It was like some lethal game of Grandmother’s Footsteps, although I could take no enjoyment in it. When the sentry was looking towards me, I buried my face in the wet turf and stayed absolutely still, trusting my ears to tell me if I was discovered. It was important, I had been told, never to stare directly at his face — men have an instinct for when they are being watched and some are more gifted than others at spotting a face in the darkness.

But I could certainly feel the heat of someone’s gaze upon me — I was being watched myself just then, but not by this stripling soldier tramping the road before me. My friend Hanno, formerly a celebrated hunter from the inky forests of Bavaria, and now the chief scout for our small band of warrior-pilgrims, was lodged in a tree just below the skyline some two hundred yards away, his body wrapped cunningly around the trunk and branches like a serpent so as to appear part of the wood in the darkness. I knew he was watching me and I hoped that my approach had met with his approval. He had taught me everything he knew about stealthy movement on the long journey home from the Holy Land — in daylight and darkness, in forest, mountain and desert — and what he knew was considerable. He’d also personally tutored me, painstakingly, over many months, in the art of the silent kill. And he had suggested that I take on this deadly task as a test of my new skills. Everyone in our ragged band seemed to think it was a good idea, except me. So here I was: wet, cold, lying in a sheepshit-dotted pasture in the middle of the night, face blackened with mud, waiting for the right moment to slaughter an unsuspecting child.

I heard the boy reach the end of his tramp at the bottom of the track, cough, spit, and turn to begin his journey slowly back up the hill. He was out of my line of sight but audibly coming ever closer to the wall. He passed me and then suddenly stopped a few yards further up the track.