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happened?" Eustace Grumm's voice came from the darkness as Lyle dismounted in the small courtyard outside the inn.
    Lyle peered into the gloom. He could see the reed-thin profile of his friend leaning casually against the red brick wall, soft candlelight streaming through the windows to highlight him a touch. "It was Maddocks."
    Grumm had a clay pipe clamped between his crooked teeth and he pulled it free, blowing a large pall of smoke as he spoke. "In the flesh?"
    "Aye."
    "Knew it were Goffe's men by the scarves, but I hadn't expected the Mad Ox to ride with them. You're sure?"
    "I knew from a long way off," Lyle nodded, whistling softly for the stable hand to collect Star. "Saw his crest."
    "The black lion?"
    Lyle tapped his shoulder. "Embroidered into his scarf, here."
    Grumm snorted. "Very nice. Must be doin' well for himself these days."
    Lyle nodded. "He is tasked with hunting me down, it seems. Major-General Goffe's right-hand."
    Grumm stepped out of the shadows, his eyes like white orbs in the night. "You spoke?"
    "We fought."
    Grumm's jaw dropped, but footsteps scraped on the yard's compacted chalk and both men turned to see a young girl appear from the stables. "Take yer 'orse, m'lord?" Bella asked with a mischievous grin.
    Lyle smiled as he handed her the reins. Her role in charge of the stables was a source of great pride, but many of her customers were also victims out on the road, and the irony was not lost on her. "I am glad you made it."
    She grinned. "Never in doubt. Those old buggers in armour never outrun me an' Newt." Her freckled nose wrinkled as she inspected Lyle's saddle, and she reached up to draw the double-barrelled pistol. "You didn't have the same luck though, I'm guessin'."
    Lyle took the weapon from her and turned it in his hand. The piece was caked in half-dry mud, from muzzle to butt, and would need a thorough clean before it would function. "Dropped on the road. I was lucky to retrieve it."
    "Dropped?" Bella echoed incredulously.
    "Christ above!" Grumm blurted as he squinted at the filthy weapon. "I knows why you bloody dropped it." He thrust a spindly finger in Star's direction. "That nag'll be the death of you, Major."
    Lyle followed the former smuggler's gaze. "Will you sing that same tired tune all your life, Eustace?"
    "I'll sing it every time he near kills you, aye!"
    "There was a moment," Lyle confessed, "after Maddocks and I exchanged fire, that I almost lost control. He panicked, looked to bolt. I could feel it."
    Grumm fiddled with his straggly beard. "Damn me, Major. If you're not fighting the toughest bugger in Goffe's retinue, you're wrestling with your own mount."
    Bella patted the horse. "Ah, don't mind him, Star." She glared at Grumm. "He's a sour old thing."
    The old man jammed his pipe stem back between his teeth. "Not so sour as that bloody animal."
    Lyle went to the horse, scratching the white diamond between its big eyes and receiving a soft nudge of its snout for his trouble. "He may be shy on occasion, but did you ever see a swifter beast? He's saved my skin more than times than I could count. I'll not turn my back on him now. Besides," he added, speaking into the animal's twitching ear, "we won, didn't we, boy?"
    "Good work, Samson," Bella declared happily. "The Mad Ox is a proper fighter."
    "When we rode together with the ironsides," Lyle said, tucking the pistol into his waistband, "he was one of the very best. Better than me, that's for certain."
    "What's changed?" Eustace Grumm asked.
    "All that fencin', I bet," said Bella. "Them hours an' hours with that glum-guts Besnard."
    Lyle could not help but laugh at that. "Actually, I threw my hammer at his horse. Now come along. I need ale."
     
    The three of them sat at the taproom's rearmost table, lit by fat beeswax candles and wreathed in smoke from Grumm's pipe. There was one other patron, slumped in a far corner cradling a pot of strong beer, but they recognised him from the village and knew he posed no threat. Grumm