Only after the sturdy little cog that had brought him safely across the Channel had drifted away from the dock on the tide, did he look round. There was nothing but a rickety wharf and stinking tan yards. The smell of piss was overwhelming and no one was in sight. He had slumped down on his oak chest that contained all his armour and spare clothes and stared disconsolately over the mud flats towards London. In evading the Templar, he had landed himself in the middle of nowhere. He was safe for now, but could see nothing for it except to trust his worldly goods to luck, and to walk along the bank of the Thames towards Wapping. At least there would be someone there who could arrange his passage to Oxford. He had wearily hauled himself to his feet and trudged off into the mud. Now, he sat in a dark, low-ceilinged inn perilously perched over the banks of the river Thames, drinking weak ale and eating an unidentifiable chunk of burned meat. All around him sat rough-looking workmen with big beefy hands that bore the scars of heavy rope and manual labour.
