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fellow stepped in front of us, waving a musket. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘You cannot pass through here. Go back the way you came.’
    Two more men emerged from the gathering, both carrying thick staves.
    ‘We have credentials,’ Withypoll replied, staring down his nose. ‘Get out of our way, else suffer the consequences.’
    The wild-eyed fellow stayed his ground, staring expressionlessly. Only his lips moved, twitching in spasm. Withypoll snorted, then spurred his horse straight at him, the great, ugly steed sending the wild fellow sprawling to the dirt. I wondered if he died, but he rolled over, groaning. Withypoll sneered just afore one of the other men hit him on the back of the head with a long stick. He fell sideways off his horse, crashing onto the road and landing on one shoulder. Blood trickled into the dirt from a gash on the back of his head and he didn’t move. God spake, I thought, the hairs on my neck prickling with excitement. Withypoll’s assailants stood around him in a circle, sticks raised above their heads, madness in their eyes. I held my breath. If he wasn’t dead, then surely they would finish him.
    ‘What is going on?’ a voice called.
    A smart fellow marched towards us, clean-shaven chin perched high upon a stiff, white collar, hair smeared with some kind of oil to keep his hair straight. He spoke with rounded vowels and carried one arm held out in front of him parallel to the ground, hand hanging limp. ‘You men. Step aside.’
    His head jerked like a rooster, twitching at every movement, likehe feared being assaulted. The men with sticks lowered them to the ground, shoulders softening, and the moment was gone.
    ‘Who are you?’ the strange man asked, standing over Withypoll, but looking to me and Dowling. ‘What have you done?’
    Withypoll groaned. I stepped sideways just as his black eyes settled upon mine. He stared with burning hatred as if it was me that struck him and breathed hard as he struggled to his feet, clutching his left shoulder with his right hand.
    ‘We are on King’s business,’ I answered, afraid what Withypoll might do. ‘We are on our way to Colchester. We have papers.’
    ‘As I told these men,’ Withypoll crouched, teeth bared. ‘Before they struck me down.’
    The man with oily hair turned to Withypoll’s assailants, pointing his arm at them. ‘Why did you strike him?’
    ‘He tried to kill us with his horse,’ the wild-eyed fellow snarled. He and Withypoll eyed each other like dogs.
    ‘Take the papers from my jacket, Lytle,’ Withypoll commanded. I tried to avoid his eye as I fumbled in his coat. I could feel his heart beating inside his shirt, pounding hard and fast against his ribs as if it would break out. He grimaced, inspecting his shoulder. ‘To strike a King’s agent is treason, and the punishment for treason is death.’ He looked up at the man whose intervention saved his life. ‘What will you do?’
    ‘Ah!’ The man’s finger began to twitch and draw circles in the air. ‘I am the financier, you see. It is my job to organise things.’
    ‘The turnpike is broken and no one guards it,’ said Withypoll. His face was white, like a dead man risen.
    ‘I manage the money,’ the fellow protested. ‘I am the accountant. It is the constable’s job to manage the turnpikes.’
    Withypoll scanned the small gathering that watched from a distance. ‘And where is he?’
    The accountant straightened his jacket and raised his chin, watching a rivulet of blood trickle down Withypoll’s cheek and drip onto his collar. ‘He died last week and no one has replaced him. Let me take you to my house and mend that wound.’
    Withypoll eyed the three men with staves as if contemplating their immediate execution, but instead allowed himself to be led away by the accountant who dared hold him by the arm.
    I lingered a moment, asking the crowd who remained if any knew Josselin, but they dispersed like leaves in the breeze, and soon we stood alone