Trumpets begin blowing in the camp again. Drums are beating. Horses cross the meadows. A Te Deum has been sung in the cathedral and the Earls have paid their respects at the shrine of St Thomas, and now Walter returns to the camp.

‘Come on, come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s get cracking,’ and they get up and begin the wearying process of breaking camp once more.

There is still no sign of Katherine.

Carts are already starting to wheel along the road and in through the city gates when a handful of horsemen come riding through the chaos shouting that they are looking for Sir John Fakenham’s company. They are Warwick’s men, on good mounts.

‘That’s us,’ Walter tells them.

‘Found a boy of yours,’ their vintenar says. ‘Making his way across country. Hardly worth the trouble keeping him, he’s so skinny, but the Earl wants examples set. Anyone slipping away gets theirs.’

He gestures towards a party of men threading their way through the breaking camp. Between them, Katherine, hands bound, dragging her feet. She looks so small, so round-shouldered and miserable, that even Thomas mistakes her for a boy.

Walter stands with his hands on his hips.

‘Christ,’ he spits. ‘What d’you want us to do with him?’

‘Hang him.’

Thomas feels a chill grip him. The atmosphere hardens. Colours spring to life; lines sharpen.

‘Hang him?’

‘What the Earl wants.’

Katherine stares at the ground. She has a bruise under one eye.

‘What were you thinking, Girly?’ Walter asks.

Katherine says nothing.

‘He’s just a boy,’ Thomas tells the vintenar. ‘You can’t – We can’t hang him.’

The vintenar looks down from his horse.

‘Who’re you to say?’

Dear God.

‘Look, he’s right,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Kit, how old are you?’

Katherine will still not talk.

‘He’s fourteen, for the love of God,’ Thomas says.

The vintenar lifts his hand from the saddle.

‘Could be two for all I care,’ he says. ‘The Earl of Warwick wants an example.’

The men look at one another. Others are stopping to stare.

‘Oh Christ!’

‘But there must be some – I don’t know – mistake,’ Thomas says. ‘Kit’s no reason to run.’

‘He’s nowhere to run to,’ one of the men says.

‘Why d’you do it, Kit?’

She will not answer.

The vintenar is growing impatient.

‘You’re not listening,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it. Either you do it, or we do it.’

One of the horsemen has a rope. He is surveying the hawthorn for a suitable bough.

‘Thomas,’ Walter mutters, ‘go and find Sir John. He’s the only one can get Kit out of this.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Try the Watch tent. He’ll be near Fauconberg.’