She turned a face to him which was hollowed by long hunger, and sightless with grief. ‘My husband … I am waiting for my husband. Will he come on another ship?’

‘What was his name?’

‘Thomas Blackson. He’s a ploughman, but they took him for a soldier. He’d never held a gun before.’

John remembered Thomas Blackson because the man had offered to keep his plants watered while John was on a mission for his master. He was a big man, as patient and hardworking as the oxen he had driven. John had last seen him before the citadel of St Martin. He had been ordered up a ladder to attack the defenders at the top of the wall. He had gone obediently up the ladder, which was five feet short of the top. The French had leaned over the wall and shot downwards at a ridiculously easy target: the big man at the top of the ladder, stalled, just five feet below them.

‘I am sorry, mistress, he is dead.’

Her white face went whiter still. ‘He can’t be,’ she said. ‘I am expecting his baby. I promised him a son.’

‘I am sorry,’ John repeated.

‘Perhaps he will come on another ship.’

John shook his head. ‘No.’

‘He would not leave me,’ she said, trying to persuade him. ‘He would never leave me. He would not have gone in the first place but they pressed him and took him against his will. They promised me that the duke was sailing with them, and that the duke would care for his men.’

John felt a deep weariness spread through him. ‘I saw him fall,’ he said. ‘He died a hero. But he died, mistress.’

She moved away from him as if his news made him distasteful, as if she would refuse to listen to such a liar. ‘I shall wait,’ she said. ‘He’ll come in on another ship. He won’t fail me. Not my Thomas. He was never late for a single meeting, not through our courtship. He’s never even late home for his dinner. He won’t fail me now.’

John glanced back. The court party were getting into their coaches. There was a breakfast laid at Captain Mason’s house and fine wines and food waiting. Someone hurled an empty bottle into the sea. John turned from the woman and hurried to Buckingham’s side as he stepped into his coach.

‘My lord?’

‘Oh! John.’

‘Where is Captain Mason’s house?’

Kate laid hold of her husband’s coat and pulled him into the coach.

‘Up from the cathedral,’ Buckingham said. ‘But you needn’t come, Tradescant. You can go home.’

‘I thought I would be with you …’

Buckingham smiled his merry smile. ‘See how well I am greeted!’ He dropped into his seat, his arm around his wife. ‘I don’t need your service, John. You can go home to New Hall.’