“You want to pay a woman and a maid as much as two yard men?” Mrs. Miller demanded scathingly.

“No,” he said, “course not. But they should have . . . and the pretty maid is getting married . . .”

Alinor noted the fatal slip of calling Alys “pretty” to his slate-faced wife.

“Who pays them?” Mrs. Miller suddenly demanded of him, going close and taking him by his linen collar as if she would choke him.

“Why, you do?”

“And who watches them, and keeps them right and clears up after their mistakes, and all the mess they make?”

Alinor let her gaze slip away from Mr. Miller’s crestfallen face to the creamy rosy sky over the harbor, glanced towards her son, Rob, waiting at the gate and wished herself home, with her children at the dinner table.

“You do,” Mr. Miller said sulkily.

“So, I think it’s best left to me and them, isn’t it? Without any man coming in and wanting extra payment for ‘pretty’?”

Mr. Miller had been defeated twenty years ago by the iron determination and chronic bad temper of his wife. “I was just saying—”

“Best not to say anything,” Mrs. Miller advised him smartly.

“Feeding the horse,” he said, as if to himself, and turned towards the stable.

“And we have to go,” Alinor said smoothly.

“Old fool that he is,” Mrs. Miller said.

“Good night, Mrs. Miller. We’ll see you tomorrow at church,” Alinor said.

“Good night, Mrs. Reekie,” she replied, recovering her temper now that she had won. “And God bless you tomorrow, Alys.”

Alinor and her two children walked down the track to the ferry crossing, where Rob ran ahead like a boy to ring the chime.

TIDELANDS, FEBRUARY 1649

The wedding was to be simple. Alys and Richard would be married before the usual Sunday morning congregation at St. Wilfrid’s Church, Alys in her best gown with her new white apron and new white linen cap. Richard would wear his best jacket, and Ned would lead the bride to the altar. The service would follow the new style as ordered by parliament: Richard would make brief promises, and Alys would assent to her own vows. After the wedding in St. Wilfrid’s, they would all cross the rife, take a goodwill drink at the tide mill, and then go on to Stoney Farm for the wedding feast. There would be good food, and healths drunk, and finally the young people would go to bed in the big bedroom under the thatched eaves.

Alys did not sleep until the crowing cock from the barn told her that the night was nearly over, and then she turned on her side, sighed with anticipation, and slept deeply.

The morning of her wedding day was freezing cold but clear, the ice on the harbor so white that the seagulls whirling above it were bright against the blue sky and then invisible against the blanched landscape. Alys, waking late and tumbling down the stairs to eat gruel at the kitchen table, swore that she would not wear her cape but would go into church in her gown and new apron and cap.

“You’ll freeze,” said her mother. “You have to wear your cape, Alys.”

“Let her freeze,” Ned advised. “It’s her wedding day.”

Alinor granted the one liberty that Alys had set her heart on. “Oh, very well. But this is what comes of a winter wedding. And no flowers to be had but a posy of dried herbs!”

“As long as I can wear my new pinny,” Alys stipulated.

“Oh, wear it!” Alinor said. “But you’ll put your cape on when you’re going home in the wagon to Stoney Farm.”

“I will! I will!”

Rob came down the stair from the loft, wearing his new work jacket and the Christmas shoes.

“And how fine d’you look, lad?” Ned asked, slapping him on the back. “This is a proud day for the Ferrymans.”

The children did not mention their father’s name, and Alinor, tightening her cape around her broadening waist, thought that if she had not needed a name for her baby she might never have heard the words Zachary Reekie again.

“All right, Ma?” Rob asked gently.

She smiled at him. “I’m fine.”

“She’s missing Alys before we’re rid of her,” Ned advised, but Rob’s brown eyes were fixed on his mother’s pale face.

“Are you really all right?”

Alinor held her breath. From childhood, Rob had been able to see beyond the surface of things, to illness and sorrow. She wondered if he could see her heartbreak, she wondered if he could sense her baby, his half brother.

She shook her head and smiled. “It’s as your uncle says,” she lied. “I’m seeing you and Alys out the house, both of you, in the same week and I feel like a broody hen with all her eggs stolen.”

“I’ll be working at the mill with you tomorrow,” Alys pointed out. “You’ll see me at first light. And Rob’ll be home at Lady Day.”

“I know, I know,” Alinor said. “And I couldn’t be happier for both of you. Come along now, Rob, and eat some breakfast. Alys, have you had anything?”

“I can’t,” she said at once. “I’ve no appetite.”

“Don’t you go fainting away at the altar for hunger,” Ned warned her.

“Take some small ale and a little bread,” Alinor urged her. “And I have eggs as well.”

Alys sat at the table as she was ordered, her uncle on one hand and her brother on another, and smiled up at her mother. “My last breakfast here,” she said. “My last breakfast as Alys Reekie.”

“Stop it,” Ned advised swiftly. “Or you’ll set your mother off again.”

Mr. Stoney, his wife, and son in their wagon rang the chime for the ferry just as the family was finishing breakfast, and Ned went out to bring them across the high water. Once they were on the island side Alinor rolled out the barrels of wedding ale for them, and the two men loaded them into the wagon. Alinor had two big wheels of cheese and two loaves of bread baked in the big oven at the mill.

“And are you ready?” Mr. Stoney asked Alys. “All your little things packed up?”

“I’m ready, I’m ready!” she said breathlessly.

Richard jumped down from the back of the wagon, his face pink with cold and shyness. He took her hands and kissed each one, and then he kissed her on the lips.

Mrs. Stoney climbed down from the seat at the front of the wagon and Alys curtseyed and kissed her mother-in-law, and as the adults greeted each other, she slid her hand in Richard Stoney’s warm grip.

“I’ll get her things,” Ned said to Alinor. “Are they all ready?”

Alinor and Ned went into the house and brought out a small pile of good linen, the best that Ferry-house had, and a knapsack of Alys’s personal goods. Mrs. Stoney’s eyes flickered over the little bag, but she said nothing. Richard gave Alinor his hand to help her into the back of the cart and lifted Alys in.

“We’ll walk over the mire,” Ned said for him and Rob. “See you at the church door!”

“Don’t delay!” Alys warned him. “Don’t get your shoes muddy—go round by the bank!”

“I shan’t be stolen by mermaids,” Rob teased her. “We’ll get there before you do!”