Last time Kingsbridge was attacked, Tommy had been eighteen months old and Aliena was pregnant with Sally. She had taken refuge in the priory then, with the elderly and the children. This time she would stay on the battlements and help to fight off the danger. Most of the other women felt the same way: there were almost as many women as men on the walls.

All the same, Aliena felt torn as the outlaws came closer. She was near the priory, but it was possible that the attackers could break through at some other point and reach the priory before she could get there. Or she might be injured in the fighting and unable to help the children. Jack was here, and so was Ellen: if they should be killed, only Martha would be left to take care of Tommy and Sally. Aliena hesitated, undecided.

The outlaws were almost at the walls. A shower of arrows fell on them, and this time Richard did not tell the archers to wait. The outlaws were decimated. They had no armor to protect them. There was also no organization. No one had planned the attack. They were like stampeding animals, rushing headlong at a blank wall. When they got there they did not know what to do. The townspeople bombarded them with stones from the battlements. Several outlaws attacked the north gate with clubs. Aliena knew the thickness of that ironbound oak door: it would take all night to break through. Meanwhile, Alf Butcher and Arthur Saddler were maneuvering a cauldron of boiling water from someone’s kitchen up onto the wall over the gate.

Directly below Aliena, a group of outlaws started to form a human pyramid. Jack and Richard immediately started to throw stones at them. Thinking of her children, Aliena did the same, and Ellen joined in too. The desperate outlaws withstood the hail of rocks for a while, then someone was hit on the head, the pyramid collapsed, and they gave up.

There were screams of pain from the north gate a moment later, as the boiling water poured on the heads of the men attacking the door.

Then some of the outlaws realized that their dead and wounded comrades were easy prey, and they started to strip the bodies. Fights broke out with those who were not so badly wounded, and rival looters quarreled over the possessions of the dead. It was a shambles, Aliena thought; a disgusting, degrading shambles. The townspeople stopped throwing stones as the attack petered out and the attackers fought among themselves like dogs over a bone.

Aliena turned to Richard. “They’re too disorganized to be a real threat,” she said.

He nodded. “With a little help they could be quite dangerous, because they’re desperate. But as it is they’ve no leadership.”

Aliena was struck by a thought. “An army waiting for a leader,” she said. Richard did not react, but she was excited by the idea. Richard was a good leader who had no army. The outlaws were an army without a leader. And the earldom was falling apart…

Some of the townspeople continued to throw stones and shoot arrows at the outlaws, and more of the scavengers fell. This was the final discouragement, and they began to retreat, like a pack of dogs with their tails between their legs, looking back over their shoulders regretfully. Then someone opened the north gate, and a crowd of young men charged out, brandishing swords and axes, and went after the stragglers. The outlaws fled, but some were caught and butchered.

Ellen turned away in disgust and said to Richard: “You should have stopped those boys from giving chase.”

“Young men need to see some blood, after a set-to such as this,” he said. “Besides, the more we kill this time, the fewer we’ll have to fight next time.”

It was a soldier’s philosophy, Aliena thought. In the time when she had felt her life threatened every day she would probably have been like the young men, and chased after outlaws to slaughter them. Now she wanted to wipe out the causes of outlawry, not the outlaws themselves. Besides, she had thought of a way to use those outlaws.

Richard told someone to sound the all-clear on the priory bell and gave instructions for a double watch for the night, with patrolling guards as well as sentries. Aliena went to the priory and collected Martha and the children. They all met again at Jack’s house.

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack’s mother, and Aliena’s brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack’s stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and-

She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family.

Jack drew a jug of ale from the barrel and poured it into large cups. Everyone felt tense and excited after the danger. Ellen built up the fire and Martha sliced turnips into a pot, beginning to make a broth for supper. Once upon a time they would have put half a pig on the fire on a day such as this.

Richard drank his ale in one long swallow, wiped his mouth, and said: “We’re going to see more of this kind of thing before the winter’s out.”

Jack said: “They should attack Earl William’s storehouses, not Prior Philip’s. It’s William who has made most of these people destitute.”

“They won’t have any more success against William than they did against us, unless they improve their tactics. They’re like a pack of dogs.”

Aliena said: “They need a leader.”

Jack said: “Pray they never get one! They would really be dangerous then.”

Aliena said: “A leader might direct them to attack William’s property instead of ours.”

“I don’t follow you,” Jack said. “Would a leader do that?”

“He would if he was Richard.”

They all went quiet.

The idea had grown in Aliena’s mind, and she was now convinced it could work. They could fulfill their vows, Richard could destroy William and become the earl, and the county could be restored to peace and prosperity… The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. She said: “There were more than a hundred men in that rabble today.” She turned to Ellen. “How many more are there in the forest?”

“Countless,” Ellen said. “Hundreds. Thousands.”

Aliena leaned across the kitchen table and locked eyes with Richard. “Be their leader,” she said forcefully. “Organize them. Teach them how to fight. Devise plans of attack. Then send them into action-against William.”

As she spoke, she realized that she was telling him to put his life in danger, and she was filled with trepidation. Instead of winning back the earldom he could be killed.

But he had no such qualms. “By God, Allie, you could be right,” he said. “I could have an army of my own, and lead it against William.”

Aliena saw in his face the flush of a hatred long nurtured, and she noticed again the scar on his left ear, where the lobe had been sliced off. She pushed down the vile memory that threatened to surface.

Richard was warming to his theme. “I could raid William’s herds,” he said with relish. “Steal his sheep, poach his deer, break open his barns, rob his mills. My God, I could make that vermin suffer, if I had an army.”

He had always been a soldier, Aliena thought; it was his fate. Despite her fear for his safety, she was thrilled by the prospect that he might have another chance to fulfill his destiny.

He thought of a snag. “But how can I find the outlaws?” he said. “They always hide”

“I can answer that,” said Ellen. “Branching off the Winchester road is an overgrown track that leads to a disused quarry. That’s their hideout. It used to be known as Sally’s Quarry.”

Seven-year-old Sally said: “But I haven’t got a quarry!”

Everyone laughed.

Then they went quiet again.

Richard looked exuberant and determined. “Very well,” he said tightly. “Sally’s Quarry.”

“We’d been working hard all morning, uprooting a massive tree stump up the hill,” said Philip. “When we came back, my brother, Francis, was standing right there, in the goat pen, holding you in his arms. You were a day old.”