Berenger was deeply asleep when the sudden roar of the gonne woke him as well as the others in the vintaine.

‘What the f . . .’ he cried as he jerked awake, reaching for his sword.

Grandarse burst into their room, his eyes wild, a long dagger in his fist, hair all awry. ‘Did you hear that? Fripper, the bastards have attacked us! They must have the Devil himself on their side to make that racket! Did ye hear the—’

‘Grandarse, in Christ’s name be silent!’ Berenger halted the flow. ‘What did you actually see?’

‘See?’ Grandarse suddenly realised the kind of figure he must cut as he looked down at his bare bony legs and shirted breast. He stuck his chin out aggressively in case anyone wanted to laugh at him, but before he could make a comment, Jack ran in.

‘Frip, there are two boats trying to escape!’

Berenger raised a hand to stop him. ‘Do we have any idea who’s in them?’

‘No.’

‘That explosion: was it from the town?’

‘No, it was bloody Archibald again. He was firing at the boats, I reckon.’

‘Did he hit them?’

Jack gave him a withering look. ‘What do you think?’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘So the boats are getting away, Frip.’

‘Oh, God’s ballocks, I suppose we’ll have to try to catch them, then.’ Berenger grimaced and pulled on a cloak against the cold. ‘Jack, I want the whole vintaine – with grappling hooks and axes. No need for everyone to bring bows – just you, Clip, Oliver and Dogbreath. Georges, you too,’ he added. He watched the boy as he pulled on a jack. There was nothing in his behaviour to show that he was in any way a betrayer of the men. Berenger found Archibald’s words hard to believe. But the gynour was convinced – that much was clear.

They were soon at the waterside climbing into a large boat with a small sail and five oars each side. Berenger looked down at it with a feeling of revulsion. This was the sort of vessel that would buck and roll with every little slap of a wave against the hull, he thought, but it was the fastest craft big enough to hold his men. He climbed into it reluctantly, holding his sword against his side, and stood near the mast. The master cast off, with many muttered comments about ‘Fucking archers, think they rule the bleeding harbour . . .’ and were soon rowing steadily along the channel in pursuit of the two little ships.

Berenger could see the sails far away on the horizon, and felt certain that they would never catch them. Still, the master appeared convinced that with his little boat they could overhaul their quarry.

‘It’s a matter of the length of the craft, the size of the sail, and the width of the hull. With this little darling, I can catch about anything in half a morning,’ he said. He had sparse grey hair and the kind of thin skin that looked as if it would tear like parchment, but there was a confidence and solidity to him as he stood at the tiller that spoke of years of experience. ‘Look at ’em, eh? Someone in that one to port has had some experience, but the boat to starboard? He’s going to be in trouble soon.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ the mariner said, glancing up at his sail and nodding to himself as if pleased, ‘that boat is straying too close to the shore. The sands are very shallow here – and the tide’s on the turn.’

Berenger shrugged with confusion. ‘Which means?’

The shipman made a comment under his breath that sounded like ‘land monkeys’, and then pointed. ‘See the sand there? It shelves shallowly. That means the water under the boat is not deep. As the tide moves away, the water will leave him on the sands and he’ll be stuck until the tide comes in again.’

Berenger nodded. ‘So we can catch him. Good.’

‘No.’ The man closed his eyes with exasperation. ‘Is this boat smaller than that? No. It’s bigger. That means it goes down further in the water, which means that if that craft is beached, so will we be. Sooner. So we will leave that arse to his own devices and continue on this course.’

‘That other boat’s heading more out to sea,’ Berenger said warily, not wanting to display more ignorance.

‘Aye, he is. But he’s too small to want to stay out. And where’s he off to? London? He’s an enemy of ours, so he has to come back in to the coast at some point. And that means he’ll have to cut in towards us. So we’ll have him.’

Berenger nodded. As he did, he looked at the boat that was in danger of being caught on the sands. Surely it was a decoy? he thought. The little craft was deliberately heading towards the sands because the sailor wanted to tempt Berenger’s craft after it, and see it beached, while the other boat escaped.

But as he gazed at it, he saw that the vessel was changing direction. Now, rather than remaining over the shallow sands where it would be trapped, it was moving out towards the main channel again.

‘Hold!’ he said. There was something familiar about the figure in the boat. ‘Jack, the man in the boat there – do you recognise him?’

‘He looks like the Genoese.’

‘Chrestien de Grimault,’ Berenger murmured. Then, ‘Master, we will go after this little boat. I had thought that the other ship was more important, but now I think our Genoese friend is the more likely to be our correct target.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Hold to this course, and we shall have every opportunity to catch both, will we not?’ Jack said.

‘Aye.’

They continued on. For once, none of the archers threw up, even though the boat was rolling and diving quite alarmingly as the tide pulled away. The ship kept as close to the shore as the master deemed safe, and all the way they kept their eyes on the vessel with Chrestien de Grimault on board.

‘Frip! Look out there!’ Clip said.

The other little boat was coming closer and closer now, and for a wild moment Berenger thought it would come and ram their craft, but at the last second it turned, a little more than a bowshot away.

‘He’s trying to tempt you out after him,’ the master grunted.

‘I think so,’ Berenger agreed. ‘Are there sandbanks out there?’

‘Not that I can see. Doesn’t mean anything, though. There could be, but the water is not breaking on an obvious one.’

They were approaching the Genoese’s vessel now; his little boat had no escape route available. At last, Berenger saw Chrestien de Grimault stand and hurl something into the sea. ‘Mark that, Jack!’ he called. ‘It’s something valuable, I’ll wager!’

