‘Still in the Tower,’ Hester said. She rose to her feet and took hold of the side of the wagon to clamber down but John reached out his arms and lifted her down. She hesitated for a moment at the strangeness of his touch. It was nearly an embrace, his hands on her waist, their heads close together. Then he released her and moved to the back of the wagon.

‘You’ve bought enough for a siege!’ he exclaimed, and then, as his own words sunk in, he turned to her. ‘Why have you bought so much?’

‘I don’t want to go into market for a week or so,’ she said. ‘And I won’t send the maids either.’

‘Why not?’

She made a little helpless gesture. He thought he had never before seen her anything other than certain and definite in her movements. ‘It’s strange in town,’ she began. ‘I can’t describe it. Uneasy. Like a sky before a storm. People talk on corners and break off when I walk by. Everyone looks at everyone else as if they would read their hearts. No-one knows who is a friend and who is not. The king and Parliament are splitting this country down the middle like a popped pod of peas and all of us peas are spilling out and rolling around and not knowing what to do.’

John looked at his wife, trying to understand, for the first time in their married life, what she might be feeling. Then he suddenly realised what it was. ‘You look afraid.’

She turned away to the edge of the wagon as if it were something to be ashamed of. ‘Someone threw a stone at me,’ she said, her voice very low.

‘What?’

‘Someone threw a stone as I was leaving the market. It hit me in the back.’

John was dumbfounded. ‘You were stoned? In Lambeth?’

She shook her head. ‘A glancing blow. It was not thrown to hurt me. I think it was an insult, a warning.’

‘But why should anyone at Lambeth market insult you? Or warn you?’

She shrugged. ‘You’re well-known as the king’s gardener, the king’s man, and your father before you. And these people don’t inquire where your heart lies, what you think in private. They think of us as the king’s servants, and the king is not well-regarded in Lambeth and the City.’

John’s mind was whirling. ‘Did it hurt you? Are you hurt?’

She started to say ‘No’, but she stumbled over the word and John, without thinking, caught her into his arms and let her cry against his shoulder as the torrent of words spilled out.