And of course, as soon as she withdrew from him, he wanted to catch her hand, to say her name, to make that gray gaze turn back to him. As the poorest tenant on the estate, a woman that he had stooped to notice, she should have been alert for the least sign of his forgiveness. But it was as if he were invisible to her. He had to stand at Sir William’s shoulder and let this woman, this nobody, walk away from him as if he were nothing.

Now, as the sails of the ship caught the wind and the craft moved a little forward, he looked for the poor cottage that was her home, which she had opened to him as a refuge when he had nowhere else to go. He could see a trail of smoke from the chimney, he saw that the door stood open, he could even see a movement in the dark interior: the glimpse of her white cap. Then, as he watched, she came out of the doorway and stood on the cracked stone of her front step so that he could see her. She raised her hand, her scarred worn hand, to shade her eyes. He could hardly believe it: but she was looking for him. She saw him; she saw the ship that was taking her beloved son into danger, using him as a shield against inquiry, as an alibi in the incredible treason that he was about to commit. He thought she must be ill-wishing him, as he did the one thing that she must dread—taking Rob into deep waters. But then he saw her raise her hand to his ship, in a blessing, as any sailor’s wife would wave to a sail and whisper, “Godspeed! Come safe home!” He saw her stand, watching him. It was unmistakable. She loved him, she had a love deeper and wider than his, for she forgave him for his stupidity and his unkindness, and she was wishing him Godspeed on a journey, even though he was serving the king and taking her boy across the deeps.

He leapt up to balance on the rail of the boat, he gripped the rigging, he leaned outwards over the dark water rushing under the prow. He could hear the ominous hushing of the receding tide as it sucked them towards the harbor mouth, but he wanted her to see him. He stretched out his arm to wave to her. He wanted her to know that as he left Foulmire, the one thought in his mind was not his cause, which he had put before her, nor his king, who should come before everything, but her: Alinor.

NEWPORT, ISLE OF WIGHT, SEPTEMBER 1648

The town of Newport was as busy as a fair day; nothing like this had ever happened on the island before. The arrival of the king to the house of the wealthy townsman Mr. Hopkins gave the provincial street the status of Whitehall Palace. When the parliamentary negotiators arrived, Newport would be at the plumb center of the affairs of the kingdom—“of the world”—according to the dizzied Newport royalists. All the gentry flocked in from the outlying towns and villages to stay with friends and cousins, to dawdle through the narrow streets in the hope of seeing the king. They attended St. Thomas’s Church; they scrambled for the front pews to kneel behind His Majesty at prayer; they sent their servants round to the Hopkinses’ kitchen door to learn what was cooking for the royal dinner. Noblemen, with their ladies, sailed from the mainland on their own ships, or chartered passages to pay their respects to the king who, though defeated, could never be vanquished. All the royalists who had attended the king at London, at Oxford, in victory and facing defeat, now reappeared, learning that he was set free again. Whatever anyone might say, whatever he himself might do, the king was the king, and it was apparent to everyone that sooner or later he would return to London and to his throne.