At dawn in the morning when a man might reasonably be up and about, James went down to the quayside. The air was cool and smelled of salt in the light breeze. The sky was peach pink. It was going to be a beautiful day. If they had sailed overnight as they had planned, they would have had a good wind homeward and the sun on their backs. They would have moored on a peaceful quayside, paid off Zachary, and gone their own ways to their homes. No one would have known that the king was gone until they served his breakfast, late in the morning. The king would have been breakfasting in France, the Stuart monarchy safe in exile, certain to invade; Cromwell’s rebellion doomed. James looked to pink clouds at the east and thought that never in his life had he seen a sun rise and felt such darkness.

Zachary was asleep, curled up under a sail in the stern of the little trading ship. He opened his eyes and sat up as he heard the sound of James’s riding boots on the stone quay.

“Miscarried,” he observed. “Like the babies she says she will deliver that come out blue. Unsatisfied—as she always is.”

“Yes,” James said shortly. “But I know nothing about any babies.”

Zachary hawked and spat over the side. “Her hands are stained with them,” he said conversationally. “She smells of them: dead babies. Had you not noticed? But—anyway—what happened to you? Nothing good. Were you caught? Doing whatever you were doing?”

“No.”

“Probably half the island knows anyway,” Zachary said pessimistically. “He’s not famously discreet, your master. Everyone I know has taken a letter from him and learned his ever-so-secret code.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’ll pay me the forty crowns for my silence,” he observed.

“Twenty,” James said flatly. He took the purse from his pocket and tossed it over. Zachary caught it neatly, and it disappeared into the folds of his tattered jacket. “So you failed,” he said spitefully. “Your mission was a failure and so are you.”

“I failed,” James said. “But no one the wiser, and no harm done.”

“But I am wiser. I know of you and where you came from. Who you came from. Where you live. I think you’ll find that is harm done.”

“You know,” James agreed. “But I know of you, so we are equal in that. Will you come to have breakfast at the inn and see your boy this morning?”

Zachary shook his head. “Not I.”

“What am I to tell him?”

“Tell him I went out last night and drowned.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then tell him whatever lie you can stoop to. For clearly you are not wedded to truth. You have broken your vows and you lie to those who trust you. You lie to your hosts and to their servants. If you have a lover, and I think we both know her name . . .” he paused and leered at the thought of Alinor, “. . . then, for sure, you lie to her, for she’s no royalist. She can’t be faithful to any cause or mortal man. You’re no better than me. In fact, you’re worse than me, for I ran for my life from a witch, but you are running back to her. And she will eat your lying soul and steal your child.”