Along Holborn the people lined the route, bareheaded and silent, the brave few crossing themselves as the coffin passed, watching the dead man’s cousins and his friends struggling under the weight. A pale sun gilded his arms, the cloth of gold dazzling on the canopy and the tabards of the heralds. Portcullis carried his gilded spurs aloft, Rouge Dragon his great helm with its porcupine crest; Richmond held his shield and Clarenceux, the King of Arms, brought up the rear with his gauntlets. No one carried his field armour, ripped and peppered with shot, and no one spoke of the thigh defences which, had he worn them that bleak October day at Zutphen, would have saved his life. At the Ditch, which gave off its putrid smell even in a winter as cold as this, a small knot of horsemen joined the procession, all in black, their beards rimed with frost because they had been there all morning. The oldest of them turned his bay into the winding line alongside a melancholy-looking man on a grey.
