It begins to snow again, fat wet flakes that settle on the pardoner’s hat. Katherine looks along the wharves to where the mule is disappearing in the gathering gloom. Two black-robed friars have stopped the boy. Benedictines.

‘Let us try the cabin,’ she says.

The pardoner catches her glance.

‘Indeed,’ he agrees. ‘Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros.’

There is no light, only slatted apertures, and the floor is sodden and the walls are crusted with something that has long set hard. The pardoner pulls the door shut after them.

‘We need only stay until we set off and are out of reach of the friars,’ the pardoner tells them as they hold their breath. He peers through the gap in the window.

‘Or until that man hands us over,’ Katherine says.

‘Yes,’ the pardoner agrees, ‘he looks like the worst sort but I have only paid him half what we owe, with the promise of the other half on safe delivery in Calais, where I have said I am to be met by associates with the balance. He will not let us go to the friars without collecting that, but knowing we are wanted might make the journey more awkward – and more expensive – than need be.’

They sit in the sulphurous dark, listening to the voices outside. At length there is silence. It seems the friars are gone.

‘Thanks be to God for that,’ sighs the pardoner. They can only see his eyeballs in the dark. Footsteps fall on the ladder beside the door and someone shouts and then more feet fall and there are more shouts and suddenly the ship shudders and lurches and seems to come alive. Katherine impulsively grabs Thomas’s arm. She feels him stiffen.

‘We’re casting off,’ the pardoner says. Above them on the rear deck they can hear Cobham bellowing rhythmically, as if encouraging some physical effort.

She lets go of Thomas’s arm, just as the pardoner claps his hands to his cheeks.

‘Dear Christ on His cross!’ he exclaims.

‘What? What is wrong?’

‘We have made no offering to St Nicholas,’ he says. ‘We have made no offering for a safe journey.’

7

THE WIND COMES from the east, bringing with it ranks of lace-topped swells that roll under the carrack, lifting her and dropping her nearer the lee shore. Master Cobham, standing on the aft deck, legs spread and his leather hat pulled low over his brow, swears.

‘God’s wounds!’ he bellows. ‘God’s holy wounds!’

On the deck the pardoner and Thomas crouch together, heads between their knees, clinging to the ship’s listing side with raw hands.

‘We shall be wrecked,’ the pardoner shouts over the wind. ‘We should have said a Mass. Should have said a hundred of them.’