‘Hold it in place,’ she instructs Thomas. ‘Press down.’

She moves and kneels beside Richard’s head and holds her blood-wet fingers to his lips. She feels the faintest coolness. She nods.

‘He’s breathing.’

When she looks up, the men are staring at her.

‘Saints,’ Hastings says. ‘That was neatly done.’

‘Almost as if you’ve done it before,’ the cleric says. ‘Have you worked in a hospital?’

He is looking at her very closely. He has a long pale face and – visible now that he has removed his hat – sleek dark hair that lies flat on his pin head as if oiled or wet.

‘No,’ she stammers and pulls her hood over her head. Perhaps it is that exact action which confirms the cleric’s suspicions, for then when she goes to the trough to wash, plunging her arms into the cold water up to the elbows and watching the blood float off her skin in delicate skeins, he comes to stand behind her.

‘Sister,’ he says.

She turns. Her heart is thumping, her throat blocked. She can feel the heat in her face.

‘What do you want? Why’re you calling me that?’

‘I wanted to make sure,’ he says.

‘Sure of what? Who are you?’

‘Sure of who you are,’ he says. ‘My name is Stephen Lamn. I am secretary to his grace Bishop Coppini. But I am a Lincoln man, you see? Of the Gilbertine Order.’

PART THREE

The Road to Northampton
Field, June–July 1460

14

THOMAS GROANS WHEN he sees the carrack Mary again. He’d hoped he’d seen the last of her, and her little master whose name he’s forgotten, but as they trudge through the Seaward Gate and out on to the wharf, there she is, lying low in the water, and there he is, one tooth still in his head, standing at the tiller with his hands on his hips. As they come aboard he stares at them with undisguised contempt, not recognising them, quite as if he has come by ownership of the carrack through some proper process, and is now her legitimate master.

‘Come on,’ he caws, ‘get yerselves set down. Tide’s changing and we’ll lose the wind if you don’t get a move on.’

Thomas wishes Katherine were there to see him. It would have made her laugh. But Sir John Fakenham has asked her to stay and care for his son, and so she will be sailing later and for that he is glad. What could she have done anyway, if it came to fighting?