It was late in the morning, almost noon, when it happened.

Berenger was riding up at the front of their group, with the others straggling in a line behind. At his side, Retford had begun to open up a little. After so many days in the company of the men, the messenger was more inclined to laugh and joke with the rest of the vintaine. He even unbent so far as to share a song or two as they rode.

It was not easy riding here. They were into a landscape of rivers, thick forests and small, granite houses. Vills were few and far between, and the people they saw were unwelcoming and mistrustful. Still, Berenger was content to be making moderate progress. The horses were being forced to work hard, and he was aware that soon, they would have to change them for fresh mounts. It should be possible, he thought, if there was an inn on the way, but if they failed to find one today, tomorrow they would need to rest their beasts more. As it was, they were dismounting regularly to help the horses.

‘How do you know Sir Peter?’ he asked Andrew Retford.

‘He is a great leader of men. I am proud to know him,’ Retford said with a flash of his earlier arrogance. Then he slid a look at Berenger. ‘His esquire, William of Windsor, came to my town when he was heading for London one day, and saw me playing. He offered me the chance to go with him, and which boy wouldn’t want to join an esquire? My father had been wondering what to do with me, because I had no skill with my hands, and no one wanted me as apprentice, so it seemed a good notion to put me with him and see whether I could learn the martial arts.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘When I was six, so almost ten years ago.’

‘You have enjoyed your service?’

‘I would say yes, mostly. William of Windsor is a hard master, and he believes in teaching with a staff or a rope’s end, but he is pious, so it is to be understood. He mortifies his own body as much as he does anyone else’s.’

‘But your esquire is now in the household of Sir Peter of Bromley?’

‘Yes. My master was in the service of the Lord of Bromley, but when he died a year and a half ago, and Sir Peter was given the manor, my master and I joined his retinue.’

‘Is it a good manor?’

‘It’s wonderful! The orchards are full each autumn with apples, plums and pears, and there is a separate nut garden, and roses and other flowers lend their fragrance all through the summer, and the house is magnificent and strongly defended, with a great wall set about it, high and with marvellous gates that would keep out even the—’

He stumbled to a halt, and Berenger could guess why. It would be treason to suggest that a property might be held against the King.

‘Are there good estates to go with it?’ he asked tactfully.

Relieved to be diverted from the dangerous line he had taken, the boy replied enthusiastically, ‘Why, yes – the manor has many vills within it, all the way from . . .’

There was a sudden hiss and clatter. Berenger instantly slashed his reins over the rump of his mount, bellowing at the top of his voice, ‘AMBUSH! Archers, string your bows! Jack, Clip, Oli: into the bushes and flank them. Earl, you stay with the new boys! Andrew, get back to the rest!’ He flew back to meet with the others. A whirr and thud told him that an arrow had missed its mark and hit a tree nearby, and then he was sliding from the saddle, grabbing his bow as he went, stringing it with the speed born of long practice, and grasping a handful of arrows from the quiver at his saddlebag.

‘With me!’ he cried, and plunged into the woods.

He moved forward at a crouch, pushing the ferns and bushes aside with his bow, eyes fixed on the taller trees, warily watching the upper branches, aware too of the trunks in case an arrow was being aimed around one.

A prod in his back, and he turned slowly to see Jack touch his lips: quiet! He held up four fingers, jabbed upwards: four men in trees overhead. Berenger nodded, but frowned; he couldn’t see anyone in the trees. He watched as Jack took a short detour to an oak. There he stopped, gazing intently overhead, and then, apparently satisfied, he nocked an arrow and leaned around the side of the tree. He drew and loosed in one easy, fluid movement, returning to the protection of the trunk even as Berenger heard the wet, unpleasant sound of an arrow striking and piercing a man’s body. There was an exclamation, more a sob than a cry of pain, and Berenger heard something large falling through branches until it landed on the ground with a loud thud.

Berenger turned to Clip, but he had already moved away and stood behind another large tree. As Berenger watched, he nodded to Jack, and both turned, drew and loosed, and a yelp let Berenger know that another man was either hit, or severely startled by the nearness of a shaft. He rose and peered above him. There were two or three men still up there in the trees, but he hadn’t seen them. It was a proof of how poor his eyesight was grown, the fact that both of his men had seen their targets, but he had not. A movement, and for a moment he thought he was a target, but then he saw it again and realised it was only a branch waving in the wind.

‘Ready?’ he called.

‘Three, two, one . . .’ he heard Jack count, and then two more whistling arrows were sent on their way. Jack’s found its mark, and Berenger suddenly saw a man thrown back clutching at his breast, where the fletchings of an arrow-shaft had appeared. Clip’s arrow had missed its mark.

‘Two more!’ Jack hissed.

But he was wrong. Even as the three made their cautious way forward, there came the sound of ropes and men sliding down, and then a loud crashing as their attackers blundered away through the undergrowth.

