Around the time he was coming to this realization, their wanderings brought them to a range of hills a few miles from Kingsbridge. Ralph recalled that the hillsides, bleak and bare in winter, were used for summer grazing by shepherds, who had built rough stone shelters in the folds of the landscape. As adolescents he and Merthin had discovered these crude buildings while out hunting, and had lit fires and cooked the rabbits and partridges they shot with their bows. Even in those days, he recalled, he had craved the thrill of the hunt: chasing and shooting a terrified creature, finishing it off with a knife or club – the ecstatic sense of power that came from taking a life.

No one would come here until the new season’s grass was thick. The traditional day was Whit Sunday, also the opening day of the Fleece Fair, still two months away. Ralph selected a hut that looked sturdy and they made it their home. There were no doors or windows, just a low entrance, but there was a hole in the roof to let smoke out, and they lit a fire and slept warm for the first time in a month.

Proximity to Kingsbridge gave Ralph another bright idea. The time to rob people, he realized, was when they were on their way to market. They were carrying cheeses, flagons of cider, honey, oatcakes: all the things that were produced by villagers and needed by townspeople – and by outlaws.

Kingsbridge market was on a Sunday. Ralph had lost track of the days of the week, but he found out by asking a travelling friar, before robbing him of three shillings and a goose. On the following Saturday, he and Alan made camp not far from the road to Kingsbridge, and stayed awake all night by their fire. At dawn they made their way to the road and lay in wait.

The first group to come along were carting fodder. Kingsbridge had hundreds of horses and very little grass, so the town constantly needed supplies of hay. However, it was no use to Ralph: Griff and Fletch had no end of grazing in the forest.

Ralph was not bored waiting. Preparing an ambush was like watching a woman get undressed. The longer the anticipation, the more intense the thrill.

Soon afterwards they heard singing. The hairs on the back of Ralph’s neck stood up: it sounded like angels. The morning was hazy, and when he first saw the singers they seemed to have haloes. Alan, obviously thinking the same as Ralph, even gave a sob of fear. But it was only the weak winter sun lighting the mist behind the travellers. They were peasant women, each carrying a basket of eggs – hardly worth robbing. Ralph let them go by without revealing himself.

The sun rose a little higher. Ralph began to worry that soon the road would become sufficiently crowded with market-goers to make robbery difficult. Then along came a family: a man and woman in their thirties with two adolescent children, a boy and a girl. They were vaguely familiar: no doubt he had seen them at Kingsbridge market during the years he lived there. They carried an assortment of goods. The husband had a heavy basket of vegetables on his back; the wife balanced on her shoulder a long pole bearing several live chickens, trussed; the boy had a heavy ham on his shoulder, and the girl a crock that probably contained salted butter. Ralph’s mouth watered at the thought of ham.

The excitement rose in his guts, and he gave Alan a nod.

As the family drew level, Ralph and Alan came out of the bushes at a run.

The woman screamed and the boy gave a shout of fear.

The man tried to shrug off his basket but, before it fell from his shoulders, Ralph ran him through, his sword piercing the man’s abdomen under the ribs and then rising up. The man’s scream of agony was cut off abruptly as the point of the sword penetrated his heart.

Alan swung at the woman and cut through most of her neck, so that blood spurted from her severed throat in a sudden red jet.

Exhilarated, Ralph turned to the son. The lad was quick to react: he had already dropped his ham and drawn a knife. While Ralph’s weapon was still on the upswing, the boy darted close and stabbed him. It was an unprofessional blow, too wild to do much damage. The knife completely missed Ralph’s chest, but the point caught in the flesh of his upper right arm, and the sudden agonizing pain made him drop his sword. The boy turned and ran away, going in the direction of Kingsbridge.

Ralph looked at Alan. Before turning to the girl, Alan finished off the mother, and the delay almost cost him his life. Ralph saw the girl throw her crock of butter at Alan. Either accurate or lucky, she hit him square on the back of the head, and Alan fell to the ground as if poleaxed.

Then she ran after her brother.

Ralph stooped, picked up his sword in his left hand and gave chase.

They were young and fleet, but he had long legs and he soon gained on them. The boy looked over his shoulder and saw Ralph coming close. To Ralph’s astonishment the lad stopped, turned and came running back at him, screaming, knife raised in his fist.

Ralph stopped running and lifted his sword. The boy ran at him – then stopped outside his reach. Ralph stepped forward and lunged, but it was a feint. The boy dodged the blow, then, thinking to catch Ralph off balance, tried to step inside his guard and stab him at close quarters. But that was exactly what Ralph was expecting. He stepped nimbly back, stood on the balls of his feet and thrust his sword precisely into the boy’s throat, pushing it through until the point came out of the back ot his neck.

The boy fell dead, and Ralph withdrew his sword, pleased with the accuracy and efficiency of the death blow.

He looked up to see the girl disappearing into the distance. He saw immediately that he could not catch her on foot; and by the time he fetched his horse she would be in Kingsbridge.

He turned and looked back. To his surprise, Alan was struggling to his feet. “I thought she’d killed you,” Ralph said. He wiped his sword on the dead boy’s tunic, sheathed his blade and clamped his left hand over the wound in his right arm, trying to stop the bleeding.

“My head hurts like Satan,” Alan replied. “Did you kill them all?”

“The girl got away.”

“Do you think she knew us?”

“She might know me. I’ve seen this family before.”

“In that case, we’re now branded as murderers.”

Ralph shrugged. “Better to hang than starve.” He looked at the three bodies. “All the same, let’s get these peasants off the road before someone comes along.”

With his left hand he dragged the man to the edge of the road. Alan picked up the body and threw it into the bushes. They did the same with the woman and the boy. Ralph made sure the corpses were not visible to passers-by. The blood on the road was already darkening to the colour of the mud into which it was soaking.

Ralph cut a strip off the woman’s dress and tied it around the cut in his arm. It still hurt, but the flow of blood was less. He felt the slight depression that always followed a fight, like the sadness after sex.

Alan began to collect up the loot. “A nice haul,” he said. “Ham, chickens, butter -” he looked into the basket the man had been carrying – “and onions! Last year’s, of course, but still good.”

“Old onions taste better than no onions. My mother says that.”

As Ralph bent to pick up the butter crock that had felled Alan, he felt a sharp iron point stick into his arse. Alan was in front of him, dealing with the trussed chickens. Ralph said: “Who…?”

A harsh voice said: “Don’t move.”

Ralph never obeyed such instructions. He sprang forward, away from the voice, and spun round. Six or seven men had materialized from nowhere. He was bewildered, but he managed, left-handed, to draw his sword. The man nearest him – who presumably had prodded him – raised his sword to fight, but the others were grabbing the loot, snatching chickens and fighting over the ham. Alan’s sword flashed in defence of his chickens as Ralph engaged with his antagonist. He realized that another group of outlaws was trying to rob him. He was filled with indignation: he had killed people for this stuff, and now they wanted to take it from him! He felt no fear, only anger. He attacked his opponent with the energy of outrage, despite being forced to fight left-handed. Then an authoritative voice said loudly: “Put away your blades, you fools.”