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that would have made him a minor name in the fight rings of London. They’d left the miller in the road, his ears leaking blood from the battering he’d received, his cart overturned and his flour bags all broken. Derry smiled at the memory, glancing over to where Brother Peter walked, sounding his bell every thirteenth step so that it echoed back from the stone walls at the top of the hill.
    The castle loomed in the rain, there was no other way to describe it. The massive walls and round baileys had never been breached in the centuries since the first stones had been laid. King Henry’s stronghold squatted over Windsor, almost another town within the first, home to hundreds. Derry stared upwards, his feet aching on the cobbles.
    It was almost time to leave the little group of monks and Derry wondered how best to broach the subject. Brother Peter had been astonished at his request to be tonsured as the other men. Though they accepted it for themselves as a rebuke of vanity, there was no need at all for Derry to adopt the style. It had taken all Derry’s persuasive skill before the older man allowed he could do as he pleased with his own head.
    The young friar who had taken a razor to Derry’s thick hair had managed to cut his scalp twice and scrape away a piece of skin the size of a penny right on the crown. Derry had endured it all with barely a grunt of complaint, finally earning a satisfied pat on the back from Brother Peter.
    In the downpour, Derry wondered if it had been worth it. He was thin and worn-down already. In an old robe, he might have passed with his head unshaven, but the stakes were the highest and the men hunting him had already shown their determination and ruthlessness, more than once. With a sigh, he told himself once again that it was a price worth paying, though he could not remember his spirits ever being lower in all his life.
    Being the avowed enemy of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was not something he had chosen for himself. When he looked back on his dealings, Derry supposed he could have been more conciliatory. The man who had trained him would have wagged a finger in reproof at the pride he’d shown. Old Bertle would have lectured him for hours, saying that a man’s enemies must never see your strength, never . Derry could almost hear the old boy’s exasperated voice as he trudged up the hill. If they believe you are weak, they don’t send hard, killing men from London to track you down. They don’t pay silver to every rumour-monger for news of your whereabouts. They don’t put a price on your head, Derry!
    Becoming a Franciscan for a time may have saved his neck, or simply wasted a few days, he’d never know. It was certainly true that Derry had passed groups of hostile-looking men while he’d walked with the monks, men who’d laughed and jeered and turned away as Brother Peter asked them for a coin. Any one of them or a dozen might have been in the pay of York, Derry had no way of knowing. He’d kept his gaze on the ground, trudging along with the others.
    The rain ceased for a time, though thunder grumbled nearby and dark clouds still rushed overhead. Brother Peter chose that moment of quiet to place one hand on the clapper of his bell and raise the other to halt the shivering group.
    ‘Brothers, the sun is setting and the ground is too wet to sleep in the open tonight. I know a family on the far side of town, not a mile further, over the crest of Castle Hill. They will allow us to use their barn to sleep and eat, in return for blessings on their house and joining us in prayer.’
    The monks cheered up visibly at his words. Derry realized he had developed at least a whisper of respect for the odd life they led. With the exception of the bull-like mass of Silent Godwin, none of them looked strong. He suspected one or two saw the mendicant life as better than working, but then they did take their poverty seriously, in an age where every other man was working to get away from