Thomas hears himself grunt absently. It seems to him that he has not slept since leaving the priory, for every time he closes his eyes, he sees Riven, or the giant in that moment before he felt his thumb press on his eyelid; or he sees the Dean being killed in the cloister, and all these images come afresh, just as if they are still happening, not things that have happened, and every time he lurches into wide wakefulness, his heart racing and his fists clenched.

He has tried to pray for release, and he asks God to take vengeance on his behalf, but as he prays, he cannot help but imagine himself as God’s chosen instrument. He imagines that it is he seeking Riven out, just as the pardoner suggested, and he imagines it is he landing the blows on the man, cutting him, pounding him, breaking bones, gouging flesh. Each time he must catch himself, calm himself, and return to prayer.

He hears the pardoner sighing on the bale beside him.

‘It must be hard,’ the old man is saying, gesturing to Katherine in the boat’s bow, her back turned on them. ‘Thrust from her cloister to be among us rough-skinned men.’

Thomas looks at her again: her straight back, stiff shoulders. He says nothing.

‘And what about you, Brother Thomas? Will you return to the cloister?’

‘One day,’ he says. ‘It is a good life.’

‘It’s a good life,’ the pardoner agrees, ‘though I cannot see that it will last too much longer.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The monasteries are too rich,’ the pardoner starts carefully, gesturing towards the shore. ‘Think of the ends to which our dukes and earls go to find their children advantageous marriages, and yet the finest match in all England would be that between the Abbot of Westminster and the Abbess of Sion. With wealth like that, such men as your man Giles Riven, well, they will find a way to get hold of it, by hook or by crook, and when they do, all the monasteries and convents and priories and friaries will be snaffled into someone’s hunting bag before a single summer is out.’

The pardoner is interrupted by a shout from the mast. The boy has seen something. All the sailors stop what they are doing.

‘What is it?’ Cobham shouts up.

‘Balinger,’ the boy calls down. ‘Moving fast, maybe ten oars, maybe more. Mainsail up, making for the foreland.’

Thomas rolls to his feet and joins Katherine at the bow. Across the water one of the boats is moving fast, with a bank of oars that dip rhythmically and propel the craft forward in definite steps. Cobham shouts orders and the sailors run to new tasks, easing the sails to let them slip the wind. The ship relaxes under their feet. They wait.

‘Changed course,’ the boy shouts down. ‘Coming towards us.’