The senior guard at his shoulder hovered, looking between the two of them, and William emerged rapidly from his shock to realise that Renard had spoken his name and that if he were not to end up in this cell beside him or kicking on the gallows, he had to carry through a convincing pretence.

‘When last we met I warned you what would happen if you stayed with Stephen!’ he said harshly for the guard’s benefit, spat in the straw to clear the fluid from his mouth, the gesture looking contemptuous, and then nodded brusquely to the two serjeants standing in the doorway. They marched into the cell and hauled Renard to his feet. He staggered and then locked his knees, bracing himself against their rough grip.

‘I’ll not leave without Henry.’ He looked William in the eye and then deliberately away to the blanketed mound near his feet.

‘You have no choice!’ growled the senior guard. ‘This parchment is for you alone.’

William stared in dawning, appalled comprehension at the sick man in the straw. Crouching, he set one hand on the huddled shoulder and peered round into Henry’s face. Not just sick but dying. He had seen the wound fever often enough to realise that Henry was over the edge. ‘Mary, Mother of God,’ he muttered under his breath, and waited until he had control of his expression before he stood up and faced the guards.

‘This man needs a priest, not a cell,’ he said roughly.

‘There is one to attend the prisoners, my lord—’ began the senior serjeant, and was laughed down bitterly by Ingelram of Say.

‘Oh yes!’ he spat. ‘One exists no doubt, but if so, he’s not seen fit to soil his sandals on our souls for shriving or anything else. Two have died already without comfort of the church. He’s probably abed with his whore and a flagon of Anjou’s best!’

A guard moved to club him silent, but William stopped him with a sharp command. ‘If this is true, it is damning upon your own soul that you have not vouchsafed a priest for these men.’

‘Oh, it’s all true,’ Renard said hoarsely with a glare at the senior serjeant. ‘But then corpses have no need of adornment, do they? Stephen’s squire, for example. A pity to bury such a fine gilded belt with a corpse. What will you do with my brother’s ring? Cut it off him before he’s cold? Do I disappoint you because I’m bound out of here?’

‘It’s a lie!’ The serjeant thrust out his jaw. ‘I never took the belt and it ain’t my fault if the priest don’t come when he’s summoned.’

William realised that Renard, by accusing the serjeant of stealing from the dead, had thrown him an excellent reason to have Henry out of here too, orders from above or not.

‘Time is wasting!’ he snapped. ‘Time I don’t have. Since you cannot vouchsafe a priest for this man, and since he is Robert of Gloucester’s own nephew, I’m removing him from your custody. If you have any complaint, you can take it to the Earl of Chester come full light.’ And then to the two gawping soldiers, ‘See to it.’

‘My lord, I’m not sure that …’ The serjeant started to protest.

‘See to it!’ William interrupted, his gaze incandescent. ‘And while you’re about it, I’ll advise you that there’s no ransom for crows’ meat. This place stinks. Get it cleaned up and see that these men are treated decently. God’s teeth, why must it always be me who is sent to deal with the idiots!’ He glanced heavenwards, more than half of his expression relief at the serjeant’s capitulation.

Renard did not speak as he was led from the cell into the stark air of Lincoln castle’s bailey. The wind had changed direction and the moon its phase, bringing with it clearer, colder weather. Frost crackled around the edges of the bailey puddles and the air was almost painful to breathe and bore upon it the acrid smell of burned dwellings. The wind cut through Renard’s flimsy garments and probed the wound on his cheekbone. Dangling between the guards, Henry moaned and shuddered as he was drag-carried to the waiting wain and lifted into it. Then it was Renard’s turn. He was escorted by two of William’s soldiers — Ashdyke men whom he well recognised.

William mounted his horse, not Smotyn, for his colouring was too easily remembered, too conspicuous, and he had traded him with one of Cadwaladr’s men for a sturdy brown hack. For Renard, he had obtained a plain bay gelding which awaited the right moment among the remounts.

The whip cracked over the backs of the two horses drawing the wain, and after a brief hesitation, while they took the strain, the wheels started to rumble and turn. The torchlight transformed all breath to red vapour and reflected tints of fire upon horseflesh and mail. Dawn barely a glimmer in the eye of night, William led his precious load out of the castle and wound his way down through the devastated town to the ford. The Earl of Chester’s seal and the knowledge that the prisoners were due to be moved that day granted him an easy passage, if ripe with more casual curiosity than he would have liked. It was not the deepest of his worries. Turning in the saddle as they passed the churned mud of the recent battleground, he bid one of his men go aside and fetch a priest.

