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the inefficiency; he could even have ameliorated the last two, had he had the heart. But, like everyone else, his enthusiasm had waned. The people of England had to ransom their King and bring him home, aye, no mistake about their duty there. But they didn’t have to like it.
         Josse was embarrassed now by the fervour with which he had initially clamoured for King Richard’s release. He seemed to hear his own voice railing at his uncle, crying out against the terrible humiliation of the King of England being walled up in a foul dungeon, and he heard his uncle’s anguished reply: it is not to be borne! But that was then, when the outrage was news and did not as yet have a price upon it. Now, nearly a year later, Richard’s subjects knew just what it was costing them to get him back and were privately wondering if he was worth it. What’s he ever done for us? people muttered, quite openly, as if they didn’t care who heard. Comes a-hurrying over four years ago for his coronation, fills his coffers with England’s wealth then off he goes on crusade, and that was a waste of time and money if ever there was one since the Lionheart didn’t capture the Holy City as he’d promised. Didn’t so much as set foot in it, so they said, but sat on his horse looking down on Jerusalem and crying his eyes out like a child denied a plaything because God hadn’t seen fit to allow him to deliver the city from His enemies.
         Then, to cap it all, King Richard goes and gets himself captured, would you believe it, by some upstart duke who promptly hands him over to the Emperor! To the people of England, it was almost inconceivable that their King, who had set off with such a force of arms that it had taken thousands of ships to carry everything (the tale had grown in the telling), could have been taken against his will. What of all his soldiers? What of those companies of heavily armed men guarding him? Couldn’t they have prevented this disaster that was making beggars of everyone? Josse could have explained to them, had he been of a mind, that the King had been separated from his main force of arms and was virtually undefended; that, having been shipwrecked south of Trieste on his way home from Acre, he’d had little choice but to opt for the overland route, despite the fact that it took him into the territory of his mortal enemy, Duke Leopold of Austria, where his merchant’s disguise had been penetrated and his capture had swiftly ensued.
         But Josse was as tired and dispirited as everyone else and he didn’t bother.
     
    Now, his guard duty done – he had been relieved by a company of eager knights whose youth and innocence made him feel very old – Josse was heading for home. He thought – he hoped – that it was merely a product of his state of mind, but in reality he felt far from well. His throat ached, he had a congestion in his chest that produced a constant, phlegmy cough, and his limbs ached. Horace plodded steadily along beneath him, well-behaved and calm, and Josse sat in the saddle and dozed.
         He made a couple of overnight stops, then crossed the Thames estuary and went on with his journey. He still felt ill; a concerned serving woman in a tavern outside Colchester had given him a hot drink which she said would ease his cough but instead it had made him vomit, which had caused his throat to hurt even more. Riding miserably towards the North Downs, he had an unexpectedly cheering thought: he would not go home to New Winnowlands; he would turn aside and instead go to Hawkenlye Abbey. The infirmarer there was an old friend and he had more faith in her healing powers than in anyone else’s on Earth. She would fuss over him, tuck him up in a cot with clean sheets and a hot stone at his feet, cover him with warm woollen blankets and spoon medicines and rem edies into his mouth. Her nursing nuns would glide calmly up and down the long infirmary, giving him serene and caring smiles and