‘And how do I mark it, Frip?’ Jack lifted his hands with bemusement. ‘You want me to go and paint the sea? Stick an arrow in it?’

‘No, but remember the shore, and take a line from a building or trees. Master shipman, would you be able to mark that spot?’

‘Aye, but what of it?’

‘You said that the tide was on the way out, didn’t you? In a couple of hours, we should be able to find what he threw in.’

They were only half a bowshot from the little boat when Berenger called to the Genoese to surrender. ‘There is no point in dispute, my friend,’ he said. ‘You know you cannot escape, and to fight would be futile, so agree to submit and I’ll hold to your oath to us. You will be safe, I swear.’

Chrestien de Grimault sat in the stern with two French shipmen who looked petrified to be confronted by the English. Only Clip had an arrow nocked, but he held his bow in the nonchalant way that told better than words that his shaft could leave his weapon and strike down a man in one second flat.

Chrestien de Grimault stood and bowed, holding Berenger’s gaze. ‘It would seem that you have the better of this encounter.’

‘Come aboard and we shall discuss matters more easily.’

‘Of course.’

It took little time to bring the two boats together, and while willing hands held the captured vessel, the three prisoners climbed aboard easily, as only men used to the sea could, while a shipman of the English crew took the painter and lashed the other boat to their own.

Chrestien de Grimault stood with an expression of sardonic enquiry. ‘I suppose I shall be bound and beaten now?’

‘Master, you treated us well when you had us at your mercy,’ Berenger said. ‘I will not see you abused. These two, are they soldiers?’

‘These?’ Chrestien gave them a short glance. ‘No, they are merely seamen who were told to take me away from the town.’

‘Where were they taking you?’ Berenger asked.

The Genoese shrugged. ‘You could torture them and find out, so there is no point in my maintaining secrecy. I was to travel as swiftly as possible to Hesdin, where the King of France is gathering an army, so I understand, to break this siege. He has the greatest army ever collected together in one place.’

‘And what were you to say to him?’

Chrestien gave another low bow. ‘I apologise. It was all in a note, and when I saw that my honour was in danger, and that you must capture me, I committed the message to the deep. It will rest there until the end of time.’

He smiled charmingly.

Berenger smiled in return. ‘That is good. So the message is lost, you think? It will never be brought again to the view of men?’

‘Perhaps a whale could eat it and spit it out on the shore,’ Chrestien chuckled.

‘Or a whale could drink the water from the sea and expose the beach beneath the waves?’ Berenger hazarded. ‘Or, the tide could flow out . . .’

Chrestien’s face suddenly fell.

In the end it took them three hours, while the tide withdrew and the level of the water reduced. Their boat was far too large to stay inshore, and so Berenger sent Jack and a shipman in the captured boat to go and find the item hurled in the water. One of the Frenchmen happily admitted to seeing the Genoese throwing a small hatchet into the waters, and wondered what could have prompted him to do such a strange thing. Chrestien looked daggers at this admission, but said nothing.

Berenger left the crew staring out and watching Jack as the latter searched, floundering about in the shallow water.

‘Georges, come here,’ Berenger said.

‘Yes, Vintener?’

Berenger walked to the stern and sat so that he was at eye-level with Georges’s eyes. ‘I know about the clerk,’ he said. ‘He has been telling you to spy on us. Is that not true?’

The boy’s head turned this way and that, with panic marking every line. It hurt Berenger to see his terror; it was like watching his own son being bound in a noose.

‘Boy! Look at me.’

‘My mother would die if you put me to the law!’

‘Georges, listen. I will not hurt you or your mother,’ Berenger said softly. ‘Your mother has shown me kindness from the first moment I met her. I will not repay her by arresting her son.’

‘You won’t?’

‘No. But you have to tell me all you know about this Vidame and what he seeks.’

‘I know nothing. He asked me to take messages to him, that is all.’

‘Messages from whom?’

‘Someone in the vintaine. I don’t know who.’

Berenger felt his mouth drop open. ‘In my vintaine? Let me get this straight: so a man has been giving you information for the Vidame?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of information?’

‘Mostly about the army, where we are going, what you are to do.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

‘No! I know nothing else.’

‘How did you receive information to give to the Vidame?’

‘It was written on a little shred of parchment and pushed into a knot hole on the cart. I pulled it out and took it with me.’

‘I see. And you have no idea who put the parchment there?’

‘No, sir.’

Berenger nodded. He could guess, though. ‘I think your messages are over now. The man who was sending them also tried to kill me. Mark Tyler is dead, and with him dies our spy. Do not worry.’

‘No, sir.’

As he spoke, Jack finally gave a cry of delight and lifted aloft a hatchet with an oilskin packet bound about it with thongs, Chrestien said nothing, but gave a slight frown and turned his back on Jack.

‘You have done well to tell me this,’ Berenger told Georges.

‘But what if I find another note?’

‘Well, if that happens, you would have to bring it to me. Understand?’

‘Yes.’ Then: ‘Fripper, I’m so s—’

Berenger cut him off with a curt wave of his hand and walked to the prow. He had little doubt of Tyler’s guilt. He could still remember the sight of the man’s grin as he looked up from his fall from the castle wall. Tyler had spied, then tried to kill Berenger before getting himself slain. It was all very neat, he thought, and a huge relief to think that the spy was dead.

‘Well, what is it?’ he called as Jack clambered back aboard the ship.

‘A letter,’ Jack said with glee.

‘You will not be able to read it,’ Chrestien said immediately. The water will have ruined it.’

But he was wrong. The letter was all too clear.