The variety of goods transported across the border here was as diverse as the shipments of contraband that slipped undetected across the Channel, albeit slightly less exotic. In addition to cattle, leather, butter, salt, corn and glass, the smuggling of tea was big business. The previous month, two sloops had been apprehended close to the Canadian border with more than one hundred chests of the finest Assam leaf hidden in their holds. Hawkwood remembered reading that the sloops in question had sailed from Whitehall, and it was this detail that had suggested the possibility of finding a smuggler willing to transport fugitives.

The derogatory tone in the pot-man’s voice when he’d described the commandeering of the ferry and the local shipyard had suggested that his sympathies would lie with the smugglers rather than the authorities. And given the fondness of mariners for taverns, it was natural to assume that the pot-man would have an extensive knowledge of the men that constituted the local smuggling fraternity.

At first the pot-man had been reluctant to release the information – and having met Remus Stagg, Hawkwood could understand the man’s reticence – but all information could be bought for a price. Obtaining Stagg’s name along with his whereabouts had simply been a matter of negotiation. The fact that he’d been sitting only a couple of booths away had been an unexpected dividend.

Prior to the opening of negotiations, Hawkwood had guessed that a not insignificant sum might be involved in securing their passage and he’d asked Lawrence how much he was carrying. As an officer, the major had been permitted to retain the cash he’d had on him when seized. He had dipped into this fund to purchase the jacket and knapsack from the Fort Miller store, but Hawkwood knew that Lawrence was also in possession of English guineas. As veterans of the Spanish campaign, both men had adopted the practice of sewing gold coins into their belt in case they needed to recruit help or bribe their way out of a tight spot.

As Stagg’s response had demonstrated, the value of gold was universal, even if it came with the King’s head stamped on it.

Unsurprisingly, the Snake was as scabrous below deck as above. But then, as Stagg had explained so succinctly, she wasn’t in the business of pleasure boating.

He was seated at a table in the lantern-lit stern cabin which, Hawkwood presumed, passed for the crew’s quarters, along with a tiny galley. Half a dozen cubbyholes ringed the eating area, each one housing a narrow cot and a dubious-looking blanket. There were no concessions to privacy. Along with the pervading smell of the tar that coated her outer hull, the compartment stank of sweat and bilge water.