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of fifty of our men south to join up with the King on the road to Le Mans. You, Sir Alan, will take all your men with him and offer what support you are able. When you join with the army, you are to place yourself once again under the Earl of Locksley’s banner. But on the road, Sir Benedict is in command, is that clear?’
    I nodded, with a sinking heart, vowing silently that I would never let Benedict have dominion over my men. The wretch who had so foolishly mocked his superior had been mutilated earlier that morning in the dungeons and, while I had not witnessed it, I had heard his screams and seen the poor fellow, his head a mass of black blood, stumbling out the main gates not an hour since. I would not allow any of my Wolves to be treated so, even if it meant murdering the lardy knight myself.
    Around mid-morning, we clattered out of the gates of Falaise Castle and took the road heading south-east, aiming to cut John’s line of march at Alençon. Benedict gave me no orders before we set off, save for an insolent instruction to try and keep up with his men and not to get in their way.
    So, we ate his dust all that day and rested the night in Argentan. My men and I camped apart from the Falaise force, in the pretty orchards outside the town. But I made certain the Wolves were ready well before dawn and we formed up behind Benedict’s force the next day without a single word being exchanged between us. We rode all morning and joined the main road from Rouen at midday. I noted with deep satisfaction the obvious signs of a passing army – a big one. By nightfall we could see the campfires of the host in the fields outside the Castle of Alençon. We broke from Benedict’s column, without bothering to take our leave of its commander, and walked our horses through a small town of green tents and rough brushwood shelters, before arriving at a black pavilion, which I saw, by the light of two flaring torches planted by the entrance, was topped with a large white flag with the snarling mask of a wolf depicted in bold lines of black and grey.
    ‘Ah, Alan, here at last. Well met, my friend,’ said Robin, as I pushed through the woollen flaps of the tent – and then I was being embraced by my lord.
    It felt like coming home.
    ‘You remember Vim, of course,’ said Robin, waving vaguely at a big blond-grey man seated by a large table in the middle of the tent. ‘Some wine?’ I gratefully took a cup from my lord’s hands.
    ‘All well with Little John and the men?’ he said.
    ‘Yes, my lord,’ I replied. ‘He’s seeing they get themselves sorted out. He’ll be along in a moment or two. What news from the south?’
    ‘Oh, Arthur’s burning his way up the south bank of the Loire – he’s already taken Saumur. His Bretons are having a high old time: looting, raping and slaughtering those who don’t flee. We have to teach them some better manners.’
    Despite the levity of Robin’s words, there was a grim timbre to his voice.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. I knew the answer before the words were out of my mouth. ‘Where are Marie-Anne and the boys?’
    ‘They were at Fontevraud with Queen Eleanor. But, with Arthur and his men twenty miles away and advancing rapidly, they fled. Now – anybody’s guess.’
    ‘But they will be safe with Eleanor, surely?’
    ‘You think?’ said Robin. ‘Eleanor has, what, forty or fifty Gascon men-at-arms? There are a dozen of my bowmen under Sarlic’s command with Marie-Anne, a guard of honour, no more than that. Arthur has a thousand heavy cavalry alone in his main force. How long do you think they would last in a pitched battle?’
    ‘But Eleanor is Arthur’s grandmother—’
    ‘And the Queen backed John’s claims against him. That makes her his enemy, grandmother or no. Although that might spare her some humiliation. Marie-Anne’s fate is another matter entirely.’
    I could see his point.
    ‘Where is King John?’
    ‘He’s up at the castle, dithering as usual;