Thomas is in the butts. He is still always last in any competition, but it is now only by the most slender of margins, often just one arrow, and in the last weeks he has acquired some bulk in his arms and shoulders so that his linen shirt is too small for him. He walks with that curious rolling gait all the archers have. But now he comes up the steps anxiously, the pollaxe in his hand, and when he sees Richard he steps back.

‘Come,’ Richard says, his voice muffled, ‘I need the practice too.’

‘But, sir, I—’

Richard swings his war hammer. It swishes through the air between them.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I want you to come at me. With your axe. I’ll not hurt you, I promise. This is practice.’

Thomas doesn’t believe this is possible. For a moment they circle one another. Katherine can see the panic in Thomas’s eye. He is scared. It must remind him too strongly of his fight with Riven, and Riven had not been encased in harness, or armed with anything more lethal than a stick. Richard swings the hammer all the time, slowly backing Thomas into a curve in the wall.

When he can move no more, Thomas raises his pollaxe and blocks the hammer, a ring of steel that reverberates in the low-ceilinged room. Richard spins and mimes a blow that would have planted the hammer’s fluke into Thomas’s back.

‘You’re dead,’ he says.

They step apart and come together again in the same way and this time, when the first blow comes, Thomas brings the axe up to block it and then spins on his heel to catch the next. He takes his top hand off the pollaxe and waves his fingers as if the blow had stung. Gloves, she thinks. That is what he needs.

But Richard has turned again and tries to jab Thomas in the stomach with the handle of the axe. Thomas sways one way, lets it pass, and then pushes Richard back with the flat of his axe.

‘Good,’ Richard says. ‘Now, come at me. Hard as you like.’

Thomas cuts at him, a half-stroke. Richard blocks it with an armoured arm, the blade ringing on the steel vambrace. Now Richard steps back, lifts his visor and looks at the dent in the plate.

‘Damn,’ he says.

But Katherine sees he is pleased with the mark. It makes him look as if he has been in battle. He articulates his wrist and winces. Then he lowers the visor again.

‘Come on,’ he says.

Thomas swings again. This time Richard catches it with his hammer shaft. Thomas tries again and Richard steps into the blow and uses his weight to push Thomas back. The hammer comes around again and stops short of Thomas’s neck.