“How unruly is your world?” Gabrielle asked cautiously.
Alinor hesitated before she replied. “Well, remember I was brought up by a woman who could barely read or write. She was a wise woman. I was raised by her to observe the laws of this world, but to know that beyond this world is a place that is quite different, with laws that we don’t know. That we don’t begin to know.”
“Like mermaids?” Mia asked. “And faeries?”
Alinor’s smile was warm. “Like mermaids,” she agreed with the girl. “And faeries.”
A tap at the front door interrupted them, and the girls jumped up as Johnnie came into the room.
“Ah, Johnnie!” Alinor said gladly. “Here at last! And these are your nieces, Mia and Gabrielle!”
The girls swept him a curtsey, and Johnnie bowed to them. “I’m glad to see you here,” he said kindly. “My own sister’s girls.” He smiled at Gabrielle. “You take after her,” he said.
“Would you go to the countinghouse and tell your grandmother Alys that Johnnie is here? And ask Tabs for another glass of small ale. You’ll take a small ale, Johnnie?”
He nodded. “I’m here to see Ma,” he said shortly. “I’m trying to raise money to free Uncle Ned’s lad.”
His grandmother looked grave. “Have you not got enough?”
He shook his head. “I’ve less than half of it. I’ve asked for a reduction, but the queen’s secretary is asking an impossible price. I’m hoping that Ma will change her mind about lending me some.”
“I have ten shillings I can give you,” she said.
He knew he should not take it from her. “I don’t like to take your savings… but I will take it for her.”
“Oh, Johnnie, do you love her?”
“I do. God knows why. She tricked me and she stole from me, but I can’t bear the thought of her in prison, transported. God knows what she’s suffering now, she’s a creature of the wild, she should be—” He broke off, and Alinor laid her hand, thin and brown-spotted, over his.
“Nay, don’t think like that,” she said gently. “She’s a young woman of a different nation, with a different life. That’s all. If you think of her as a wild creature, it’s no better than thinking of her as a savage. She’s your equal, she may even be a better person than you. Rescue her, if you can; but don’t think of her as a creature in a trap, and don’t do it for her gratitude.”
“She’ll owe me a debt! The debt of her life. That’s how she thinks,” he protested.
“She might—but you shouldn’t. Free her for love without a price. It never works if a man thinks he’s doing a woman a favor. He’s not her better, he shouldn’t set himself up as that. Don’t you think that, Johnnie. Not you, who had a sister who was your equal neck and neck all through your childhood.”
“It hardly matters if I can’t get her pardon,” he said miserably.
“Can Rob lend you any money? Can he borrow from his father-in-law?”
“He’s given me a couple of pounds. That wife of his, the goldsmith’s daughter, she’s as tightfisted as her father. My ma is my last chance.”
The store was crammed with crates and barrels and sacks of goods; a shopman’s wagon was waiting at the open door to the yard, arguing about a load.
“Ma,” Johnnie said, coming into the cold warehouse and shrugging his coat closer around his shoulders. “I know you’re busy, but I have to ask you for a great favor.”
“Wait a moment,” Alys said. She spread the loading manifest on the tailgate of the wagon and went through each item with the man. He agreed with the total, tipped his hat to her. “You’re allus straight, M’s Shore, I should ’a known ’twas my mistake!”
She gave him her strong handshake and then turned to Johnnie. “What is it?” she asked, instantly concerned. “And why aren’t you at work yourself?”
“I’m still on leave—they’ve agreed I can take as long as I need. I’ve been running round the City trying to raise money to free Rowan. I need about eighty pounds.”
Now he had her attention. “For her pardon?”
“The queen is selling only a few pardons, at a great price. It won’t be less than a hundred and twenty pounds, and I have raised only forty.”
She spread her arms to gesture to the goods. “I haven’t got it, Johnnie. All this belongs to the investors who took shares in the voyage, it’s not ours.”
He nodded. “I wondered if you would borrow it for me? From the next?”