‘I want to be outside,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear the smell.’

Outside in the stable yard was the terrible sight of drowned horses in their stalls, their heads lolling over the stable doors where they had gasped for air; but the innkeeper was there, miraculously alive. ‘I was on the top of the haystack,’ he said, almost crying with relief. ‘On the very top, chucking down some hay, when the sea came over my yard wall, higher than my house, and just dropped down on me like an avalanche. Knocked me flat but knocked me down on the hay. I breathed in hay while it battered down on me and then it tore me to the stable roof, and when I stopped swimming and put down my feet, I was on an island! God be praised, I saw fishing ships sail over my stable yard, and I am here to say it.’

‘We were on the roof,’ Ishraq volunteered. ‘The sea came rushing in.’

‘God help us all! And the little children?’

‘They were walking out to sea,’ Isolde said quietly. ‘God bless and keep them.’

He did not understand. ‘Walking on the quayside?’

‘Walking on the harbour floor. They thought the sea had parted for them. They walked out towards the wave as it came in.’

‘The sea went out as Johann said it would?’

‘And then came in again,’ Luca said grimly.

They were all silent for a moment with the horror of it.

‘They swam?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Luca said.

‘Some of them came back,’ Ishraq said. ‘Freize sent some of them back. Did you see them?’

The innkeeper was stunned. ‘I thought they were playing a game, they ran through the yard. I shouted at them for disturbing the horses, they were kicking and rearing in their stalls. I didn’t know. Dear God, I didn’t know. I didn’t understand what they were shouting, or why the horses were so upset.’

‘Nobody knew,’ Isolde said. ‘How could we?’

‘Did Freize come in with the children?’ Luca demanded.

‘Not that I saw. Have you seen my wife?’ the man asked.

They shook their heads.

‘Everyone will be at the church,’ the innkeeper said. ‘People will be looking for each other there. Let’s go up the hill to the church. Pray God that it has been spared and we find our loved ones there.’

They came out of the yard of the inn and paused at the quayside. The harbour was ruined. Every house that stood on the quayside was battered as if it had been bombarded, with windows torn away, doors flung open and some roofs missing, water draining from their gaping windows and doors. The ships which had been anchored in the port had been flung up and down on the wave, some washed out to sea, some thrown inland to cause more damage. The iron ring on the quay where their ship had been tied was empty, its ropes dangling down into the murky water. The gangplank had been washed far away, and their ship and the horses and Freize were gone. Where it had grounded on the harbour floor was now an angry swirl of deep water – it was unbelievable that this had ever been dry, even for a moment.