“Don’t be foolish,” he warned her, uneasy at the thought of her dreams and the light in her eyes. “Don’t forget where you are, who you are. Nothing changes here but the waters. The rest of the country can run mad, turn upside down, but here only the sea changes daily and only the mire goes where it will.” The rumble of the mill, as ominous as thunder rolling over the flat drowned land, emphasized his warning.

“I know,” she reassured him. “I know. There is no hope; nothing can happen.” But the light in her face denied her words.

“If your lad would only work the ferry for me till the end of the summer, I’d go and volunteer for Oliver Cromwell in the North,” Ned said. “They say he’s marching men to meet the Scots. A hard march, from Wales, a long march. He’ll need men who know how to do it. General Lambert is holding the Scots at bay, but he can’t do it alone.”

“Rob can’t take the ferry,” she said quickly. “He’s bound to the Priory until Walter goes to Cambridge.”

“Hasn’t the tutor gone away?”

“A few more days, Rob tells me. The tutor’s left them lessons.”

“I’d give my eyeteeth to be on the road with my troop, to be beside my brothers for another battle, to defeat the enemies of the country and bring the king to justice,” Ned said. “King Charles has to answer for this now. He’s called the Welsh to rise against us, and now he’s summoned the Scots down on us. God knows what he’s promised to the Irish. He uses them all against us, against us English, his own people. He has to be finished, once and for all.”

Alinor compressed her lips on contradictions. “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t speak ill of him.”

“Of him?”

“Of the poor king.”

“Then you understand nothing,” he said with brotherly contempt. “You may be very learned in your flowers and your herbs and your healing, but you’re a foolish woman if you don’t know that Charles is a man of blood and has brought nothing but grief to us. He never means peace when he says he wants peace. He never thinks that he is defeated when his own sword has been taken from his hand. He has to stop! I swear to God I think we will never make him stop.”

She rose to her feet as he became angry. “I know, I know,” she soothed him. “It’s just that I don’t want Rob going to war, or Alys trapped in a country at war. I don’t want you going away again, and of course I don’t know where Zachary is this evening.” She felt that tears were burning behind her eyes. “There are good men in danger, going into danger—” She broke off, unable to speak of James and the secret conspiracy that she knew was taking him away from her. “I don’t know what to pray for,” she said in a sudden rush of honesty. “I don’t even know what to wish for, except for peace . . . and that it was all over . . . and I was free . . .”