‘Course it’s my fight,’ he says. ‘You seen what they did to Dafydd? I’ll stay here, hold them as long as I can while you get ahead with the girl. The girls. And the boy. I’ll have surprise and the hillside on my side and, with a bit of luck, I’ll kill them all. Five arrows. Five men. Then we’ll see.’

‘And what if you don’t kill them all?’ Katherine asks.

‘You ever known me not to kill them all?’ he asks. It is an act. She knows this. He is being Walter the old soldier.

Now she can feel the tears brim in her eyes.

‘Walter,’ she says, stepping towards him.

‘Stop there!’ Walter says, backing off. ‘Go on. Get away. A monk and a nun. Creeping bloody Christ.’

The boy shouts again.

‘They’ve found the tracks,’ Margaret intones.

‘Right,’ Walter says. ‘Go as fast as you can. Find somewhere to shelter tonight and I’ll catch you up. Make some kind of signal. An owl. What about that? A couple of hoots, you know it’s me.’

They all know he’ll never make those hoots.

Thomas nods. There are tears in his eyes too.

‘Go on now. Go on. Fuck off,’ Walter says.

‘Wait,’ Thomas says. ‘Take this.’

He hands Walter his pollaxe.

Walter looks at it.

‘You sure?’

‘It’s a lend, isn’t it?’ Thomas says.

Walter barks a laugh.

‘Might come in handy. Now, go! And good luck!’

When they look back, Walter is kneeling, applying the sign of the cross and bending to kiss the ground.

28

LITTLE DAFYDD LEADS them straight up the track, one long scour through the forest, wider than the drovers’ path but cramped on both sides with blackthorn bushes and straying field maples. Thomas rides as fast as he dares – he owes that to Walter – but the sure-footed cob is nervy, sensing the atmosphere, and nearly goes down just as Thomas is turning to look over his shoulder. He hears the scrape and clash of weapons below. A scream perhaps. Or maybe just a crow.

He puts his head down and they ride on.

Later, he pulls his horse aside where the track bulges and he lets Katherine and Margaret pass. Margaret’s face is clenched and she is racked with another coughing fit. Her breathing makes the sound of a saw in oak. Katherine does not look at him. They ride up on up the hill for a league. They ride in silence and all the while he knows he should have stayed and fought the giant.

Later Margaret stops them and has to take a draught of the medicament. She shudders. Thomas looks at Katherine.

‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘What is wrong with her?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘but whatever it is, the horse urine does no good.’