‘Missed them,’ Jack said, disappointed.

‘Only the last pair. You haven’t done badly, Jack,’ Berenger said. He was stepping forward to where the first man had fallen from the tree. It took him a while to locate him, for he had tumbled into a mass of ferns and nettles, but then he saw a crushed section of plants and found the body just behind it.

The man was only young. Not yet in his middle twenties, at a guess. His pale brown eyes had remained wide open. A fly was already feasting on his left and Berenger waved it away with disgust before closing the dead man’s lids. He hated to see flies on the dead. It reminded him that soon afterwards they were likely to be crawling over his food.

‘Bring the others here,’ he said.

When they had been gathered, he pointed at the body. ‘This is the sort of danger we’re exposed to now. We need to keep an eye on the trees as well as the bushes. If one outlaw gang can try to attack us, so can others.’

‘Sir,’ said the Pardoner, ‘I’m sorry, but was it a quick death for him?’

Berenger glanced down at the head lying so nearly parallel to the body’s shoulders where the neck had broken. ‘Oh, yes. I think so.’

They were passing through a great plain two days later, and the lack of any apparent danger had affected all of them, making them relax their guard. That was when the next attack took place.

One moment they were riding moderately close together, and the next, a horde of men sprang out from nowhere, surrounding them all.

‘Back!’ Berenger screamed at his men. ‘Jack, Clip – swords!’

There was no need for his order. Already he saw Clip’s long-bladed knife flashing, and his horse was kicking and trying to escape. Meanwhile, Berenger himself had enough on his hands, with three men all clad in fustian and green riding straight at him. They tried to grab him from his horse, but then resorted to hacking and stabbing at him with a hatchet and two short swords. He was glad that none of them had a polearm. At close quarters like these, a man with a lance, or even a staff, could turf a man out of the saddle with ease. It was bad enough trying to block the men as it was. Their blades rose and fell, and it was only good fortune that led to the horse turning at the exact moment that one assailant was trying to hack at Berenger’s leg. The blow went wide and struck the thick leather saddle instead. Swearing and cursing, Berenger crouched and aimed a cut at the man’s head. It connected, slicing a thick swatch of scalp away, and the other men fell back, suddenly aware of their own danger. It was enough to give Berenger time to spur his petrified mount away from the scene.

He rode away, and as soon as he was safely distant, he pulled his bow free again. His mount was panting and whinnying, and when he looked, he saw that a long flap of flesh had been sliced from the beast’s shoulder. He dismounted and strung his bow, pulled an arrow from his quiver and sent it into a man near Clip. The next he aimed at a man attacking the Earl, and that man also fell, but then he waited, the third arrow nocked and ready, watching the men fighting. There were some thicker-set fellows not far away, and he kept a wary eye on them, but they appeared to be watching just as he was, and not attempting anything.

However, there was no sign of either Horn or Andrew Retford, and he cast about anxiously for any sight of them. Jack’s words came back to him now: that the men were not capable of defending themselves against a determined foe, and although he bitterly regretted not having been able to give them more training in the use of their arms, there was nothing to be done about it now.

A man stood, slamming a fist into the face of the Pardoner, and Berenger drew his bow. As the Pardoner slumped to the ground, his attacker lifted a dagger to stab him. Before his blow could fall, the shaft struck him under the armpit and disappeared. The whole of the clothyard had pierced him so that the shaft had flown through his body, pulling him away from Pardoner and leaving him squirming in the grass.

Clip and Jack were done with their assailants already, and were joining the other men. Berenger was sad to see the little man they had called the Wren suddenly jerk as a sword opened his throat wide and his blood sprayed thickly over other fighters, but he looked to be the last man to die. Then, with the ever-present threat of Berenger’s bow, Jack’s sword or Clip’s long knife, the outlaws took the line of least danger and fled the field.

Andrew Retford lay panting in the long grass. He had been dragged from his horse early on, and stood up to draw his sword only to feel someone punch him in the back. When he turned, he found his legs were weak, and now he lay with a sense of faint puzzlement at the constriction in his chest. He could hear water from a small stream gurgling and chuckling merrily nearby, and his chest was making similar noises. There were loud cries and bellows from his friends. They would come to him soon, he was sure, but just now he was mostly aware of how his lungs seemed to fill with water. He felt as though he was drowning.

The grasses here were very long. As he coughed he could see them over him, their seed heads pale amber-coloured against the grey of the sky. Somewhere overhead he could hear a bird singing from a tree, and there, far off in the sky, was a buzzard, soaring easily. He could almost sense the wind under its wings, the feeling of joy in its heart. He remembered sitting under a tree back at the manor, looking up through the branches and seeing a hawk in the sky high overhead. It looked so free, so careless, that even as a youngster he had felt a pang of jealousy . . .

There was a quick pain in his chest, and Andrew Retford was free to fly at last.