‘It will only be a few days, Marion,’ he said, ‘a day’s journey there and a day’s journey, or a bit longer if we are much laden, back, and a day or two there to count out the wool and load up the salt – that is, of course, if they have got any for us. We don’t know what we will find there, that’s what Sir Hugh kept saying.’

‘He didn’t want me to go,’ said Tom, half proud, half resentful. ‘Said I was needed here – least Rollo said I was – and he, Sir Hugh, had noticed how Ed had grown recently and was strong and how good he was with managing the horses. There he’s right, Ed’s got a way with all the horses, and you need steady horses specially on the way back with all the loads of salt – ’

‘If there is any salt,’ Peter said.

‘– and we may find the forest path very overgrown. It’ll be an adventure for the lad … ’ But Tom’s voice trailed off and his eyes followed Ed-me-boy down the Hall, and Marion knew how very reluctant he was to have his boy go off into the almost unknown world outside the village.

She too was reluctant, not that anyone would ever ask how she had felt to have Peter go off into the strange unknown. Familiarity of place was security; not even being able to imagine where Peter would be was insecurity.

She had passed the next day in collecting and sorting out the spools of spun wool which she still had in the cottage. Most of her year’s work had long since been taken down to Joan’s weaving shed and duly notched on her stick by Rollo. Then by filling her holly-wood needle with a length of wool and carefully darning the tear on the shoulder of Peter’s tunic and finding a new leather thong to tie his boot, she had filled her anxious day.

‘You fuss too much,’ Peter said, but he looked pleased, and she knew she took extra trouble over these little services for him to allay her fears.

The departure had been before dawn, a grey heavy dawn with a hint of mist over the Common. Peter had left the cottage with Peterkin to help carry the leather bag with bread and cheese in it. Marion had gone down to the water-place and waited there with the bucket beside her and Alice heavily asleep on her shoulder until she saw the little procession on the far side of the stream.

Sir Hugh rode in front on his dark brown horse, Heart-of-Oak, its tail and mane newly clipped by Tom. Tethered to it followed the young gelding, with two willow-woven panniers each side. Then came Peter, leading the third horse, a bright chestnut with a white line down its nose, also with panniers each side, and last Ed-me-boy, taller and lankier than ever, walking along with a springing step, a long willow wand in his left hand and the bridle of the last horse in the other. He did not know that Tom had followed him some fifty yards behind in order to get a last look at his son before the procession disappeared into the forest.