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them against you?’
    There was a another shrug. ‘It’s more likely to turn them against my dear brother for not retaliating. They don’t like him, anyway.’
    â€˜Why not?’ I asked. A log on the hearth crackled and fell, spangling the room with fire. Outside the door, I heard someone stir. One of the squires was sleeping across the threshold.
    Albany, who had been half turned away from me, rolled on to his back and stared up at the bed canopy overhead. He had pulled back the curtain on his side to give himself more air.
    â€˜Well, for a start,’ he said, ‘they don’t like the way he stays cooped up in Edinburgh instead of travelling around the country, showing himself to his loving subjects. Then those same loving subjects don’t like the way he’s forced the price of everything up by issuing copper coinage – ‘black’ money the people call it – while at the same time he’s enriching all his low-born favourites.’
    â€˜Ah, favourites,’ I echoed. ‘They’re always a problem.’
    â€˜Especially when they’re as disreputable as James’s,’ Albany added viciously.
    â€˜Such as?’ I murmured, intrigued.
    â€˜Such as William Scheves, who was a shirt-maker for the court and is now Archbishop of St Andrews. Such as Thomas Cochrane, who is reported to have started life as a stonemason and is now one of my brother’s chief advisers. Such as William Rogers, musician, James Hommyl, tailor, Torpichen a fencing master and Leonard somebody, or somebody Leonard, a shoemaker; upstarts the lot of them. Bloody little nobodies, whose farty arses the old lords have to lick before they can get anywhere near the king.’
    I digested this. ‘Not a very lovable man, King James,’ I ventured at last.
    My companion gave a snort of laughter and turned his head on the pillow to look at me.
    â€˜No, not a very lovable man, as you so rightly remark. But perhaps I should warn you, Roger, not many of us Stewarts are. My grandfather, the first James, was murdered by his own nobles when my father, the second James, was seven years old. And we’re unlucky, too. My father had a huge birthmark which earned him the nickname “Fiery Face” and he was killed when a cannon exploded while he was inspecting it. My brother James was eight when he succeeded to the throne, John and I a few years younger.’
    I was silent for a moment or two, contemplating the often unhappy lives of our rulers; but not for long. At least they could be unhappy in comfort, which was never the lot of the poor.
    â€˜Do you really believe that your brother, the Earl of Mar, was murdered?’ I asked.
    â€˜I know he was,’ Albany rapped back. ‘He was imprisoned in Craigmillar Castle and Murdo and the others have told me that, shortly after they were all withdrawn from his service he was reported to have died. A chill was the official version.’
    â€˜And the unofficial?’
    â€˜One of his gaolers told the groom, Tullo, that John was held down in a tub of hot water while his wrists were slashed.’ Albany gave a harsh laugh. ‘There’s some dignity in a Roman death, I suppose.’
    â€˜What was he accused of?’
    â€˜Treason and witchcraft.’
    â€˜Witchcraft? Was that true?’
    â€˜Of course not!’ The reply came a little too swiftly and positively, but I let it pass.
    â€˜Why do you suspect one his servants of being in the pay of King James?’ I wanted to know.
    I had been itching to ask this question ever since our first meeting in London, but somehow had been unable to do so until this moment. It had proved difficult to get Albany to myself, and until tonight, he had fallen into bed and gone straight to sleep. But because of the bad weather, and on account of King Edward’s failing health, the march had been shorter than on previous days and, as a consequence, all of us were less