Hester glanced at the clock standing in the corner of the room. It was not yet nine. ‘They won’t come for another hour or so,’ she said. ‘You can fetch your school work, both of you, for an hour, and then you can work in the rarities room.’

‘Oh, Hester!’ Frances complained.

Hester shook her head and started to pile up the empty porridge bowls and the spoons. ‘Books first,’ she said. ‘And, Baby John, I want to see all our names written fair in your copybook.’

‘And then I will go pranting,’ he said.

Hester packed John’s clothes for him and added a few jars of bottled summer fruit to the hamper which would follow him by wagon. She was up early on the day of his departure to see him ride away from the Ark.

‘You had no need to rise,’ John said awkwardly.

‘Of course I had need. I am your wife.’

He turned and tightened the girth on his big bay cob to avoid speaking. They were both aware that since the first night they had not made love, and now he was going away for an indefinite period.

‘Please take care at court,’ Hester said gently. ‘These are difficult times for men of principle.’

‘I must say what I believe if I am asked,’ John said. ‘I don’t venture it, but I won’t deny it.’

She hesitated. ‘You need not deny your beliefs but you could say nothing and avoid the topic altogether,’ she suggested. ‘The queen especially is touchy about her religion. She holds to her Papist faith, and the king inclines more and more to her. And now that he is trying to impose Archbishop Laud’s prayer book on Scotland, this is not a time for any Independent thinker; be he Baptist or Presbyterian.’

‘You wish to advise me?’ he asked with a hint of warning in his voice which reminded her that a wife was always in second place to a man.

‘I know the court,’ she said steadily. ‘I spent my girlhood there. My uncle is an official painter there, still. I have half a dozen cousins and friends who write to me. I do know things, husband. I know that it is no place for a man who thinks for himself.’

‘They’re hardly likely to care what their gardener thinks,’ John scoffed. ‘An undergardener at that. I’ve not even been appointed to my father’s post, yet.’