“Is there a ship, the Marie, in port?” he asked a man, who was pushing past him with a coil of rope under his arm.

“Come and gone,” the man said shortly. “Were you meeting her?”

“No,” James said, lying instantly. “I thought she was always here.”

“Because if you had been meeting her, I would have told you that the master told everyone that he would not meet his good friend after all, and he set sail this morning.”

“Oh,” James said. A small coin found its way from his pocket to the waiting hand. The man hefted his rope and started to go on.

“Any idea how I can hire another ship?”

“Ask ’em,” he said unhelpfully, and pushed past.

James paused for a moment, almost winded by the disastrous news. Everything had depended on the ship sailing at midnight, as they had agreed, but now the ship had failed him. His only comfort was that the openness of the failure probably showed that they were not detected. The master had cold feet at the thought of rescuing the King of England, and had set sail, but he had not been arrested. The plot could still go on with a new ship. James would have to find a master so loyal to the king that he would take the risk, or so easily bought that he would do it for money. James looked up and down the quayside and thought that there was no way of judging, no way even to ask the question without running into terrible danger.

He did not dare to draw attention to himself, going up and down the quayside before dinner. He thought he had better come back later, stroll around the quayside taverns, find a way to have a more discreet conversation. He closed his eyes for a moment so that he would not see the forest of masts. His life had been on a knife-edge for so long that another venture did not excite him. He just felt bone-weary. More than anything he wanted this rescue to be successfully done, and all over. He did not even anticipate a sense of triumph tomorrow. He had set his heart on freeing the king, he had set his name to contracts and letters, and he had set himself to the task. He was faithful; and he thought that God would guide him, so he turned from the harbor to make his way back to Mr. Hopkins’s house. The door, set into the rear garden wall, was unlocked and unguarded, and James slipped into the darkened garden and went quietly towards the kitchen door, which stood open for the cool evening air.

It was chaos inside. The king was a picky eater, but his importance had to be advertised by serving twenty different dishes at every meal. It was a strain on the provincial cooks, who were running out of recipes and ingredients. There were a few guards that James could see through the open door to the dining hall, but their task was to follow the king when he walked abroad, not to prevent anyone from coming into the house. The king’s own servants were responsible for keeping his rooms free of unwanted strangers and admitting noble guests, but they were newly appointed and did not know their way around the rambling house, nor friend from stranger. The king had added half a dozen courtiers to his entourage since being released from the castle, and they too had their servants and hangers-on who came and went without challenge. There were too many strangers for anyone to notice another.