That night, she keeps to her own rooms and, for the first time in a long while, he does not come to her, either for sleep or love. She is woken by the sound of swallows chattering at her window, of men gathering in the bailey, and her women, tiptoeing about her dressing room, whispering, no doubt, about where her lord is.

She is up and out early. At the foot of the castle steps, she stops.

He’s there already, standing with his captains at the head of his force. They hang on his words. From the slide of his eyes she knows he’s seen her, but he carries on talking. One of the men laughs. Then they’re nodding and moving away to the front of their units, where sergeants are shouting to bring men into marching order. It would take twenty steps to reach him, but she’ll not take them. Now here are the grooms bringing his horse up, that showy stallion he brought with him from France. One of them has his hands netted to boost him to the saddle. He’s about to put his boot in them, but hesitates. A word to the groom, who steps back to wait. He’s coming towards her.

She raises her chin.

He stops a stride away and looks at her. Raises a brow.

She puts out her hand.

He shakes his head, kisses her fingers and smiles, guarded. ‘Still angry?’

‘Still sulking?’

Then they’re both smiling.

‘We’ll speak of it when you get back,’ she tells him.

He squints into the sunlight, pulls on his gloves. ‘Now there’s something to look forward to.’

He’s back within a fortnight. MacGeoghegan brought to heel. But only just.

‘Why wasn’t our intelligence better?’ Cecily wants to know.

Richard is evasive. He’ll look to it. But, in truth, no one had imagined his adversary able to field so many men. Reports had spoken of raiding parties hundreds strong. Not an organized force of two thousand. When Richard and MacGeoghegan squared up to each other on the borders of Meath, they’d found themselves almost equal for numbers. Both men had spat in the dust and settled into their saddles to think. When Richard offered pardon in exchange for an end to banditry, an oath of allegiance and recompense for the burned villages, MacGeoghegan agreed and dispersed his men. Richard set up a commission to administer the reparations and stayed to see the first payments made before riding for home.

It’s a desultory return. Nothing much to celebrate, except that nobody’s dead.

‘I’d rather you’d put his head in a noose,’ says Cecily.

‘I only kill when I have to,’ he reminds her. ‘And I prefer to fight when the odds are better.’

He’s an old-fashioned soldier, Richard. He believes men who have sworn their lives to him have the right to expect he won’t waste them.