Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

'Don't do to be conspicuous,' he says. 'Although I have many friends in London, I have enemies too.'

This puts me in mind of the legless beggar, who, I now believe, recognised March and I tell him about it. His face clouds, he pulls his lower lip, then goes to the mule where his own personal baggage is stowed, and, undoing a strap here and a strap there, pulls free a scabbarded broadsword, two-handed, all of four feet long, and buckles it to Genet's saddle. Then he turns to Ali. 'Ali,' he says, 'if you lose me or lose your way, ask for the house of Alderman Roger Dawtrey off East Cheap, can you remember that?'

Ali nods.

'He's expecting you and will look after you.'

And so at last we set off, March leading Genet, Ali at his side, and the rest of us following with the mules in the rear. Many of our spice sacks have already been sold so now the Prince's crossbows account for nearly half of them.

A couple of hundred yards and we reach what, the night before, I had taken to be a line of houses marking a bend in the river beyond the Tower, but which now reveals itself to be a bridge, the only bridge for many miles across the Thames. It has big stone gateways at either end, a church in the middle and both sides are lined with houses, with shops on the lower floor opening on to the crossing.

Butbefore we can enter or use this bridge we have to take our turn in a long line of traders, local gardeners and fanners coming to the markets with flocks of sheep, cartloads of cabbages, herds of steers and heifers, pigs and fowl, and now, like it or not, while we wait, we cannot escape the horrors attached to the stone lintel above the gate. For a moment the unwary traveller wonders: why should the sides of several clumsily slaughtered pigs be transfixed with pikes, hoisted and left for the crows and kites, of which there are many, to squabble over? And then it dawns on one that these are not the remains of beasts but of men, and possibly women.

March himself pauses, almost as we pass under these horrors, and looks up, shading his eyes against the glare of the still luminous sky, and I see him shake his head and bite his thumb. I le turns to Ali and since I am right behind him I hear most of what he says. 'These are not criminals. The man on the left is Sir John Thin – he changed sides at the battle of More Heath and joined my lord of Salisbury.'

At this moment a fork-tailed kite flies off with offal in its beak, is attacked by a black crow, and drops the offal into the crowd. It lands on a costermonger's shoulder. The man brushes it off and, with much laughter from him and his friends around him, kicks it into the gutter, for a moment March eyes his sword, hung from the pommel of his saddle, but restrains himself – which is just as well since one thing I already know about him is that he has a temper. As we pass the offal, a thin cat is already sniffing and dabbing with its paw, and I realise it is a kidney, and quite like a porker's since the build of this Sir John belied his second name.

'What ecstasy these men must have suffered,' I murmur to myself, 'for being men of honour and courage they would not have surrendered to fear or howled with pain..’

I have a man here says you are Edward March. Is that so?' We've come off the bridge which, on account of the forty or so shops on each side, whose stalls and wares spilled out and obstructed easy movement, took all of twenty minutes, and are now to turn left up an alley called Crooked Lane. In front of us is a tall man, dressed in rich crimson velvet, with a black hat and red beard above a heavy gold chain with an enamelled disc on his chest. He's holding a carved stave with a silver ornament on top, and behind him is a small posse of armed men. They wear helmets with the front rim turned up, breastplates, mail, spears, swords, and the three bowmen among them have their bows strung and arrows in place, ready to let loose. At that range one of those could go right through my chest and pin me to Ali who is behind me. I shiver at the thought but feel excited, aroused too. Next to this official is the legless beggar with his crutches.

Eddie looks the official in the eye. 'And what are you that gives you the right to question traders come from the east on lawful business to sell and buy?'

'My staff and badge say who I am. I am Alderman Thomas Gilpin, sheriff of Bridge Ward, and one of my duties is to arrest known miscreants and traitors who come across the bridge. Whatever these people with you might be is no concern of mine, but you, March, are no traveller from the East, but a man attainted by Act of Parliament, and I must ask you to surrender your sword and come with me.'

March looks round him now and behind, so I can see the smile, a grin, really, that is playing on his lips, though his eyes are narrowed in a calculating way. I follow his gaze and see that many of the crowd gathering round us are looking restless, eager. Those who are armed loosen their weapons in their scabbards, and one man’s hastily buying eggs from a passing pedlar woman's basket. Eddie raises his voice and shouts, in a strong voice from his deep chest. 'Who here would see a man of York, a loyal subject of King Harry, taken from you and put in gaol?" And with one quick movement he hoists himself into Genet's saddle and with a flourish draws his sword.

'Not I,' says the man who has been buying eggs and he manages to throw three, two of which hit the sheriff as the rest of the crowd close in round the men before they can draw their weapons. The bowmen, though, loose their arrows into the air above our heads. They mean no harm but to frighten us. However, one hits a woman at an upstairs window in the shoulder. The spurt of her blood and her raucous scream madden the crowd and they surge forward, led by Eddie who makes a pass or two at the armed men then raises his sword to decapitate one who has slipped on the skin of a black plantain.

'Steady on, milord!' cries the man, looking up from the greasy cobbles. 'I meant your worship no harm, I swear.'

Eddie puts the point of his sword on the man's breastplate and pushes him on to his back. Then urging Genet on and waving his weapon above his head he charges on up Bridge Street, tipping over a fish stall spilling silver flounders beneath the feet of the crowd.

Led by one of the muleteers, who seems to know where we are going, we dodge into Crooked Lane, take a right up St Michael's and so come on to the western end of East Cheap where we see Eddie, still riding Genet and waving his sword above his head, coming towards us at a brisk trot, which sends the passers-by scuttling out of his way. No sign now of the sheriff.

He sheathes his sword, grins at us all broadly, high on his little adventure, swings a leg over the pommel and drops to the ground in front of me. He then scandalises all who still believe me to be some sort of eastern monk, and a male at that, by kissing me warmly, in much the way Lord Djym did, firmly on my lips; with one arm round my waist he pulls me close so I can feel the coldness of his iron sleeves.

'That was fun,' he says. 'I enjoyed that.'

I am left with three perceptions. One, I also enjoyed it all; two, this Eddie March, for all his arrogance and fine airs, is still a lad; three, a sense of deja vu, as if I have been here before, will be here again, almost as if, in the previous ten minutes, I have been living a cliché. But I push this aside: it is, after all, a feeling to which we can all be subject when disoriented and tired. And then I notice Eddie has not come through his adventure unscathed: the lower part of his left arm, below the armour, is gashed and bleeding quite heavily.

'I am not,' he sighs, many hours later, 'able, I think, to do what I most want to do at this moment. Though the spirit is more than willing, my flesh has been so weakened by this damned cut…' and his right hand passes across his bare chest, smooth like marble though rippled with bone and muscle, and almost as free of hair as marble, to touch the swathe of bandages on the other side.