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of the couple who had hidden him in the priest hole concealed in their roof. But then his mind played a cruel trick, turning Anne’s golden hair raven black, her pink cheeks bone white, until this vision of his lost love Martha Green caused him to start.
    ‘You’re wild in a fight, Rivers,’ Clement said. ‘I remember you. I remember ordering you back. You disobeyed me.’
    Tom could remember nothing of that. He recalled his friend Nayler being killed, his throat ripped out by a musket ball. He remembered seeing his enemy Lord Denton, a man for whom Tom’s hatred burnt as hot as Hell’s fire, and trying to get to him. Beyond mortal fear, beyond all senses other than the lustto kill the man whose vile machinations had forced Tom to take up arms against his king and side with Parliament against his own family, he had forged on until …
    They had beaten him to the ground.
    ‘I don’t want men in my troop who can’t be controlled. I will have discipline. Order.’
    ‘I am a killer,’ Tom said. ‘I have a talent for it.’
    Clement’s brows arched. ‘That’s as maybe, Thomas Rivers, but I do not want you in my troop.’
    ‘Told you it was him! Tom!’
    Tom turned. There, their faces cast in shadow by the fire behind them, stood a knot of hard-faced men all shrouded and trussed against the cold night air.
    ‘I told you it was him, Penn, it’s Black Tom back from the dead!’ Despite the dark, Tom would have recognized Weasel by his narrow shoulders and quick hands alone.
    ‘As God is my witness,’ Matthew Penn said, ‘it really is you, Tom.’ Tom felt a grin tug at his lips as he took in the incredulous expressions of the men with whom he had ridden and fought. There were seven or eight of them who had left the fire to take a look at him. If they were not all friends, they were brothers-in-arms, drawn from their comfort by the miracle of a man risen from the dead.
    Will Trencher’s bald head gleamed in the flame-glow, his cap clutched to his chest. His mouth hung open, so that he resembled more the awe-filled Catholic witnessing a statue of the Virgin Mother crying tears of blood than the stout Protestant he was.
    ‘Hello, Will,’ Tom said, then nodded to his other friends. ‘Matthew. Weasel.’
    ‘Forgive us, sir, we don’t mean to interrupt,’ Trencher said, pointing the cap towards Tom, ‘but we never thought to see this lad again. Reckoned him killed.’
    ‘Reckoned?’ Matthew Penn blurted. ‘Saw, more like. Saw poor Nayler get his throat shot out, then saw Tom murdered.’
    Having gathered his courage, Trencher stepped forward and held out his hand, a smile softening his pugnacious face. Tom gripped the hand firmly as Matthew slapped his shoulder and Weasel and some of the other troopers stood grinning like fiends.
    ‘You can’t bloody kill Black Tom, eh, Rivers!’ a broad-shouldered, big-bearded man called Robert Dobson said, pressing his thumb against the side of his nose and shooting a wad of snot onto the ground.
    ‘Are you back with us then, Tom?’ Matthew asked, the whites of his wide eyes reflecting the fire’s glow.
    ‘I’ll not have him in my troop,’ Captain Clement said, turning his scrutiny on Penn and the others. The troop’s camp fire suddenly flared, illuminating the party and lending a savage aspect to Clement’s long face with the great red smear across it.
    ‘Come now, sir,’ Trencher entreated, ‘you don’t believe in the walking dead now do you? I’ve seen this lad cut down Cavaliers like he was scything bloody wheat. He’s a good soldier.’
    ‘Being a killer does not make a man a good soldier, Trencher,’ Clement said, ‘it makes him dangerous to his own side.’ He turned and eyeballed Tom again. ‘Rivers is a sword that does not fit its scabbard. He’ll not ride for me.’
    ‘But sir—’ Matthew began before he was cut off by Clement’s raised finger.
    ‘Hold your tongue, Penn,’ the captain warned, not taking his eyes off Tom’s. ‘I’ve