Until it comes though, the men spend every day, wet or dry, in the butts with Walter snapping at them, comparing them harshly to their forefathers who’d fought the French to a standstill at Agincourt, Crécy and Poitiers, judging them just as harshly against the men of the Calais garrison. When they come in from the butts for supper they eat in silence before throwing themselves on to the floor to sleep, each man curled against his neighbour for warmth. They go off instantly, and the noise of their snoring is like bubbles rising through mud.

Meanwhile Katherine either keeps watch on the tower, or is replaced by one of the archers as his reward for having won one of Walter’s competitions. Sometimes she goes with Geoffrey to buy more bread and ale in Newnham, where the farmers speak English and come to know them by name. Here she watches Geoffrey haggle and tries a little herself. She is pleased when she beats a woman down a few pennies. She learns the meaning of money. Other days she scours the beach for firewood. Then she helps Geoffrey cook the dinner and supper, turning the spit, watching the pot, stoking the fire, eating plenty herself, and for the first time she can recall, she spends more than two consecutive days warm and dry and full of food.

‘I have never eaten so much meat in my life,’ she tells Thomas when they are on the castle walkway one morning. ‘I used to dream of it, when I was in the priory, but now I thank the Lord it is Lent soon and that all we will eat is herring.’

Thomas laughs, but then becomes serious.

‘It is the same with Mass, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘We have not been since we left the priory.’

‘We should do so,’ she agrees, though in truth she has not missed Mass, or the cycles of prayer, though she still wakes in the night and it takes a moment before she remembers not to rise and hurry silently to the chapel for matins or lauds. She feels relief, but also guilt.

‘We should have a Mass said for the pardoner’s soul,’ she says.

Thomas nods.

‘He was a good man,’ he says. ‘I remember him in my prayers.’

She nods.

‘Thomas,’ she begins, ‘have you looked in the pack he left?’

Thomas has almost forgotten the pack. When they’d reached Sangatte, he had put it under a mouldy scrap of tent canvas and ever since has used it under his head at night in place of a log. It has never been far from Katherine’s thoughts though, and its existence has given her a kernel of confidence, as well as something else: a distraction from the waiting at the very least.

‘I could get it now?’