Between them the men managed to open the door and we led the horses inside. There was an enclosed candle lantern hanging just inside the door, and another at the far end of the stables. A narrow passageway led towards it, with stalls on either side. There would be no open candles or sconces in a stable, where the slightest spark could set all that straw and hay alight in a moment.

‘There’s two empty stalls along here,’ the trooper said. The second man had disappeared. He pulled open the half doors to two adjacent stalls. ‘There’s hay in the mangers. I’ll fetch you a couple of buckets of water.’

‘Thank you,’ Berden said.

‘Have you any bran mash?’ I asked. ‘We have ridden hard, all the way from Maidstone. Our horses need something more than hay.’

‘I’ll ask the head groom,’ he said, and went back the way we had come.

I unbuckled my saddlebags and laid them in the passageway outside the stall, then lifted off Hector’s saddle and set it on a rack beside the door. When I removed his bridle he shook his head and blew out a gusty breath of relief. It had been a hard day for him. Some life was coming back into my frozen fingers as I rubbed him down with a fistful of straw, while he inspected the hay, which was fresh and plentiful, though I hoped the trooper would find him something more sustaining. By the time I had rubbed Hector’s coat dry of melting snow and checked his hooves for lumps of ice as best I could in the dim light, the trooper was back with the water. Hector had had long enough now since his wild run and had eaten something, so I let him drink, though I moved the bucket away before he had too much.

‘The groom is making up some bran mash,’ the trooper said. ‘He’ll bring it over. I need to get back to my duties.’

‘We’re grateful to you,’ I said.

Berden looked over the partition between the stalls.

‘We need to report to your commander,’ he said, ‘once we’ve seen to the horses. And we’d be glad of a meal. It was a bitterly cold ride.’

‘Aye, come over to the keep when you’re done. Anyone can show you to the commander’s room. We eat in about an hour. You’ll hear the bell. Just follow everyone else.’

With that he was gone, but I could see the groom approaching with two more buckets. He handed them to us, gave us a smile and a nod, but said nothing before he vanished into the shadows again. Hector plunged his muzzle gratefully into the bucket while I opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out the horse blanket folded on top of my knapsack. By the time I had it buckled in place, Hector had finished the mash and was nosing about hopefully in the empty bucket, until it fell over with a clatter. There was still some hay left in the manger and I put the water bucket where he could reach it. With the blanket on, he should be warm enough, for nearly every stall was occupied and the horses generated their own warmth.

‘Ready?’ said Berden, looking in the door of my stall.

‘Aye, I’m ready.’ I picked up the empty bucket that had contained the mash in one hand and closed and latched the door to the stall with the other. I gathered up the saddlebags by their central strap and followed Berden back to the door of the stables.

‘Might as well leave the empty buckets here,’ he said.

‘Aye.’ I put mine down and together we heaved the door open. It was a struggle to bolt it, but we succeeded at last. The wind had grown even fiercer, so we lowered our heads and staggered through it to the keep. Now that I was no longer occupied with Hector, I was conscious that my cloak was sodden and the wet had soaked through the shoulders of my doublet and shirt to my very skin. My feet, no longer numb, throbbed with pain. All I wanted was dry clothes and warmth, but first we must report to the commander of the garrison here at Dover Castle.

We found the commander’s quarters without difficulty and a shouted ‘Enter’ summoned us to his presence. We went in, leaving our baggage just inside the door. The room was luxuriously furnished with thick rugs on the floor and what looked like expensive tapestries on the walls, more suited to a gentleman’s country house than a military barracks. A great fire of logs blazed in the fireplace and almost at once Berden and I began to steam like a pair of cookpots coming to the boil. I tried to edge sideways nearer to the fire, but a fierce look from the man behind the desk stopped me where I stood. We were not invited to sit.

Sir Anthony Torrington was probably in his early sixties, a man sleek with good living, an assumption borne out by the choleric shade of his countenance. His beard and hair were quite white, so he might have been older. Their pure snowy colour contrasted strikingly with the red of his skin and the fine purple veins that were beginning to break through on his nose. With no other evidence to support the idea, I was convinced that this was not a man experienced in the rigours of the battlefield.

‘Well?’ he said, looking at us as if we were some disagreeable object he had neither time nor inclination to deal with.

I left it to Berden to reply, glad to retire behind my position as the junior here.

‘Sir Anthony,’ said Berden, bowing politely and summoning, despite his evident exhaustion, a small smile. ‘My companion and I are travelling from Sir Francis Walsingham, carrying despatches to my lord Leicester in the Low Countries.’

He leaned over the desk and laid our passes in front of the commander.

‘As you will see, we are granted quarter in all English military posts. We are also required to commandeer a ship to take us across the Channel at the earliest opportunity.’

The captain cast a cursory glance at the papers and pushed them back towards Berden.

‘I daresay we can accommodate you for a brief period, but we are on high alert here and the garrison is at full strength. I will not have any of my men put to inconvenience.’

‘It is my hope,’ said Berden, ‘that we need trouble you for one night only. We would like to take ship tomorrow.’

A grunt from the commander. ‘You will need to speak to the naval commander about that, though I doubt whether any of his ships’ captains will be willing to make the crossing in the present storm.’

‘Thank you, sir. Let us hope it will have blown itself out by then.’

‘Very well.’ He waved his hand as though he were brushing away a troublesome fly, and we were dismissed, collecting our baggage and closing the door quietly behind us. I raised my eyebrows at Berden and he threw up his eyes expressively to the ceiling, but neither of us said anything.

We walked back the way we had come, to the central hall, leaving a double trail of wet footprints and drips along the stone floor. There was a fireplace here and I made for it like a bee to nectar. Berden joined me. We were both hoping that the bell to summon us to eat would ring soon.

As we stood toasting ourselves, two troopers crossed the hall and I recognised one of them.

‘Andrew!’ I called.

He stopped in his tracks, spun on his heel and came over to us, his companion following.

‘Kit? What are you doing here? And looking like something fished out of the sea?’

He took my outstretched hand and shook it warmly.

‘I wondered whether we might see you here,’ I said. ‘This is Nicholas Berden.’

The two men bowed and Andrew introduced the other trooper as Paul Standish.

‘We are on our way to the Low Countries,’ I explained, ‘carrying despatches.’

He shook his head. ‘You turn up everywhere, Kit. I never know where I will meet you, like the sprite in the fairy story. But why are you so wet? Have you been out in this storm? Why have you not been found quarters?

Berden shrugged. ‘We saw to our horses, then reported to your commander. We were just wondering where to go.’

‘Ah, the horses.’ Andrew grinned at me. ‘Hector, is it? I think you would care for that horse first if you were dying on your feet.’