‘Only that this is not justice,’ Thomas tells him.

Riven pretends to be shocked.

‘Not justice, Brother Monk? Not justice? Yet here we are, quite equal before the Lord.’

‘You are a trained knight.’

This is what the Dean had called him. Riven is sidling towards him across the grass, weighing and measuring the staff, testing its properties.

‘Perhaps the good Lord knew I’d be called on to face this sort of thing, hey? Perhaps He instructed my father to instil in me a skill at arms? Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps He knew you’d turn out to be a miserable sinner and so made your father a cowardly little runt who would rather teach his son to fuck a pig than fight a man?’

‘My father died in France, facing the French, at Formigny.’

Riven straightens.

‘Did he? Well, I am sorry to hear it, but you are not alone in losing a father in battle. My own died at St Albans.’

As Riven mentions St Albans he flicks his wrist and the tip of his quarterstaff flashes past Thomas’s nose. Thomas remains motionless.

‘I am a canon of the Order of Gilbert of Sempringham,’ he says. ‘If I am to be tried for a crime that I did not commit then it should be done in Court Ecclesiastical, not this mockery.’

Riven lowers his quarterstaff and looks comically disappointed. The giant laughs again.

‘I cannot fight you, Brother Monk,’ Riven says. ‘Unless you strike me first. Now what will it take to get you to fight? I have impugned you and your father already, so now what about your mother? What can I say about her? A whore whelping in a ditch? No, no. I sense I am on the wrong track here.’

Thomas shakes his head, not in denial but in pity, and the gesture instantly brings the tip of Riven’s staff within a finger’s breadth of his right eye. Thomas blinks. Riven lowers the staff.

‘Still nothing,’ he says, and he turns his back and walks away. Then he clicks his fingers.

‘Of course,’ he says, turning back. ‘I know! I have it! Louther!’

‘Aye?’ one of the men sitting on the wall answers.

‘The beads,’ Riven says, clicking his fingers again and holding out his cupped hand. ‘Hand me the beads.’

Louther digs in his coat and pulls out a string of beads. He tosses them over. Even before Riven catches them Thomas knows what they are.

‘Where did you get them?’ he asks. His throat is blocked. He can hear pounding in his ears.

‘Oh, I think you know, don’t you, Brother Monk? Found them this morning. Just after sun-up, and only after a struggle, I’ll admit, but they often start out that way, don’t they? She enjoyed it for a bit, but Morrant here is a passionate creature, aren’t you, Morrant? Tend to take things too far, don’t you?’