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King. ‘Only a few miles,’ they kept saying. The King was only a little way ahead, over the next hill, and then they’d all see his host. There would be thousands there, they said, but no one believed it. They knew no one else supported the King any more.
    A sob formed in his breast, near his heart, as he prayed that his Susan was safe and well, their little boy with her – but today, no one could tell. The country was aflame. He would perish out here somewhere, far to the west of the realm. They all would.
    It felt as if the kingdom had been teetering on the brink of war for years, and now it had toppled into chaos. Old Otho had been ordered to collect twenty men for battle, and Robert had been one of the first to be chosen. That was just over a week ago now, and since then all he had done was march, first up east towards London, and now back west again. There was no sense in it. He didn’t know what they were doing, only that the King himself was in danger, and Robert, Otho, and the lads from the vill must try to protect him, while others tried to stop or slay them. It made no sense. Nothing made sense any more. All he wanted was to stop, to lie down and sleep.
    There was a sudden crack and a shout, then a terrible scream. The pony lay on its side, a bloody froth at its mouth, kicking listlessly with two forelegs, while the cart’s body lay in pieces all about. A wheel had fallen and broken in a hole, and the poor beast had broken its heart trying to continue.
    Robert Vyke walked over to the driver. ‘I said the poor brute wouldn’t be able to carry on,’ he told him.
    The driver looked at him blankly, then kicked the horse’s head viciously. ‘Bastard son of a sow was useless,’ he burst out.
    Robert’s hand was on his dagger – and then the blade was out, and the driver jumped back. There was a shout, a curse, and the driver had his own dagger free in his hand, and was reaching for his whip.
    ‘Stop that!’ The bellow came from Otho, the Constable of Robert’s vingtaine, and in a moment he was standing in between them. ‘You want the Queen to discuss your argument, boys? You want her here so that you can put your cases to her, wait for her judgement on you? Eh? Because I can tell you what her judgement would be – that you two prickles would deserve a good, tall tree to hang from, since you’re going to her enemies. Your King wouldn’t be too happy to learn you’d held us all up, neither. He’d hang you as an example. Put the blades away, boys, because so help me, if you don’t, I’ll break your pates, both of you.’
    Robert and the driver stared at each other a moment, then Robert looked at Otho. ‘You think I can’t cut a fool’s throat like his?’
    ‘Leave him. He’s a son of a goat, and not worth getting yourself hanged over, Robert,’ Otho rasped.
    ‘I will do as you wish, Constable,’ Robert said, and thrust his dagger back in its sheath.
    It felt as though he had pulled the lever in a mill and turned off the water from the sluice. Suddenly he had no energy again, and he saw that his companions from the village were all near him. He walked in among them, and would have fallen but for a friendly hand at his arm. And then they began their weary trudging again.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Third Tuesday after the Feast of St Michael 11
     
    Bristol
    Cecily reached the house and pulled open the door. Trembling like a leaf, she pushed it closed behind her, then stood leaning against it for a while, her eyes shut.
    ‘Maid?’ Old Hamo the steward was at the doorway to his buttery, a cloth in his hand as he methodically wiped and polished a maple-wood mazer, a frown of perturbation on his kindly features. He was ancient, at least sixty years, and as bent and gnarled as an old blackthorn. ‘Maid, what is it?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she said. How could she explain the shock that had jolted through her body out there when she saw the little boy who looked so like baby Harry? The child in his mother’s