Alinor closed her eyes to block out his flushed face. “I can’t keep the ferry,” she said. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Nobody will want the ferry in the days before Christmas,” he lied. “After the Chichester Christmas market nobody’ll go off Sealsea Island. God knows, nobody’ll come here. They’ll all stay home for the season.”

“They will! They will!” Alinor was more and more distressed. “Nobody wants to go through the wadeway in winter. They’ll all want to go on the ferry, even at low tide, and at high tide they’ll load horses. I can’t do it, Brother. Not on cold water. Not on the winter tides. Don’t make me! I can’t—I swear that I can’t.”

“But I can,” Alys said suddenly from behind her. “I’ll keep the ferry for you, Uncle Ned.”

“You?”

“Yes, but you have to pay me. You know I don’t have all my dowry yet. I’ll keep the ferry for you for five shillings. I mean five shillings on top of the money you’ve promised me as a gift. Five shillings and I keep all the ferry fees.”

“You can’t,” Alinor turned to her daughter. “You can’t be on the water. I couldn’t bear it. You’re not strong enough, when the tide’s high . . .”

“Yes, she can,” Ned said. “What harm’ll come to her? And Rob can come back from the Priory and help.”

Alinor closed her eyes at the thought of her children on the dark waters of the winter mire. “Please,” she said quietly. “Please don’t do this. You know I can’t spare them.”

“Five shillings for my wedding,” Alys bargained. “And I keep all the fees.”

Ned held out his hand. “Done.” To his sister he said: “I’m sorry; I have to go. I know that the army’ll bring the king to London. I pray that they’ll charge him with treason against us, the people. He’s guilty as sin, and I want to see him answer for his crimes. He’s destroyed the peace of England and been the death of thousands of good men—it’s all been for nothing unless we gain our freedom from him. And I want to see him punished as I’d want to see a witch drowned. This is the end of tyrants in England, this is the start of our new country. I must be there to see him humbled. Sister, I have to be there.”

Alys, her face bright and uncaring, handed over the basket of oils to her uncle. “You can carry those for Ma,” she said, “as you go together to Chichester. And I’ll stay here. I’ll start today.”

He grinned like a lad. “Pull us over then,” he said.

“A halfpenny for the two of you,” she said, putting out her hand and slipping the coin that he gave her into the pocket of her gown. Ned took Alinor’s arm and helped her onto the ferry; she clamped her scarred hands on the wooden rail.

“Don’t fear,” he said to her. “No harm will come to her on the water. How should it? There’s nothing to fear except your dreams of drowning. And I’ll come back soon.”