‘Question is, which March is the treason in?’

‘You’ll swing for his one,’ said Long George regretfully. Mick the Crow was beginning to look worried. He licked some blood off his moustache. March treason was the catch-all charge: if you couldn’t think what else to hang a man for, you hanged him for ‘bringing in of raiders’—helping raiders to cross the Border.

‘Ah’ve done nothin’...’

‘Shut up,’ said Carey. ‘All I want to know from you is where the Grahams are setting their ambush. They’ll have to lift her before she reaches Tynedale, because there are too many surnames there at feud with the Grahams to risk it. So where are they doing it?’

Mick’s eyes bulged. He croaked a couple of times.

‘My guess is by the Wall somewhere, because they can hide behind it, but I want to know the exact place.’

Mick the Crow was a good rider and a bonny fighter, but he hadn’t the brains for a traitor, Barnabus decided. His brow knitted and his lips moved as he tried to catch up.

‘Look,’ Barnabus whispered to Mick from his perch on top of the partition. ‘I know you’re wondering how he knows so much, but you’d be much better off wondering how you’re going to stop him making you look forward to your hanging. Right? I mean, he learned a lot from Walsingham’s boys, you know.’

‘That’s enough, Barnabus.’ Carey’s voice was curt.

‘Yessir,’ cringed Barnabus, enjoying himself greatly.

‘Also, Mick, I want to know who they’re planning to hit on their way back to make the trip worthwhile.’

‘But I dinna ken that, sir. How could I? All I did was, I took the message, that’s all.’

‘What message?’

Carey had pulled his dagger from the sheath hanging from his belt at the small of his back. It was a fashionable London duelling poignard, nine inches long, with a pretty jewelled hilt and an eye-wateringly sharp point, and he was using it to clean his nails. Mick the Crow watched him and licked his lips.

‘Ahh... he said Wattie could fetch himself a good ransom if he would foray out to the Roman Wall and catch... er...’

‘Catch whom?’

‘Er... Lady Widdrington, sir.’

Carey trimmed his thumbnail carefully and then fixed Mick the Crow with a blue considering stare. He tossed the poignard up in the air while Barnabus winced a little. As far as he was concerned, showing off with blades like that was a good way to get religious-looking holes in your palms.

‘Who sent you?’

Mick licked his lips again. ‘Er... who, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Carey with dangerous patience. ‘Who sent you?’

Mick’s face twisted in panic. ‘I canna say, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ah...’ Inspiration struck him. ‘I didna ken who he was, sir. It were dark.’

‘You took a message into the Debateable Land, for a man you don’t know?’

‘Ay, sir. He give me a shilling for it.’

There was an awful pause while Carey considered this. Mick was shaking like a mouse in a cat’s mouth.

‘Give me the message,’ Carey said at last.

Mick shook harder. ‘It was writing and Wattie burnt it.’

‘What was in it?’

‘I dinna ken, sir. I canna read.’

Carey was tossing the dagger again. ‘You carried a letter to Netherby for a man you don’t know.’

‘Ay, sir.’ Mick the Crow was sweating.

Carey squinted at him in the light from the open top door and the poignard flashed and slapped hilt-first back in his hand. ‘If it makes you feel happier, I’ll regard any obscenity dealing with my Lady Widdrington as being of other authorship.’

Mick’s eyes bulged again with bewilderment.

‘He’s saying, he won’t kill you for being rude about the lady; he’ll kill the man what sent you,’ translated Barnabus helpfully.

‘But I canna tell ye what was in it, I dinna...’ There was a rising note of panic in Mick’s voice.

‘You knew they were planning to take Lady Widdrington,’ snapped Carey.

‘Ay, sir, he let it slip an’...an’ they could call in on Archibald Bell by the way, sir, for he hasnae paid his blackrent. That’s all. As God’s my witness.’

Carey stared coldly at the shaking sweating creature before him, and his mouth made a small twitch of distaste.

‘You’re very frightened of this man, aren’t you, Mick? The one you don’t know.’

‘Ay, sir,’ said Mick hoarsely, licking blood off his lip again. ‘I’m a married man, see ye, and I’ve three small weans.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Carey remotely, ‘that entirely too many of you are married men. Will you tell the Lord Warden what you’ve just told me?’

Mick closed his eyes and moaned softly. ‘They’re ainly little, sir,’ he said pleadingly.

Carey sighed and put his poignard back in its sheath.

‘Would it help if I put you in gaol for refusing to tell me the man’s name?’

Mick opened his eyes again.

‘Oh, ay,’ he said pathetically. ‘It would so. Only not the Lickingstone cell, please, sir. It’s sae dark in there.’

‘Come along,’ said Carey sadly. ‘We’ll do it before I see the Warden.’

***