Cobham chops the blade through the meat of the sailor’s throat. There is a spray of blood and the sailor goes down with an awkward bounce, as if he has fallen from a tree, still pinned by the heel while blood seethes across the planks.

‘That’s how you do it, by all that’s bloody holy,’ Cobham roars. ‘That’s how you bloody well do it, see?’

He turns on Thomas.

‘I had you for apostates,’ he spits. ‘I should’ve handed you over to the friars when I had the bloody chance.’

Even before he’s finished the sentence, he lunges at Thomas. Thomas smashes the blade away. Then Cobham darts at Katherine. Thomas jabs at him. Cobham catches the axe on the blade of his sword, a clash of sliding steel. Cobham is strong, stronger than Thomas, stronger than Riven maybe. He pushes Thomas back, then spins and crashes his elbow into Thomas’s cheek. Thomas’s knees ooze, his vision wavers and the axe seems too heavy to hold.

Cobham smiles. He is about to hit him again when Katherine catches him with the rope maul.

Now it is Cobham who staggers. His hand flies to his collar where she’s struck him. He checks for blood. Only a little. He tries a quick underhand thrust at her body. Thomas drops his axe on the blade, knocking it from Cobham’s hand. Cobham shouts in pain and the blade rattles across the deck towards Katherine. She bends to pick it up. A knife appears in Cobham’s hand. He leaps at her, catches her collar, pulls her to him, bends her around, shielding himself and exposing her neck to his blade. Thomas recovers.

He swings the axe, just missing Katherine. There is a dense thunk of steel on bone, and he buries the long spike of the axe into the flesh under Cobham’s chin. Cobham dies instantly, his body converted to dead weight that pulls the axe from Thomas’s grip. Together axe and man crash to the deck. The stink of blood is ferrous and intimate.

Katherine staggers free, her knees weak. She is holding her throat. Thomas bends and twists the axe from Cobham’s body, ready for the next attack. He is breathing heavily, hardly able to see straight. He holds out the axe and stares at the men gathered on the deck.

They do not move. They stand watching him, pale-faced, incredulous. Then they drop their weapons and step back. Thomas can scarcely believe what has happened either. Katherine is looking at him as if he is someone else.

‘I must sit,’ he says. He drops the axe and sits just before his legs give out. He cannot stop his face from creasing and the tears silently pouring down his cheeks. He grips his hands together to stop them from shaking.

‘What now?’ Katherine asks. Her face is also pale, a smudge of blood above her lip.