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affect them.’
    ‘Over-confident, perhaps,’ Cecil muttered.
    Ned frowned. ‘Calais is surrounded by forts: Sangatte, Fréthun, Nielles—’
    Cecil interrupted him. ‘And if the fortresses should fall?’
    ‘The city has three hundred and seven cannons.’
    ‘You have a good mind for details. But can the people withstand a siege?’
    ‘They have food for three months.’ Ned had made sure of his facts before leaving, for he had known that his mother would expect a detailed report. He turned to Alice now. ‘What’s happened, Mother?’
    Alice said: ‘The French took Sangatte on the first day of January.’
    Ned was shocked. ‘How could that happen?’
    Cecil answered that question. ‘The French army was assembled in great secrecy in nearby towns. The attack took the Calais garrison by surprise.’
    ‘Who leads the French forces?’
    ‘François, duke of Guise.’
    ‘Scarface!’ said Ned. ‘He’s a legend.’ The duke was France’s greatest general.
    ‘By now the city must be under siege.’
    ‘But it has not fallen.’
    ‘So far as we know, but my latest news is five days old.’
    Ned turned to Alice again. ‘No word from Uncle Dick?’
    Alice shook her head. ‘He cannot get a message out of a besieged city.’
    Ned thought of his relations there: Aunt Blanche, a much better cook than Janet Fife, though Ned would never tell Janet that; cousin Albin, who was his age and had taught him the French words for intimate parts of the body and other unmentionable things; and amorous Thérèse. Would they survive?
    Alice said quietly: ‘Almost everything we have is tied up in Calais.’
    Ned frowned. Was that possible? He said: ‘Don’t we have any cargoes going to Seville?’
    The Spanish port of Seville was the armoury of King Felipe, with an insatiable appetite for metal. A cousin of Ned’s father, Carlos Cruz, bought as much as Alice could send, turning it all into cannons and cannonballs for Spain’s interminable wars. Ned’s brother, Barney, who was in Seville, was living and working with Carlos, learning another side of the family business, as Ned had done in Calais. But the sea journey was long and hazardous, and ships were sent there only when the much nearer warehouse at Calais was full.
    Alice replied to Ned’s question: ‘No. At the moment we have no ships going to or from Seville.’
    ‘So if we lose Calais . . .’
    ‘We lose almost everything.’
    Ned had thought he understood the business, but he had not realized that it could be ruined so quickly. He felt as he did when a trustworthy horse stumbled and shifted under him, making him lose his balance in the saddle. It was a sudden reminder that life was unpredictable.
    A bell was rung for the start of the game. Cecil smiled and said: ‘Thank you for your information, Ned. It’s unusual for young men to be so precise.’
    Ned was flattered. ‘I’m glad to have been of help.’
    Dan Cobley’s pretty, golden-haired sister, Ruth, passed by saying: ‘Come on, Ned, it’s time for Hunt the Hart.’
    ‘Coming,’ he said, but he did not move. He felt torn. He was desperate to talk to Margery, but after news like this he was in no mood for a game. ‘I suppose there’s nothing we can do,’ he said to his mother.
    ‘Just wait for more information – which may be a long time coming.’
    There was a gloomy pause. Cecil said: ‘By the way, I’m looking for an assistant to help me in my work for the lady Elizabeth; a young man to live at Hatfield Palace as part of her staff, and to act on my behalf when I have to be in London, or elsewhere. I know your destiny is to work with your mother in the family business, Ned, but if you should happen to know a young man a bit like yourself, intelligent and trustworthy, with a sharp eye for detail . . . let me know.’
    Ned nodded. ‘Of course.’ He suspected that Cecil was really offering the job to him.
    Cecil went on: ‘He would have to share Elizabeth’s tolerant attitude to religion.’