“Tewanias gave me his blessing and I left. I think he knew, even then, that change was coming, to the tribe and the Nations, and it was the right time for me to return to my own world. Not that I had any notion of what I was going to do. For a while I drifted, town to town, never staying long. Eventually I made my way to Boston, took a labouring job, kept my head down.”

“You thought they might be after you?” Lawrence said, doubt entering his voice.

“It sounds stupid, but yes. In the end I thought I would be safer at sea.”

“Sea?” Lawrence’s eyebrows rose in further astonishment.

“I’d heard there was a merchantman looking for crew. I signed on as a deck hand. The only decent thing about my time aboard was the first officer. He was from Amiens. In between watches and heaving my guts over the side, I was able to improve my French.”

“How long did you serve?”

“Until our first port of call: Cork.”

“Ireland! You, too!”

“If that month taught me anything, other than conjugation, it was that I’d never earn a living before the mast. I couldn’t wait to disembark. A week later I took that shilling you mentioned. I thought the army would be the place to hide, to start anew. It also seemed the right thing to do, maybe a way of saying thank you to Gil Wyatt and his men for what they did for me.”

“You never saw them again?”

“No. Tewanias told me they all died in the attack on the beach.”

Lawrence’s face softened. “You joined the army to honour them.”

“Enlisted in the Fifty-first Regiment of Foot. They were in Ireland on garrison duty.

“John Moore’s regiment?”

“He was a major then. I served with him in Corsica until he left. I met up with him again at Shorncliffe when I was put forward for training with the Rifles. I had keen eyesight and I was a good shot. Skills that served me well.”

“And you’ve been putting them to excellent use ever since,” Lawrence said. “But Hawkwood? How did you come by that name?”

“The clan’s name for me was Kahrhakon:ha. It means Hawk. I don’t remember why I added the ‘wood’, but Hawkwood seemed to fit. I kept Matthew because it made life easier – I knew I was less likely to be caught unawares. Same reason we posed as Matthews and Douglas.”

“You could have told me,” Lawrence said, after a lengthy pause, with more than a note of reproof in his voice. “Why didn’t you?”

Hawkwood watched the dogs cavort. The larger one had shaggy brown hair and floppy black ears and when it stopped to scratch its belly its face adopted a lop-sided grin that sent a faint shiver through his heart.