“And you’re to be married?” His lordship nodded at Alys. “Young man from Sidlesham parish?”

Alys turned and beckoned to Richard, and he came up and made a respectful bow to Sir William. Alinor noticed the carefully graded deference: Richard Stoney was the son of a freeholder, not a Peachey tenant, and he would never forget the difference.

“Wish you happy,” Sir William said without much interest. He nodded to Mr. Tudeley to give Alys a shilling, and then turned back to Rob: “You can come for dinner.” Pointedly he did not extend the invitation to Alinor or Alys, who were out of favor as the women in the household of a roundhead. Clearly, he was not going to even acknowledge Ned, who stood to one side, hat in hand, stubbornly not bowing.

“Thank you,” Rob said easily. “And I will write to you, sir, when I start work at Chichester.”

His lordship nodded and turned away, ignoring Ned. James glanced back for one look at Alinor, and then followed his lordship, while the congregation, released from deference, crowded around Ned to ask him more about the trial, about the execution, and about the parliament, and what about London itself, now that it was a royal city without a king anymore?

Alinor and Alys walked back to Ferry-house along the bank of the harbor with Ned following behind them, accompanied by people walking part of the way, to ask for more details of the trial and execution. Ned answered everyone patiently. His own sense of pride in having been a witness to great events made him glad to tell his story over and over again. Nothing had ever been heard like it in the tidelands. Nothing like it had ever been heard in England. It was the end of one sort of world and the start of another.

The sea was coming in, so the people from the mainland, who had earlier walked across the frozen wadeway to church, now wanted the ferry across the rife, and Alys let Ned take the fees and pull the ferry across.

“D’you remember how to do it?” she taunted him. “Haven’t your hands gone too soft for the rope?”

“I swear I’d forgotten how cold it is,” he replied.

He came into the house blowing on his fingers and stood by the fire as Alinor raked the embers and put on a big log of driftwood.

“Before I went away,” he said quietly so that Alys, upstairs in the bedroom, would not hear, “you said that you would need my help and you would tell me when I returned.”

Alinor did not know what she should say. Clearly, she must speak to James. They would decide together what to do, and how the news should be announced.

“It’s Alys,” she said. “She’s with child.”

Ned was not shocked. In the country, especially in areas as remote as the tidelands, many couples married in the old way: a promise to marry, and then a long time of courtship and lovemaking while finding a house or saving for marriage. Many brides carried a big belly on their wedding day. Some had a child or even two walking behind them to the altar.