“There were more of them,” Mary said. “Heading towards Dayton originally, but they probably saw your dust when you mousetrapped their cavalry, and they veered this way. Quite a lot of them. We got cut off and fell back south to try to get around them, and then ran into Lord Forest Grove’s outriders. Which was a very considerable relief. And he acted very quickly.”

“You supplied us with just the information we needed,” de Stafford said, with a savage grin and an inclination of his head.

Then he took a moment to unfasten the straps of his visored sallet helm and take it off, shaking his sweat-darkened hair out with a grunt of relief, leaving his head looking rather odd above the bevoir that buckled to the upper part of the breastplate and protected his chin.

“They had about four battalions of infantry and a couple of cavalry regiments,” he went on. “A raid in force and enough to invest Castle Dayton and do much damage if we didn’t hit them hard. We had a stiff brush with them, and then their infantry pulled back on bicycles with their cavalry screening them. It might have been much worse if we hadn’t been forewarned, but there didn’t seem much point in following. They could get back to Castle Campscapell faster than we could pursue, and it’s a useless to attack a castle that strong if the garrison is alert. Without the sort of special help they had taking it last year.”

Ingolf nodded wearily. Given a few miles start and on some sort of road, men on bicycles could run to death any horses ever foaled. There simply wasn’t any return in trying to catch them.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said. “That might have been awkward, if they’d showed up here.”

“You’re entirely welcome, but they’ll be back . . . and this is a close relative of yours, from the good bones?” he added curiously, looking at Mark and smiling. “Not your son, my lord? Too old, I should think.”

That’s sharp, Ingolf thought. Aloud: “My nephew, Ensign Mark Vogeler.”

“Off to a good start in his career, I see. Well, Maugis, Colonel, we need to talk. Can your wounded be moved?”

A doctor looked up from one body resting atop the folding table he was using and threw aside the broken shaft he’d just extracted from the muscle of a thigh. He was an older man, gray-bearded, with blood splashed on his gloves and apron. The one shuddering through the leather strap clenched in his teeth was young Girars, but the peasant boy looked as if he’d make it. They were saving the ether for the really serious cases; two men picked up the stretcher he lay on and carried it off.