'I will, My Lord!' he announced. 'I will place my bond 'as surety for Shallot!'

Old Scawsby nearly exploded with apoplexy, so surprised he fixed the bond much lower than his own malice should have allowed: a hundred pounds, to be redeemed by the following Martinmas. I gripped the iron rail and stared in utter disbelief at my saviour: his long solemn face, hooked nose and calm grey eyes. Benjamin Daunbey had saved me from a hanging.

It's hard to define our relationship. Master and servant, close bosom friends, rivals and allies… do you know, after seventy years I still can't describe it. All I remember was that I was saved and walked free from the Sessions House. Other felons, not so lucky as I, were put in the stocks, tied to the triangle for a whipping or placed in the pillory, their ears nailed to the block until they either tore themself free or plucked up enough courage to cut them off.

In time I moved house, joining Benjamin in his narrow, dark tenement in Pig Pen Alley behind the butchers' shambles near Ipswich Market – a pleasant enough place inside with its low-ceilinged rooms, buttery, kitchen, small hall and white-washed chambers above. Behind it, however, Benjamin cultivated a paradise of a garden, laid out in rectangular plots, each protected by a low hedge of lavender. Some contained herbs – balm and basil, hyssop, calamine and wormwood – others flowers: marigolds, violets, lilies of the valley. There were stunted apple and pear trees as well as pot herbs growing along the wall to season the meat in winter. Benjamin, taciturn at the best of times, always used this garden as the setting in which to share his deepest thoughts. My master never explained why he intervened to save my life so I never asked him. One day he just sat in the garden and declared: 'Roger, you can be my servant, my apprentice. You have broken so many laws, you are probably more of an expert on justice than I am. However,' he wagged one bony finger at me, 'if you appear before Scawsby again, you will undoubtedly hang!'