"Aye. But if you was to go off for a few days, sir. Let tempers cool. If they come here, I can make 'em feel pretty ashamed for persecutin' of a poor lady who hadn't got long on this earth. You could come in at night to see her."

Trev squinted into the musty corner of the stable. He chewed his lip in thought. "It's risky." He nodded slowly. "But it might do. If I had a safe house."

"Lemme ask round for—"

A sharp, trilling whistle interrupted him. They both startled at the sound—familiar enough, but so close overhead that Trev had to crane his neck to see into the loft. "Barton!" he muttered in disgust. "What the deuce are you doing up there?"

His former accomplice showed his face between the rough-hewn beams, a straw of hay dangling from behind one ear. "I've got him, sir!" he hissed. "Tied up right out behind the shed."

Trev had a sudden nightmarish vision of Sturgeon—or worse, his friend the magistrate—bound and gagged behind the shed. "Who's tied up?" he exclaimed, taking a step. "Barton, I swear, if—"

"The bull, sir," Barton said. He scrambled round, causing hay and dust to drift down through the planks. He dangled from a beam by his hands, dropped, and recovered himself, dusting vigorously at his trousers.

"The bull?" Trev scowled at him a moment and then remembered. "Oh right—the bull," he said with a strong sense of relief. He watched Barton try to dig a straw from inside his neck cloth. His hand was dirty— completely black about the fingernails, and his clothes were marked with grimy dark streaks. "Well done, then. Well done, old fellow. At least something's gone right. Have you been sleeping in some bog? Clean yourself up at the pump and take the animal over to the Shelford home farm. Say it's to be presented to Lady Callista Taillefaire, with my compliments."

It was something he could do for her, anyway. He thought of how pleased she would be, and wished that he could see her face light up when she saw the creature, as he knew it would. "Try to get the manure out of your ears first," he added.

Barton fidgeted. He'd been grinning like a gargoyle at the praise, but his smile faded at this. "Present it to a lady?" he said. "I dunno if that's a good idea, sir."

"She'll be excessively pleased, I assure you. She's no common lady. How loud did you have to squeal for Davenport?"

Jock looked up sharply. Barton's glance slid side ways, an avoidance that caused a familiar drop in the pit of Trev's stomach.

"Davenport, did you say, sir?" Jock asked. "A Colonel Davenport?"

Trev glanced at his servant. "Aye, do you know of him?"