He leaves Katherine to strip Margaret’s body. She leaves her in her linen shift and they carry her, sublimely beautiful now she is released from the coughing, down to some workings which Little Dafydd has cleared of snow. They lay her down and after a moment the stiffness seems to leave her body, and she subsides, and even looks at peace. While Katherine and Little Dafydd fetch bracken, more heather, grasses, anything they can pull up, Thomas takes the first page of the pardoner’s ledger, and his ink, and he cuts a frozen reed from the frozen river’s bed, and he fashions a pen. Then he writes: Here lie the mortal remains of Lady Margaret Cornford, only issue of the late Lord Cornford, who died on this day, right beloved of God and of all those who knew her. May she rest in peace.

Then he places the piece of paper on a stone and then places another stone on top to make a simple marker. They cover her body as best they can and they kneel by her graveside and Thomas says a prayer, asking the Lord to look down favourably upon his handmaid Margaret, to forgive her any sins she may have committed, and for the saints and martyrs to receive her in heaven and guide her to Jerusalem. Tears shimmer on Katherine’s cheeks, and she wipes her nose with her sleeve. She is shaking and Thomas has to help her stand and come away from the graveside.

Afterwards Katherine offers Margaret’s cloak to Little Dafydd, but he will not take it. They load the horses in silence and then turn their backs on the stone and walk back to the track. There is almost no wind now, and the sky above is very pale. The snow has obscured all trace of their arrival, and ahead the road rises to the two peaks.

When they reach the track Little Dafydd says something.

‘I think he wants to leave us here,’ Katherine says.

‘You can hardly blame him,’ Thomas agrees.

They try to give him Margaret’s horse but he will not take it, not with the side-saddle, so they give him Katherine’s horse, which is the one he wants anyway. Then they say goodbye as best they can and they watch him retrace their steps down the track, hurrying away from the great slab of stone and down over the snowfields, back towards the town he’d called Castel Nedd.

‘Whatever will he tell Dwnn?’ Thomas wonders.

They are left just the two of them, with two hungry horses, but no bow, no companions and no idea what to do next except follow the road over the hills towards England.