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men sitting on the wall answers.
    ‘The beads,’ Riven says, clicking his fingers again and holding out his cupped hand. ‘Hand me the beads.’
    Louther digs in his coat and pulls out a string of beads. He tosses them over. Even before Riven catches them Thomas knows what they are.
    ‘Where did you get them?’ he asks. His throat is blocked. He can hear pounding in his ears.
    ‘Oh, I think you know, don’t you, Brother Monk? Found them this morning. Just after sun-up, and only after a struggle, I’ll admit, but they often start out that way, don’t they? She enjoyed it for a bit, but Morrant here is a passionate creature, aren’t you, Morrant? Tend to take things too far, don’t you?’
    The giant laughs and nods his head in cheerful agreement.
    Now the quarterstaff feels light in Thomas’s hands, just as it had the day before, and he feels a surge of energy, an empowering rage. He steps forward and flicks the staff up.
    Riven steps back, avoiding the blow. He laughs and tucks the rosary inside his shirt.
    ‘So,’ he says. ‘Now you’ll fight.’
    The first blow comes in low and hard and fantastically fast from the right. It clips Thomas’s staff aside and cracks into his knee. Pain shoots up his leg. Before the next blow comes, Thomas throws himself backwards and Riven’s staff hums through empty space.
    ‘Ha!’ Riven laughs. ‘Not bad, Brother Monk. Quicker than your father, hey?’
    Before Riven has even finished speaking, Thomas has to fling his staff up to catch the next blow. He grunts with the effort, but his clogs slip under him. He falls to his knees. Riven leaps forward and kicks him in the chest. Thomas falls back. Then Riven is on him. Thomas gets his staff up in time to stop Riven pressing his own across his throat. He is pinned to the mud though. Riven is a bulky man, his skin pitted, his breath smelling of salted pork and wine. His eye is puffed and purpled, the eyeball, barely visible, red. Thomas bucks and crashes an elbow into Riven’s bruise. He brings his knee up with a jerk that makes contact.
    Riven grunts and rolls clear.
    Thomas is on his feet fast but Riven is faster still. Before Thomas has grounded himself, Riven charges. Thomas shoots his staff out, but Riven’s move is a feint. The next second Thomas is face down in the sodden grass with his head ringing.
    ‘Too easy,’ he hears Riven say and then he feels the sole of the knight’s boot on the back of his neck. For a moment he can do nothing about it, does not know what to do about it. He looks across at the Prior whose mouth is open in the shape of an egg. The Dean is frowning and his fists are clenched.
    Then Thomas thrashes smartly, like an eel in the mud. He catches Riven’s other heel and pulls. With a bellow of surprise Riven goes sprawling on to his backside. Thomas is up on his feet but Riven is still the faster and Thomas feels a blinding pain above his ear and he crashes to the grass again.
    This time he rolls. He picks up his staff and is on his feet to use it to block the next blow, a simple chop delivered from above, and the next, a swing that comes from the other end of the staff that would have caught him between his legs.
    Riven is still smiling as he makes another move, but Thomas sees it coming and steps inside. He takes the sting out of the blow with the tail of his own staff and then manages a glancing rake across Riven’s fingers.
    Both step back.
    Riven’s smile has gone. Thomas can smell his own blood.
    Riven comes at him again, a flurry of feints, then two blows. Thomas stops the first but is too slow with the second. Riven brings his staff up under Thomas’s arm and in a practised move he turns him, stamps on his clog and smashes the heel of his hand into Thomas’s throat.
    Thomas sags, drops his staff, and for a moment he cannot breathe for the pain. He falls backwards but lands with a jolt that rouses him in time to duck. Riven’s staff passes over his ear. Thomas snatches it and uses