It was approaching noon and although the day had turned surprisingly mild, a bank of low cloud to the north-west implied that rain was a possibility as Hawkwood and Lawrence rode their tired mounts into Fort Edward.

Located close to marshland on a bend on the east side of the river, there was little to distinguish the settlement from any of the other unprepossessing villages they’d ridden through that morning; a couple of dozen houses, an assortment of clapboard-fronted stores, a brace of scruffy-looking taverns, a livery stable and a small, white-painted church abutting a cemetery fringed by alder bushes.

There was no fort, despite the name, though there had been one once. The coach-office clerk in Albany had drawn attention to its pedigree when he’d referred Hawkwood to his choice of north-bound post roads. Originally a stockade and trading post and strengthened during the French and Indian War, it had been used as a training camp for British irregulars and a base from which to launch cross-border raids against Quebec. Last manned during the Revolution but then vacated, all the military buildings were long gone, worn away by neglect. Now, where stone bastions and gun batteries had once stood guard over river and wetland, there were only grassy mounds and a weed-filled dry moat. From the look of the local architecture, it wasn’t hard to guess where most of the foundations had ended up.

They had set off before dawn. Only the landlord and a sleepy stable boy had witnessed their departure. Asking after their destination, the landlord had merely wished them a safe journey when Hawkwood revealed that they were on their way to Bennington, Vermont. Judging by the landlord’s manner, the enquiry was merely for the sake of conversation. Hawkwood suspected that any answer would have sufficed; nevertheless he took the opportunity to wrong-foot any pursuers that might turn up at the tavern asking awkward questions with a misdirection.

Mindful that they would be travelling in daylight, they had agreed that it would be best to proceed at a steady, unhurried pace rather than attract attention. But once on the road, they’d discovered that the landlord had been correct in his prediction that they would encounter little traffic at this time of year. Apart from the occasional farm cart, they had the highway to themselves. So wherever the terrain permitted they urged their mounts onward at the gallop.

Eventually the speed they had been maintaining, combined with the state of the roads, began to take its toll. Realizing that the horses needed rest, Hawkwood called a halt at the next settlement they came to. Not that he wasn’t glad of the excuse to take a break; it had been six months since he’d last ridden and the past two days had brought into play muscles that he’d forgotten he possessed. Aches were starting to appear in all sorts of inconvenient places.