Corbett grabbed her, kissing her passionately.

'Then I'll bid you adieu, wife.'

He winked at her, smiled, and slipped through the door to the waiting horse.

Corbett and Ranulf travelled north, passing through small villages, little more than a cluster of rickety, thatched cottages clustered around some church or manor house. Soon harvest time would be over. Corbett remembered such days from his youth as he saw the crops standing high and yellow, next to fields of fallow green and the narrow ribs of turf which separated one village's strip from another. The cottages themselves were no more grand than that owned by his father with their walls of wattle and daub and the small patch of garden to grow onions, cabbages, garlic and shallots.

His horse stumbled and Corbett cursed, Ranulf quietly admiring his master's grasp of some of the filthiest oaths he had ever heard. The roads were ruined by huge potholes filled with makeshift clumps of brushwood or mounds of earth which would be washed away in the first heavy shower. They stopped at a village inn for a dish of spiced eels and a few gulps of heady local ale. The place was packed with men and women, country folk, falconers, huntsmen, lackeys from the stables, bakers, brewers, cooks and kitchen scullions. They all crowded in for their pottle of ale, rubbing shoulders with shepherd and hog-herds, teasing and slapping the laundresses and dairy maids who came to exchange gossip or catch the eye of their favourite swain.

Corbett sat in a corner and listened to Ranulf's description of affairs in London before quietly informing him of what awaited them at Godstowe Priory. Ranulf's face paled. Gaveston and the Lord Edward were twice as dangerous as the old King; Gaveston in particular, a spiteful, powerful lord who had made his presence felt in both court and city. For the first time since attending Mass at Christmas, Ranulf closed his eyes and really prayed that his master would not fail or slip from royal favour.