By the next week their fights have taken on a different sound: the constant clang and slide of steel on steel and with every hour of it, Thomas becomes stronger. No longer does he lash out or become overheated. He learns anticipation, craft and guile and soon the giant’s pollaxe has come to look like an extension of his arm.

Richard’s armour is scuffed and dented, but he too learns from his bouts with Thomas and by the third week their fights can last an hour or more, swift, vicious and exhausting. At the end of each one Katherine has to undress Richard, removing the armour, cleaning it with sand and vinegar before oiling it and returning each piece to the right bag. He stands by and drinks mug after mug of ale.

‘Thirsty work,’ he says. His eyes are bloodshot. He looks mad.

Then she has to help him with the sweat-soaked doublet. The smell and sight of his hair-covered body still frightens her, and she is glad that Thomas stands by, watching, though she wishes he would not wear that anxious expression.

It is Walter who worries her.

She can tell he is watching her, even across the crowded room. She can look up and find his gaze fixed on her. Sometimes he will look away instantly. Other times he will carry on staring. Every time it happens, her heart lurches. She knows she only makes it worse by tugging her jacket down to hide her hose, since that only emphasises her bosom.

One of the days when it is raining, Hugh’s bow breaks in the butts, and one of the broken pieces nearly takes his ear off. Despite the boy’s tears and the blood that pours from the wound, Walter sends him back up to the fort with a series of cuffs and kicks. Katherine finds him whimpering by the well, and she washes the wound with clean rags and cold water and then applies some of the pardoner’s salve. Hugh rests his head against her shoulder and she puts her arm around him to soothe him as he weeps.

It is not the pain, she understands this; it is the misery of his life, so far from home.

‘There, there,’ she whispers. ‘There, there.’

Just then Walter returns. He stares at Katherine.

‘How come you don’t stroke my hair like that, Girly?’ he asks.

Hugh stiffens and she nearly drops the salve. Her fumble covers her shock, but she still doesn’t know what he means. If he knows she is a woman, why has he not exposed her? And if he thinks she is a boy, then why does he look at her so?

She tells Thomas the next day while they are out on the beach together, scavenging for driftwood. It is St George’s Day, nearly summer, and although a light mist is coming in off the sea, the water is millpond still.

He frowns.