‘Philadelphia...’ began Scrope.

‘I may greet my brother, I think,’ said Lady Scrope haughtily. Carey whispered in her ear and she frowned, then picked up a work bag from near the fire, sat down on her stool and began rapidly stitching at a piece of white linen, her steel needle with its tail of black flashing hypnotically before Dodd’s eyes. ‘And I wanted to speak to him privately as well.’

‘When we...’

‘How much did you want?’ asked Carey. Lady Scrope tutted at him.

‘Not money,’ she said primly. ‘I do not always lose at primero, you know.’

‘Oh no?’ said Carey sceptically. ‘I swear on my honour I have seen you draw to a flush with no points on three separate occasions.’

Dodd, who had heard some of the legends about Lady Scrope’s gambling, hid a smile.

‘My lord has been teaching me better play,’ said Lady Scrope with dignity, a blatant lie as far as Dodd was concerned, since Lord Scrope was even worse than she was.

Carey raised his eyebrows severely.

‘My lord,’ said Dodd across the argument, ‘I must have a private word...’

‘Later, Sergeant, later,’ said Scrope irritably. ‘I have some business with Sir Robert, my dear...’

Philadelphia made three minute stitches and finished off the end, unfurled a new length from her bobbin, snipped, threaded and began stitching again. A blackworked peapod was taking shape like magic on the linen. ‘Pray continue,’ she said. ‘My business can wait a little.’

Dodd decided he had been dismissed and turned to go, wondering what the disturbance downstairs might be. Carleton came with him. They were stopped by Carey’s voice.

‘Sergeant,’ he called, ‘shall I meet you at dawn in the yard tomorrow?’

Dodd thought about it and sighed. ‘Ay sir.’

He reached for the door and nearly had it slammed in his face. There on the threshold stood Sir Richard Lowther, resplendent in tawny velvet and red gown, his greying hair further frosted with rain and murder in his face.

‘What is this I hear,’ he said, dangerously quiet into the instant silence, ‘about the Deputyship?’

Scrope was on his feet, coming forward.

‘Ah, Sir Richard,’ he said, ‘may I present to you Sir Robert Carey, my brother-in-law and... er...’

Dodd had backed into a corner, the better to watch the show. Philadelphia had stopped sewing and was also watching intently, Carleton was leaning against a wall, with a cynical grin on his face. Hands on hips, Lowther advanced towards Carey, who was standing, smiling unconcernedly.

‘Sir Richard Lowther,’ he said with a shallow Court bow. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.’

‘Well I,’ snarled Lowther, ‘am not pleased to make yours, sir.’

Carey’s eyebrows went up again. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Scrope coughed frantically, and wriggled his fingers together like knobbled worms. ‘I am... er... appointing Sir Robert as my Deputy,’ he said. ‘The post is in my gift.’

‘A bloody foreigner? A southerner to be Deputy Warden.’

‘I was brought up in Berwick, my father Lord Hunsdon is East March Warden,’ said Carey mildly.

‘Oh Christ!’ roared Lowther. ‘One of those Careys. That’s all we need. What’s the old woman up to then, making the poor bloody Borders a sinecure for all her base-born cousins?’

Carey went white and drew his sword. Its long wickedly pointed blade caught the firelight and slid it up and down distractingly. Carleton blinked and stood upright, glanced at Dodd who was ready to move as well. One of those long modern rapiers, he thought professionally, fine for a duel but unreliable for a fight where men were wearing jacks. Would Lowther draw?

‘I don’t like the way you talk of my family and I don’t like the way you talk of the Queen,’ said Carey very coldly. ‘Would you care to discuss the matter outside?’

Lowther looked a little surprised, under his rage. His own hand was on his swordhilt, he had not yet committed himself. In the silence that followed, Dodd reflected that it was always interesting to watch the way a man held a sword, providing he wasn’t facing you at the time. Beyond the question of whether he knew how to use it, there was the way he stood, was he tense, had he killed before, how angry was he? Carey looked competent with his rapier and not at all a virgin in the way of bloodshed. Of one thing Dodd was morally certain, who had met both of them: his brother, Sir John, would not have drawn, his father would have drawn and struck.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ said Scrope, breaking out of his trance and moving between them, ‘I will not have my men duelling. Sir Richard, if you have a quarrel with the way I appoint my officers, please take it up with Her Majesty. Sir Robert, you will put up your weapon.’

Carey hesitated a moment, then sheathed his sword. Lowther growled inarticulately, turned on his heel and stamped out of the room. They could hear his boots on the stairs and his bull-bellow as he passed through to the lower room.

All of them let out a breath, except for Carleton who looked disappointed.

‘I should have warned you...’ began Scrope apologetically, but Carey had sat himself carefully down on the bench again, clasped his hands and was looking at them abstractedly.

‘Who controls the dispatches to London?’ he asked, seemingly irrelevantly.

‘That’s Lowther’s job,’ Carleton answered him, ‘fairly bought and paid for.’

Carey looked at Scrope regretfully. ‘My lord, we have a problem.’

‘Why?’ asked Scrope pettishly, ‘I made him know who was Warden here.’

Lady Scrope was sewing again. ‘Robin means, my lord,’ she said tactfully, ‘that Sir Richard will be writing to my Lord Burghley and we can’t stop his letter.’

Carey smiled fondly at his sister.

‘Why should that matter?’ Scrope demanded. ‘I’m the Warden.’

‘Fully confirmed, with your warrant?’ asked Carey.

‘Well...’

‘Not yet,’ said Philadelphia, raising her eyebrows exactly like her brother. ‘There hasn’t been time since the old lord died. It was less than a week ago, remember. He isn’t even buried yet, he’s still in the chapel, poor old soul.’

‘No warrant?’

‘I’m only Warden during pleasure anyway,’ said Scrope. ‘What would Burghley do...’

Being a man who often edited what he wanted to say, Dodd recognised the symptoms in someone else.

‘Well, my lord,’ said Carey after a deep breath, ‘if you remember, it was the Earl of Essex who gave me my knighthood. He and Burghley... er... hate each other.’

‘Oh,’ said Scrope, beginning to understand, ‘Court factions.’

‘Of course, Robin is the Queen’s favourite...’ began Philadelphia.