As I pressed my shoulder against the rough stone of the wall, my hands by my sides, barely breathing, my fingertips brushed the handle of the dagger in my boot. It was my only weapon: a long, very thin, stabbing blade, triangular in section, with a strong steel crosspiece and a black wooden handle; the kind of weapon known as a misericorde, for it was used to grant the mercy of death to knights badly wounded in battle, the coup de grace. The impoverished Italian knight who sold it to me called it a stiletto, a little stake, and though he took my silver needfully, he looked at me somewhat warily, too. For this was no weapon for honourable battle; this was a weapon for black murder in the dark of night, a tool for silent killing.

The sentry boy mooched on past my wall without even glancing into the darkness at its base where I was concealed and I suppressed a shiver while I fumbled with the knotted rope at my waist, finally freeing myself of my gruesome burden. My black clothes were soaking wet — after a brisk shower of rain around midnight, my tunic and hose had sucked up moisture from the damp ground like a sponge as I had crawled inch by inch through the wet grass to my ambush spot, dragging the heavy sack behind me. It had taken me nearly two hours to work myself into this position, propelling myself forward on toes and fingertips, staying low in the darkest folds of this sheep pasture, down over the brow of the hill, across a hundred yards of naked field and up to the relative concealment of the drystone wall. I had moved, most of the time, when the sentries, first the squat older man, and now this boy, were facing the other way, as they marched up to the top of the lane, took a cursory glance around and marched back down again.