JULY 1670, LONDON

Alys walked west along the quay to the merchants’ coffeehouse where she did her morning business. As a woman wharfinger she was a rarity in the crowded meetinghouse. Most of the other women merchants, shipowners, ship wives, and carter widows sent an apprentice or a son into the coffeehouses to meet with customers and clients. But Alys had been a regular in two or three coffee shops for years and knew that Paton’s in Harp Lane was the best place to meet shipowners for the Mediterranean and Adriatic trade.

She looked for Captain Shore, master of the Sweet Hope, who had taken Rob to Italy when he first went to study at Padua. The Captain usually met his customers at a table in a room at the rear of the warren of a building, and Alys glanced over the high-backed settles where a couple of captains were taking instructions and letters for their destinations. She approached a table where a broad man with thinning fair hair and a weather-beaten face was folding some papers into a wallet.

“Captain Shore,” she said pleasantly.

At once, he rose to his feet and offered his hand. “Good day to you, Mrs. Stoney. It’s good to see you.”

Courteously, he waited for her to sit in the chair opposite him, before he dropped back down onto the settle. “I was sorry to hear of the loss of your brother,” he said bluntly. “A fine young man… I got to know him on the way to Venice—Lord! It must have been ten years ago. But I remember him.”

“Thank you,” Alys said. “I need to send a letter of instruction to a storehouse in Venice about his goods. They belong to Rob’s widow, her personal furniture. There is a steward who will pack the things and supervise the loading on your ship. You’ll deliver to our wharf.”

“Not going to the legal quay to pay the duty?” the Captain confirmed. “Direct to you, we don’t need to report?”

“Yes, it’s her personal goods.”

“I won’t be responsible for their condition,” he warned her. “Furniture: never travels well.”

“Very well,” Alys agreed.

“Nothing dangerous?” the Captain specified. “No poisons or guns or cannon or anything I don’t want on my ship. No wildlife,” he added. “Nothing that needs looking after. No pets. No slaves. No vegetables or plants. Just goods.”

“It’s mostly stone,” Alys assured him. “Statues and the like.”

“Heavy then,” he said pessimistically.

“Will you do it?”

“Aye.”

“We’ll pay half now and half on receipt.”

He thought for a moment. “Five pounds a ton,” he said. “D’you know the weight of her furniture?”

Alys grimaced. “I don’t know for sure. But it can’t be more than six tons. I’ll pay you fifteen pounds now, and the rest, depending on weight, when you unload.”

“Agreed.”

“This is the storehouse.” Alys slid Livia’s letter of instruction to her steward across the table.

“Russo!” the Captain exclaimed, looking at the address. “Oh, I know him. I’ve shipped goods for him before. More than once.” He shot her a look from under sandy eyebrows. “I never knew he was anyone’s steward. I thought it was all his own business—sharp business at that.”

“My sister-in-law trusts him,” Alys replied. “He was her steward.”

“If he suits her,” the Captain conceded. “If you’re sure, Mrs. Stoney? It’s not your usual trade and he’s not the sort of man you’d usually deal with?”

“He is my sister-in-law’s steward,” Alys repeated. “He’s got her goods in his storehouse. She trusts him.”

“As you wish,” he nodded. “But if it all miscarries in Venice and I have to leave empty-handed, I’ll come back to you for a guinea for my time.”

“Agreed,” Alys said. “But I expect you to deliver the crates. There should be about twenty.”

“I’ve got room,” he said. “I’m carrying coffee.”

“How long?” Alys asked the question that every merchant always asked, knowing that they would never get an answer.

“As long as it takes,” he said. “What are we now? July? I sail this week, get there early August, then load, then come back. I’ll stop at Lisbon going out and Cadiz coming back. I should be with you end of September.” He rapped the table with his knuckles for luck. “God willing.”

Alys rose to her feet and spat into her hand and extended it, the Captain did the same. She felt without distaste the warm squish of saliva and his roughened cracked palm. “Godspeed,” she said.

“Aye,” he said, taciturn, and tucked the order into his wallet and took a pull of small ale.