It had been a good afternoon for Denisot.

He had ridden at a careful pace, filled with the constant fear that he might be being watched as he travelled along the road beneath the trees. Their branches towered overhead and met, creating a tunnel that smelled of loam and rich soil. Occasionally he caught a whiff of fox spray, but apart from that there was nothing. He half-expected to detect the rank odour of stale sweat and the damp smell of horses which had slept out of doors for too long, and to hear the jingle of harnesses and clatter of weapons as a mercenary band bore down on him; but there was nothing and he arrived safely.

The town of Chamberet was far enough from his home for the people to be interested in his tale. Here he was not merely an official put in place by a nobleman to collect taxes and enforce the peace, but a slightly exotic stranger from a foreign town, an alien. While most of the populace had heard rumours of what had happened at Uzerche, he was the first to bring definite news of the atrocities that the capture of the town had entailed. After all, a crucifixion was not common. Murders tended to be committed with a knife, especially when the victim was a raped child. It must surely have been committed by those terrible sons of the Devil, the English. They were all vicious and perverted.

He had met with his counterpart and then the priest, and held meetings with some of the people of the town, and on all sides he received eager attention, but it was not until late in the afternoon that he met a grizzled innkeeper with a face marked with as many red lines as a surgeon’s map of a body and a nose that was the colour and size of an overripe plum, who frowned at the description of the body and then gave a contemplative nod.

‘I know the girl you mean, I think. She was here a while ago. Over a week, I think. Not a local girl. I never saw her before, anyway. She didn’t seem all there, if you know what I mean. Her brain was addled.’

‘In what way?’ Denisot said.

‘Oh, you know the sort. Wide-eyed and empty-brained. You would have found space for a quart of ale in her skull. She came here and spent the evening sitting by the fire and flinching whenever anyone stepped near her. She didn’t even have the price of a warm drink on her. No idea about how to get by.’

‘Did no one speak to her?’

‘Like I said, she jumped like a started squirrel when anyone stepped close to her. No one tried to speak to her. It was embarrassing.’ He wiped his face on his apron, transferring charcoal smuts along with his sweat.

Denisot was coming to dislike the man. ‘What was her name?’

‘I don’t know. Alicia or something.’

‘Did she say where she came from?’

‘Like I said, she wasn’t very talkative, but I got the impression she came up from the south. And you say she’s dead?’

‘Yes. I think the English dragged her behind their horses and then crucified her after they were done with their pleasures.’

‘An evil death.’

Denisot could not disagree with that. There were worse ways to die, of course. He had seen a few of them. Before long he would see more.

When Will offered them wine, Berenger and his companions followed him down the hill to the inn, where a table was cleared for them, the landlord twittering and chirping like a sparrow as the men swept the cups and trenchers onto the floor, evicting three travellers who had been enjoying their meal in order to make space for Berenger and Will. Saul and Loys sat on a bench, while Alazaïs and her children stood nearby, like peasants accused of theft before a bayle.

When they were seated, Will poured Berenger a cup of wine and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘So, Frip, what now?’

‘You said I can leave?’ Berenger ignored the cup. He felt as though the Devil was tempting him to drink.

‘With your wench and her boys, if you must. If I am unreasonable towards you, it’ll only make the others think again about having me as their leader. I don’t need that sort of trouble. Better for me – and you too, incidentally – if you merely ride off and leave us to our own devices.’

‘You will not try to attack us as we go?’

‘You will have a free hand. I only want to see you go. You haven’t been a bad leader, Frip, but you drink too much. You can’t be trusted. If you would only have a monk’s allowance you would be all right, but with your consumption you’re growing irrational. It’s no good for us.’

‘Have you seen how ineffectual I am in a fight? Ask your friend Owen,’ Berenger said.

‘I never said a word about your fighting ability, Frip. Only your ability to plan, to think rationally. You should have known better than to threaten to hang the men for taking a wench or two. What does it matter what they do to the women?’

‘The plan was to take the town and hold it. You terrorise all the people of the town, and they will despair. If they despair, they will lose their fear because if existence itself is a torment, they have nothing to lose by death. If you assault their women, you will bring them to revolt even more swiftly. We agreed that.’

‘And you drank too much when you got here and became illogical. I couldn’t discuss it with you. Well, there we are. You cannot remain as commander, and I think you are right not to stay under my command. I think you could be a sore difficulty to the men, were you to remain here. Better that you seek your fortune with another company.’

‘I created this company,’ Berenger said.

‘You honed it, yes. But there was a company before you, and there will be another after you. Under me.’

Will’s eyes glittered and he didn’t blink. That was a classic proof of his intent. When he grew serious and stared fixedly, a man could be certain that he was in earnest.

‘You can take your horse, a single pack, your sword and belongings. Any friends going with you will have the same courtesy extended. I’m not being generous. This is natural self-interest. If the others think I am unfair or unreasonable, they will seek to replace me as well. So, better by far that you take what is mostly yours. You will have food, too, and water. But beyond that, you take nothing.’

