Thomas bowed low from the saddle, making a great show of restraining the lively animal. All this display was for the ladies' benefit, and they loved it! He was warming to the job. Eve felt her heart beat fast, and her pale face coloured up when Ufford turned his eyes on her.

"My lady," he said to her directly, "my Lord Audley bids me see you safely to the church."

The grizzled sergeant eyed the young cockerel with amusement, and wondered what good his pretty looks would be in a real fight.

Seeing Eve's obvious interest lifted Tom's spirits. She was a pretty little thing, a bit skinny, but in a year or two - once again he felt a stab of envy at Audley's good fortune and position. Why should a weed like him take all the good things?

Hawise, Annabelle, and Eve were helped up into a small cart, and the soldiers formed an escort on foot alongside it. The driver was a local man, and Thomas Ufford headed the procession on his black horse.

As soon as the cart cleared the gatehouse, and crossed the drawbridge, Eve got her first sight of the Audley estate. The road they had travelled the night before curved away and fell steeply towards the parkland where her father and Hugh Audley were now hunting. It twisted back up to meet the Chester road just outside the vill of Wrinehill, close to Betley.

Towards Newcastle and Chester, dense woodlands rolled to the limit of vision. Occasional squat church towers, or columns of blue wood smoke betrayed hidden habitation: dimly, in the west, rose the purple shadows of the Welsh hills.

Eve's party took the Audley road, following the castle wall along the brow of the ridge. Warm, red stone hewn from the moat had been used to build the fortress, and the size and extent of it awed Eve. Turreted bulges guarded the curtain wall, giving flanking fire down across the moat at the rear of the castle. At the front, dizzy cliffs gave more than adequate protection. The castle's design owed much to Henry de Aldithley's friend and mentor, the Earl of Chester, who had erected unassailable Beeston, twenty miles away.