The peep-hole squeaked open and a blue, bloodshot eye with a mean gleam peered out. ‘State your name, and business,’ the owner of the eye said.

‘Nicholas Warr, archer.’

‘We’ve a full complement of archers.’ The peep-hole slid back with a click, and Warr was left contemplating a blank oak door.

‘Jesus wept.’ Warr reapplied his fist to the door.

The peep-hole slid open. The bloodshot eye came back into view. ‘You deaf?’ The gatekeeper’s snarl was muffled by thick oak. ‘Or merely brainless? Go and plague some other soul.’

Nicholas had to catch the guard’s attention fast, before that loophole was sealed. He took his purse from his belt and shook what he had left of his pay. Being all but empty after three weeks’ riotous living, the purse didn’t make a very convincing noise. Not to be daunted, Warr ploughed on, ‘I fought with Otto Malait in seventy-three.’

‘They all say that.’ The eye rolled disparagingly at Warr’s slender purse.

Losing heart, he tried to make his last coins chink more loudly. ‘It would be worth your while.’

‘And who’ll pay me? You?’ The porter sneered. ‘That wallet sounds more like a baby’s rattle than anything else. What will you pay me with, seashells?’

‘It would be worth your while,’ Warr repeated, tucking his purse back into his belt and speaking fast while the window yet gaped. ‘It’s true I haven’t got much, but you will be rewarded. I must speak to Captain Malait. I’ve valuable information to pass on to the Count.’ The eye blinked. Warr hoped its owner was listening. ‘It would be worth your–’

‘It would mean a flogging if you’re lying.’

In despair, the archer resorted to the truth. ‘Do I look as though I’m lying? Christ on the Cross, you noticed for yourself that my purse is as hungry for coin as I am for food. I need money. Is it likely that I’d be wasting my time and yours if I didn’t think that what I had to say was worth something? Let me in. Please.’

The peep-hole snapped shut. Warr’s nostrils dilated. There was a hollow thud, a grating of bolts which set his teeth on edge. As he heard the heavy iron bars being slowly drawn back in their sockets, he felt the first drops of rain.

Warr spread his hands and blinked gratefully up at a dull sky. ‘My thanks,’ he said. It was not that he believed in the Almighty, but he felt a need to express his gratitude. And just in case, he added, ‘I owe you one.’

***

Slumped in a kingly high-backed chair with padded seat and back-rest, de Roncier heard Captain Malait and the archer out with an ever-darkening brow.

‘So you see, mon seigneur,’ Warr summed up, ‘Jean St Clair is planning to marry Yolande Herevi.’

‘And you say she’s carrying?’ the Count demanded.

‘So her maid, Klara, maintained.’

François rubbed the bridge of his nose, and as his fury rose, so did his high colour.

Having shot his bolt, Nicholas Warr felt sweat break out on his brow. He chewed the inside of his mouth and hoped his bringing this news would not misfire on him; de Roncier looked to be taking it extremely ill. Was the Count a man to punish the bearer of bad tidings? Warr wished he had thought of that earlier instead of waiting until he was so hard-pressed.

‘I’m sorry, mon seigneur, if this news distresses you,’ Warr said, as coolly as he could, ‘but I thought it in your best interests that you should know, so that you could make plans. I thought–’

De Roncier levelled callous hazel eyes at him and Warr’s blood went cold. ‘You thought you saw your way to making a profit.’

‘I...I assure you, mon seigneur...’

The Count stood up. ‘See he’s paid, Malait, and boot him out.’

‘Come on, Warr.’

Warr hung back. ‘Mon seigneur?’

‘What now?’

‘I’d be grateful for a position,’ the archer blurted, stammering to a halt when he saw a cunning, feral gleam enter the Frenchman’s eyes.

‘I’m not convinced I would benefit by employing a loose-tongued serf,’ de Roncier murmured.

Warr was a free man, but he let that one glide past him. ‘L...loose-tongued?’

‘You betray your former master very easily.’

Only a lie would serve Warr now. ‘May I burn in sulphur, but St Clair never paid. Do I give a man my loyalty, if he never shells out?’

François hesitated. He could well believe that St Clair hadn’t settled up. What man did if he could get away with it? Why, he himself often delayed doling out for as long as he could – it was only prudent. And St Clair’s estate could not yield much. He subjected the archer to a thorough scrutiny. ‘And if I employ you – and pay you, naturally...’

‘You’d not regret it. I’m one of the best archers in the Duchy.’

‘Do we need another archer, Captain?’

Otto exchanged a brief look with Warr. He had not forgotten the skirmish when Warr had saved his life. A brace of Englishmen had had him at a disadvantage, when suddenly blue and white feathers had sprouted from one assailant’s chest. Warr’s quiver was full of arrows fletched like that. ‘We can always use a good man,’ he said. He did not like to be beholden to anyone, and this, an easy thing, would set the tally straight.

‘Very well. See he’s tested at the butts. If he hits the spot, add his name to the roll.’

‘Aye, mon seigneur.’

***

Returning from the butts with rain-dampened clothes, Otto Malait and Nicholas Warr strode into a vast hall which was abuzz with talk. The fire gushed forth an acrid blue smoke which caught in the back of the throat and lay across the room like a fenland fog. Supper was on the trestles, and the rich smell of roast boar filled their nostrils. Stools creaked. Goblets clattered. Knives flashed over piled trenchers. Hounds snarled and fought over scraps in the marsh – the soiled rushes under the tables. Cats with thievery in mind streaked between dogs’ legs.

‘Come, Warr, don’t look so down at mouth.’ Otto headed for a vacant space on the soldiers’ table near the door. ‘I’ll enrol you, though I’ve seen you do better.’

‘My thanks, Captain Malait. I’m grateful,’ Warr said, eyeing what was left of the pig with apparent misgivings.

The men who had got to the roast ahead of them had taken the best cuts, and all that was left was a massacre of gristle and bone to which scarcely a strand of flesh clung. The meat had been charred almost to a cinder, so it must at one time have been hot, but it was now cold, congealed, and frankly unappetising.

‘You don’t look it,’ Otto said.

‘No, I am grateful,’ Warr assured him, and sat down.

‘What was it like at Kermaria?’ Otto asked, and hewing a gobbet from the burnt offering, thrust what was left at the archer. The hands that took the platter from him were long. Nicholas Warr had surprisingly thin bones for a military man. Broad-shouldered though, he got that from his archery, but otherwise too lanky for Otto’s taste. Now Warr had enlisted with de Roncier, he would be given the chance to prove his loyalty by telling them all he could.

The archer cut what he could from the ill-fated boar and resigned himself to a night’s indigestion. ‘It was warm at Kermaria,’ he said, dryly.

Otto’s wits were never at their sharpest when he was intent on bagging a wine jar. He frowned. ‘Warm? That damp, bog of a place?’

‘You misunderstand, Captain. It was the food I was referring to.’ Warr looked round the ring of gobbling, hard-faced men-at-arms, ‘and the people.’

Otto let his eyes wash coldly over the archer. ‘The people? You’ve gone soft, Warr, since I knew you. Wasn’t it you who once boasted that you never allowed affection to come into your working relationships?’

‘Did I say that?’

Otto laughed, and choked as some pork went down the wrong way. ‘Bones of St Olaf! You’re showing your years.’

‘We’re all showing our years, Malait,’ Warr said soberly.

‘There was someone else who lived by your old precepts, Warr, Alan le Bret.’