Berenger considered him. If Will intended to kill him, a second abortive attempt in the village would destroy his chances of leading the company. But if he allowed Berenger to ride away, the others would accept that. Berenger would have left the band. If he stayed, Berenger would never have allowed a rival to survive. He would be a constant source of trouble. Others in the company might decide that he was a better leader and hasten the new captain’s end, if it meant bringing back the previous commander. Berenger was uncomfortably sure that Will would feel the same. ‘What of the widow?’

‘If she goes with you, she can take her dress and shoes. If she remains, she can keep her house. I am sure she will soon find a man to replace you,’ Will said, and cast her a smile.

‘She will need a mount, as will her boys.’

‘Don’t test me too far. If you want her and she wants you, you can go together, alive. I am not denuding the company of mounts, though. She stays and keeps her property, or goes and leaves all behind. It’s her choice.’

Berenger looked at her and saw her irresolution. ‘If you stay, you know what will happen.’

She nodded. ‘I will go with you.’

Will left them in the tavern soon afterwards. Berenger waited, an itching in his back telling him that many men from the company were watching him. He could sense their eyes, the compulsive urge to grab a bow, a sword, a dagger, and set about him, but none of them did. Perhaps it was the last vestige of their respect for him that held them back. He didn’t know, but at this moment he was grateful.

He glanced at Alazaïs. She had the haunted look of a hart held at bay while the hunters draw their bows, but her eyes held his firmly. It was clear enough that here there was no safety for her or her children. She would be better off for a while, until her new lover grew dissatisfied or bored, and then she would lose her house and belongings. She knew that. Better to make a clean break and leave with Berenger.

Loys and Saul were agreed too. Their contracts with the company were void. There was nothing here for them either. They would remain with Berenger.

The innkeeper wanted to charge a high fee for their drinks and beds for the night, but Saul spoke to him. Later Saul would only say that he ‘haggled’ with the fellow, but from that moment on, whenever the innkeeper appeared in the chamber, he was careful to avoid approaching within two yards of Saul.

At the back of the inn was a door to a room used as a kitchen, while beyond there was a large communal room for travellers with a huge palliasse. It smelled of fresh herbs, and there was meadowsweet strewn over the blankets, but Berenger was unpleasantly convinced that he would wake itching and irritable after ten minutes’ dozing on it. Loys and Saul bedded down in one corner of the sleeping chamber, with Alazaïs and her children at the farther side of the palliasse. Berenger had insisted on the men taking watches through the night, and himself stood the first, standing at the inn’s entrance and watching as the sky darkened.

In the town all was quiet. Berenger stood guard in his fashion, leaning on a polearm while staring up at the sky. Occasionally clouds drifted past, as silent and apparently insubstantial as ghosts on the wind, but he knew that they must be dense and heavy, for when they passed over the moon they enshadowed the whole of the town. It was as though a man had set a shield before a candle. Berenger was not particularly afflicted with superstition, but he could remember when he was younger, he had seen a cloud pass over the moon and become convinced that the end of the world was to come. Ever since, he felt a vague frisson of unease when he saw the view dimmed in this way.

He had intended to show this to his sons, but he had never had the chance.

Struck with a sudden melancholy, he felt a sob forming in his breast and it was all he could do to swallow it back. He struck angrily at the moisture in his eyes, wiping it away. His boy was dead, and his wife and her son too. His old life was gone, and there was nothing he could do to bring it back.

He heard the door behind him open. Saul and Loys had demanded that they should share the guard duty with Berenger, and he assumed one of them was entering, mistrusting him and thinking that he allowed them to oversleep without calling them to their duty. If it were not for the dampness still in his eyes, he would have turned and told them to return to their beds a while longer, but then he smelled her fragrance, a mixture of rose water and musk. It was a scent he had snuffed many times in the last few days, one that had twisted the knife in his heart. There were memories attached to that perfume.

‘I couldn’t sleep. Can I join you here?’

She spoke quietly, so as not to wake the household, and he was grateful that she showed due concern for others. After all, she was the widow of a wealthy man, and as such she was used to giving commands and not considering the effect on other people. A waft of her perfume reached his nostrils and he was assailed by a desire to hold her. Nothing more, just to hold her and bury his nostrils in her hair and breathe her in, as though he could inhale enough purity to wipe away his memories of the last ten years. Except he couldn’t. Those memories were lodged in his brain as firmly as the nails in a church door.

In truth, he was unsure of his feelings for her. He felt anxious in her presence, but it wasn’t the fear of a youth for appearing foolish, it was as though she held the key to a door he dare not open. Or reopen.

God’s cods, he needed a pot of wine!

‘I don’t want to be distracted,’ he said. Peering at her now, in the dark, her face was a mask of shadows. She could be smiling at him, laughing at his absurdly childish behaviour, or glaring, readying a knife to gut him.

‘You really think he could attack us here? He said we could leave.’

There was no humour or contempt in her tone. He could only hear fretfulness. ‘He’s a lying son of a whore,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust him further than I could piss, and that’s not far.’

‘He stopped that man from harming my son,’ she said softly, her voice almost a sigh.

‘Aye. But I’m not sure he would want all the company to see one of his men killing a boy just to irritate me. If he had, some more would have rallied to my side, and that could have precipitated a confrontation. As it is, this way he removes me, he gets to steal all you own, and keeps most of my wealth as well. His only fear is that I might return to take back what is mine and yours.’

