“Barena?”

“As you say, land that is land for half the day and water for the other half.”

“And he’s not free to walk or boat anymore. He’s kept on this tiny island?”

“He’ll never leave it,” Felipe said quietly. “As the doctor, he will live in a small house inside the walled area, not in a cell like ordinary crew; but he will be guarded like a prisoner. He will have a small garden inside the walls perhaps, for his herbs. But a wall runs all around the warehouse, and there is only one entrance—a great bolted gate that faces the lagoon, towards Venice, with a quay where the ships are unloaded. The gate is locked at night, and even during the day unless there is a ship at the quay for unloading. There are guards with swords and pikes who watch, night and day, that no one escapes. In the west and southeast corner of the compound is a stone-built store for black gunpowder, which the Arsenale keep here for safety. It is a fort, as well as a prison.”

“How big is the island?” Sarah said, nibbling on the pastry and drinking her hot chocolate, looking at the stipple of land and sandbanks in the blue of the map.

“Hardly bigger than the outside walls,” he said. “You can walk around the perimeter in half an hour, though it’s all mud and drainage ditches.”

“They never let him out?”

Felipe shook his head. “Besides, where would he go? This is an island. And no ship would pick up anyone from a lazaretto—it would be like signing your own death warrant, you would not know what illness they carried. Everyone on the island is only there because they are suspected of breeding a fatal illness. Who would pick them up until their cargo has been sweetened and they have survived forty days?” He hesitated. “Darl… Miss Jolie, we don’t know that he is not sick already. He has been there for weeks, for months, nursing people with blood vomit, or cholera, or scarlatina, or plague. He might already be sick. You have to prepare yourself: he is probably dead.”

She shook her head with silent conviction.

“Ah, you think you are like the old grandma—that you would know by magic?”

“We never speak of magic,” she said quickly. “But my grandma would have said prayers for her son’s soul if she had felt his death in her heart.”

His dark eyes were filled with sympathy. “Cara, perhaps you should tell her to pray.”

“Could we write to him? And see if he’s still alive?”

“Yes, we could write to him. But anything you write would be read by the governor of the lazaretto. They would probably not allow him to reply—and any reply would be passed through smoke or dipped in vinegar to clean it before it could come to you. It would take days, weeks. If he’s alive at all.”

“But we could get him a message?”

He shrugged. “If you wish it. But what is there to say to a man condemned to death, and waking each day knowing death is coming? What is there to tell him? He’ll know by now that his wife denounced him and left Venice.”

“He doesn’t know she went to London and is stealing from my mother!” Sarah said sharply.

He looked at her with compassion. “Why torture him?” he asked. “He can do nothing to help his sister or punish his wife.”

She turned to the window and looked down at the busy canal below. He saw her shoulders slump in defeat. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re right. It would be to torture him. I won’t tell him that. I will write only to say that we have not forgotten him, and that his mother loves him, that we all miss him. That’s all she asked me to do—to see that he was not dead. I can go home and tell her that at least.”

“Nobody could ask for more,” he assured her. “Nobody could do more. And you are right not to fight against a certainty. Just write to say good-bye.”

She nodded, her face grave. “If I write a farewell, can you promise me that you will get it to him?”

“I can try,” he said. “Don’t write anything that would incriminate me. And remember that it has to be left open—anyone can read it, everyone will read it.”

He turned to the sideboard, pushed the map aside, and gave her a quill and a bottle of ink.

DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

Sir James sent Livia home to the warehouse escorted by Glib. Silently, the two of them took a skiff to the Horsleydown Stairs, and sulkily he walked her to the warehouse door.

“When does she leave?” she demanded.

“Who?” he asked, pretending to ignorance.

“The old crone. The aunt.”

He shook his head. “She stays in the house till we all go north.”

“He listens to her? She advises him?”

He hesitated.

“Servants know everything,” Livia said to him sharply. “Don’t dream of lying to me now.”

“He listens to her,” he agreed. “And Lord! She’s a tyrant! We all jump to her bidding.”

“Tell them that they will have an easier mistress with me,” Livia said rapidly, pressing a silver sixpence into his palm. “Tell them that it would be better for us all if she went to her Dower House now—and left him alone in London. Promise them that I will be a new mistress, generous with leftovers for those in the kitchen, and with my old clothes to the maids. Everyone will be bettered when I come to Northside Manor and Avery House. You, especially.”

“I’ll try,” he said, unconvinced. “But she’s well liked in Yorkshire.”

“Pffft!” Livia waved away the objection. “She is nobody. I am the new mistress of Northside Manor. Tell them they had better think about me and pleasing me!”

“And when’s the wedding?” Glib asked as they parted at the warehouse door.

She looked sharply at him as if she suspected him of insolence, as if she feared that the servants knew all about this too. “Before Lent,” she swore. “And you remember that!”

DECEMBER 1670, VENICE

Dear Uncle Robert,

I am your niece, Sarah Stoney, come toVenice on the ship Sweet Hope with a message from your mother. She sends her blessing—she says you always found your own way widdershins on the ebb at the full.

This is a letter to say farewell, but your ma, my grandma, knows best and she is certain we will meet on a celestial shore.

Sarah

She handed the letter to Felipe.

“These English words!” he said. “How can you even write them?”

“My grandma is a countrywoman,” Sarah said carelessly. “I thought Rob would like to hear her, as she speaks. Can you get it to him?”

“They have food and drink delivered every day,” he said. “I’ll take this to the Fondamente Nuove, and get one of the boats to take it.”

“And send this,” Sarah said. From her placket she drew out an old worn purse, which had once been red, but was now rusty brown.

“The porters will steal any money,” he warned. He hefted it in his hand. “Light,” he said at once, though he heard the coins chink.

“It’s not money. It’s valueless to anyone but my grandma,” Sarah said. “She used to collect little tokens and clippings of old coins. As soon as he sees them, he’ll know I am who I say. It’ll give him comfort.”