“I am eager!” Alys insisted.

Alinor had a sudden flash of memory of James’s touch, and the taste of his mouth, the thudding of his heart as he pressed her against the hayrick. “I understand eagerness,” she said, turning away. “I do. But first we’ve got to put out the herbs and the oil, and feed the hens and cover the fire.”

“I know!” Alys said impatiently. “I know. I’ll do the hens.”

As Alys shooed the hens out of the door, took two eggs from their nests, and put them in the crock, Alinor poured flaxseed oil from the jug into a big glass pitcher packed with the last of the fresh basil leaves, and corked it tight. She made another pitcher filled with comfrey and put the two of them on a shelf outside the cottage where the rising sun would strike them, and warm them all day long till the spirit was drawn from the herbs and into the oil. Alinor went to the corner cupboard where she distilled her oils and dried her herbs, and she took a dozen little bottles and put them in her basket.

“Are you ready?” Alys demanded. “D’you have everything? Can we go now?”

“Is the fire covered?”

“Yes, yes!”

“And the marks against fire?”

Alys bent to the hearth, took up a twig of kindling, and drew the runes against house fire. “There!”

“We want it nice . . .” Alinor began.

Alys completed the phrase, laughing: “to come back to.”

“I know! I know!” Alinor admitted her predictable instruction. “But it’s what my mother always said, and it’s always true.”

“It’s perfect to come back to. Mrs. Miller herself would admire it. Let’s go.”

The two women walked in single file back along the bank to Ferry-house. The tide was high, and a farmer was leading his big cob horse off the ferry and climbing into his saddle off the mounting block.

“Going to Chichester market, Goodwife Reekie?” he greeted Alinor.

“Yes. Are you keeping well, Farmer Chudleigh?” she called up to him.

“I am,” he said. “But I’ll thank you for that goose grease of yours when the cold gets into my old knees.”

“I’ll bring you a jar,” she promised him.

“You two look like you’ve been new-minted,” Ned complimented them. “So clean you’re shiny.”

Alys giggled and raised her skirt away from the muddy hoofprints on the quayside.

“Not taking any wool to market?” Ned asked his niece, holding the ferry steady for them against the pier.

“Not today,” she said. “Ma is buying some lace for Mrs. Miller if she sees anything nice, and selling some of her oils.”

“Ribbons for you?” he asked.

“Vanity is a sin, Uncle,” she said with a toss of her pretty head that made him laugh.

The tide was flowing slowly and smoothly inward, but even so, Alinor gripped the side of the boat with both hands, and when Red, the dog, jumped into the boat beside her she gave a little gasp of fear.