West walked out slowly from the trees and down the gentle slope towards the stream, his stolen boots crunching in the snow, his hands held up above his head, to show he was unarmed. Even so, he could hardly have blamed the sentries if they shot him on sight. No one could have looked more like a dangerous savage than he did now, he knew. The last tatters of his uniform were hidden beneath a bundle of furs and torn scraps, tied around his body with twine, a stained coat stolen from a dead Northman over the top. He had a few weeks' growth of scraggy beard across his scabby face, his eyes were sore and watering, sunken with hunger and exhaustion. He looked like a desperate man, and what was more, he knew, he was one. A killer. The man who murdered Crown Prince Ladisla. The very worst of traitors.

One of the sentries looked up and saw him, started clumsily from his place, knocking the pan hissing into the fire, snatching his spear out of the snow. 'Stop!' he shouted, in slurred Northern. The others jumped up after him, grabbing at their weapons, one fumbling at the string on his flatbow with mittened fingers.

West stopped, flecks of snow settling gently on his tangled hair and across his shoulders. 'Don't worry,' he shouted back in common. 'I'm on your side.'

They stared at him for a moment. 'We'll see!' shouted one. 'Come on across the water, but do it slow!'

He crunched on down the slope and sloshed out into the stream, gritted his teeth as the freezing water soaked him up to his thighs. He struggled up the far bank and the four sentries shuffled into a nervous half circle around him, weapons raised.

'Watch him!'

'It could be a trick!'

'It's no trick,' said West slowly, keeping his eyes on the various hovering blades and trying to stay calm. It was vitally important to stay calm. 'I'm one of you.'

'Where the hell have you come from?'

'I was with Prince Ladisla's division.'

'With Ladisla? You walked up here?'

West nodded. 'I walked.' The bodies of the sentries started to relax, the spear-points started to waver and drift upwards. They were on the point of believing him. After all, he spoke the common tongue like a native, and certainly looked as if he had slogged a hundred leagues across country. 'What's your name, then?' asked the one with the flatbow.

'Colonel West,' he muttered, voice cracking. He felt like a liar even though it was true. He was a different man from the one who set out for Angland.

The sentries exchanged worried glances. 'I thought he was dead,' mumbled the one with the spear.

'Not quite, lad,' said West. 'Not quite.'