As promised, the second procession took place just after the turn of twilight, when all the younger children were abed. Arthur turned out with the rest of their elders, intrigued as to what could be so special about what was surely merely a repeat of the noon-time parade.
It was the same, and yet it was not. Lily sat once more in state upon her horse-drawn cart, but in the torchlight her face looked somehow older, sharper. In the daylight, her features had seemed insipid, but the light of the torches lent them a darker definition. There was an almost fey cast to her now.
The Morris men were no longer in their gleaming white shirtsleeves; to a man they had blacked their faces and donned their ragged coats, and the bells were silenced. The clash of their staves together now seemed to Arthu
