Tradescant went slowly up the gangplank, to his cabin. Someone had stolen his walking boots and his warm cape on the voyage when he had been too seldom there. He would have to replace them in Portsmouth, where such things were overpriced. He pulled out his pack and started to put his things together. The movement of the ship, rocking at anchor in the harbour, felt half-dead to John after the five-month expedition on rolling seas. The crew had melted away as soon as the officers had gone, there was no sound but the creaking of hard-worked timbers. His cabin showed his neglect of it. These last few days he had spent all his time with Buckingham, and his pallet bed was damp. Even his plants had been forgotten, the earth in the little pots was dry. John fetched a jug of water and dribbled it in, feeling that he must have lost his senses completely that he should have carried his plants through so much and then forgotten to water them for the last three days of the voyage.

He thought that this was how a woman must feel when she has given her love and given her trust and found that her lover was light-hearted and fickle and negligent all along. She feels as if he has taken something precious, a rare seedling, and let it fall. She feels injured – Tradescant felt pain like a wound – but she also feels a fool. Tradescant felt humbled lower than ever in his life before. Being an apprentice gardener was a low station in life but you could be proud of your work and see where it might take you. But being a nobleman’s lover was the work of a fool. Buckingham had used him, had taken him for consolation, to keep his fears at bay, to support his courage and confidence. Now he had his mother and Kate and the king and the court and all his wealth and joy. And all Tradescant had was a new gillyflower, wilting, a large wormwood plant in dry soil, a pain in his backside which was abuse, and a pain in his belly which was grief.

Grimly he picked up his pack, ducked his head to avoid the low beam of his cabin doorway, and climbed the companionway to the waist of the ship. He trudged down the gangplank. No-one was on board to bid him goodbye, no-one was on the quayside waiting to greet him. The white-faced widow started up as she heard a footstep on the gangplank, but then dropped back. Tradescant went past her without a word of comfort. He had no comfort to give. He turned his face away from the sea and trudged, uncomfortable in his shoes on the cobbles, towards the city.

A man fell in beside him. ‘Did you speak to him about my promotion?’

It was Felton again. ‘I am sorry,’ said John. ‘I forgot.’