The moon slid between the clouds and the rider turned his head against a particularly savage blast. He thought he saw shadows move there, further back across the cliff, but then dismissed them as phantasms, the product of too much rich food and blood-red Gascon wine. No, he had to reach Kinghorn where Yolande was waiting. He thought of his new French Queen. The beautiful face of a Helen of Troy framed by hair jet-black as the deepest night, olive, perfumed skin and a small curvaceous figure clothed and protected in a profusion of satins, velvets and Bruges lace. He wanted her now; to possess that soft warm body, ripping aside the protests and the pretences. Perhaps she would conceive, bear a son, give Scotland a Prince. A vigorous boy to wear the crown and protect it against the ring of wolves and falcons both at home and abroad. He must reach Kinghorn and scarred his horse angrily with his spurs. The animal, its brave heart near to bursting, gave its best, almost flinging itself forward along the cliffs edge. Suddenly it stumbled, tipping sideways, and crumpled to its knees amongst the loose shale. The rider, flung up against the dark sky, fell through the night, his fingers clawing the air as he plunged down to the waiting rocks.

'Hugh Corbett, Clerk, to Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells and Chancellor of England, greetings. My escort and I have now arrived at Edinburgh, secure in both body and soul, though still exhausted after a wearying journey.' Corbett put the sharp quilled pen down and rubbed the ache in his thighs. It had been, he thought, a terrible journey. He and a small escort had left London at the end of March and travelled by horseback through Newark, Lincoln, Newcastle, Tynemouth and Berwick. The cold had been biting, knife-edged eastern winds, flea-ridden ale-houses with only the occasional luxurious break in a comfortable priory or monastery where he could bathe the saddle-sores on his backside and thighs.