‘We wait,’ the Genoese cook answers for Thomas. ‘Hope they don’t kill us.’

Thomas has almost forgotten the pirates.

There is a small crump as the balinger hits the side of the carrack, out of sight below the ship’s rail, and a moment later two more men come springing over the ship’s side. They have swords in their hands, steel helmets on their heads and heavy padded coats. The first is tall, and moves lightly on to the deck in high leather boots more suited to a horse than a ship. The second is small, wiry, like a terrier, with ginger whiskers and a big nose, often broken. Both wear red tabard coats, sweat-ringed and salt-rimed.

They stop and look around.

‘Fuck me!’ the second one says. ‘Looks like we’re late for the harvest.’

The first of the two, taller by a head, sheathes his sword and takes off his helmet.

‘Saints,’ he says, disappointed. ‘What’s gone on here?’

He has dark hair cropped short above the ears, like Riven, but he is younger, with an open, handsome face, the sort Thomas trusts. Three more men join them, clambering slowly over the carrack’s sides. They do not look at ease with the swell of the sea, and Thomas recognises their sort from home, long ago: beefy, well-fed, deep-chested boys with backs warped by work in the fields and butts. Each carries a short sword, except for one, who carries a longbow and a bag of arrow shafts. They wear the same red livery coat as the first two, with a small star marked in white cloth on the right side of the chest. When they see the dead bodies each crosses himself.

The first man runs a hand through his hair.

‘My name is Richard Fakenham,’ he announces to the sailors, ‘of Marton Hall in Lincolnshire, and on behalf of my lord the Earl of Warwick, the Captain of Calais who is entrusted to keep the seas, I am claiming this boat for his purposes.’

‘You are not pirates?’ the Genoese cook asks.

Fakenham looks insulted.

‘No,’ he says. ‘We are soldiers. Now, which one of you’s the master?’

One of the surviving sailors – the ferrety-looking one with a widow’s tooth, older than the others – points to Cobham’s body.

Fakenham grunts. ‘His mate?’

The man points again. This time at Saxby.

‘All right,’ Fakenham says. ‘Which of you knows how to sail this thing?’

Again the older man volunteers.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lysson,’ he says. ‘John Lysson. Of Falmouth.’

‘All right, John Lysson of Falmouth, can you sail us to Calais? Across the Narrow Sea?’

After a moment’s hesitation Lysson nods.

‘Get to it then.’