round him and held him tight. He put his good arm about her shoulders and felt the juddering as she wept into his shoulder, but she was holding him too hard and it hurt his bruises, so he whispered, ‘Mind me ribs, Kate. I’m not feeling myself this morning.’

She lifted her head up and wiped her tears with her apron. ‘You’re Mr Pennycook’s man,’ she said, still sniffling. ‘Would he be a good lord to ye, d’ye think?’

‘He’s no’ bad to work for,’ Andy allowed, trying to think it out. ‘And he’s rich and he has men to do his bidding.’

‘Would he turn you over to the Warden?’

‘I dinna think so.’

‘Could we buy him?’

‘Oh ay,’ said Andy. ‘He’s always ready to be bought, is Mr Pennycook.’

‘Well, I’ll pay him a blackrent of five pounds in silver plate, if he’ll find a way out.’

Andy nodded. ‘He might listen at that. And five pounds would keep him quiet in hopes of getting more. It’s worth trying.’

‘Good,’ she said, and patted at the shoulder of his jerkin with her apron to dry the wet there. She used one of the keys from the bunch at her belt to open the small plate chest under the bed and gave him a couple of chased silver goblets to use as a sweetener. ‘Off you go to Mr Pennycook then, Andy, and say nothing to anyone...’

‘Do you take me for a fool?’ he demanded, and she managed to smile at him demurely.

‘No, Andy.’

Just for a moment he felt a stab of happiness, because if they could only slip clear of the noose and the stake, she was a widow now and he could marry her at last. No more skulking about in the cowshed. He forgot about his ribs and put his good hand on her shoulder, pulled her close and hurt his mouth kissing her.

‘There now, sweetheart. Pennycook will see us right. Dinna fret, Kate.’

MONDAY, 3RD JULY 1592, DAWN

Barnabus Cooke awoke from a dreamless sleep into the belief that someone was beating him over the head with a padded club and kicking him in the ribs. The first was untrue, the second was true. It was Solomon Musgrave waking him into the worst hangover he had had since... Well, since his last hangover.

‘Laddie,’ said Solomon patiently, ‘ye’re blocking the gate.’

‘Urrr...’ said Barnabus self-pityingly, rolled onto his hands and knees and stayed there for a moment with his head about to fall off, his tongue furred with something that tasted of pig manure, and his stomach roiling. He was collecting the courage to stand. His clothes were all damp with dew, as was his cloak, and he had tangled himself up with a javelin.

‘Wha... what ’appened?’

‘Some enemy o’ yourn must have poured too much beer and aquavita down your poor neck,’ said Solomon drily.

The soft mother-of-pearl light in the sky was stabbing his eyes, his body ached, he needed to piss, and he was shaking.

‘Oh God.’

‘Ay,’ said Solomon. ‘That’ll be him. Will ye get out of my way, Barnabus, or shall I kick ye again?’

‘Give me a minute, will you?’