‘Fetch the priest,’ she says, and, ‘This one is already dead,’ but there are also some who she thinks will live. She turns to the Welshman. ‘Where are the barber surgeon’s tools? His bags?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Welshman admits. ‘He has a servant, though.’

‘Find him then, and get him to bring the bag.’

‘Right,’ Sir John says, rubbing his hands and turning to Thomas. ‘Let’s go and find Fitzwalter, shall we? He’s usually got a pot going.’

Thomas turns to Katherine. She has heard what Sir John has said and is now standing still among the wounded men, staring back at Thomas. Her face is ashen. They stare at one another and Thomas can feel prickles all over his skin and tears in his eyes and he wants to run to her and take hold of her and tell her that – dear God! – he loves her.

But. But Sir John is there and the Welshman and so instead he stands with his hands by his sides and he says nothing, but watches as her eyes mist and she wipes away a tear with a grubby hand. She sniffs and she says, finally, very quietly:

‘Go with God, Thomas.’

And he cannot stop the tears leaking from his own eyes and nor can he speak for the lump in his throat but he whispers:

‘You too, my lady. You too.’

And then they have to go, and he turns and buries his head in some little task to do with his leg armour before helping Sir John into his saddle and climbing into his own. He looks at her from the saddle and raises his hand; then he lets it drop and he covers the noise of a sob by jabbing his horse to take a few steps.

‘We shall see you in the morning,’ Sir John says, and, ‘Look after her, Richard.’

Thomas turns the horse and follows Sir John into the smoke and darkness. As he goes he feels he is leaving something behind, something from within him, winding it out through a wound in his chest. His legs do not feel strong enough to control the horse, and he wonders if he will fall.

By the time they reach the river’s bank, the fighting is over and the enemy dead have been looted and left in the snow. Thomas does not know their livery: a badge like a pilgrim’s shell on rough russet hessian. Warwick’s dead are laid on their backs next to one another by the roadside, as if for inspection, and down by the bridge the air is thick with the smells of chipped stone, fresh-cut wood and hot iron where the carpenters, masons and coopers are working bent-backed, steaming in the cold.