Katherine sits there, and he remembers first cutting her hair back on the staithes in Boston. Then he bends and puts the blades over the embers for as long as he can stand it. His hands are shaking. Geoffrey stands behind her, ready to catch her, and over her head, he nods. She tilts her head, exposing the line of her throat and her small right ear. Thomas takes the shears and moves quickly, brushing aside her hair and cutting down across the top of her ear with a sharp snip. He feels the rubbery tag of the ear under the slide of the blades, a moment of toughness, then a give, and then the smooth snick of the scissors. He is through. Hot blood covers his fingers.

She stiffens and thrashes, kicking his shins, but does not scream. Geoffrey holds her tight. Thomas’s nostrils are filled with the smell of burning flesh and hair. He drops the shears and turns away. Walter stoops and tosses the piece of ear on to the flames then kicks the shears out of sight. Geoffrey holds Katherine to him, soothing her, stroking the back of her head.

‘It’s all right lad,’ he says. ‘It’s all right. It’s all over now. The pain’ll soon go.’ He winks at Thomas. ‘Well done,’ he mouths.

‘All right! All right!’ Walter bellows. ‘Show’s over. Piss off, all of you.’

The men and boys drift away. Thomas applies the linen swabs to her wound. It is not bleeding as much as he’d have thought, and he wonders if perhaps Walter was right about the heated blades. Katherine is grey-faced where she is not gummy with her own blood.

‘We’ll stay here tonight, Geoffrey,’ Sir John is saying. ‘Give them time to get over all this. Let’s turn in early, though, and only small beer, you understand?’

Geoffrey nods. A strange atmosphere lingers.

‘We can hear Mass in the cathedral tomorrow,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Thank the Lord for small mercies.’

Thomas helps Katherine back to Richard’s tent. He is asleep on good thick sheepskin now, bought from the sale of his horse, and Katherine lies down on his old mattress next to him. Thomas brings a bowl of water and some linen and he begins washing her face.

‘Can I bring you ale?’ he asks. ‘It might numb the pain.’

She nods with her eyes only.

‘Thomas,’ she says. ‘You know – you know—’

She stops. She glances at Richard where he lies in feverish sleep. Thomas thinks she is about to tell him why she has run.

‘What?’ he asks.

‘You know I can never return to the priory now.’

He sits back on his haunches. Dear God! He has not thought of that. Then he dips the linen into the water and wipes away more blood under her neck. He needs time to think.

‘By the saints, Katherine. I am sorry.’

She smiles.