Mosquitoes—the first crop of the year—settled on the casa like a biblical plague. Cully looked reproachfully at Long Paw, six trees away. Long Paw merely shrugged.

Gavin felt the scales on his shoulders writhe and prickle.

He watched his brother, who was watching the road with a fixed intensity. It was the hour of the day when peasants went to their fields, when men yoked oxen or horses to ploughs if they had them, when the cocks ceased to crow and work began. As the weather was fine after days of rain, there should have been peasants on the road and in the fields to their front.

They were a mile or more from Second Bridge, where the road bent sharply to the east, following the contours of a hill. On the east side of the road—the inside of the curve—a round hill rose, covered in farm fields. At the top of the hill, almost hidden behind a high hedge that could be defended, stood the small village of Picton with chimneys smoking.

No one was moving in Picton’s fields, either.

On the west side of the road the ground was flat for a few furlongs until it dropped sharply towards the river. It was heavily forested in big, old oak trees with some maples and, in the centre, a stand of ancient fir trees like the masts of heavy ships.

If the road circumventing Picton Hill was a bow, Cully, Gavin, Long Paw and the captain stood where the archer would grip it, in the dark patch of firs at the centre of the bow. Gavin could see the road for a bowshot in each direction—almost to Second Bridge. And he could see up the Picton village road, a narrow lane between two hedges that ran up the hill like the arrow on the bow.

He hated waiting in ambush. He could see on his brother’s face that he didn’t like waiting either—he snorted quietly in frustration a little too often.

The mosquitoes were devastating. Ganfroy, the trumpeter, was fighting a losing battle with his self-control, trying to stay calm. He’d been bitten often enough that one side of his face was beginning to swell.

The captain snorted again. “I give up,” he said. “Nicholas, when I raise my arm, sound the—”

Up in the Picton hedge at the top of the long hill, a mirror flashed—one, two, three times.

“Son of a bitch,” the captain said.

The first riders were visible a few hundred heartbeats later. They were light horse—Alban prickers, young men in light armour on fast horses. They were in the Towbray livery, and they were moving fast.

They passed the captain’s position in the open fir wood so close that their conversation was clearly audible.

“… fooling playing soldier,” one young voice said with all the self-importance he could muster. “There’s not a soldier in fifty leagues.”