‘Hold him steady. And fetch a candle.’

One of the friars brings an altar candle of good beeswax, casting a true light. In it she can see the Earl has large spots on the cheek of his backside, and she thinks of Sir John and his fistula. Is that how such things start?

‘You,’ she says, addressing the man-at-arms. ‘Push on the arrow. Slowly.’

He is horrified.

‘Do it,’ Warwick says.

The man shuffles forward. He looks around, seeking approval.

‘Come on,’ Warwick says.

‘Slowly,’ she adds.

He bends and grasps the arrow. Warwick gasps.

‘Sorry, my lord.’

‘Just do it.’

He pushes the arrow through the Earl’s flesh. The Earl stiffens. Clenches his teeth.

‘The candle!’ she calls.

The friar leans over her.

She watches the growth swell on the back of Warwick’s thigh, sharpening, turning pale. She snicks it with the blade. She feels a tick of the knife against the arrowhead. Blood seethes from the wound and the arrow comes slithering through. Warwick bucks and shouts with the pain. Mayhew and the friar hold him tight, the man-at-arms taken by surprise. There is blood all over the ground. A great pool of it, expanding fast. Katherine feels a grab of panic. She’s cut the artery! She panics, doesn’t know what to do, where to turn. Then she calms herself.

‘Sponge,’ she demands. ‘Linen.’

She pulls the arrow free and tosses it aside, then she presses the urine-soaked sponge into the wound and then the wine-soaked linen. She holds it until it is blood-soaked. ‘More,’ she says. Mayhew passes her a new piece. She presses that down on the first and when that second piece is sodden, she finds a third. By the fourth pressing the wound is no longer bleeding.

She almost collapses. She has not cut the artery.

‘Well?’

This is from the man-at-arms, and he speaks for everybody.

‘He’ll live,’ Mayhew says. ‘He’ll live.’

36

WHEN THE BRIDGE is finally taken, in the gloom of the early evening, after Fauconberg’s mounted archers have forded the river upstream and come around behind the defenders, Thomas sits on the bank and opens his bag to see if he has any food. The ledger is in there. He opens it again, and looks at all the embellishments he has added since he first acquired it. There is the window of St Paul’s, the name of Red John, the drawing of Katherine he made while she was ill in Brecon. She looks like the Virgin herself.

He wishes he did not have to carry it with him, but now that he is separated from the wagons, there is nowhere to leave it. He slings it over his shoulder and goes in search of Hastings’s men. There is no sign of Hastings’s standard, but across the blood-slicked stones of the bridge, Thomas finds the Welsh captain, looking as pleased with himself as if he personally put the northerners to flight.