I could not see them clearly in the dancing flames, but I could make out their distinctive shapes in the gloom: a tall man on the left, taller than me by half a head, and I am six foot high in my bare feet; but, while I am broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest and well muscled in the arms from long hours practising with a heavy sword, he was thin, painfully thin, like a man who has survived a long famine or a terrible disease.

His height and thinness were accentuated by his shadowy companion’s extraordinary shape: he was a huge bald man, and I swear on Our Lord Jesus Christ that he was as broad as he was high; a round mass, neckless, squat and lumped with muscle, like an ogre from a children’s tale. They looked like a stick and a ball standing side by side.

Then Ralph Murdac spoke, and his familiar high-pitched French whine set my teeth on edge: ‘Thank my lord prince for his noble gift,’ he said, and he slightly raised the jewelled box, ‘and tell him that I will attend his royal court in less than a month; the moment that I have concluded matters here.’

‘My lord,’ the squat ogre rumbled in French, and his voice sounded like the grinding together of two enormous rocks, ‘His Highness has requested your presence on the morrow; he has had bad news from abroad and desires your counsel. He was most insistent that you should attend him.’

‘I will attend him as soon as I am able,’ snapped Murdac crossly. ‘But I must have my son. I must reclaim my son from this nest of bandits. Surely His Royal Highness will understand…’

The two men said nothing, but the ogre gave a mountainous shrug, and they both turned away at the same time and disappeared into the great tent.

I wanted to be gone; the knowledge that I had very nearly thrown my life away in an ill-considered, suicidal attack raised goose bumps on my whole body.