DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

Johnnie’s master called him into the inner office on Christmas Eve, and he stood before the great desk, loaded with ledgers, while Mr. Watson finished checking a column of figures and then peered at him over the top of a set of small eyeglasses.

“Ah, Master Stoney,” he said pompously. “Your time with us is up.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnnie replied.

“You have your contract of apprenticeship?”

Johnnie unrolled the scroll with the fat red seals at the bottom and Alys’s plain signature beside his master’s scrawl.

“Completed to the day,” Mr. Watson said. “You sign there.”

Johnnie made a clerkly signature at the foot of the page and Mr. Watson signed his own name with a swirl.

“You will stay on?” Mr. Watson inquired. “Senior clerk at five shillings a week?”

“I should be glad to,” Johnnie said. “Till Easter, if I may?”

“You hope to move to another House?”

“I have been fortunate,” Johnnie told him. “More fortunate than I could have hoped. I have a patron who has mentioned my name. I have visited the East India Company and they have offered me a post. They say I may start at Easter.”

“Good God!” Johnnie’s master dropped his chair back to four legs. “You’re flying very high,” he said with a hint of resentment. “I’ve not got a place at that table. Who got you in?”

“My aunt from Venice knows an investor,” Johnnie said. “He was so good as to recommend me.”

“You have an aunt from Venice?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s new, isn’t it?”

“It is, sir, and unexpected. But my uncle has just recently died and his widow has come, and is living with us.”

“And what do you have to do for her? For your patron? For this is a more than cousinly favor you have here?”

Johnnie laughed, a little embarrassed. “It seems I have to be her advisor, and her friend,” he said. “She lives with my mother and grandmother at the warehouse, and—it seems that she wants my support in a plan that she has for the business.”

Mr. Watson looked dourly at the young man. “Well, you can go home to your family, befriend your aunt over the holiday. If she wants to invest any money in cargoes I rely upon you to bring her here; bear in mind what I’ve done for you, lad. I expect to see her in the New Year.”

“She has only her dower,” Johnnie said. “She’s not a wealthy woman.”

“She has wealthy friends,” the merchant said flatly. “I’d like to meet them too.”

“I’ll tell her,” Johnnie said awkwardly. “I’ll definitely mention your name.”

“Aye. Well and good. Off you go now. Start again, day after Christmas, and God bless you all.”

Johnnie hesitated, in case there was a Christmas box—and left without any gift.