“The king’s carver,” James said to her, respectfully. “Can I assist you, Cook?”

She turned in relief. “Lord, I don’t even know what he’s had yet. Have you not taken the joint up to him?”

“I am here for it now,” James said smoothly.

“Take it! Take it!” she exclaimed, gesturing to a leg of lamb that stood on the table being dressed clumsily by a kitchen server with bunches of watercress.

“This is for the lords!” the server exclaimed.

“Take it!” She thrust it at James. “And tell me if anything is missing from his table.”

James bowed and went through the door, past the guard at the foot of the stairs, and up to the door of the king’s rooms. The porters at the royal door hesitated, but James held the dish high and said, “Quick! Before it gets cold!” and walked unhesitatingly towards the closed door, so the porters threw it open for him.

They closed it behind him, and James, never hesitating for a moment, walked into the king’s dining room and put the dish on the table before him.

The servant behind his chair, the page holding his gloves, the server with the wine, his fellow with the water did not look twice at James as he took up the long sharp knife and carved paper-thin slices of lamb and fanned them out on the Hopkinses’ best silver plate. He bowed and put the plate before the king, leaning over his shoulder. With his face so close to his ear that he could feel the tickle of gray ringlets and smell the French pomade, he whispered: “Midnight, tonight. Open your door.”

The king did not turn his head and gave no sign of hearing.

“Clarion.” James said the password that he had been given from France, the password that said that the plot came from the queen, Henrietta Maria herself.

The king lowered his head as if he was saying grace, and his hand, hidden beneath the table, made a small gesture of assent. James walked backwards to the door, bowed his head to his knees, and withdrew.

Back at the Old Bull inn, the boys were eating sugared plums and cracking nuts, and jumped up as he came in.

“Is there a fair?” Rob asked. “It’s so noisy.”

“There’s a market and some strolling players,” James said. “We can go and see what’s going on.” He found that he was grinning broadly, almost laughing in his relief that the first stage, getting access to the king, had been so easy. He had been planning this and working with great men to consider every step, yet in the end he had simply walked towards a door and the porter had opened it for him. He almost did not care that he had no ship. If the luck was running his way, it would run all the way to the high seas and the rendezvous with the prince’s fleet.

“Does the king come out again tonight?” Walter asked.

“No, he only waves from his window before his dinner and then they close the shutters for the night. But we might see him tomorrow. I think he walks out in the morning,” James said, knowing that the king would be on the prince’s ship at dawn. “He goes to church.”

“Is he free to go anywhere?” Walter asked.

“When parliament decided to make an agreement with him, they had to release him so that he could sign the documents as a free man. Now he can go anywhere that he likes on the island; but he has given his word not to leave.”

“Is there a dancing bear?” Rob demanded. “I’ve never seen a bear.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” James replied. “This is a godly town, or at least it used to be. But we can stroll round the market, and you can buy a fairing for your mother. Perhaps some ribbons for her hair.” He found that his throat was suddenly dry at the thought of her fair hair.

“No, she always wears a cap,” Rob replied. “But if there are some little tokens for sale, I’d get them. She likes old coins, little tokens. Come on.”

The two boys walked through the market, looking at the stalls and laughing at the tricks of a small dog who was trained to jump through a hoop and would stand on his hind legs at the command of “Ironsides!” The stalls went down the narrow streets towards the harbor where the River Medina wound through the town, and the boats bobbed at the quayside. James was looking out for ships that had newly arrived, or might be ready to set sail, when Rob suddenly exclaimed: “Da! My da!”

James wheeled round and saw a brown-faced, dark-haired man jerk up his head at a familiar voice. He caught a glimpse of the strange face, looking astounded. Then the man turned and plunged away into the crowd.

“That was my da! That was my da!” Rob shouted. “Da! It’s me! Rob! Wait for me!” He took to his heels, darting forward, worming his way through the crowds, and though the man’s dark head bobbed ahead of him, Rob was quicker. When James and Walter caught up with him, he had laid hold of the man and pitched himself into his arms. “It’s me!” he announced, joyously certain of his welcome. “It’s me! It’s me, Da! Rob.”

The man’s guilty eyes met James’s gaze over his son’s head. “Rob,” he said, patting the boy’s back. “Oh, Rob.”

Rob was fawning like a puppy. “Where’ve you been?” he said. “We didn’t know! We’ve been waiting and waiting! We thought you were drowned!”

James saw that the stranger was looking at him with a sort of desperation, as one man to another, in this terrible failure of fatherhood.

“They thought you had been pressed into the navy,” James prompted.

“Ah! I was. That I was!” the man said, suddenly glib. He hugged his son and then stepped back to see his face. “I didn’t recognize you, you’ve grown so tall. And dressed so fine! I can see you’ve done well enough without me!”

“We haven’t! Where’ve you been?” Rob insisted.

“It’s a long story,” the man said. “And I’ll tell you all of it some day.”

“Why didn’t you come home?”

“Why didn’t I come home? Why, I couldn’t come home, that’s why!”

“But why not?”

“Because I was pressed, Son. Snatched up by the navy press gang off my boat and taken to serve in the navy for the parliament. Served as a common seaman and then rose through the ranks since I knew the seas around Sealsea Island and all the way to the Downs.”

“But why didn’t you send a message to Ma?”

“Bless you, they don’t let you go ashore! They don’t give you high days and holy days off! I was on my ship and spoke to no one but the other poor curs who were pressed alongside me.”

James watched Alinor’s son, raised to love and trust, struggle to believe his father. “You couldn’t even get a message to us? Because we waited and waited for you to come, and Ma still doesn’t know if you’re alive or dead. I’ll have to tell her when I get home. She’ll hardly believe me! She’s been waiting. We’ve all been waiting for you to come home!”

“Oh, she knows.” He nodded rapidly. “It’s better for her to act as if she doesn’t. But you know your ma, Son. A woman like that—she knows in her bones. She knows in her waters. She doesn’t need a message to tell her what’s what. The wind and the waves tell her. The moon whispers to her. The birds in her hedge are her familiars. God knows what she knows and what she doesn’t know, but you needn’t worry about her, ever.”