“His lordship was pardoned, and he paid his fine for backing the king,” she said, resolutely turning her mind from the memory of the priest walking into the Priory, confident it was a safe house for a papist, for a royalist spy. “Rob takes after you. He won’t forget what’s right. And Sir William will serve in a godly parliament, whatever regrets he has for the old days. It’s over for the king and his lords. You told me so yourself.”

“I don’t trust him, nor any of them who say they’re sorry and get their lands back as if there’s no harm done, when hundreds of good men will never come home again. I’d have had Rob in the army; I’d have had him march to war on the side of God. If he was my boy, I’d send him out to my old troop now. There’s still a chance the Scots will come down on us. Some say the Irish are coming.”

“Surely the war’s over?”

“Not till the king signs a peace treaty, and means it.”

“Ned, I can’t let my boy go,” she said apologetically.

“Not even to serve the Lord?”

“He’s all I have.”

“And now, if he’s wearing Peachey livery, he won’t even take the ferry after I’m gone,” he said resentfully. “So I came back to keep the ferry and the house in the family for nothing.”

“You might have a son of your own,” she said gently, though he was a widower at thirty.

He hunched his shoulder. “Not me. We ferrymen make poor husbands.”

“Ah, God bless her,” Alinor said quietly. Ned’s young wife, Mary, had died in childbirth, Alinor helpless to save her. “God forgive me that I couldn’t—”

“Long ago,” he said, shrugging off the pain. “But I’d not take another wife and put her through that.”

“Another wife might not—”

“So Rob should be my heir and take the ferry!”

“He still might! He won’t serve the Peacheys forever. It’s only till Master Walter goes to Cambridge. But even a few months in the schoolroom will be the making of him. He’ll be able to go anywhere, to any family, anywhere in England. That’s better for him than being stuck here.”

“But you and I are still stuck here!”

She frowned at the bitterness in his tone, and put her hand on his. “I’ve never hoped for better, I don’t hope to leave. But now, with Rob’s wage, I’ll be able to buy a fishing boat, and start putting something aside for Alys’s dowry. And just because we’re stuck here doesn’t mean we can’t dream of something better for our boy.”

“I s’pose,” he said grudgingly. “But dream for Alys, too. That’s a girl with high hopes! She’s going to make her way in the world.”

“Perhaps,” Alinor said uneasily. “But it’s not a very good world for a hopeful girl.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Red, the dog, glanced at them both as if wondering if anyone would throw something into the water for him to fetch.