He brings it back up and together they crouch while he unpicks the bag’s stubborn leather ties. When he has them loose he slips out the contents. There is the pottery flask of the pardoner’s salve wrapped in a piece of cloth, but there is another parcel too, bulky and roughly square and stitched tightly into a canvas jacket.

‘A book?’ Katherine asks.

‘A bible perhaps,’ Thomas agrees, feeling the canvas. He is obviously excited. ‘Though it doesn’t feel valuable. There’s no lock or anything by way of ornament. And how to get in? I’ll have to cut the stitches.’

He finds his knife and slides its blade along the canvas. The cloth falls away. It is a ledger, with dangling seals, roughly bound. Thomas opens it. It is a series of what looks like lists written in black ink, in the usual two columns, entirely unadorned.

He is disappointed.

‘What is it?’ she asks. It is frustrating, not being able to read.

He studies the pages.

‘A record,’ he says. ‘A record of service. A muster roll. Or something like that. From a garrison of troops, in a place called Rouen, here in France, I think. From St Aubin’s day in 1440 to the last of August 1442. It’s just a list of the soldiers serving and their movements in the country. Who was there, in which retinue, where they went, how much each was owed. Thousands of them. That’s all.’

Disappointment settles on Katherine so that she feels bitter towards Thomas, as if it is his fault. She has no idea what exactly she’d hoped for, but it isn’t this.

‘Why would the pardoner think it so valuable?’

Thomas shrugs. He reads out a few names.

‘Thomas Rodsam. Thomas Holme. James Lodewyke. Robert Bassett. Robert Barde. Nicholas Capell. Piers Dawn.’

‘Who are they?’

‘I don’t know.’

The binding is cursory, the paper low quality and the lettering little better than functional. Thomas folds it open, hoping perhaps something will fall out. There is nothing. Katherine shakes the canvas wrapping. Again, nothing.

‘And yet do you remember how he reacted when he thought it was going to be thrown overboard?’

Thomas turns it over in his hands again.

She stares at it.

‘Is that all?’

He looks at the pages towards the back:

‘“To Gaillard Castle on St Ives’ Day: Thomas Jonderel with eight archers; Roger Radclyffe with five; William de Beston with six and five billmen. Each paid the sum of two marks.”’

‘There must be something else,’ she says. ‘There must be something of value in it. Perhaps some piece of information that we don’t yet understand?’

It is the only explanation.

Thomas nods. She watches him return the parcel to the pack with the salve and tie it up again.

‘I’ll keep it safe,’ he says. Afterwards they are both quiet, disappointed.

On the following afternoon Richard returns early from the butts.