Him, the vagrants try to stop before he can follow. It is a clumsy charge. Thomas ducks one man’s arm, sidesteps the other’s leg, and throws himself forward. He feels himself falling through the sharp twigs of a shrub. Then the ground jumps up at him. He hits it shoulder first, feels the air pushed out of his lungs; goes head over heels, then starts rolling down a slope of unkempt grass, the world a carousel, hips, elbows, knees pummelled by the impact of each revolution.

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They are lucky, in a sense. The hill slopes gently where they leapt, and the hedgerow that parallels the tracks is free of thorns. All the same, the twigs have torn clothes and skin. They each come to rest some six or seven yards down, where a ditch welcomes them with its bed of hard-caked mud. He looks around winded, and sees Livia sitting up not far from him, her face dark with dirt, and blood seeping from a cut lip. She gets to her feet and stands over him, rubbing her upper arms and neck. He thinks she will ask him whether he is all right; whether his wound has reopened or he has broken any limbs.

“Stupid,” she says. “We should have waited for a steeper hill.”

He tries to speak but doesn’t have enough air.

“How far to London?” she asks.

He gasps, spits.

“Don’t know,” he manages. “Can’t be far.”

“Get up then.” She brushes at her clothes, her face. “We need to find water. I want to wash.”

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She won’t be talked out of it. What does it matter, he tries to explain to her, if they are dirty? In London everyone is dirty. It will help them blend in. She could wet her handkerchief with some spit, rub off the blood if it bothers her. But she won’t be swayed, glowers at his words. Something about him makes her angry. He understands this well enough. Something about her makes him angry too.

Half an hour later she finds a creek. They are walking south, keeping the tracks in sight, on an unmarked path. Already the sun is sitting low in the sky. The day has cleared, its light bright and pure, carving shades of colour out of every blade of grass. It is hard to believe that they emerged from darkness only that morning. Seven hours of daylight and already Thomas’s wonder at the world has worn thin. His head is hurting, his back, the bruises on his hips and knees. A lone crow sits in empty fields and watches him hobble past.

The creek is three feet wide and a foot deep. There is no bridge, but a fallen tree has been placed across from bank to bank. Livia climbs down to it, crouches, then looks at him expectantly.

“What?” he asks, uncomprehending.

“Some privacy, if you will.”