Since the famine had started, Aliena had begun to think again about the earldom. She knew that if Richard was earl, with her help he could do a lot to alleviate the suffering caused by the famine. But it was all a dream: William was well favored by King Stephen, who had gained the upper hand in the civil war, and there was no prospect of a change.

However, all these sorry wishes faded away in the secret glade, when Aliena and Jack lay down on the turf to make love. Right from the start they had been greedy for one another’s bodies-Aliena would never forget how shocked She had been at her own lust, in the beginning-and even now, when she was thirty-three years old, and childbirth had broadened her rear and made her formerly flat belly sag, still Jack was so consumed with desire for her that they would make love three or four times over every Sunday.

Now his joke about the forest began to turn into a delicious caress, and Aliena pulled his face to hers to kiss him; then she heard a voice.

They both froze. Their glade was some distance from the road, and concealed in a thicket: they were never interrupted except by the occasional unwary deer or bold fox. They held their breaths and listened. The voice came again, and was followed by a different one. As they strained their hearing they picked up an undertone of rustling, as if a large group of men was moving through the forest.

Jack found his boots, which were lying on the ground. Moving silently, he stepped smartly to the stream a few paces away, filled a boot with water, and emptied it on the fire. The flames went out with a hiss and a wisp of smoke. Jack moved noiselessly into the undergrowth, crouching low, and disappeared.

Aliena put on her undershirt, tunic and boots, then wrapped her cloak around her again.

Jack returned as silently as he had left. “Outlaws,” he said.

“How many?” she whispered.

“A lot. I couldn’t see them all.”

“Where are they going?”

“Kingsbridge.” He held up a hand. “Listen.”

Aliena cocked her head. In the far distance she could hear the bell of Kingsbridge Priory tolling fast and incessantly, warning of danger. Her heart missed a beat. “Oh, Jack-the children!”

“We can get back ahead of the outlaws if we cross Muddy Bottom and wade the river by the chestnut wood.”

“Let’s go quickly, then!”

Jack put a restraining hand on her arm and listened for a moment. He could always hear things she could not, in the forest. It came of having been brought up in the wild. She waited. At last he said: “I think they’ve all gone by.”

They left the glade. After a few moments they came to the road. There was no one in sight. They crossed the road and cut through the woods, following a barely perceptible track. Aliena had left Tommy and Sally with Martha, playing nine-men’s morris in front of a cheerful fire. She was not quite sure what the danger was but she was terrified that something might happen before she reached her children. They ran when they could, but to Aliena’s frustration the ground was too rough for most of the way, and the best she could do was jog-trot, while Jack walked with a long-legged stride. This route was harder going than the road, which was why they did not normally use it, but it was much quicker.

They slithered down the steep slope that led to Muddy Bottom. Unwary strangers were occasionally killed in this bog, but there was no danger to those who knew their way across. Nevertheless the waterlogged mud seemed to grasp Aliena’s feet, slowing her down, keeping her from Tommy and Sally. At the far side of Muddy Bottom was a ford across the river. The cold water came up to Aliena’s knees and washed the mud from her feet.

From there the route was straightforward. The alarm bell sounded louder as they approached the town. Whatever danger the town faced from the outlaws, at least they had somehow been forewarned, Aliena thought, trying to keep her spirits up. As she and Jack emerged from the forest into the meadow across the river from Kingsbridge, twenty or thirty youngsters who had been playing football in a nearby village arrived at the same time, shouting raucously and perspiring despite the cold.

They hurried across the bridge. The gate was already closed, but the people on the battlements had seen and recognized them, and as they approached, a small sally port was opened. Jack pulled rank and made the boys let him and Aliena in first. They ducked their heads and went through the small doorway. Aliena was deeply relieved to have got back to the town before the outlaws.

Panting with their exertions, they hurried up the main street. The townspeople were taking to the walls with spears, bows, and piles of stones to throw. The children were being rounded up and taken to the priory. Martha would have gone there already with Tommy and Sally, Aliena decided. She and Jack went straight to the priory close.

In the kitchen courtyard Aliena saw-to her astonishment-Jack’s mother, Ellen, as lean and brown as ever, but with gray in her long hair and wrinkles around her forty-four-year-old eyes. She was talking animatedly to Richard. Prior Philip was some distance away, directing children into the chapter house. He did not seem to have seen Ellen.

Standing nearby was Martha with Tommy and Sally. Aliena gasped with relief and hugged the two children.

Jack said: “Mother! Why are you here?”

“I came to warn you that a gang of outlaws is on the way. They’re going to raid the town.”

“We saw them in the forest,” Jack said.

Richard’s ears pricked up. “You saw them? How many men?”

“I can’t be sure, but it sounded like a lot, at least a hundred, maybe more.”

“What sort of weapons?”

“Clubs. Knives. A hatchet or two. Mostly clubs.”

“What direction?”

“North of here.”

“Thanks! I’m going to take a look from the walls.”

Aliena said: “Martha, take the children into the chapter house.” She followed Richard, as did Jack and Ellen.

As they hurried through the streets, people kept saying to Richard: “What is it?”

“Outlaws,” he would say succinctly, without breaking his stride.

Richard was at his best like this, Aliena thought. Ask him to go out and earn his daily bread and he was helpless; but in a military emergency he was cool, level-headed and competent.

They reached the north wall of the city and climbed the ladder to the parapet. There were heaps of stones, for throwing down on attackers, placed at regular intervals. Townsmen with bows and arrows were already taking up positions on the battlements. Some time ago, Richard had persuaded the town guild to hold emergency drills once a year. There had been a lot of resistance to the idea at first, but it had become a ritual, like the midsummer play, and everyone enjoyed it. Now its real benefits were showing as the townspeople reacted quickly and confidently to the sound of the alarm.

Aliena looked fearfully across the fields to the forest. She could see nothing.

Richard said: “You must have got here well ahead of them.”

Aliena said: “Why are they coming here?”

Ellen said: “The priory storehouses. This is the only place for miles around where there’s any food.”

“Of course.” The outlaws were hungry people, dispossessed of their land by William, with no way to live but theft. In the undefended villages there was little or nothing to steal: the peasants were not much better off than the outlaws. Only in the barns of landowners was there food in quantity.

As she was thinking this, she saw them.

They emerged from the edge of the forest like rats from a burning hayrick. They swarmed across the field toward the town, twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred of them, a small army. They had probably hoped to catch the town unawares and get in through the gates, but when they heard the bell ringing the alarm they realized they had been forestalled. Nevertheless they came on, with the desperation of the starving. One or two bowmen loosed off premature arrows, and Richard yelled: “Wait! Don’t waste your shafts!”