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welcome Frevisse, Dame Claire, and Father Henry when they had dismounted but one of the considerably younger men.
    He introduced himself with a slight bow and courteous smile. “My ladies, good sir. I’m Lionel Knyvet. My thanks for your joining us this while.”
    He was somewhere in his twenties, Frevisse guessed. Tall and not particularly well featured, with long bones and a large jaw. His heavy-lidded eyes made him look as if he were too much given to sleep, but there was an old scar white across his forehead and bridge of his nose as if he had had adventures when he was younger. He had given no title so he was not noble, but the rich cloth and good cut of his clothing and the way he traveled in company and with servants and packhorses showed he was wellborn. Or at least wealthy. And his manners could not have been better.
    “Your man said you’re bound for Minster Lovell and so are we.” He included the others behind him with a movement of his hand. “Would you care to join us the few miles more there are to go?”
    “That’s kind of you,” Dame Claire said, “and surely your company would be welcome, but I fear we would slow you overmuch, going on foot as we do.”
    “A vow?” he asked.
    “A vow,” Dame Claire agreed.
    Lionel Knyvet accepted that without further question. “Then give me the pleasure of sharing our food?”
    “We’ll be grateful for the shade and sitting with you, surely,” Dame Claire said. “But we have food of our own and no need to trouble you.”
    “Not trouble but pleasure, my lady. Pray you, let me do you that courtesy.”
    His own courtesy was so great, it would have been discourteous to refuse him. Dame Claire smiled. “We’d be pleased of your kindness. Thank you.”
    John Naylor had gone aside with the horses to where the others’ mounts were grazing slack-girthed along the hedge. He would join the Knyvet servants for his meal, but Dame Claire, Frevisse, and Father Henry went with Master Knyvet and were introduced to the others, the only woman among them first. “My cousin’s wife, Mistress Knyvet.”
    She was very young, not far out of girlhood. Prettiness and health bloomed in her face, unmarred yet by any of life’s heaviness. But for all her prettiness and youth, she was sensibly dressed for travel in a close-sleeved brown linen gown, with a simple white wimple and veil to protect her hair and neck from dust and sun, and she made them a pleasant, smiling curtsy.
    “My cousin Giles,” Lionel said.
    The family resemblance to Lionel was strongly there in his coloring and face, but his better-proportioned, unscarred features were far closer to handsome than Lionel’s had ever been. He bowed curtly, not bothering to hide his lack of enthusiasm at the introduction, said perfunctorily, “Sir. My ladies,” and sat down again.
    Gesturing to the cushions where she had been seated herself, his wife said with far more grace, “Pray you, sit here.” And when Frevisse and Dame Claire gratefully had and she had joined them, Lionel introduced the rest of the company. First the older man. “Master Bernard Geffers, keeping us company this while.”
    “A franklin from near Chipping Norton,” Master Geffers added by way of further explanation. “Both pleased and honored to meet you thus.”
    Frevisse’s immediate thought was that she did not like his hat. The style he had set for it, with its hood pulled up on top of his head into a coxcomb and its liripipe wrapped around to hold it in place, was much too young a fashion for his years. And so was the flourish he gave to his bow before he likewise sat down and edged a little closer, as if anticipating a good talk as soon as there was chance.
    “And Hamon and Will Stenby, on pilgrimage like us to St. Kenelm’s at Minster Lovell,” Lionel said.
    Except in age, the two men were so alike to look at that Frevisse readily guessed them to be father and son, the elder somewhat more stooped across his wide shoulders, the younger