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surprising,’ said Robin, ‘think how far they’ve walked. It’s nigh on two hundred miles.’ He grinned at her. ‘You’re not so fat yourself after walking all that way! How are you feeling?’
    ‘Oh, a bit leary.’
    ‘Weary?’
    ‘No, leary. I could do justice to some bread and cheese. What are you laughing at?’
    Robin was chuckling. ‘You’re going to have to lose your Devon accent if you want to make yourself understood,’ he said. ‘They don’t use words like “leary” round these parts. They’d say “hungry”. You’ll have to start using the right words, or you’ll never find work. You might not even get anything to eat!’
    Jenna laughed, too. She and Robin had become good companions during the course of the journey, easy with each other, and she was pleased by that and very grateful. As he pointed out to her several times, the only reason he’d allowed her to travel with them was that she was a good Devon girl and she should not be traipsing around the countryside on her own, looking for casual work on farms. The other men had been quite respectful towards her too, once Robin had lain down the ground rules on that first morning back in Honiton. Their business was to get the animals to Westminster without mishap.
    ‘Not far now,’ Robin said. ‘Journey’s end is in sight.’
    ‘The girls will be glad of the rest.’
    ‘Aye, they will, and so will the bullocks. They’ll get a couple of weeks’ rest on Eybury Farm, on rich pasture down by the river Thames. It’s good and green at this time of year and not too wet, even though it’s clay soil. They’ll fatten up nicely.’
    ‘And then they’ll be killed.’
    Robin shrugged. ‘That’s what happens.’
    It was pointless getting fond of animals, Jenna thought, they were only there for the convenience of people. So she had been surprised the first time she’d heard Robin calling the six dairy cows his ‘girls’. But Robin was a surprising man, a no-nonsense, responsible head drover with a concern for the herd in his charge and a great affection for his dog, Mallow. Mallow? That seemed strange to Jenna, too: dogs were usually given names like Trojan or Holdfast.
    ‘Why Mallow?’ she had asked him a few days ago.
    ‘Why not? It’s a pretty plant, she’s a pretty bitch.’
    The black and white cattle dog was no prettier than any other bitch, Jenna thought, but her devotion to Robin was obvious and she had an endearing habit of nuzzling her long nose under his hand until it moved to stroke her head or tickle her ears.
    So there was a soft side to his nature, but cattle were cattle, the commodity he traded in. The bullocks would bring a good profit when they were slaughtered, enough to make it worthwhile for men like Robin Fairweather to spend their lives on the drove roads, satisfying the needs of city folk who had no room to keep animals or grow crops of their own but still needed food in their bellies. Droving was hard, dangerous work: Mallow wasn’t just there to herd the animals, she had to protect her master, too.
    ***
    T he sun, low in the sky, was to their backs when the drove arrived at Eybury farm. Robin had sent one of the men on ahead to warn the tenant-farmer to expect them and now the animals had come to a halt, some cropping the grassy bank, the drovers waiting to be told which field they were to use as pasture.
    ‘I told you we’d get here by dimmet-time,’ Robin said with a smile in his eyes.
    ‘And we did,’ said Jenna, wondering why he was so amused.
    ‘This time of day is called “evening” in these parts, or sometimes “dusk”.’
    ‘Not dimmet?’
    ‘No. They’d probably think you meant dinner-time,’ he said, ‘so you’d get nothing to eat. Well, I did warn you!’ Jenna groaned at him but took the advice to heart.
    ‘Hey, Robin!’
    He turned at the shout and waved. Two young cowherds were running up the lane towards them, withy sticks in hand, ready to help round up the animals and head them