J took ship in the Brave Heart, sailing out of Greenwich, and John came down to the quay to see him off. They ate a last meal together in the Three Choughs while J’s bags were taken on board the ship bobbing at the quayside below the window.

‘Make sure you carry enough water to keep any plants in the earth damp all the way home,’ John reminded him. ‘At sea in a storm, even the rain is salty.’

J smiled. ‘I’ve unpacked enough dying plants to know how to care for them.’

‘Get seeds if you can. They travel much better than young plants. Seeds and roots are the best. Make sure you crate them up so they stay dark and dry.’

J nodded and gave his father a glance which warned him that there was nothing more that he could teach his son.

‘I want it to go well for you,’ John explained. ‘And there are treasures to be gathered there, I know it.’

J looked out of the little window at the ship at the quayside. ‘All my childhood I seemed to be watching you sail, it’s odd that it’s my turn now.’

‘It’s right that it is your turn now,’ John said generously. ‘I don’t even envy you. My back aches and my knees are stiff, my voyaging days are over. This winter was hard on me, cold weather, sorrow, ill-health and worry altogether. I shall limp from my fireside to my gardens until you return.’

‘Write me news of the children,’ J said. ‘That they keep their health.’

‘The plague must be less this year,’ John said. ‘It took so many last year. There must be better times coming. I shall keep the children away from the city.’

‘They still grieve for their mother.’

‘They will learn to feel it less,’ John predicted. ‘Frances is already caring for Baby John, and sometimes he forgets and calls her Mama.’

‘I know,’ J said. ‘I should be pleased that he has stopped crying for her; but I can’t bear to hear it.’

John drained his tankard and put it down on the table. ‘Come on. Let’s get you aboard, and you shall leave this country and your grief together.’

The two men went down the narrow stairs and out to the quayside. ‘That house is riddled with passages like a rabbit warren,’ John remarked. ‘When the pressgang comes in the front, there are men scattering out of houses up and down the street through a thousand doorways. I saw it when my duke was pressing men for the war against the French.’

J looked towards his ship. The tide was on the turn and she was pulling at the ropes as if testing their strength. He turned and his father took him awkwardly into his arms.

‘God bless you,’ John said gently.