They find the relieved garrison already gathered on the grass, waiting to take their cart. They are glad to get away from the place and it is soon clear why. The garrison captain meets them in the fort’s courtyard with a mazer of ale in his hand. He has a grey beard streaked with food and his clothes, likewise stained, stretch across his bulbous gut. He is drunk already.

‘Day to you,’ he says, addressing Richard. ‘You’re to be my lieutenant then, are you?’

Richard nods and introduces himself.

‘Well,’ the man says, ‘I am Gervaise Walden, Captain of Sangatte Fort, and so long as you keep yourselves tidy, and out of my way, you’ll hear no word of complaint from me.’

He drains his ale and leads them back through the gatehouse. The fort consists of a circular tower of limestone blocks surrounded by an outer wall, both topped by flint-capped battlements and a deal of bird shit. Within the tower are four rooms, the one above the other, each linked by a spiralling staircase canted so that anyone mounting them exposes their sword arm to those above. On the ground is a cistern for fresh water, a sewer that gives out on to the dunes below and, under one smoke-blackened patch of rough-built wall, a pile of spindly firewood and damp coal.

‘We had a woman,’ Walden says. ‘But she went.’ He lets out a ringing burp and leaves them, saying, ‘If you need me I shall be in Newnham.’

The men stare around.

‘Homely,’ Dafydd says.

‘Like Wales, you mean?’ Walter laughs.

They climb the steps to the battlements. Seagulls wheel overhead and the wind is strong. On some days, when the weather clears, they’ll be able to make out the low profile of England herself, but for now it is not easy to tell where the sea ends and the cloud begins. Down below, in a trough between the sedge-topped dunes, someone has built an archery butt and broken arrows and fletches litter the sand.

By the time they descend Geoffrey has got the fire going and has set about making dinner. They begin unloading the wagon, carrying the tent canvas up to spread across the top floors to dry, and then after dinner the men troop down to the butts, leaving Katherine to keep watch from the battlements.

‘Keep a good watch that way,’ Richard instructs, pointing over the Pale towards a distant castle. ‘That is Guisnes. The Duke of Somerset’s taken it, and would love nothing better than to take this one too. If you see anything, anything at all, ring that bell.’