‘We can send Thomas and Kit with him,’ Sir John suggests. ‘And Walter. And maybe one or two of the others.’

‘But what of the summons to Sandal?’ Richard asks, still needing to be convinced.

‘There will be no fighting until next year now,’ Sir John assures them. ‘Eastertide at the earliest. So there’s no point going to Sandal until then. All we’ll do is sit around in that wretched keep, freezing to death if we don’t starve, waiting for the spring to come.’

‘And in the company of Salisbury and York,’ Richard admits.

Sir John shudders and turns to Katherine.

‘Would you go to this Kidwelly?’ he asks.

She is alarmed.

‘If you think it would help, of course,’ she says. ‘But what should we do if we find her?’

It is a good question.

‘It is all a matter of judgement,’ Sir John says. ‘If she is safe with these infamous Dwnns of Dafydd’s, then leave her be, but if you think there is a danger of . . . Well, I am not sure what. Of Riven’s men finding her, I suppose. If that should be the case, or she would take our help, then bring her back here. Five of you should be enough, and if you leave after Childermas you’ll be back by Candlemas. Neat symmetry, that.’

And so it is agreed.

They spend the next few days preparing for the journey and on Adam and Eve Day, while Richard and Walter buy more horses from a dealer, Thomas and Katherine and the others make the journey into Lincoln to buy clothes from the tailor and fripperer, another bag of arrows, some new shoe leather. While repairs are being made to their boots, Little John Willingham takes the others to an inn to celebrate the start of Christmastide.

‘We’ll never see them again,’ Thomas says as they part.

‘I only hope they do not wag their mouths off,’ Katherine says. ‘Imagine if Riven discovered what we are about and where we are going?’

‘He would not, surely?’

Katherine frowns and they walk on. A paradise play is being performed outside the cathedral and they stop to watch and to ask around. How to get to Carmarthen? No one has heard of Carmarthen. Where is it near? Neither knows. Wales? Wales everyone knows. That way. To the west. Eventually they find a wool merchant who knows the country around Gloucester, where he says the best wool is to be found, and which lies that way. He knows of Wales, or at least the south of the country.