I assembled the estate workers. I sent a man into Carpentras to fetch Herne, then led the rest of them out into the field, where we assembled hides- a bit like those a wild fowler might build- overlooking the main drive and the little path that came twisting down from the mountains at the rear of the property. Roger, my game-keeper, was chief architect and managed things wonderfully. I went and stood on the drive between the gateposts and if I hadn’t known that the clumps of bushes halfway up the slope had been specially built to conceal a couple of musketeers apiece, I would never have guessed.

We worked long into the evening. We were down among the vines, on the far side of the long low hill that curved round the lake to the north and west, repairing the drystone wall, when I saw a torch coming down the slope from the direction of the house. I called out and got an English hunting cry in return.

"Margery said I’d find you here," said Herne, after we’d hugged and exchanged greetings. "What’s going on exactly."

"You can’t see it in this light, but there’s a sunken track just over there," I said. "If we put musketeers behind this wall they’ll be able to fire right down into it."

"Have you thought about using cavalry?" he asked.

"I can’t say I have."

"Mobility. That’s the thing. You want a group of men you can move quickly about the battlefield. You’ve got horses haven’t you?"

"A stable full."

"And men who can ride?"

"Certainly."

"Then let me at ‘em. I’ll knock together a squad. Perhaps you’ll translate for me? All I’ve got is a little left-over Norman French. I’ve had the devil of a job trying to get them to understand me at the inn. All those ick, ack, ock sounds they make. Worse than the bloody Scots."

It was after midnight by the time Bors returned. He had Pertinax and Farquahar with him and a small troop of serving men, variously armed. We went up to the house and held a brief council of war.

No-one questioned that Bors should be our General. He appointed me his second-in-command,  and no-one questioned that either because I had, after all, been a staff officer under Fairfax.  Herne and Farquahar divided up the cavalry between them- which meant meant they had  four horsemen apiece, with a roving commission to patrol the grounds. Pertinax,  who as a Roman was happier fighting on foot, took command of the musketeers. Margery, our chatelaine, was put in charge of the house.

"Is there a title that goes with that?" she asked.

"Garrison commander," Bors shot back.

The men were waiting for us in the stable we had settled on as a temporary barracks. There were twenty five of them- comprising my male servants aged between fifteen and seventy and the men Pertinax and Farquahar had brought with them, many of whom were old soldiers. Bors climbed up onto an upturned manger and addressed them.

"Strictly speaking," he said. "This is not your fight. You’re facing an enemy you won’t have heard of, who has no quarrel with you or your country or your faith or any other thing you may hold dear. The only thing you may object to in her is that she wants your masters and mistresses dead. There is a great deal I am not at liberty to explain, but I can say this; that it is something rather more than a personal vendetta that is being worked out here. Our enemy wants power. If she gets it, she will, eventually, and in ways you may not ever be aware of, wield it over you and your children. This is a secret war, but no less significant in its issue than any in which some of you may have fought. If any man wishes to be excused duty, he is free to withdraw -and no-one here will think the worse of him.

He stepped down. The men were whispering among themselves. "How do you think that went?" he murmured.

"Mind if I say a few words?" asked Herne.

"Go ahead, " said Bors.

"Translate for me please, Purchas." He stepped up onto the manger. "Listen men," he said. "You don’t know me and I don’t know you. So let me introduce myself. My name’s Herne; I’ve been a huntsman and a blacksmith and a soldier and I’ve come all the way from England to fight this bitch. Why? Simple. Because she’s bad. And because I love a good fight. You see the General here." He pointed to Bors. "You don’t know him either, but he’s the best there is. Honour to serve under you, sir! He ducked his head in Bors’ direction. "And now all this speechifying has made me thirsty. Those of you who don’t want to join in can fuck off back home and the rest of us are going to have a drink before we go on duty." He held his hand out towards me. "Key to the cellar please, Purchas."

I threw it over to him. He caught it and marched out the stable with our army at his heels, all of them cheering and whooping and jostling forward to slap him on the back.

"It seems," said Bors.  "That all those years in the presbytery study have left me a little rusty."

"Once Herne has finished getting our army drunk, " I suggested. "We should probably set a watch."

"She won’t attack tonight will she?" asked Farquahar. "Surely she’ll wait for the guests to arrive."

