He walks one way and then the other. He holds his hand up to take that of an imaginary dance partner. In Fitzwalter’s company Sir John is a changed man, as if relieved of the weight of recent sorrows.

‘Dear God!’ Fitzwalter laughs. ‘Who is this miracle? Give me his name.’

‘I would,’ Sir John says, the mood changing for a moment, ‘but he is gone the way of all flesh.’

They call for drink and Lord Fitzwalter clears a place for Sir John by the fire under the shelter of a flap of canvas stretched from a tent behind. Thomas stands listening as the two swap meaningless gossip about their time together in France. They mention Rouen and Thomas thinks of the ledger hanging from his saddle. Would Sir John’s name be in it? Probably.

They are joined by another veteran, whom Sir John calls ‘Jenny’, and to whom he offers commiserations on the death of his father. Who is his father? Thomas has no idea. Here is just another man who’s lost a father, and who is coming north to settle a score.

Once they’ve exhausted the subjects of their mutual friends, Sir John brings up the bridge.

‘It was a stroke of fortune to find the crossing so poorly defended,’ he ventures.

‘It was,’ Fitzwalter agrees. ‘A good old-fashioned military blunder, I expect. They only left a picket, and when they saw us, half of them ran for the hills. The other half stayed on and, I have to say, inflicted more wounded on us than I’d hoped. A score of men killed, too. We couldn’t cross to get at them in any great numbers, see? The bridge being so narrow. We had to thin them out one by one with arrows. Took most of the afternoon.’

Sir John nods. While they have been talking a light dusting of snow has fallen to refresh the earlier fall, and all around the camp men are asleep by the fires, snow gathering in swags in the folds of their cloaks, in peaks on their hats.

‘And you’ve left men on the other side now?’ Sir John goes on.

‘Twenty archers and the same again of bills.’

‘Is that enough, d’you think?’

Fitzwalter shrugs.

‘To tell you the truth, I can’t send any more,’ he says, ‘or they’ll start to fight among themselves. It’s the old puzzle about the boatman trying to cross the river with a hen, you know? With a fox and a sack of grain.’

Sir John looks blank.

‘They fought over some dice on the way up,’ Fitzwalter explains. ‘Jenny’s men and mine, and now if we leave them together for a moment they take up cudgels and batter one another. I clipped the ear of one of them for breaking another man’s arm in the original fight, but that didn’t seem to work.’ He takes a drink.