“I’ll be fine,” Rob promised.

Alinor took his arm and they started up the road together, turning away from the mire and the road to the mill, and heading towards the Chichester road.

“Godspeed, Nephew,” Ned called. “God speed you.”

They took a lift with a charcoal burner who worked the Sealsea Island forest, on his way to deliver to the kitchens of Chichester. He let the two of them sit on the wagoner’s bench beside him, rather than spoil their clean clothes on the sooty sacks. He let them off at the Market Cross and went to Eastgate for the needlemakers’ furnaces.

Alinor and Rob walked up North Street to the apothecary’s house. Like many of the tradesmen he used the front room of the house as his shop, with wooden shutters on the windows that were propped up to serve as an awning when the shop was open. At the back of the shop, behind the counter, he had a few little flasks, distillation glasses, and a drying oven for the herbs and spices. His wife, smart in a white coif and apron, served customers, calling her husband forward for consultations, and wrapping pills and pouring drafts herself. She made the cordials and dispensed drams. In a brewhouse in the backyard she made special flavored ales, brewed with herbs and spices to aid digestion, to increase heat, or prevent fatigue.

Alinor tapped on the door and stepped inside. Rob followed her, blinking as the interior of the house was so dark compared with the brightness of the street outside.

“Ah, Mrs. Reekie,” said the apothecary.

“Good day, Mrs. Reekie,” said his wife. “And this is your boy?”

Alinor stepped back, but she did not have to push Rob forward as she would have done last year. He stepped forward himself with the confidence that he had learned at the Priory and made a little bow to the mistress and to his new master. “I’m Robert Reekie,” he said. “Thank you for accepting me as your apprentice.”

Alinor saw Mrs. Sharpe smile at Rob’s good looks and manners as Mr. Sharpe stretched his hand out for Rob to shake. The shop doorbell tinkled and Mr. Tudeley, the steward from the Priory, stepped into the shop.

“Ah, good day, good day,” he said. “Glad you are punctual, Mrs. Reekie, Robert. Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe. Do you have Robert’s deeds of apprenticeship?”

“Right here.” Mr. Sharpe produced an apprenticeship deed from his guild, with Robert’s name and his own already written in clerkly script. He weighed down the corners of the parchment with the brass weights from the dry goods scale, so they could all see the imposing document, with red seals and ribbons at the foot. Rob stepped up to the desk and took the quill. Alinor watched, loving him as he signed his name without hesitation or a blot of ink, not scratching an “X” on the page like his illiterate father. Then Mr. Tudeley made his signature as Robert’s sponsor, and Mr. Sharpe signed his name as his master and the guildsman who would introduce Rob to the Apothecaries’ Guild of Chichester, when he had served his time.