‘Sir John,’ Katherine says. ‘It is an honour, though what is . . .?’ And she hesitates nicely, her gaze flickering across the house’s façade, the arrow in the jamb, Sir John’s wild appearance.

‘Yes,’ Sir John admits. ‘You find us somewhat unprepared. For guests, I mean.’ He laughs weakly, but then he tails off. He is staring at her openly, rudely, and he starts crying again. His eyes screw tight and the tears flow into the silver threads of his beard. He begins to sob, and Katherine looks at Thomas for guidance.

Thomas takes the old man’s shoulders.

‘Sir John,’ he says. ‘What is wrong?’

Sir John cannot speak.

‘Where is Richard?’ Katherine asks, her tone sharp and urgent, out of her new role.

‘Here.’

A new voice joins them. Coming from the doorway.

Both turn.

Standing there, gripping the lintel with both hands, is Richard Fakenham. He is in soft leather boots and a rough blue jacket and wrapped around his eyes is a long length of grubby linen bandage.

‘He is blinded,’ Sir John says in a low voice. ‘In both eyes.’

33

IT IS AFTER dark and they are sitting in the hall by the damped fire.

‘It was that giant of his,’ Sir John tells them. ‘They caught him and Little John Willingham by means of trickery. They killed Little John. With an axe, Richard says, and then when he was dead, they took Richard and they held him down and – well.’

Sir John cannot go on. There is a long silence.

‘Is he asleep?’ Katherine asks.

Sir John shakes his head.

‘I hear him crying sometimes,’ he says. ‘In the night. It is not a sound a father wants to hear.’

‘Why did they do it?’ Thomas asks.

Sir John shrugs.

‘Because they could,’ he says, ‘and to send me a message, I suppose.’

Katherine sits and listens, unable to contribute, seeing again how awkward this pretence will be. Sir John glances at her now and then, and she imagines he thinks her shy, but in truth she does not know what to think or where to put herself.

When Richard had first emerged from the house, she had stood rooted while Thomas fumblingly reintroduced himself. They’d hugged and kissed and Richard had said that it was good to see him and a silence had fallen and then Richard had said it was good to know that he was alive anyway, and he had asked about Walter and then Kit. Thomas had glanced her way without moving his head and, after a moment’s hesitation that might have been mistaken for misery, he’d told them that both were dead, and that of the five men who had set out for Wales, only he remained alive.