Alys flushed. “She is a perfectly good mother. She loves Matteo.”

“When she’s with him.”

“She brings in more money to this family than she costs! She’s repaid for the first shipping and storage and she’ll repay for the second when it arrives. And she’s going to buy the new warehouse with us?”

“A gift? Her gift to us?”

Alys bit her lip.

“And she will remain here with us, and not remarry?”

Alys turned to her mother. “Ma, she’s such good company for me. It’s such a pleasure for me to have her here, and little Matteo. It’s like we have a beautiful bird in the house. I want her to walk out freely and come back to us, without being questioned. I want her to make her home here with us. I love her as a sister, I don’t want her to think about remarrying and leaving. I don’t want her to think she has to pay rent, or provide for us. I want her to live off us, and live with us. I want her to stay forever. I am happy to provide for her.”

“My dear, d’you really think she won’t remarry?”

“You never did! I didn’t!”

Alinor nodded, her eyes on the flames. “I don’t think Livia is a woman like us,” was all she said.

DECEMBER 1670, VENICE

The Sweet Hope was to sail on the ebb tide of the evening, lit by a huge cold moon, which sat, bright as a gleaming globe, on the horizon, making the canal into glassy black and turning the brightly colored houses into shades of gray. The canal was busy with workers going home for the night, and with merrymakers starting to go out; all the gondolas carried bobbing lanterns on their prows and lights gleamed on the waters from the open water gates of the great houses.

Captain Shore, on the quayside before the Custom House, blazing with flambeaux, had a brusque nod for Felipe and a smile for Sarah as they waited to have their papers checked at the gangplank, but he did not speak to either of them until the officials had released them and they were ready to board.

“All well?” he asked shortly. “For we sail as soon as the pedotti says so, we’re taking on fresh stores at Sant’ Erasmo, and we can’t be delayed.”

“All well,” Felipe said. Sarah nodded.

“Stow your things,” the Captain commanded. To Sarah he said: “You can have your old cabin, my dear.” He turned to Felipe: “You’ll have to share with the first mate, unless you want to pay extra for a private cabin?”

Felipe bowed his head. “I’ll pay, Captain,” he said smoothly.

The Custom House official came with a sheaf of papers and seals. Captain Shore checked them meticulously, signed, and exchanged documents, paid his mooring fees and the duty on the goods he was shipping, and then stepped up the gangplank. Behind him followed the pedotti, who unsheathed his knife. He cut off the official seals from the wheel of the ship and nodded to the Captain that they were ready to leave. Captain Shore shouted the order to cast off for’ard, the gangplank was shipped aboard, the fore line was thrown, caught, and taken in. The current swung the ship so that it nosed out into the channel, as Sarah came out of her cabin to see the little barges fix their lines on the ship and draw her forward. The pedotti shouted for the stern line to be released and the barges guided the ship out into the main channel where the ebbing tide drew them smoothly down the Grand Canal, past palaces, the glimpse of St. Mark’s Square, past the Doge’s Palace: every window lighted bright, as justice never sleeps, and then out into the lagoon. They passed the island of Vignole on the port side, and saw ahead the flicker of the torches burning on the end of the pier of Sant’ Erasmo. As the pedotti shouted commands, the barges drew the galleon to the pier, and the farmers started carrying their baskets of produce towards the ship.

Felipe joined Sarah on deck as she stared out into the gathering darkness. “You are looking for your uncle’s prison?”

She nodded. “Is that it?” She pointed north over the flat farmland, dark against the dark water, to the rooftop of the great building, which gleamed in the moonlight like a huge granary, one story with a huge barn door, bigger even than the Venice Custom House, pale in the moonlight. “The place that looks like a castle?”

“That’s it,” he said. “But those are chimneys, not castellations. Every cell has its own fire and chimney so those who are quarantined don’t mess together. Your uncle Rob will have lived in the doctor’s house, under guard. The big doors open to a double warehouse for the goods.”

“Lived?” She picked him up on the word. “You believe he is dead?”

He spread his hands. “Cara mia, neither of us knows, and the people who know don’t care. If he is not dead now, he will be soon. Ahimè, alas, if not now then later. Say a prayer for him, say good-bye to him.”

The order came to run the gangplank on board, cast off, and raise the sails as the barges released the ship and she moved into the deep-water channel south of Sant’ Erasmo. One by one, the barges took in their lines, and peeled off back to Venice. Sarah waited till the barges had left, and then went to the companionway and called up for permission to come on the quarterdeck.

“Aye, you can come up,” Captain Shore said; he was standing behind the pedotti, who still had command of the ship. The Captain was looking skywards, at his unfurling sails stretching to take the light wind. The moonlight was so bright it was like a silvery dawn, with mist rolling along the dark water.

“Captain Shore,” Sarah said quietly.

“Aye?” he said with a little impatience. He shouted an order to one of the crew who was reefing the sail.

“I know you have a great regard for my mother.”

She had caught his attention. “Deepest respect,” he said, embarrassed. “Not that she knows it. Not that I have given her any hint.”

“I know you would be very glad to tell my mother that you brought me safely home, from the Doge’s Palace, safe home to her.”

“Aye,” he said more cautiously.

“So if you were to lose me, in some mishap, I ask you to wait for me.”

“Eh?”

Unexpectedly, she reached up and pecked him on his cheek. “Don’t fail me,” she said.

“What?” he demanded, but she slipped away from him into the waist of the ship and reappeared at Felipe’s elbow.

“I want you to raise the alarm, two men overboard,” she said to him urgently.

“Sarah?”

“I can’t explain. Just give me a moment and then shout, ‘Man overboard—two men!’ ”

He turned to her and saw that she was undoing the ties of her cape. He stared disbelieving, as she stripped it off and thrust it into his hands. She was wearing nothing underneath but her linen shift, which left her neck and shoulders bare; underneath she had a pair of boy’s breeches.

“Sarah?” he whispered. “What are…?”

Before he could say another word, his hands filled with her heavy traveling cape so he could not reach for her. She put two hands on the rail and vaulted, lithe as a boy, over the side of the ship, and he heard the splash down below, as she plunged into the icy water. “Sarah!” he shouted, and leaned out. He could see her head, dark as a seal in the moonlight, and then she disappeared.