‘I know,’ Johnnie said. ‘But I could have gone with him for a battle or two and then come home again. I am a Tradescant! It is my duty to serve the king!’

‘It is your duty to protect your mother,’ Alexander said, suddenly grim. ‘So be silent, Johnnie.’

‘But why have we come here?’ Frances asked, abandoning interest in the colour of the royalist’s hat feathers. ‘What is happening? Is Parliament after us?’

‘Not after you,’ Hester said quietly. ‘But if they know that he came to the Ark for help then I may be in trouble.’

Frances turned at once to Alexander Norman and put her hands out to him. ‘You’ll look after us, won’t you?’ she demanded. ‘You won’t let them take Mother away?’

He took her hands, and Hester saw that he had to stop himself from drawing her close. ‘Of course I will,’ he said. ‘And if she’s in any danger at all I shall find somewhere safe for her, and for you all.’

Frances, still hand-clasped with Alexander, turned to her stepmother and Hester saw them, for the first time, as a couple; saw the tilt of his head towards her, saw her trust in him.

‘Should you go into hiding?’ Frances asked her.

‘I’ll go to the Tower now,’ Alexander decided, ‘and see what news there is. You keep the door locked until I return. They can hardly have found your name and traced you here so soon. We must be a day ahead at least.’

Hester found that her mouth was dry and reached for a glass of small ale. Alexander gave her a quick, encouraging smile. ‘Be of stout heart,’ he said. ‘I will be back within the hour.’

The little family went back into the parlour and Frances and Johnnie took up their posts in the windowseat again, but this time they were not commenting on the passers-by; they were on look-out. Hester sat, in uneasy idleness, by the fireside. The housekeeper coming in with fresh coal made them jump. ‘I’d have thought you would want to go out and walk around.’

‘Perhaps later,’ Hester said.

Inside the hour, true to his word, Alexander Norman came strolling down the street, stopping for a chat with his neighbour who had a small goldsmith’s shop, and then opened his front door and stepped inside. At once his air of leisured cheerfulness deserted him.

‘It’s bad news,’ he said, checking that the parlour door was closed behind him. ‘Lady d’Aubigny took sanctuary in the French Embassy under the pretext that her husband’s family is French. But Parliament has ordered that the French hand her over and they have done so. She’ll be tried for treason, she was carrying the king’s Commission of Array. She was trying to raise an army in the very City itself.’