‘How is your ear?’ Thomas asks. He is watching her in a way that unsettles her, but she is pleased by. She touches her cap that hides the missing tip. It still aches.

‘I think this helps,’ she says, raising her mug of ale.

They smile and drink and there is a comfortable moment between them, when they are alone despite the crowd.

‘Why did you run, Kit?’ he asks in a low voice.

She looks at him quickly, and she can see he fears he has spoiled the mood, but then she lets out a quick sigh and settles back. She stares into the flames for a moment, then comes to her decision.

‘Thomas,’ she starts. ‘I should have told you this when we first left the priory. I kept meaning to, but – I was too ashamed of myself. I was frightened about what you would think of me, what you would do when you heard.’

‘Heard what?’

‘When I was at the priory, there was a nun there. Sister Joan. She was older than me, and a great favourite of the Prioress. It was she who used to hold me down when the Prioress beat me. She looked after the keys. That sort of thing.’

Thomas nods, but his mood has sobered.

‘When I left – just before I left – we were in the infirmary. With Alice, do you remember? Well, I pushed her. Joan, I mean. On to a mattress.’

Thomas is puzzled.

‘So?’ he asks. ‘It sounds as if she deserved it.’

‘Yes. Yes. She did. But I’d left a bottle on the mattress. Or a jar. I can’t remember now. It was made of glass.’

Thomas understands what she is saying.

‘And she fell on it?’

Katherine nods.

‘The bottle broke. The glass. The shards – they went into her back. Into Joan’s back, do you see?’

‘Was she hurt?’

Katherine nods.

‘I threw myself on top of her. I did not know about the glass, but I was pressing her down on to it. I wanted to kill her, I admit, but didn’t think I could. And then there was blood in her mouth.’

‘Her mouth?’ Thomas asks. ‘You mean? The glass went through her . . .?’

He gestures towards his back. Katherine nods. She is shaking a little.

‘Did you save her?’ he asks.

Now she shakes her head.

‘I did not even try. Did not know how, even if I’d wanted to.’

Thomas looks into the fire.

‘So that is why – why the friars were so busy when we left Boston? Because they were looking for you?’

‘The girl who killed Sister Joan, yes.’

There is a silence. Thomas takes a long draught from his mug.

‘Dear God,’ he says when he has swallowed the ale and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘No wonder you did not want to see the Prior of All. No wonder you ran. But – Jesu! – I wish you had told me.’