The wagon’s right front wheel hit a tree root and the vehicle bounced. A fresh line of seepage appeared around the rim of the cask lid. Hawkwood saw that they were nearing the edge of the wood.

Another part of the camp? he wondered. They hadn’t travelled that far, perhaps half a mile.

“Smells like a bloody latrine,” Lawrence muttered under his breath, as the trees thinned out and the clearing opened up before them, and at once his face crumpled.

With the forest casting black shadows across the open space, Hawkwood’s first impression was that he was looking at a clutch of wooden fence posts that had been left in the ground to rot. It was only as the wagon drew closer to the hummock in which they were planted that he realized these weren’t fence posts at all, they were shovel handles. And the hummock wasn’t a natural hummock, either. It was a mound of excavated soil.

And as Lawrence uttered a despairing, “Sweet Jesus!” the stench rose to meet them. Fighting back the bile surging into his own throat, Hawkwood saw the edge of the pit.

12

The wagon rolled a few yards further before jolting to a halt.

One chance, Hawkwood thought. That’s all we’re going to get.

The driver applied the brake and his companions rose to their feet. The two troopers at the rear of the wagon hefted their muskets in one hand and jumped down. Turning, they prepared to supervise their prisoners’ descent.

Hawkwood slammed the flat of his boot against the leaking cask, aiming it towards the nearest trooper. At the same time, he pulled his wrists apart, drawing the stiletto from his left sleeve with his right hand as he did so, praying that Lawrence would be as quick to react as he had been aboard the Snake.

He’d transferred the knife from boot to sleeve when he’d squatted down in the hut, thinking there might be a chance to exact damage before the end came, but it was only as he’d pushed himself to his feet that his fingers had hooked themselves around the half-bent nail that had been lying in the dirt beneath his right buttock. With his movements hidden by his coat sleeves and with the noise of his endeavours masked by the rumble of the wagon, he’d used the nail to unpick the lock securing the manacle to his right wrist.

Jago, he thought as he felt the band separate, would have been proud of him.

There had been no time to release the left manacle, so as he withdrew the knife – and as Lawrence launched himself at the driver – he used his left hand to curl the chain and the full weight of the empty shackle against the temple of the trooper standing behind him, the impact making itself felt the length of his arm. As the trooper rocked back, Hawkwood pivoted.