The cask, meanwhile, had found its target. It had caught the first trooper in the upper chest, knocking aside his musket and discharging a wave of milky-grey fluid up and across the only exposed part of him: his eyes. Dropping his musket and clasping his hands to his face, the trooper began to shriek.

Recovering from the shock, the remaining escort threw up his musket as Hawkwood followed Lawrence over the side of the wagon. As he dropped, he heard the crack of the gun – loud and sharp in the night air – and then he hit the earth and rolled. Winded but unhurt, he came up with the knife in his hand.

The trooper who’d fired, knowing there was no time to reload, scrambled for his companion’s weapon. As Hawkwood charged round the back of the wagon, the trooper raised the gun, his finger curling around the trigger.

Hawkwood grasped the musket barrel just as the trooper fired. Turning his eyes from the flash, he felt the recoil in his left arm as he pushed the muzzle aside and brought the stiletto round in a stabbing arc. The rapier-thin blade pierced the trooper’s scarf and entered his neck just below his jaw bone.

Hawkwood stepped away as the trooper fell, clutching his throat. The scarf slipped, revealing eyes widening with incomprehension and pain.

The trooper who’d received the contents of the cask was still screaming. His fingers were clawing at his face. The scarf had been ripped away and it looked as if he was trying to tear his skin off. The cask lay open next to him. Liquid was draining out of it.

Ignoring him, Hawkwood turned in time to see that the trooper he’d struck with the manacle had regained his feet. Upon seeing Hawkwood, he levelled his gun.

A figure rose up behind him.

Lawrence, his savage expression accentuated by the lantern light, drove the musket butt against the base of the trooper’s skull. The trooper fell forward on to his knees and then face down on to the wagon’s deck.

Breathing hard, Lawrence stared down at the comatose form. “Goddamned bastard.” He looked at Hawkwood and said wearily, “This is getting to be a habit, my friend.”

Hawkwood wiped the stiletto blade on his sleeve and slid the weapon inside his boot. The trooper doused with the contents of the cask had curled into a foetal ball. His hands were clamped to his face. He had stopped screaming. The sounds bubbling from between his fingers were no longer human.

Taking care to avoid the spillage, Hawkwood moved to the trooper he’d knifed. It was the same one who’d given the order to board the wagon. The trooper’s mouth had frozen into a rictal grin. Blood from the fatal throat wound had pooled on to the ground.