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surprise.’
    ‘A surprise?’
    ‘The wine is just horrible. Tastes like cow piss.’
    ‘How would you know?’
    ‘That’s a question worthy of Doctor Lucius. Are you sure you want to do this?’
    ‘How the hell else do I get out of the city?’
    ‘The trick of it,’ Keane said, ‘is to wriggle between two of the barrels. Just worm your way in to the centre of the cart and no one will ever know you’re there. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to wriggle out.’
    ‘You’re not hiding with me?’
    ‘They’re not looking for me!’ the Irishman said. ‘You’re the fellow they want to hang.’
    ‘Hang me?’
    ‘Jesus, you’re an Englishman! Thomas of Hookton! Leader of the Hellequin! Sure they want to hang you! There’ll be a bigger crowd than Whore Sunday!’
    ‘What’s Whore Sunday?’
    ‘Nearest Sunday to the Feast of Saint Nicholas. The girls are supposed to give it away that day, but I’ve not seen it happen. And you’ve not a lot of time.’ He stopped as an upstairs shutter opened across the small square. A man looked out, yawned, then vanished. Cockerels were crowing all through the town. A pile of rags stirred in a corner of the square and Thomas realised it was a beggar sleeping. ‘Not a lot of time at all,’ Keane went on. ‘The gates are open so the wagons will be rolling soon enough.’
    ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Thomas said.
    ‘You’ll smell more like Judas Iscariot when you’re done. I should jump on now, there’s no one watching.’
    Thomas ran across the small square and pushed himself up onto the rearmost wagon. The smell was enough to fell a bear. The barrels were old, they leaked, or rather oozed, and the wagon’s bed was inch-deep in slime. He heard Keane chuckle, then took a deep breath and forced his way between two of the vast tubs. There was just space between the rows for a man to be concealed beneath the barrel’s bulging bellies. Something dripped on his head. Flies crawled on his face and neck. He tried to breathe
shallowly as he wriggled his way to the centre of the cart where he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. The mail coat with its leather lining offered some protection from the slimy muck, but he could feel the filth seeping beneath the mail to soak his shirt and chill his skin.
    He did not need to wait long. He heard voices, felt the wagon lurch as two men climbed up to perch on the foremost barrels, then the crack of a whip. The cart jerked forward, its single axle squealing. Every jolt banged Thomas’s head against the seeping side of a barrel. The journey seemed endless, but at least Keane had been right about the guards, who must have simply waved the three carts through the city’s gate with no attempt at an inspection because the wagon did not stop as it went from the shadows of the city to the sunlight of the countryside. Keane was walking just beside the oxen, chatting happily to the drivers, and then the cart gave an almighty lurch as it was driven down a bank. Liquid slopped in the barrels and some spilled over onto Thomas’s back. He cursed under his breath, then cursed again as the wagon juddered across some ruts. Keane was telling a long story about a dog that had stolen a leg of lamb from Saint Stephen’s monastery, but suddenly spoke in English, ‘Wriggle out now!’ The Irishman went on with his tale as Thomas inched backwards through fresh muck, every jolt of the cart driving the filth deeper into his clothes.
    He threw himself off the back, landing on the grassy ridge between the track’s wheel ruts. The wagon, oblivious that it had held a passenger, rumbled on. Keane came back, grinning. ‘Jesus, you look just terrible.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘I got you out of the city, didn’t I?’
    ‘You’re a living saint,’ Thomas said. ‘Now all we have to do is find horses, weapons, and a way to get ahead of Roland.’
    He was in a sunken lane between two high banks beyond which were olive groves. The lane dropped to a riverbank where the first cart was tipping its barrels into the water. A brown stain drifted downstream. ‘And how do we find horses?’ Keane asked wistfully.
    ‘First things first,’ Thomas said. He slapped at a fly, then climbed the roadside bank and walked north through the olives.
    ‘So what’s first?’ Keane asked.
    ‘The river.’
    Thomas walked till he was out of sight of the three carts, then stripped off his clothes and plunged into the water. It was cold. ‘Jesus, you’re scarred,’ Keane