‘That is why you keep a watch all night?’

‘That is why.’

‘You saved me and my boys. I am grateful.’

She said nothing more. With a quiet susurration of linen, she quietly moved back to the room where her boys slept.

Berenger stared out at the shadowed street. No movement, no glint of steel nor spark from a flint. Perhaps she was right to question his insistence on keeping watch: perhaps Will had no further interest in Berenger or the woman; he had won all he wanted.

But while Berenger wanted to believe that, there was a strong conviction that Will would not want to leave a potential rival leader in place, especially since he had already tried to assassinate him. Will would not understand that a man could willingly forget an insult like that. In truth, Berenger wasn’t sure he could. Yet now, in the cold and dark of a Limousin night, he was happy to forgive both assaults and leave Uzerche with his life and soul intact.

Grandarse rode gloomily on his pony while his men trudged along in the rain that sheeted down. His men looked and sounded even less happy. The moans and complaints continued all through the day.

Clip’s whine rose over the other voices.

‘Why are we sent off so soon? Everyone else has warm, dry beds this night. Us? We’re going to be walking on until we have to stop or drown!’

‘We’ll be allowed to stop soon,’ a voice called back. Grandarse thought it might be the new man called Gilles. He sounded less cheery now.

‘You think so?’ Clip complained. ‘You don’t know much about soldiering, do you? They’ll march us all the way to this town, then turn us round to march back. We’ll get no rest. And when we think it can’t get any worse, they’ll throw us all into a battle that will kill off half of us. That’s how we fight in this army. By walking wherever we’re told, and then by dying there. They’ll see us all killed. You mark my words!’

Grandarse smiled but he was not happy. He had held that short conversation with Archibald ten or more days ago, which had left him disgruntled and irritable. Archibald had suggested he should seek Berenger to help with the new recruits.

‘Yes, just go and find Frip,’ he muttered to himself now. ‘That’ll be easy, with a country the size of France. I’ll only have to stop at the next village and ask and they’ll be sure to know. A miserable-looking old git with scars and a frowning eye. Easy.’

But there was a thought in the back of his mind: if Fripper was still alive, and there was no certainty of the fact, then it was at least very likely that he wouldn’t be too far away. These were hard days, and a man would avoid the main centres of French authority. He would not approach near to Paris on his own, nor would he try to travel to the south since the Prince’s rampage all the way from Bordeaux to Narbonne last year. That would be suicidal, for the French there would have all-too-clear memories of the atrocities caused by the English.

Which left him with the question, where would Berenger have gone, if he was still alive? He was not in Calais, and surely if he was in the English territories of Guyenne or Aquitaine, he would have offered himself to the Prince when he heard there was to be a fresh campaign? Unless he was already engaged to fight for another knight or baron, of course. Or had joined another band.

It was of no interest just now. Grandarse snorted to himself. He had gone to find Robin and told him the news that Robin was to be the vintener of his band.

‘You must be desperate.’

‘I am.’

‘I will take on the men, if you are sure, but I’ll want the pay of a vintener.’

‘You will have it, of course.’

‘I will,’ Robin said, staring at him in that unsettling way of his, head thrust forward, slightly tilted, so that it was his left eye that focused on Grandarse.

‘You will have Imbert and the others, and . . .’

‘You do realise three have tried to escape already?’

‘Eh? What?’

‘Imbert and the father and son from Bordeaux have all tried to escape. First time was on the very night you brought ’em in.’

‘You stopped them?’

‘I gave Imbert a tap on the ’ead and the other two seemed to realise that any enemy out there was much less scary than me. Then the two tried again the night after. I had to hit Pierre quite hard to make him understand I was serious.’

‘Why?’

Robin looked away. Part of him wanted to explain: that he was once a reputable man-at-arms and archer, a man who had been respected and valued by his master, Sir Reynald, until that master had died in the pitched battle off the coast of Flanders at the place they called Sluys. Robin had been there, but could do nothing to rescue his master when he fell into the water, the blood bubbling and seething all about him as Robin saw his face disappear from sight. The weight of his chain mail and steel bascinet were enough to drag him down.

Lady Marjorie had never forgiven him. Robin was banned from the house. His belongings, such as they were, were thrown after him as he left the manor that last time. It was the beginning of his wanderings. He had become an outcast.

And then there was the disaster. The fight in an ale house, both men drunk, both keen to eradicate the assumed insult, both swinging fists and then knives, the wash of blood over his face, the shock as he realised what he had done. Then the headlong rush to the church, grasping the altar-cloth and waiting until the coroner arrived and permitted him to abjure the realm. There was nothing else for him. So he came here, and was given a chance to redeem himself.

This, he felt, was his chance to establish himself again, to become accepted. At first he had been reluctant, but when he saw Imbert trying to escape on that first night, he had felt a sudden rage that anyone could think to flee while his companions were still there, and had struck the man down. Only later did he realise that he could have escaped himself. And by then it was too late. He was committed to the vintaine.

‘I wish I fuckin’ knew,’ he said.