The carter lashes the ox and they pull off across the wharves towards Calais’s Seaward Gate. Thomas and Katherine walk shoulder to shoulder behind it, hanging back from the other men; the pardoner’s pack is heavy on his back. They cross the drawbridge and go through the fortified towers in a crush with the porters hurrying under the spikes of the portcullis. The Stand Watch are there in quilted, buff-coloured jacks, each man with a cross of St George on his chest, a polished sallet on his head and a bill in his hand.

‘Ordinaries,’ Walter states, gesturing at the soldiers as they crowd under the gates. ‘Posted to the garrison here. Can’t do a day’s work on the land and shoot an arrow afterwards like us.’

‘Walter,’ Geoffrey cautions.

‘I’m just saying,’ Walter replies, spreading his hands, all false innocence. ‘And anyway, even if they can do all that, they can’t be expected to remember on which side they’re meant to be fighting.’

His voice rises as he speaks. A heavyset soldier’s hand goes to his sword. Two more shift their bills.

The Watch Captain appears.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘All right. Calm down. Let’s move it along there.’

Walter smirks.

‘Say anything like that again though,’ the officer says as he passes, ‘and I’ll prick you myself, you little shit.’

Walter laughs. They follow the cart out along a narrow street towards the marketplace, its wheels grinding on the cobbles. All around them are wool-houses, great blank-sided stone buildings where the merchants store their sarplers.

‘What was all that about?’ Thomas asks Geoffrey. Geoffrey glances at him with a mixture of irritation and surprise.

‘Don’t you two know anything?’ he asks.

Thomas shakes his head.

‘It was their mates who swapped sides at Ludford Bridge last year,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Went over to the Queen. The King, I should say. Their captain was the Master Porter of this place, bloke called Trollope. Andrew Trollope, a northerner. Meant to be a good friend to the Earl of Warwick, only when it came to it, he wasn’t.’

‘So what happened?’ Thomas asks. ‘Were you there?’

‘Me and Walter were. We were with Lord Cornford’s men, in the Duke of York’s battle. We had the men of Calais with us, and the Earl of Warwick in command, and though the King had three times the numbers, we were in a good spot, with a fortified wall and even some bombards and guns. And no one thought much of the King’s troops. They were northerners, see? Rather steal a candlestick from a nun than go toe to toe with a man.