“We have no choice in the matter of your marriage either.” I turn and smile at him as if I have made an interesting small point of conversation.

He nods courteously and then from the breast of his jacket he draws a little notebook, filled with sketches of rigging and sails. He opens it and shows it to me as if I may want to study it. “You are saying that I have to marry her?”

Blindly, I turn a page. “Yes. What possible excuse could you give for refusing? She is young and beautiful, probably fertile. She is wealthy and she comes from a great family. An alliance with them would be good for your house. Your brother would ask it of you. How can you refuse?”

“I can’t,” he says. “But what if you were to become free? And I was then married?”

“I would be your mistress,” I promise without a moment’s hesitation. I keep my face calm as if I am deeply interested in the book he holds out to me. “If I am free and you are married, I will become your sinful adulteress lover. If it costs me my soul, I will do it.”

He breathes out. “My God, Kat. I so long for you.”

Silently, we turn the pages for a few moments, then he says, “And when I am married and happy and she is with child, and she gives me a son and heir, and her boy takes my name, and I love him and am grateful to her, will you be able to forgive me? Will you be my lover then?”

He does not even hurt me with this picture, the worst that he could draw. I am prepared for it. I close the book and give it back to him. “We’re beyond that,” I tell him. “We’re beyond jealousy and wanting to own each other. It’s as if we went down with the Mary Rose: we’re beyond hating each other or forgiving each other or even hope. All we can do now is try to swim.”

“They were trapped,” he remarks. “The sailors were trapped by the nets that were stretched over the decks to prevent boarders. They should have dived from the boat as she went down and swum for shore, but they were caught in their own grave and drowned.”

I turn my head and blink away the tears. “So are we,” I say. “Swim if you can.”

* * *