Tom shrugged. “He’s bigger than they are-he needs it more.”

“He always gets a large share anyway. The little ones must have something.”

“It’s a waste of time to interfere in children’s quarrels,” Tom said.

Ellen’s voice became harsh. “You’re saying that Alfred can bully the younger children as much as he likes and you will do nothing about it.”

“He doesn’t bully them,” Tom said. “Children always fight.”

She shook her head, seeming bewildered. “I don’t understand you. In every other way you’re a kind man. But where Alfred is concerned, you’re just blind.”

She was exaggerating, Tom felt, but he did not want to displease her, so he said: “Give the little ones some meat, then.”

Ellen opened her bag. She still looked cross. She cut off a strip of dried venison for Martha and another for Jack. Alfred held out his hand for some, but Ellen ignored him. Tom thought she should have given him some. There was nothing wrong with Alfred. Ellen just did not understand him. He was a big boy, Tom thought proudly, and he had a big appetite and a quick temper, and if that was a sin, then half the adolescent boys in the world were damned.

They rested for a while and then walked on. Jack and Martha went ahead, still chewing the leathery meat. The two young ones got on well, despite the difference in their ages-Martha was six and Jack was probably eleven or twelve. But Martha thought Jack was utterly fascinating, and Jack seemed to be enjoying the novel experience of having another child to play with. It was a pity that Alfred did not like Jack. This surprised Tom: he would have expected that Jack, who was not yet becoming a man, would be beneath Alfred’s contempt; but it was not so. Alfred was the stronger, of course, but little Jack was clever.

Tom refused to worry about it. They were just boys. He had too much on his mind to waste time fretting over children’s squabbles. Sometimes he wondered secretly whether he would ever get work again. He might go on tramping the roads day after day until one by one they died off: a child found cold and lifeless one frosty morning, another too weak to fight off a fever, Ellen ravished and killed by a passing thug like William Hamleigh, and Tom himself becoming thinner and thinner until one day he was too weak to stand up in the morning, and lay on the forest floor until he slipped into unconsciousness.

Ellen would leave him before that happened, of course. She would return to her cave, where there was still a barrel of apples and a sack of nuts, enough to keep two people alive until the spring, but not enough for five. Tom would be heartbroken if she did that.

He wondered how the baby was. The monks had called him Jonathan. Tom liked the name. It meant a gift from God, according to the monk with the cheese. Tom pictured little Jonathan, red and wrinkled and bald, the way he was born. He would be different now: a week was a long time for a newborn baby. He would be bigger already, and his eyes would open wider. Now he would no longer be oblivious to the world around him: a loud noise would make him jump and a lullaby would soothe him. When he needed to burp, his mouth would curl up at the corners. The monks probably would not know that it was wind, and would take it for a real smile.

Tom hoped they were caring for him well. The monk with the cheese had given the impression that they were kindly and capable men. Anyway, they were certainly better able to look after the baby than Tom, who was homeless and penniless. If I ever become master of a really big construction project, and earn forty-eight pence a week plus allowances, I’ll give money to that monastery, he thought.

They emerged from the forest and soon afterward they came within sight of the castle.

Tom’s spirits lifted, but he repressed his enthusiasm fiercely: he had suffered months of disappointment, and he had learned that the more hopeful he was at the start, the more painful was the rejection at the end.

They approached the castle on a path through bare fields. Martha and Jack came upon an injured bird, and they all stopped to look. It was a wren, so small that they might easily have missed it. Martha stooped over it, and it hopped away, apparently unable to fly. She caught it and picked it up, cradling the tiny creature in her cupped hands.

“It’s trembling!” she said. “I can feel it. It must be frightened.”

The bird made no further attempt to escape, but sat still in Martha’s hands, its bright eyes gazing at the people all around. Jack said: “I think it’s got a broken wing.”

Alfred said: “Let me see.” He took the bird from her.

“We could take care of it,” Martha said. “Perhaps it will get better.”

“No, it won’t,” Alfred said. With a quick motion of his big hands he wrung the bird’s neck.

Ellen said: “Oh, for God’s sake.”

Martha burst into tears for the second time that day.

Alfred laughed and dropped the bird on the ground.

Jack picked it up. “Dead,” he said.

Ellen said: “What is wrong with you, Alfred?”

Torn said: “Nothing’s wrong with him. The bird was going to die.”

He walked on, and the others followed. Ellen was angry with Alfred again, and it made Tom cross. Why make a fuss about a damned wren? Tom remembered what it was like to be fourteen years old, a boy with the body of a man: life was frustrating. Ellen had said Where Alfred is concerned, you’re just blind, but she did not understand.

The wooden bridge that led over the moat to the gatehouse was flimsy and ramshackle, but that was probably how the earl liked it: a bridge was a means of access for attackers, and the more readily it fell down, the safer the castle was. The perimeter walls were of earth with stone towers at intervals. Ahead of them as they crossed the bridge was a stone gatehouse, like two towers with a connecting walkway. Plenty of stonework here, Torn thought; not one of these castles that are all mud and wood. Tomorrow I could be working. He remembered the feel of good tools in his hands, the scrape of the chisel across a block of stone as he squared its sides and smoothed its face, the dry feel of the dust in his nostrils. Tomorrow night my belly may be full-with food I’ve earned, not begged.

Coming closer, he noticed with his mason’s eye that the battlements on top of the gatehouse were in bad condition. Some of the big stones had fallen, leaving the parapet quite level in parts. There were also loose stones in the arch of the gateway.

There were two sentries at the gate, and both looked alert. Perhaps they were expecting trouble. One of them asked Tom his business.

“Stonemason, hoping to be hired to work in the earl’s quarry,” he replied.

“Look for the earl’s steward,” the sentry said helpfully. “His name is Matthew. You’ll probably find him in the great hall.”

“Thanks,” Tom said. “What kind of a man is he?”

The guard grinned at his colleague and said: “Not much of a man at all,” and they both laughed.

Tom supposed he would soon find out what that meant. He went in, and Ellen and the children followed. The buildings within the walls were mostly wooden, though some were raised on stone skirtings, and there was one built all of stone that was probably the chapel. As they crossed the compound Tom noticed that the towers around the perimeter all had loose stones and damaged battlements. They crossed the second moat to the upper circle, and stopped at the second gatehouse. Tom told the guard he was looking for Matthew Steward. They all went on into the upper compound and approached the square stone keep. The wooden door at ground level clearly opened into the undercroft. They went up the wooden steps to the hall.

Tom saw both the steward and the earl as soon as he went in. He knew who they were by their clothes. Earl Bartholomew wore a long tunic with flared cuffs on the sleeves and embroidery on the hem. Matthew Steward wore a short tunic, in the same style as the one Tom was wearing, but made of a softer cloth, and he had a little round cap. They were near the fireplace, the earl sitting and the steward standing. Tom approached the two men and stood just out of earshot, waiting for them to notice him. Earl Bartholomew was a tall man of over fifty, with white hair and a pale, thin, haughty face. He did not look like a man of generous spirit. The steward was younger. He stood in a way that reminded Tom of the guard’s remark: it looked feminine. Tom was not sure what to make of him.