“Good God, man!” Lawrence protested with a smile. “We’re not after buying your damned boat. We only want to charter it.”

“That’ll be each,” Stagg said.

The smile slid from Lawrence’s face.

Hawkwood shook his head. “Too rich for our blood. We’ll leave it. Best if we try elsewhere.”

“Good luck with that,” Stagg said. “There’s not another Whitehall boat’ll carry you.”

“How come?”

“No one moves cargo out of the basin without my say so, be it human or freight. ’Course, you could always hang around for a week and wait for the schooner to dock, but something tells me you’re after an earlier departure. Ain’t my place to enquire why that should be. Your reasons are your own.” The corner of Stagg’s mouth lifted again. “Which is why it’ll cost you fifty dollars … each.”

There was a long pause.

“Twenty-five,” Hawkwood said. “Each.”

Stagg shook his head in what appeared to be genuine amusement. “By God, I do like a man with a sense of humour, Mr Smith. I surely do. But, please – that’s perilously close to a personal insult.”

“Really?” Hawkwood said. “And there was I thinking it was more than generous. After all, it’s not as though we’d be your only cargo, is it? It’s not as though you’d be making a special run, right?”

Stagg stared at him.

“And as this is a private transaction, it’d be just between us and you. No other crew involved. That’s fifty dollars in your hand. Free and clear.”

Which is what we’ll be, he thought as he left the phrase hanging. If the bugger agrees.

There was another, longer silence.

“Seventy,” Stagg said eventually.

“Sixty,” Hawkwood countered, thinking: God save us. That’s more than three months’ salary for a Runner!

Stagg gazed into his drink as if turning things over in his mind. His fingers played against the side of the glass like a flautist covering the stops. Finally, he looked up and with a show of reluctance that didn’t fool anyone, he announced, “All right, Mr … Smith. Seeing as you did stand me a whiskey, you’ve just bought yourselves passage.”

“Excellent,” Hawkwood said. “When?”

Rising, Stagg drained his glass and set it down on the table. “Happens you’re in luck. We cast off at midnight. Harbour basin, end jetty. You got the name? She’s called Snake.”

“I remember,” Hawkwood confirmed. “We’ll be there.”

“Best not be late, else you will be waitin’ for the schooner.”

They watched him walk away.

“I’ll be damned,” Lawrence said, stunned by the speed of the final transaction. He turned to Hawkwood and raised his glass. “Looks as if we are on our way home.”

Hawkwood smiled. “What did I tell you, Major? First rule of commerce. Works every time.”

Thinking, Nathaniel, this is another one I owe you.