Again they stand apart. Three more times this happens. The first Richard hooks the hammer behind Thomas’s knee and sends him sprawling, the second he hits him with his fist in the teeth, drawing blood. During the third mêlée Thomas only just manages to stop a chop that might have caved in his skull, even if he had been wearing a helmet. Thomas drops the axe and clutches his hands.

Richard steps back.

Thomas bends to pick up the axe.

Richard steps forward and brings his knee up to Thomas’s face, but this time Thomas rocks forward, grabs Richard’s other calf and then throws himself backwards, pulling Richard’s leg out from under him. Richard crashes to the floor and loses his hammer. Before he can roll away, Thomas is on him, axe held like a spear, the point pressed under the rim of Richard’s helmet.

‘Stop!’ she hears herself cry.

Richard is still for a moment, and then slowly moves his hand to lift his visor. Thomas puts the axe down. He is breathing heavily, his eyes wild. He stands up, shaking with effort, and he smells sour. He helps Richard to his feet and they stare at one another. Katherine stands by, her face held in her hands, all blood drained away.

Richard appears unruffled.

‘Enough for one day, I think,’ he says. ‘Next time, we’ll wrap our weapons.’

The next day there is a repeat of the fight, but this time they each tie long lengths of sacking around the heads of their weapons. Thomas borrows a sallet off Dafydd and a pair of leather gloves off one of the Johns and the fight lasts perhaps twenty minutes. By the end both men are red-faced and sodden with sweat. Again Richard has the upper hand, and not just because he is wearing armour, for though that gives him protection, it hampers his movements and Thomas is able to get behind him. Thomas learns to target Richard’s more vulnerable points too, and though Richard always wears the padded doublet with the mail patches under his plate, soon his elbows and armpits are blue with bruising where Thomas has struck him.

Geoffrey comes to watch the third afternoon.

‘Funny thing about wearing armour’, he says, ‘is that people tend to go for it in a fight. Don’t know why. Seems to attract their blows, so they don’t hit your flesh. Worth wearing a piece of it, just for that.’

The next afternoon Thomas borrows one of the rusted breastplates. It is so large it sits low on his hips and it ends up with a sizeable indentation just over the heart where Richard smashes it with the fluke of his hammer.