‘I am sure I am aware of it!’

‘You are jealous of him!’ Tradescant exclaimed. ‘You think I am too devoted! You think that he treats me like a servant and takes me and uses me when he needs me and then sends me back to the garden when he has had his fill of my service!’

Elizabeth straightened up and one cheek was flushed on the side near the fire, but the other was pale and cold. ‘I did not say any of that,’ she pointed out. ‘Nor, as it happens, do I think it.’

‘You think he involves me in his plotting and his darker deeds,’ Tradescant persisted. ‘I know you suspect him.’

She took up the hook and drew the hanging chain away from the flames of the fire, unhooked the pot, and placed it carefully on the stone of the hearth. She worked with an absorbed quietness as if she would not let him disturb her tranquillity.

‘You do!’ Tradescant insisted. ‘You suspect him and you suspect me with him!’

Still in silence she fetched three bowls and one trencher. She sliced her home-baked loaf into three equal pieces, bowing her head for a moment over the breaking of the bread. Then she took the long-handled spoon and served broth and meat into each bowl and carried them to the table.

‘I have seen things these days which he would trust to no other,’ John said urgently. ‘Things which I would tell no-one, not even you. I have seen things which, if he were a lesser man, would give me grave pause. I have seen things which he trusts only to me. He trusts me. He trusts no-one but me. And if – when he needs me no more – he sends me back to his garden, why, that is part of our understanding. I am at his side when he needs a man he can trust like no other. When he is in safe harbour, any man can serve him.’

Elizabeth put out three knives and three spoons on the table, and pulled up her little stool and bowed her head. Then she waited for him to sit.

John threw himself on to the stool, unwashed and without saying his grace, and moodily stirred his broth.

‘You are thinking that he is guilty,’ he said suddenly.

The face that she raised to him was completely serene and clear. ‘Husband, I am thinking nothing. I begged you once that we should leave this place, and when you would not, I took my sorrow to my God, in prayer. I have left it to Him. I am thinking nothing.’