Not far down the lane I discover Paul. He’s leaning against the front of a cordwainer’s shop shaking a little wooden bowl I recognize from my home. He holds the bowl out to two guildsmen, one large, one small, who have stopped to buy a pie at a cart. Brida’s nowhere to be seen.

Out in the daylight, Paul’s face is a horror. His cheeks are stricken with white lumps like his skin blistered and then got stuck that way. He has no scarf today, the better to stir folk’s pity. Under his scars, his jaw is strong and his nose straight. He might have been handsome once.

I notice his passport is pinned to his rags, but where other passports have a seal in a circle that’s regular and well-inked, Paul’s passport has no circle and the figure is muddled. Circles are very hard to counterfeit. I learned that from my Daffrey uncles. Misgett Daffrey, my elder uncle, had an old sailor who worked as a jarkman counterfeiting begging passports. The sailor was accustomed to carving scrimshaw in bone. When he sold a false passport the seal was sound.

Why wouldn’t Paul have a legitimate passport to beg, given his dreadful scars? Mayhap he didn’t have chummage to bribe the Queen’s office. Mayhap he was deemed corrupt for some reason or other.

If he sees me, Paul gives no sign. I walk past as if we are strangers, not homefellows.

Beyond Paul is a trio of scrawny actors preparing a panto. One of them barks to draw attention, promising a play called The Queen’s Verity. I stop to watch.

‘Maker save us from bad actors,’ I hear Paul mutter.

One actor steps out to begin the show. It’s the old Queen Maris he’s dressed as. He swoons, complaining of the heat because he, Queen Maris, is with child. He pulls out prayer beads from the old faith and kisses them, praying to the Maker to protect the heir in his belly.

Two boys come on next dressed as Queen Bethany and the Queen’s physician, the Willow Tree. They fawn over Queen Maris but then turn and begin to chant a witch’s spell.

What comes next should be at a butcher’s shop, never a panto. ‘Where’s the sacrifice?’ calls the Queen Bethany actor.

The Willow Tree actor holds up a real pigeon, flapping in his hand. He cuts its throat and blood splatters all over their costumes. The pregnant Queen Maris grabs her belly and screams, ‘Maker save me; these witches have killed my baby!’

Maker mine. I swallow. The guildsmen eating their pies are less calm. ‘Call the constable!’ the larger one urges the smaller. The boy playing Bethany sings a gleeful song:

Mistress Maris,

Angland’s heiress,

How has your garden grown?

I’ve stolen the bloom

From out of your womb

And now I can take the throne!