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then scratched both dogs between the ears. ‘And what a fine morning it is to be chasing an Englishman, yes?’
    The horsemen were close now. They had slowed their horses to a trot as they ducked beneath the low branches. ‘Goddamned dogs,’ one of them said in astonishment at the sight of the wolfhounds succumbing to Keane’s blandishments. ‘Who are you?’ the man called.
    ‘A man at prayer,’ Keane answered, ‘and good morrow to you all, gentlemen.’
    ‘Prayer?’
    ‘God has called me to His priesthood,’ Keane said in a sanctimonious tone, ‘and I feel closest to Him when I pray beneath the trees in the dawn of His good day. God bless you, and what are you gentlemen doing abroad this early in the day?’ His black homespun gown gave him a convincingly clerical appearance.
    ‘We’re hunting,’ one of the men said in an amused tone.
    ‘You’re not French,’ another said.
    ‘I am from Ireland, the land of Saint Patrick, and I prayed to Saint Patrick to quell the anger of your dogs. Aren’t they just the sweetest beasts?’
    ‘Eloise! Abelard!’ the horseman called his hounds, but neither moved. They stayed with Keane.
    ‘And what are you hunting?’ Keane asked.
    ‘An Englishman.’
    ‘You’ll not find him here,’ Keane said, ‘and if it’s the fellow I’m thinking you’re after then surely he’ll still be inside the city?’
    ‘Maybe,’ one said. He and his companions were to Thomas’s left, Keane was to his right, and Thomas needed the horsemen to be closer. He could just see them through the leaves. Three young men, richly dressed in fine cloth with feathers in their caps and long boots in their stirrups. Two were holding wide-bladed boar-spears with cross-pieces just behind the heads, and all three had swords. ‘And maybe not,’ the man said. He kicked his horse forward. ‘You come here to pray?’
    ‘Isn’t that what I said?’
    ‘Ireland is close by England, isn’t it?’
    ‘She’s cursed by that, right enough.’
    ‘And in town,’ the rider said, ‘a beggar saw two men by the Widow. One in a student’s gown and the other climbing aboard a shit-cart.’
    ‘And there was me thinking I was the only student who got up early from bed!’
    ‘Eloise! Abelard!’ the owner of the dogs snapped their names, but the hounds just whined and settled even closer to Keane.
    ‘So the beggar went to find the consuls,’ the first man said.
    ‘And found us instead,’ another man said, amused. ‘No reward for him now.’
    ‘We helped him to a better world,’ the first man took up the tale, ‘and perhaps we can help your memory too.’
    ‘I could always do with help,’ Keane said, ‘which is why I pray.’
    ‘The hounds picked up a scent,’ the man said.
    ‘Clever doggies,’ Keane said, patting the two grey heads.
    ‘They followed it here.’
    ‘Ah, they smelled me! No wonder they were running so eagerly.’
    ‘And two sets of footprints by the river,’ another man added.
    ‘I think you have questions to answer.’ The first man smiled.
    ‘Like why he wants to be a crow,’ the dog’s owner said. ‘You don’t like women, perhaps?’ The other two horsemen laughed. Thomas could see them more clearly now. Very rich young men, their saddlery and harness were expensive, their boots polished. Merchants’ sons, perhaps? He reckoned they were the kind of wealthy young sons who could break the city’s curfew with impunity because of their fathers’ status, young bucks who roamed the city looking for trouble and confident that they could avoid the consequences. Men who had apparently killed a beggar so they would not need to share the reward with him. ‘Why does a man want to be a priest?’ the horseman asked scornfully. ‘Perhaps because he isn’t a man, eh? We should find out. Take your clothes off.’ His companions, eager to join the sport, kicked their mounts forward and so passed under Thomas’s branch. He dropped.
    He fell onto the rearmost horseman, hooked his right arm around the man’s neck and seized the boar-spear with his left. The man fell. The horse reared and whinnied. Thomas slammed onto the ground, the unseated rider on top of him. The man’s left foot was trapped in the stirrup and the horse skittered away, dragging the man with him, and Thomas was already rising, the spear in both hands now. The other spearman was turning his horse and Thomas swung the weapon fiercely, and the flat of the blade cracked hard against the rider’s skull.