The stationer, snowy-haired and bearded, is dressed in accordance with the sumptuary laws, the tie strings of his cap hanging down to his chest; he begins showing Thomas his cheaper wares, holding them out and declaiming the virtue of the limning. Thomas’s fingers stray to the leather surface of one and when he prises it open, the stationer exhales approvingly.

‘Problemata Aristotelis,’ he nods. ‘In French. You know quality when you see it, young man.’

There is a suggestion of a question mark at the end of his sentence. He eyes Thomas’s rough-made boots and homespun clothing.

‘Do you know who made this?’ Thomas asks.

‘Sadly no,’ the stationer admits. ‘Only that it is from a workshop in Bruges. Copied from an original there, I dare say.’

‘You’ve been to Bruges?’ Thomas asks.

‘Many times. A most beautiful city. Though the damp penetrates old bones like mine.’

‘Many of the best designs come from Bruges,’ Thomas tells Katherine, turning the book over in his hands. ‘One day, I should like to go. Though it means crossing the sea again.’

When Thomas is excited about something he looks like a boy. He looks at the other books and keeps testing the textures of the leathers, stroking the surfaces of the paper and the stationer lets him place the pad of his finger on one very fine gesso-backed gold-leafed initial letter L.

‘A fine piece of work,’ Thomas acknowledges.

The stationer is half smiling, but his gaze flicks from Thomas to Katherine and back again and Katherine feels the familiar twist of anxiety twist in her guts. She has never forgotten what the pardoner had said about travelling among strangers, and now she tugs her hat down over her half-ear again. They should never have come. She brings the conversation to an end by asking of the pardoner.

‘Old Master Daud?’ the stationer says, softening a little. ‘I know of him. A fine man and a serious collector. He has been gone these past months, has he not? Abroad, I hear, though the priests still say Mass and ring a bell for his safe return. He has a house on Steep Hill, down near the Jew’s.’

A thought seems to strike Thomas.

‘Have you seen anything like this before?’ he asks, unslinging his pack and unwrapping the ledger. The stationer takes and opens it and studies it for a moment.

‘I dare say I have,’ he says, ‘though I’d not bother to look at such a thing twice. It is an official document: a list of soldiers and their movements in France, is it? Yes. Perhaps of value for scrap? Ah. Though that I like.’