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at his daughters as he passed, accusing them of forcing him to confront the limits of himself.
    Rachel found that her fists were locked tight, the material clenched to a rag in them.
I do not know how long I can live like this.
She looked up, and found Mary watching her.
    ‘I have to see.’ 
    Mary nodded. They both stood. By the time they reached the door between study and hall, their father and one of the servants were at the front door, each with a lantern. The two old faces shone and shadowed as they moved.
    Then the servant was grappling with the bolts. They heard the hard metal reports as the house loosened its armour, and there was a sudden rush of noise as the storm charged in through the door, throwing the servant back against the wall still clinging to the latch. The wind buffeted back and forth on the doorstep, and they saw their father peering into the night.
    After a wary moment, he ventured a step forward, and lifted the lantern higher.
    ‘Great God!’ he said, and the words rang shrill into the storm. ‘Is it you?’
    Any reply from whoever was hidden outside was lost in the noise, but then a shadow had stepped forward over the doorstep and was helping the servant shoulder the door closed. A hat, a broad back, high boots flickered in the lantern light. Suddenly the roar of the storm was silenced with the door’s slam and the falling latch. The bolts slid heavily back into place.
    The shadowed stranger had said something else, and the Astbury sisters saw their father’s face turn to them and say with unnecessary volume, ‘We’d better talk in my study.’
    They understood, and stepped quickly forwards into the hall and aside.
    At last they saw the stranger, as Anthony Astbury led him past them and into the study. A tall man – taller than their father, anyway, and broad with it. An older man, surely; but his physical strength and straight back made him younger. Thick grey hair, as far as they could guess in the distorting glow of the lantern, and the face was ancient and hard.
    The stranger was like an old rock, and as he passed them pressed flat against the hall panelling he looked at each of the sisters with unconcealed interest. There was something alive in the dark eyes and the mouth, though they gave no hint of a smile.

    On a framework of pikes and the lower branches of a slumped oak, the servants had contrived a rough shelter of blankets and cloaks and scavenged sheets.
    Under it, huddled in their own cloaks, three men wriggled fitfully for more comfortable positions among the oak roots, and watched in the lantern light as the material above them grew sodden, bulged down, and began to drip.
    ‘Where is Traquair?’
    ‘I did not see him, your Grace.’
    James, First Duke of Hamilton pushed himself up against the trunk, shifted his backside irritably, and watched the lantern.
    ‘You said you know this place?’
    ‘No, your Grace. I heard a name mentioned – a village. I didn’t know it.’
    The rain flicked heavy and incessant on the blankets, and somewhere out in the night there were the shuffles and mutters of unhappy horses and soldiers.
    ‘Your Grace, they say that Traquair may have. . . may have taken his own road.’
    ‘Deserted, you mean?’ The word stung oddly in the Scottish mouth.
    ‘Surely not, your. . .’ What was the point? ‘Perhaps an hour or two back along the road, your Grace.’
    A grunt. ‘Clever Traquair. But maybe we’ll prove him wrong, eh?’
    ‘Well spoke, your Grace.’
    ‘Herefordshire is in arms; Lingen fights for us there, didn’t you say? We will join him.’
    ‘Indeed, sir. We’ve not had word of him since Chester, but. . .’
    The Duke’s shoulder had begun to chill. He shifted it a fraction, and felt it clammy. He forced himself not to look at it, not to think of the trunk running with rain. He would hold this position until the end of the conversation.
    ‘Not Pontefract?’
    ‘No, sir. Pontefract holds out, but it’s too risky. We’ll not