‘I am, sir.’

‘I’ve had Sir William Maleverer asking me questions about seeing you carrying some decorated casket at King’s Manor a few days ago. What have you been bandying my name about for, you stinking knave?’

‘I have not, sir,’ I said evenly. ‘Sir William wished to enquire of everyone who had seen me with the casket, and I remembered you and Lady Rochford looked over at me. I had some plaster on my cloak,’ I added.

‘What’s so important about the box, hey?’ Dereham demanded. ‘Maleverer wouldn’t say, only that it had been stolen.’

I looked around uneasily; several people had turned at the sound of Dereham’s loud braying voice. Maleverer would be furious if he knew Dereham was broadcasting the news like this.

‘It was lost, sir,’ I said quietly. ‘Sir William has the matter in hand.’

‘Don’t answer me back, you baseborn slug.’ Dereham’s face reddened. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘You are Master Dereham, the Queen’s secretary.’

‘Then have respect.’ Dereham frowned, then smiled cruelly. ‘You’re the hunchback the King made mock of, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ I said wearily. With one of Dereham’s rank, as with Rich and Maleverer, there was nothing one could do but take it.

‘It’s all round the town.’ He laughed and turned away.

Barak took my arm and walked me off. ‘Parasites,’ he said. ‘Tamasin says that Culpeper made a pass at her, he tries it on with every woman he likes the look of. He’s one of the King’s bodyservants, he can do as he likes.’

‘I am going to have to develop the hide of a crocodile.’

‘It’ll be a two days’ wonder. There’s to be a big bear-baiting at the manor tomorrow, all the York gentry invited, and half the camp will straggle along to watch. That’ll be the talk tomorrow night.’

I nodded. ‘Will you take Tamasin?’

‘She doesn’t like the bear-baiting. Another one with a weak stomach.’

I smiled. ‘When we return to London, will you see her there? Or is she just another of your dalliances?’

‘I thought you didn’t like her?’

‘Maybe I was too harsh. Anyway, ’tis your business.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to see.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘I can’t think that far ahead. I feel like we’ve been here for ever.’

‘So do I. Come, this walking is making me hungry. Are they serving food in the refectory?’

‘Should be.’

We started walking back to St Mary’s. I saw young Leacon standing with a group of soldiers by the tents; he bowed to me and I nodded in reply. Then I espied another figure, standing with arms folded at the edge of a crowd, cheering on a bloody dogfight between two great mastiffs. He nodded approvingly as one dog tore open the other’s stomach, spilling a mess of guts and blood.

‘Radwinter,’ I said. ‘Come, this way, I don’t want to see him.’ The wretch, though, had seen me. He smiled at me sardonically as we slipped away into the darkness.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Barak said. ‘I thought he was guarding Broderick.’

‘I suppose Maleverer must allow him time to exercise. Damn him. Beware, it’s muddy here.’

We had come to the edge of the camp, beyond the tents, where the ground sloped down to some trees. Beyond I saw the Ouse gleaming in the moonlight. We turned and walked back.

‘Saturday tomorrow,’ I said. ‘You can have a free day. I will go and see Master Wrenne, see how he is. And what the arrangements are for hearing the petitioners. I may have to do it myself if he is indisposed.’

‘The bear-baiting is in the morning,’ Barak said. ‘But some of the clerks are going hawking, I thought I might accompany them.’ He hesitated. ‘Tamasin would like to go.’

‘Good idea. Get some fresh air. How does the old rhyme go? A Greyfalcon for a King…’

‘A Merlin for a Lady,’ Barak continued cheerfully.

‘A Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest -’

‘A Kestrel for a Knave. I’m hoping someone might lend me a kestrel.’ He laughed.

‘Tamasin was telling me about her father,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ He looked surprised. ‘When did you see her?’

‘We happened to meet. Had a little talk. Perhaps I have been a little hard on the girl.’

‘I’m glad you see that.’

‘She believes her father was a professional man.’

‘I think that’s probably a story her mother told to comfort the girl. Nobody likes the taint of bastardy.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ I was reminded of Maleverer. He too had that taint. His way of dealing with it was more brutal.

Barak shook his head. ‘Tammy is so practical in many ways. But she has this notion about her father fixed in her head.’ He sighed. ‘Women need things to comfort them, and she sets no great store by religion. At the court she has seen something of the politics and greed that have brought the religious changes.’

‘You will see eye to eye with her on that, I think. As do I.’

Barak nodded. ‘I thought I might write to a contact of mine in the household office. I did him a favour in the old days, when I worked for Lord Cromwell. If someone is illegitimate, there is always a trail of gossip.’

‘Might be better not to find out the truth.’

‘If her father turns out to have been in charge of putting stray dogs out of the kitchens or something, I needn’t tell her.’

‘No.’

We heard voices. It was dark here, on the fringe of the camp, but I saw, a little way ahead, the light of a small fire, a group of men and boys gathered round it. A pit had been dug and filled with faggots. A group of gallapins had unloaded the pieces of another giant spit from a cart and were labouring to set it up, thrusting the great spiked central rods through the centre of the apparatus.

‘Don’t put the turning-handles on yet, Danny,’ a stout cook in an apron called out.

‘All right, Father,’ a boy’s high voice replied from the far end of the spit. The spit was so long that I could only make out his dim shape at the end.

‘Where’s that damned ox?’

‘Owen has gone to look.’

‘Keep your voice down. We don’t want the men from yonder tents shouting for food before the beast’s even skewered. Who’s that?’ the cook demanded sharply as he heard our footsteps, then doffed his cap at the sight of my robe. ‘Ah, sir, I’m sorry, only we don’t want people here till the cooking’s under way.’

‘We were just walking by.’ I stepped away from the end of the spit, where the sharp points waved to and fro as the little gallapin at the other end adjusted them. ‘That is a mighty spit,’ I said. ‘Are you cooking a whole ox on there?’

‘Ay, and chickens and ducks underneath. We must feed a hundred tonight.’

‘Have you been doing this every night since London?’ It was a relief to talk to someone who would neither know nor care about what had happened at Fulford.

‘Ay. In worse conditions than this too. In fields turned to seas of mud in July. One day the rains put out the fire and the men looked set to riot – the soldiers had to be brought in.’ The cook shook his head. ‘I will never complain about the cold in the Hampton Court kitchens again -’

He broke off, as a cry sounded from the gallapin at the other end of the spit. I heard a sudden grating noise. Then Barak grabbed me and threw me to the ground.

‘What in Hell-’ I shouted as I thudded heavily into the rough grass. Then I stared up in horror at the great metal spike that had been thrust through the centre of the spit and now quivered in the air three feet above my head. If Barak had not pushed me it would have skewered me through. Barak and the cook were running to the other end of the spit, then there was another loud cry, in the cook’s voice: ‘Murder!’

I got to my feet, wincing at the renewed pain in my neck, and ran to where Barak and the cook were crouched over a small figure lying on the ground. ‘Someone knocked the gallapin on the head,’ Barak called out to me. ‘Then he pushed that spike at you, he was trying to kill you!’

‘Danny!’ the cook was crying. ‘Danny!’