‘Son of that bastard what stole the castle from Sir John. And well, it wasn’t me who saw him, it was my ma. Said he was there with ten of his men. Riding north, they were. They stopped and bought ale and asked if she knew everyone in the hundred, and when she says she did by sight, they asks if she’d seen any strangers hereabouts, particularly a girl. She says no and then they asks who owns the land. She told them to clear off as they should know perfectly well who owned it, seeing as how they’d been living on it for the last year or so.’

‘And they rode north?’

‘Up towards Gainsborough. With a baggage wagon. Only reason she didn’t shut the door in their faces is she wanted to sell them her rotten old ale. Disgusting stuff.’

Thomas means to remind Little John to tell Richard or Sir John what his mother has seen but when they reach Marton Hall a cart and two oxen stand in the yard, and Geoffrey and Richard and Brampton John are carrying Sir John down the stairs on his mattress. Thomas and Katherine hurry to help them lay the old man in the bed of the cart while Fournier watches, a cup of wine in his hand, and Goodwife Popham fusses.

‘How long will you be?’ she asks. Richard shrugs. No one has any idea. Goodbyes are said and the carter cracks his switch and the beasts take the strain.

‘Thank God for that,’ Walter says, hauling himself up in his saddle. ‘Spent far too long here, hanging about, doing nothing, getting fat.’

Thomas shares Walter’s feelings, Katherine knows.

‘Is it wise to leave Fournier there, though?’ she asks. ‘He’ll drink every last drop of wine and all the ale.’

She is sitting up next to Geoffrey in the cart. The others follow behind, Walter on the pony, Thomas and Richard on their horses, the reins slack in their fingers. They pass through Lincoln where the stationer has moved his stall and then down the hill past the pardoner’s old house. Thomas looks up and fancies he sees a movement at the window, and imagines the widow standing there in silence, watching.

As they travel south they collect more news of Richard of York’s progress through England. They hear that his wife, the Duchess of York, has travelled from London to meet him in a litter hung with blue velvet drapes and drawn by four pairs of white horses. The next day it is five pairs and curtains of cloth of gold. Whatever the slight variation in detail, it looks as if the stationer heard correctly. Richard, Duke of York, is coming south in royal dignity.

Sir John is troubled.