As the ship came into port I stayed at the side, watching the features of this town with the sense—familiar to so many of my people—that I would have to start my life over again, and make my home here all over again. These red-tiled rooftops just showing over the strong thickness of the city walls would become familiar to me, the cobbled streets between the high houses would be my routes to and from the baker, from the market, to my house. This strange aroma, the smell of a working port: old fish, the tarry odour of drying nets, the fresh hint of newly sawn wood, the clean tang of salt wind, all this would become the familiar taste on my lips and the perfume of my woollen cape. Soon all this would mean home to me, and in a little while I would cease to wonder how the queen was this morning, whether better or worse, how Elizabeth was faring, waiting patiently as she must surely do, and how my lord was, watching the sun rise from the arrow-slit window of his prison. All of those thoughts and loves and loyalties I must put behind me and greet my new life. I had left the court, I had deserted the queen, I had abandoned Elizabeth and I had taken my leave of the man I adored: my lord. Now I would live for my husband and my father and I would learn to belong to this new family: a husband, three sisters and my mother-in-law.

‘My mother is waiting for us.’ Daniel’s breath was warm against my hair as he leaned against me at the rail of the ship. I leaned back again and felt his cock stir inside his breeches at my touch and I pressed back, wanton and desiring him once more. I looked to where he was looking and saw her, formidable, arms folded across a broad chest, scrutinising the deck of the ship as if to see whether her reluctant daughter-in-law had done her duty and arrived this time.

When she saw Daniel she raised a hand in greeting, and I waved back. I was too far away to see her face, but I imagined her carefully schooling her expression.

‘Welcome to Calais,’ she said to me as we came down the gangplank. Daniel she wordlessly enfolded into an adoring embrace.

He struggled to be free. ‘I have to see to them unloading the press,’ he told her, and went back on board and swung down into the hold. Mrs Carpenter and I were left alone on the quayside, an island of awkward silence among the men and women bustling around us.

‘He found you then,’ she said, with no great pleasure.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And are you ready to marry him now?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll have to get out of those clothes,’ she said. ‘They’re respectable people in Calais, they won’t like the sight of you in breeches.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I left in a hurry or I would have changed before I came.’