'Do you think the wench can cope?' Bardolph muttered.

'I hope so.'

'How many are there now?'

Ranulf looked through the fug of the noisy tavern and studied the group of relic-sellers. They seemed more interested in staring back than in selling any of the trinkets from their trays which now lay stacked on the floor beside them.

'How many?' Bardolph repeated. 'Six,' Ranulf replied.

His stomach churned as his hand went beneath the table, seeking reassurance from the thin, stabbing Welsh dagger stuck into his belt and the dirk at the top of his long riding boots. Once again Ranulf felt his leather sack containing a small crossbow and a sheath of bolts.

Above them, in one of the narrow closets which the landlord grandly described as 'a chamber', Clothilde, a buxom wench with skin as dark and smooth as a grape, was earning her silver. She bounced across the battered old four-poster bed, her legs and arms wrapped round Henri de Savigny, a cipher clerk from Philip's chancery. Ranulf had been playing him for days. The French clerk, as lecherous as any dog on heat, couldn't believe his luck at finally being favoured by such a high-class courtesan when at first she had refused him. No fool, however, Henri knew the price she asked: a copy of the cipher Philip had sent to his generals on the borders of France.

At first the clerk had refused. He even protested that he would go to Nogaret and reveal all. Bardolph Rushgate had countered that. Wouldn't the very confession be a partial admission of guilt? De Savigny had licked his thick red lips, peered once more at Clothilde's luscious bosom and reluctantly agreed in exchange for a bag of coins and Clothilde's favours free of charge. And what was the point in refusal? Henri had seen the ciphers, which had meant little to him, so how would any English Goddamn understand them? Now he was lost in his own spiral of pleasure, hands running up and down Clothilde's smooth back. He revelled in the way she thrust back her head and her jet black hair swung like some halo of passion around her, whispering and pleading that he do more.