Ranulf of Chester slept late, the result of too much wine and an exhausting night of bed-sport. He had intended to pass the night with his wife, but his mistress had had other ideas and they had been so novel and exciting that he had succumbed, and succumbed again, and finally been defeated by the wine and the masculine limitations of his own body.

He awoke to find one of his squires bending anxiously over him, hand cupped around a candle to prevent it either from going out or dripping hot wax all over the disarrayed sheets. Of Olwen there was no sign, only the distinctive smell of her perfume. Ranulf rolled over and groaned into the pillow, his head feeling as though a warhorse had kicked him in the temples.

‘Piss off,’ he muttered through his teeth.

‘My lord, Earl Robert has already started moving the prisoners out of the city and wants your opinion on some matters.’ The youth did not add any of the pointed remarks made by the Earl of Gloucester concerning the disgusting morals and behaviour of his son-in-law.

Ranulf half turned to cock a bleary red eye. ‘What hour is it?’

‘Nigh to prime, my lord.’

‘Impossible!’ With as much alacrity as his thundering headache permitted, he sat up and stared around the room. The shutters were closed to keep out the weather and the time of day could not be judged by the state of any natural light.

‘I am sorry, my lord, but it is. I saved you some bread from the breaking of fast … and a jug of wine too if you want it.’

Ranulf compressed his lips at the thought of food. ‘Clothes,’ he said, and held out his hand.

His squire carefully put the candle down and gathered up from the floor various garments, including a woman’s red silk hose garter. Ranulf snatched his crumpled shirt from the youth and dragged it on. His head became tangled in the laces and he half strangled himself before he managed to right matters. ‘The prisoners?’ he queried. ‘Does that include the King?’

‘I think Earl Robert was waiting for you, my lord, before he consigned him to the road. Renard FitzGuyon went early, before the dawn as you commanded.’ The squire briskly dusted off his master’s fur-trimmed tunic as he spoke.

The silence from the bed was palpable.

‘My lord?’

‘I gave no such command,’ Ranulf said huskily.

The squire’s eyes widened. ‘My lord, a young knight brought a parchment to the prison serjeant. It bore your seal and ordered the release of Renard FitzGuyon into his custody for the journey to Gloucester.’

‘What!’

‘The serjeant told me himself.’ Prudently, the youth stepped away from the bed. Earl Ranulf was apt to be violent when beset by bad tidings, and if the colour of his face was any indication, these were not just bad, but catastrophic. ‘Apparently the knight was harsh with him and threatened to report him to you. He was scared witless and wanted to plead his own version of events first, so he attached himself to me like a leech when he saw me crossing the bailey.’

‘What was the knight’s name?’ Ranulf rumbled with all the menace of an imminent volcano.

‘I’m not sure, my lord.’ The squire screwed up his face. ‘The serjeant did tell me … William le … yes, William le Malin.’

An obscure nickname that meant nothing. ‘No title or place-name?’

‘No, my lord.’

‘Bring that serjeant to me immediately, and start a search through the camp for anyone who knows of a knight by the name of William le Malin.’

The squire made his grateful exit and escape, leaving the junior lad and Ranulf ’s chaplain to bear the brunt of the eruption.

The brunt arrived about a candle notch later in the presence of Robert of Gloucester. The cringing senior serjeant in command of the prisoners had been hauled from his post with knocking knees and flung down before his simmering liege lord.

‘But it had your seal on it!’ he pleaded in a cracked voice, eyes darting anxiously between the tight-lipped Earl of Gloucester and the scarlet-faced near-apopleptic de Gernons. ‘And Sir William was richly dressed and spoke with authority. I had no cause to doubt he was genuine!’

‘You’ll have cause to regret now!’ Ranulf growled.

‘How did your seal come to be upon that parchment in the first place?’ asked Gloucester with a puzzled frown. ‘Do you not keep it locked in your strongbox with your immediate silver? Whoever took it must have intimate access to your bedchamber.’

Ranulf ’s body servants all made heated protests and denials. No one had been in his chamber without their knowing, and they would all swear oaths on the holiest relics to prove their own innocence. Besides, the key to the strongbox was about the Earl’s person, and no one could remove it without his being aware.