‘But until he returns,’ the pardoner continues, ‘we have those of the Queen’s affinity peeling us for what little we have and disinheriting rightful heirs of what’s theirs. Your Giles Riven, for instance. He is of the new Duke of Somerset’s affinity, you see? Able to provide him upward of a hundred mounted archers, I dare say, fifty billmen and a handful of men-at-arms. And so long as he continues to do that, the new Duke will back him in any dispute, and who now in the county would go against the Duke? Not a man.’

There is a moment’s silence.

‘Riven said he was moving south,’ Thomas says. ‘To join the Queen.’

The pardoner nods.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘The Queen is summoning her army. It will be spring soon, unbelievable as that now seems, and with the spring comes the campaigning season, and with the campaigning season comes the Earl of Warwick, back from France, and I believe he will want more than merely his rightful place in the King’s council.’

He unhooks the pot from the stand and sets it by Thomas’s feet. He passes him a carved wooden spoon. Thomas murmurs his thanks and then a prayer before eating. The pottage burns his lips and tongue but he carries on, scooping in the leaves and the slippery fish and beans. When he has half finished the bowl he passes it to Katherine, who takes it and eats in quick suspicious spoonfuls.

While she eats, the pardoner relieves himself in the dark. Thomas puts another branch on the fire. It is a luxury of which he has long dreamed, being able to sit by a fire with his hands so close that the flames can scorch his palms.

When Katherine has finished she murmurs a quick thanks be to God, sets aside the bowl and retreats under her blanket. She says no more. The silence is not oppressive. Neither is used to speaking more than fifty words of their own device in a day, and silence, when not interrupted by prayer, is their natural state. Yet he is conscious of her, and finds his gaze drawn to her.

After the pardoner returns Thomas finishes his interrupted account of Riven’s false accusation. When he describes the fight in the garth the pardoner can scarce contain his glee.

‘By the saints! You fought Giles Riven with a staff?’

Thomas nods.

‘And won?’

Again Thomas nods.

‘I suppose,’ he says. Though it had not felt that way.

‘By the death of Him who died for us!’ the pardoner laughs, ‘there is either more to you than meets the eye, Brother Thomas, or you talk of a miracle!’

He pours more ale and passes it over. Thomas drinks it at once. Then Katherine follows with a curt description of being accused of harbouring him in the cloister, and of the imprisonment that followed, before touching on Alice’s death.