By the time they are through the trees and have raised the spire of Lincoln, Katherine has lost all feeling in her fingers and toes. Dafydd rides alongside, smothered in his travelling cloak with a baggy cat-fur hat on his head. The only way of telling he is a living thing is the smudge of his breath.

‘Least it’s not snowing,’ he says, just as the first fat wet flakes begin to swirl around them.

They ride on, passing up through the grey stone city just as the cathedral bells ring out for sext. Walter leads the way on Richard’s horse, Thomas behind on his palfrey, the other three on their ponies with their rough winter coats newly grown. Each man carries his pack and his bow. Walter has a sword, Thomas his pollaxe, Dafydd and Owen a fifteen-foot spear each, Katherine a short sword in a leather scabbard, which she likes wearing. Sir John offered her a crossbow with a goat’s foot winding mechanism, but she has rejected it.

‘You might need it more than me,’ she said, and he took it back and put it by the front door.

‘Just in case,’ he’d said with a laugh.

They do not talk much, not even when they find the turning on to the Fosse Way and set off down its length. Snow dusts the ridges far off to the north and west but otherwise the road runs straight and level until they reach Newark just as the gates are closing for the night. The Captain of the Watch lets them through and directs them to the Castle Inn, where there is rabbit pie and ale around the fire.

‘Not much else I can serve you,’ the innkeeper tells them. ‘Duke of York’s men took it all and paid me bugger all for the pleasure. A turd in his teeth.’

‘Have they come through already?’ Walter is surprised.

‘About five thousand of them, heading north. Not all of them stayed here, but before that we had the Earl of Devon and his men, didn’t we? It isn’t Christian to be in the field this time of year.’

The next morning there is black pudding for breakfast and the unpopular parts of a pig, long pickled in brine. They linger in the warmth while Walter pays the innkeeper and then it is out into the cold. The soldiers on the Mill Gate watch them pass without a word, and beyond the landscape is softened by fog.

‘We’ll ride into the sea before we know it,’ Dafydd complains.

‘Wonder what they’re doing in Marton Hall right now?’ Thomas asks.

‘Probably sitting on their fat arses by the fire getting through another gammon pie,’ Walter suggests. ‘Christ, I wish I was there. This horse is making me feel seasick, you know? Like crossing the sea. How’re you feeling, Kit? Not too cold?’