"She may not attack tomorrow either," said Bors. "I hope she doesn’t. But the sooner we get into military habits the better. If she doesn’t attack us, we’ll need to take the battle to her."

"She could be anywhere," I said.

"Then we search until we find her. We’re none of us exactly pressed for time, now are we?"

We gave Herne and his army fifteen minutes in the cellar, then winkled them out and sent some to their posts and some to bed.

I took the first watch. A dead-of-the-night slow ride round the perimeter of the estate. It was very dark, but my horse knew the path from memory. I was expecting ghosts. I didn’t get them. I got far worse. I got memories.

Emilia and I sitting side by side in Esclairmonde’s coach as it slowly, wonderfully bumped its way across Europe- two teenage children reading the romance of Lancelot of the Lake. She was in love with Lancelot and I was in love with her.

"Imagine," she said. "A man who would cross a sword bridge to get to his lady love."

"Wasn’t Lancelot an Immortal?" I asked.

"Certainly not. He hurt his hands and feet most dreadfully."

"I’d cross a sword bridge to rescue you if you were shut away in a castle."

"But you’re an Immortal, so it wouldn’t be at all the same." That lovely trilling laugh

The two of us in the fields below the great rock of Orvieto, with Lucius, Pertinax’s older brother, trying to teach us to fly a kite. "One of these days," he said. "They’ll build one of these big enough to carry a man." Down the field we ran, holding the string, the kite bumping along the ground behind us, and she tripped and fell and I tripped out of sympathy and we rolled over and over in one another’s arms to the very brink of the river.

I knew nothing of her history back then. I couldn’t know she was simply playing with me.

The first betrayal. The man she ran away with was a falconer. Pietro or Paulo. (Paulo, I think There was a Pietro later on. And two Peters and a Pierre.) We had chased her up into the mountains to her sweetheart’s village, only to find her already married.

A light appeared in the dark. I had reached the edge of the vineyard. A man rose out of cover, his face brightly illumined. "How’s things?" I asked.

"All’s well,"

I rode back into the night. The house in Bread Street was my first true home. Emilia and I had shared it. We were sisters again . She seemed to enjoy being a Tudor housewife. She did it very prettily. Here she was tripping back from market with a half cheese balanced on her head.

"Hey Purchas, you’ll never believe it, but the Dairyman just gave me this."

"For free?."

"For a kiss. Just one, well, maybe two- but very chaste kisses they were. One on the left cheek, one on the right. He’s a very handsome man!"

After a couple of years she ran off with an Italian. And I had had what we’d now call a breakdown. An attack of melancholy humours.  I didn’t really come back to life again until I met Margery- thirty years later.

The house in Bread Street again. but not the same house. A larger, finer house on the same site. Emilia and I were standing at on the doorstep arguing. She wanted me to leave and I wanted to stay and then Gabriele came climbing over the garden wall…

I completed my ride.

Bors are gone to bed, but the other three were sat by the fire with a bowl of nuts and a flagon of spiced wine. Farquahar got up as I entered. "Nothing to report," I said. "All quiet on every front."

"My watch," said Farquahar. "See you gentleman later." He left the room.

"You joining us, Purchas?" asked Herne. "I was just telling the Colonel about the time you and me bearded Henry VIII."

I laughed. "I don’t seem to have had much sleep lately and I want to be fresh for tomorrow. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to bed."

Margery was waiting for me. She was lying on her side with a big fat book laid out on the sheets. "Don Quixote," she said. "I’ve never read it and I figured I might never get another chance." She glanced up at me. "Oh Purchas, you look almost as grey as poor Arty."

"It’s going to happen tomorrow. I know it is. I can feel it in my bones." I spread my palm and held it close to Margery’s candle. "I wish I knew what all these scribbles meant."

"I don’t.  If  what's coming is bad I’d rather not know, and if it’s good I’d prefer it be a lovely surprise."

"Whatever it is, it won’t be good. People are going to be killed."

She stretched and yawned. "I’ve had a lovely life. If it ends tomorrow I’ll have had over a hundred years more than I was entitled to. Come to bed."

I kicked off my boots and climbed in beside her. "Just hold me," I said.

"Shall I sing you something?"

"Robin Hood’s wedding," I said.

"Oh Purchas, your tastes in music are so last century"

"And rustic. Humour me."

"I’m not questioning it. It’s just so- you!"

I was asleep before she reached the second verse.