John found that he was smiling at the thought of J’s baby.

‘And are you well, Father? We heard the news at New Hall. Were you with the duke?’

John nodded. ‘I am well,’ he said shortly.

‘Did you see him?’ J asked, curiosity overcoming him. ‘Were you there when he died?’

John nodded. He thought he would remember for ever that timeless long moment when he could have cried out a warning; but instead he gave the word for the blow. ‘I was there.’

‘Was it very dreadful?’

John thought of the beauty of the duke, of the smooth slow arc of the knife, of the exclamation of surprise, of the duke’s one word, ‘villain’, and then his sinking down, his limp weight in Tradescant’s arms.

‘No,’ he said simply. ‘He fell in all his beauty and his pride.’

J was silent for a moment, comparing his father’s loss with the country’s joy. ‘I’ll never work for a master again,’ he vowed.

John looked down at him from the box, and J suddenly had a sense that there was more to the death of Buckingham than he would ever know, that there was more between the two men, master and vassal, than had ever been clear.

‘Nor will I,’ said John.

J nodded and swung up on to the box seat beside his father. ‘There’s another cart stored at the Hurtes’,’ he said. ‘Goods from India and from the west coast of Africa, sent for my lord Buckingham. He won’t want them now.’

John nodded and said nothing as J steered the cart carefully through the swarm of pedestrians, barrow boys, sellers, loiterers, idling militia men, to the Hurtes’ door. At the rear of the house was a small yard for unloading and a couple of stables. The cart, loaded with treasures for Buckingham, was standing on the cobbles with a lad beside it to keep watch. J drew up alongside and helped his father down. John had to lean heavily on him when his feet touched the cobbles.

‘I’m stiff from sitting too long,’ John said defensively.

‘Oh, aye,’ J said sceptically. ‘But how ever would you have managed a long sea voyage and then sleeping on the ground with winter coming? It would have been the death of you! It’s a blessing you didn’t go.’

John closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I know it,’ he said shortly.

J led the way through the storeroom at the back of the shop and up the stairs to the living quarters. As they came into the parlour Elizabeth started forward and flung herself into her husband’s arms. ‘Praise God you are safe,’ she cried, her voice choked with tears. ‘I never thought to see you again, John.’