‘And you will promise me not to run off without my permission and blessing,’ John stipulated. ‘You’ve been to war now, Johnnie, you know how hard it is. You know it’s a hundred times harder for a man without some money in his pocket and the right equipment: a good sword, a warm cloak, a strong horse. If you wait until the Scots have reached York you can join them as an officer. Do I have your word?’

Johnnie hesitated for only a moment. ‘You have,’ he said. ‘But I will start preparing today, so that I am ready the moment I can go.’

‘How can you?’ Frances interrupted passionately. ‘How can you even think of it, Johnnie? After the last time?’

He fired up at the challenge in her voice. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said. ‘You’re a girl.’

‘I understand that you nearly broke Mother’s heart last time and that we have none of us been happy since you came back from Colchester,’ she said hotly. ‘I understand that you have been sick to death ever since that defeat. Why go? Why go all that way to feel despair again? What if you are hurt so far from home? We’d never even know! What if your luck runs out and you get killed in one of these stupid battles at a village where we never even know the name?’

Alexander Norman, looking from his angry young wife to her younger brother, still not yet seventeen years old, hoped for a moment that the two might quarrel like the children they once were and the whole issue be lost in the confusion of words and temper. Johnnie leaped to his feet, ready to blaze back at Frances, but then he reined in his temper and looked at his father.

‘I thank you for your permission, sir,’ he said formally, and left the room.

Hester waited in silence until they heard his footsteps cross the hall and go out of the back door. Then she spoke bitterly to her husband. ‘How could you? How could you agree that he should go?’

John looked at his son-in-law over a mug of small ale. ‘Ask Alexander,’ he advised. ‘He knows how I could.’

Hester, her cheeks blazing, turned to Alexander. ‘What?’ she spat out.

‘They’ll never get to York,’ Alexander predicted. ‘Cromwell can’t risk having a foreign army on English soil. He can’t even risk having a Scottish army on the march against him. Not after having bloodied his sword in Ireland to keep the people down. He has to bring peace to the kingdom or lose everything. Lose one kingdom and he has lost all four. He’ll fight them in Scotland and he’ll defeat them in Scotland. He’ll never let them come south.’