He is looking hellish. He’s grown a beard, and is unwashed and filthy, like the lowest sort of villager, but Thomas hurries the last few steps and throws his arms around the old man. They pound one another on their backs, pulling each other close.

‘Great God above, it is more than wonderful to see you,’ Sir John cries. He leaves off the hugging to hold Thomas at arm’s length. Then he embraces him again. Tears are flooding down his grimy cheeks.

‘What news?’ he asks. ‘What news of Walter? Of Dafydd? And where’s Kit?’

He peers over Thomas’s shoulder but Katherine has stepped back into the shadow of the trees and is waiting, watching.

Thomas shakes his head. He is crying too now.

‘Dead,’ he says. ‘They were killed in Wales. We were trying to get back, back to you, to this house, but— It was – It was Riven. Riven’s boy. And that giant.’

Sir John makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a scream.

‘Oh dear Christ!’ he says. ‘Oh dear Christ!’

‘Riven’s men followed us to Wales,’ Thomas goes on.

Sir John pulls his ears. ‘Oh God!’ he whispers. ‘Oh God!’

‘And you?’ Thomas asks. ‘How have you fared? Where is everybody else?’

‘Us? Christ above. We have – Well, you see for yourself. We have had quite a time of it and have had to withstand Riven’s attentions as well. I thought you might be one of his men, back for more. But, Thomas, who is with you? Did you say Lady Margaret Cornford?’

Thomas can feel his pulse in his ears. He is about to try to gull Sir John, to defraud him. Dear God, what if he just laughs when he sees Katherine? What if he just says, ‘That’s not Margaret, that’s Kit’?

He opens his mouth to stop all this, to say no, that is not Lady Margaret, that is Kit in a dress, when Katherine emerges from the trees in the corner of his vision. She has taken off her cloak, so that it might be more easily seen that she is wearing a dress, so it might be more easily seen she is a woman, and she has plumped up her linen headdress. Despite everything, despite her thinness, her grubby clothes, her worn shoes, or even because of these, she looks, to Thomas’s eye at least, wholly beautiful.

Sir John stares. Katherine falters. She glances at Thomas, seeking reassurance. There is a long tense moment.

Sir John seems dumbfounded. Then he recalls himself.

‘My lady,’ he says. ‘Welcome to our house.’ And he steps towards her and takes her hand and kisses her, a frown flickering across his brow, perhaps because she is wearing no gloves or rings and her hands are still dirty from the road, and despite himself, Thomas is relieved.