‘Because I knew that God would provide,’ Johann confirmed. ‘And now you tell me He has done so. You invite me to breakfast and so God provides for me. Why should I not trust him and praise His holy name?’

‘Why not indeed?’ Brother Peter said glacially, and led the way to the dining room of the inn.

Ishraq and Isolde did not join the men for breakfast. They peeped through the open door to see the boy Johann, and then carried their plates upstairs to their bedroom and ate, sitting at the window, watching the scene on the quayside as children continued to pour into the town, the smallest and the frailest coming last as if they could hardly keep up. Their ragged clothes showed that they were from many different areas. There were children from fishing villages further north up the coast who wore the rough smocks of the region, and there were children who had come from farms and wore the capes and leggings of shepherds and goatherds. There were many girls, some of them dressed as if they had been in service, in worsted gowns with goatskin aprons. Isolde nudged Ishraq as three girls in the robes of novices of a convent came through the gate of the town, their rosaries in their hands, their little veiled heads bowed, and passed under the overhanging window.

‘They must have run away from a nunnery,’ she said.

‘Like us,’ Ishraq agreed. ‘But where do they think they’re going?’

In the dining room the youth prayed in silence over the food, blessed the bread, and then ate a substantial breakfast that Freize brought up from the kitchen. After the boy had finished, he gave thanks in a lengthy prayer to God and a short word of appreciation to Luca. Brother Peter took out his papers from his travelling writing-box desk and dipped his pen in ink.

‘I have to report to my lord who in turn reports to the Holy Father,’ he explained as the boy looked at his preparations. ‘If your journey is blessed by God then the Holy Father will want to know the proofs. If he thinks you have a calling he will support you. If not, he will want to know about you.’

‘It is blessed,’ the boy said. ‘D’you think we could have come all this way if God had not guided us?’

‘Why, how far have you come?’ Luca asked cautiously.

‘I was a goat herder in the canton of Zurich when I heard God’s voice,’ the boy said simply. ‘He told me that a terrible thing had happened in the east. A worse thing than the great flood itself. A greater wrong than the flood that drowned everyone but Noah. He said that the Ottomans had come against Christendom in a mighty wave of men, and had taken Constantinople, our holy city, the heart of the Church in the east, and destroyed it. Did I hear right or no?’