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  There was nothing he could do for the garden, he decided. But later in the summer, when the melons were in flower, he would visit again and take a soft rabbit’s tail from one to another to pollinate them. Then, when they were setting fruit, he would bring his father’s expensive glass melon domes to set over each one to make them ripen. He had not thought what he would then do with the fruit. The king had clearly ordered it, so only the king or his son should eat it. Perhaps it would be Johnnie’s duty to take the fruit to France, find the king’s son, and give him this eccentric piece of his inheritance.

  Johnnie shrugged, the fruit was a question for the future. His task was to keep faith with the last order of the king. King Charles had ordered a Tradescant to make him a melon bed in his manor house at Wimbledon; and it was done.

  When Johnnie got home he found that his father was irritated with the wasted day’s work, and reluctant to promise the loan of the glass melon domes later in the year; but his stepmother defended him.

  ‘Let him be,’ she counselled John, as she plaited her hair ready for bed that night. ‘He is doing nothing more than putting flowers on the grave. Let him do this one thing for the king and perhaps he will feel that he has done everything that should be done. Then he will feel that his defence of the king is over, and he can be happy and enjoy the peace.’

  Summer 1650

  Hester might have predicted Johnnie’s feelings as accurately as one of Elias Ashmole’s astrological projections except for one thing which she had not taken into account: the endless determination of the Stuarts to regain the crown they had lost.

  In July Charles Stuart arrived in Edinburgh and forged a new alliance with the Scots, who were always drawn by the temptation of one of their own Stuart kings, and the rich plums that a grateful English monarch might bring them. He promised them anything they asked, and they promised him an army to conquer England, and crowned him king.

  Joseph brought the news from Lambeth and came into the dining room to tell it. The family were at breakfast, Frances and Alexander Norman were either side of the table, Philip Harding, a mathematician, and Paul Quigley, an artist, were dining too. A stunned silence at the news was broken by Johnnie dropping his spoon, and the scrape of his chair as he rose to his feet.

  ‘Not again,’ John exclaimed. ‘When will this stop? Does he not see that he is defeated and his cause defeated and that he owes it to this country, if he owes us any loyalty or love, to let us get on with our lives without another war?’

  ‘I’m going,’ Johnnie said determinedly. ‘He’s certain to march on England and I must be there.’

  ‘Hush,’ Hester said, sharply, uncertain of the safety of such an announcement.

  The two guests tactfully rose to their feet. ‘I’ll take a stroll around the garden,’ Philip Harding said.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Dr Quigley.

  The door closed behind them. ‘That was unwise,’ Alexander Norman said gently to Johnnie. ‘Whatever your opinions are, you should not let it ever be said that your father is harbouring royalist sentiments and allowing them to be spoken at his table.’

  Johnnie flushed. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said to his father and to Hester. ‘I won’t do it again. It was the shock of the news.’

  ‘Joseph had no business blurting it out like that,’ Frances said crossly. ‘And you can’t go, Johnnie. It’s too far. And it’s bound to fail.’

  ‘Why should it?’ he demanded passionately. ‘Why should it fail? The Scots army was stronger than the English last time it was out. And Parliament would never have defeated the king in the first place if it hadn’t cobbled together an alliance with the Scots. They could march on London and bring the king with them.’

  ‘Not with General Lambert in the way,’ Alexander observed.

  Johnnie checked. ‘Is he going? The Scots have never beaten Lambert.’

  ‘He’s bound to. I would think Cromwell will command with Lambert as his second.’

  ‘It makes no difference to me!’ Johnnie declared. ‘This is the return of the prince. I must be there.’

  There was a silence, Frances turned to her father, who had not yet spoken. The silence extended. Johnnie looked towards his father at the end of the table.

  ‘He is the king,’ Johnnie said desperately. ‘Crowned king.’

  ‘He’s not crowned in England,’ Hester said sharply. ‘He’s not our king.’

  ‘He’s the third king of England that this family has been called on to serve,’ Johnnie pressed. ‘And I am the third generation in royal service. This is my service now, this is my king. I must serve him as you served his father and my grandfather served his grandfather.’

  There was a long silence. Everyone waited for John to speak.

  ‘You know my heart, sir,’ Johnnie said with careful courtesy to his father. ‘I hope you will give me leave to go.’

  John looked down the table and saw his son blazing with bright intensity. He was restored. He was the Johnnie who had ridden out to the siege of Colchester, nothing like the ghost which they had sent back. John carefully avoided Hester’s minatory gaze and spoke softly to his impassioned son.

  ‘I have to weigh your safety against your desire to serve the king. It’s not my cause, Johnnie, but you are a grown man and I see that it is yours. But you are the only heir, the only Tradescant to carry the name …’

  Johnnie cleared his throat. ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But this is a great cause. It is worth a sacrifice.’

  Hester moved quickly as if she would cry out against the thought of Johnnie being sacrificed to a cause, however great. Still John did not let himself look at her.

  ‘If the Scots get as far south as York,’ he said carefully, ‘then you may join them. You don’t want to fight for the king in Scotland, Johnnie, that’s their own business. I wouldn’t see you fight on their soil. But if they get to York I will buy you a horse and equipment and you can enlist, and I shall be proud to see you go.’

  There was a swift intake of breath and a swirl of grey silk at the end of the table as Hester leaped to her feet.

  ‘And your stepmother agrees with me,’ John ruled, forestalling the quick exclamation.

  ‘I can see that she does, sir,’ Johnnie said gravely, a quiver of laughter in his voice.

  ‘She does indeed,’ John repeated.

  Hester subsided into her seat again, her hands holding the edge of the table as if physical force was the only way she could restrain her speech.

  ‘And you will promise me not to run off without my permission and blessing,’ John stipulated. ‘You’ve been to war now, Johnnie, you know how hard it is. You know it’s a hundred times harder for a man without some money in his pocket and the right equipment: a good sword, a warm cloak, a strong horse. If you wait until the Scots have reached York you can join them as an officer. Do I have your word?’

  Johnnie hesitated for only a moment. ‘You have,’ he said. ‘But I will start preparing today, so that I am ready the moment I can go.’

  ‘How can you?’ Frances interrupted passionately. ‘How can you even think of it, Johnnie? After the last time?’

  He fired up at the challenge in her voice. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said. ‘You’re a girl.’

  ‘I understand that you nearly broke Mother’s heart last time and that we have none of us been happy since you came back from Colchester,’ she said hotly. ‘I understand that you have been sick to death ever since that defeat. Why go? Why go all that way to feel despair again? What if you are hurt so far from home? We’d never even know! What if your luck runs out and you get killed in one of these stupid battles at a village where we never even know the name?’

  Alexander Norman, looking from his angry young wife to her younger brother, still not yet seventeen years old, hoped for a moment that the two might quarrel like the children they once were and the whole issue be lost in the confusion of words and temper. Johnnie leaped to his feet, ready to blaze back at Frances, but then he reined