Then there was nothing to do but to wait. The City was alive with rumours and counter-claims of battles and routs and attacks, victory to the Prince or victory to the Model Army. John kept as much of the news from Hester as he could, and asked her to do a dozen tasks in the rarities room, in the garden, to keep her hands busy and to keep her away from the constant litany of bad news in the kitchen between the cook and Joseph. But nothing could stop her longing for her son.

Frances and Hester lit a candle in the window the evening that Johnnie went away, and Hester would not have the shutter closed on it, to hide it from the road, nor ever let it burn out. Every morning she renewed it herself, a great wax candle, more suited for a church than for a home, every night she checked that it was burning safely and its light was showing out towards the Lambeth road where Johnnie had ridden away.

John remarked only that there was a danger of fire if the candle should fall over in a gust of wind, and after that she placed the holder in a dish of water. But nothing would persuade her not to show a light, as if the one candle could guide her boy homewards along the dark, unsafe roads.

In the first week in September Alexander Norman came upriver and marched briskly from the landing stage to the Ark. He found John alone in the physic garden.

‘News,’ he said shortly.

John scrambled up from the herb bed and waited.

‘There was a battle on the third, the anniversary of the Dunbar defeat. Cromwell is a great one for anniversaries.’

‘And?’

‘Defeat. The Scots were routed and Charles Stuart has gone.’

‘Dead?’ John asked. ‘Dead at last?’

‘Disappeared. There’s a price on his head and the whole country looking for him. He must be taken any day. The Scots are fled back to Scotland and the English volunteers heading for their homes. Cromwell writes that he is bringing the army home and disbanding the militia. He must think he is completely safe. We must think so.’

‘A defeat,’ John said.

‘It means nothing for a single soldier,’ Alexander said swiftly. ‘He could be riding home now.’

John nodded. ‘I’d better tell Hester before some fool blurts it out to her.’

‘Where is Frances?’

‘They’ll be together,’ John predicted. ‘This summer has been a long vigil for them both.’

John gathered up his tools and the two men crossed the road. Instinctively they looked east towards Lambeth, as if they might see the big horse and the joyous young man riding back to them.

‘I keep looking,’ John said gruffly. ‘We all of us keep looking for him.’