Mistress of the Sea by Jenny Barden

been left in the lock. She crept closer.
    One by one she took out Thom’s clothes and laid them flat on top of the bed. Shirts, doublet, stockings and loose-fitting breeches; she spread them all out. The moths had not spoiled them, but they looked shabby and small: thin, limp garments that were not much larger than her own modest size. Yet she remembered Thom as tall: her strong, big brother who could pick her up easily. She raised a shirt to her face and tried to believe that the essence of Thom was still inside, but she could not. The odour was not his and neither was the touch. Belt and dagger joined the rest, cap and jerkin. She took out a pair of wide, blunt shoes. And suddenly there he was, in their shape she saw his feet: his moving, living feet. Running her fingers over the leather she felt the press of his heel and the push of his toes. She put the shoes on the floor and looked at her own feet beside them.
    Thom’s shoes were much larger.
    Then she smiled, though she had thought she might cry.
    Her mind turned to her father’s voyage. He would need someone to nurse him; without proper care he was liable to become intolerable. She nudged the shoes with her toes. She could have been of use as his travelling companion. Was it not her duty to protect him now that he was ailing? Her mother required attention, too, but her father’s need was greater. She considered what she might do, going over steps that seemed more plausible the more she thought them through. All she wanted was resolve, the sort of brave, bold fortitude that Thom had always shown. Was it really so impossible? She might keep close to Will, too . . .
    She picked up the shoes.
    Ellyn did not see her parents’ parting, but their farewell was gentle, she was sure. She had no doubt that loving endearments were exchanged. The house fell quiet for a while and, in the aftermath, her father was subdued until he realised that someone had let a chicken into the hall and he could not find his best ash stick.
    The departure was chaotic. Her father had been allowed three chests, but they were not enough. The result was that he carried too many possessions. Sword and scabbard, jewelled chains and an enamelled flask, silver tankard and knife, all were hung about his person. He even had an account book attached to his girdle, and he wore a fur coat so heavy that he had to be carried in a litter down to the quay at Sutton Poole, since his gout-swollen legs could not bear the total burden.
    At the dockside the lighter was ready, the bo’sun waiting and the goodbyes brief, constrained by the crush of a swelling crowd. The maids offered their parting gifts, mariners jostled to take charge of the chests and Ellyn heard her father demanding assistance before summoning Godfrey Gilbert to a last urgent counsel. In the thick of the commotion most speech was drowned. The maids never stopped weeping, and Ellyn lost patience with them all.
    Huddled in her cloak, Ellyn searched in her bag for the miniature of her mother she had arranged to have painted. The locket was small and light, and she hoped that her father would find it a comfort on the long voyage. The portrait had been made at her insistence, and after two unexpectedly painless sittings (painless since neither subject nor artist had wanted to speak), a fine likeness had been produced with a simple linear purity. Ellyn considered the gift more suitable than those her father had already received, though she had been too charitable to pass comment. She glanced at his stooped shoulders, and noticed the heavy cape lined with rabbit fur that Nan had draped on top of his gown, so making him stagger even more. She thought of Jane’s present: the strong, plum brandy that her uncle had distilled with an infamous reputation for the headaches it could induce. And somewhere on her father’s person would be the amulet that Lettie had said was a proven charm against the evils of the sea, containing part of a mermaid’s tail that