‘The most direct route is along the Fosse Way,’ he tells them in return for a jug of ale. ‘From there, you might press on down the road to Cirencester until you find the drovers’ route that will take you across the country to Gloucester. Or, some leagues south of High Cross, the road fords a river. Avon it is. Might hire a boat to take you to the port at Bristol.’

Thomas thanks the man and by the time they have found Dafydd and the others it is near dark and the walk back to Marton involves numerous delays as one after the other stops to relieve himself. Little John Willingham passes out and there is only Thomas sober enough to carry him.

When they reach the hall they find a horse waiting to be unsaddled and, within, Fournier: returned, he says, to collect the instruments he’d carelessly left when called away so suddenly on his last visit.

‘And his fee, of course,’ Katherine mutters.

Fournier is surprised to hear they are setting out on a journey at this time of year, but is glad to catch them before they leave.

‘Because I find myself witness to something of a minor miracle,’ he says from his usual place at the head of the table, a new boy behind his shoulder, a cup of hot wine in his hand. ‘I find that Sir John is cured.’

He is talking loudly for show, and Thomas can see Katherine stiffen on the far side of the hall where she sits in the shadows.

‘It is no miracle,’ she says, leaning forward into the light.

‘No? An untrained boy with no experience conducting a complex and usually fatal procedure such as that? Come now. Something must have guided your hand. What was it? The Holy Spirit?’

Fournier is sitting very still, and his boy is staring very hard at the back of his master’s head. There is silence in the hall now, and every man leans in, each aware that something has been said. Richard throws a piece of bread on the table.

‘What talk is this, Master Fournier?’ he says.

‘I only say’, Fournier replies, ‘that it is not possible for a mere boy to do what this one has done without some intervention. The only question that remains is whether the intervention is divine, or diabolic.’

PART FIVE

To Kidwelly Castle, Wales,
January 1461

24

THEY LEAVE AT dawn on the day after Childermas. The sky above is a perfect scrim of pale cloud that promises snow and under their horses’ hooves the earth rings hollow.

Sir John watches them go.

‘We shall miss you,’ he calls, and: ‘We shall expect you back by Candlemas.’