It was time to leave. He had brought the Guillemot as far up the estuary as he dared on the flood tide, and now she was rocking gently on a calm sea. Although the sun shone weakly overhead, the cold waters of the estuary had formed a low lying mist that threatened to turn into fog later, and it was becoming difficult to see either shore. In another ten minutes the tide would turn and he would sail away, hopefully never to return. He was an open water sailor, an ocean crosser. This creeping up estuaries, with their shifting shallows and ever-narrowing shores were anathema to him. He felt trapped.

Ahead he could just make out the ruins of a bridge through the mist. One of two that crossed the muddy waters of the Severn Estuary. The closer bridge was the largest; a viaduct over three miles in length and incorporating a large cable-stayed span over the deepwater channel. Much of the structure still remained; both towers still stood and were connected to the deck by their main cables, and Redgar had heard from the traders at Falmouth that it was still possible to cross, although much of the deck had fallen away in places. The other, older bridge, was a little way beyond to the north, where the estuary narrowed still further, and had almost collapsed entirely. At some point its deck had broken mid span, either through rust or deliberate action, and the entire deck between the towers had fallen into the waters below. One of the towers had toppled backwards under the unequal forces acting on it after the catenary cables broke, shedding debris and wires into the water between the tower and the mainland. The way past was only open to very small boats, and that with extreme caution and local knowledge.

Why anyone would want to take a boat up there was beyond him. The tides were fierce, and there was no safe harbour in which to trade. There was a perfectly good road that a traveller could take if they wished, and if you had the means, you could hire protection to shield you from robbers and highwaymen, and other unsavoury things that roamed the land outside the Protectorates and Free Towns.

Yet the silent man had chosen to do exactly that, taking a small skiff by himself up through the bridges. That meant his destination had been either Chepstow Free Town or the Berkeley Protectorate. If Chepstow was his destination, then it was a damn strange way of going there. Free Towns tended to be pretty open about people entering and leaving, and one man on his own wouldn't rouse any real suspicion. That was one of the reasons they were Free – free passage, free trade. If you had money or anything of value on you, the more welcome you were. Of course, a place like that attracted dangerous people, and they were renowned for being unhealthy places where murder and feuding was common. All the more reason why Chepstow couldn't be the Silent Man's destination, Redgar thought. If it was the Free Town of Chepstow the silent man was heading for, he didn't need to enter it by stealth.

A Protectorate, on the other hand... Those were orderly, tidy places, where it was known to the exact number how many people lived there and by what names they went by. They owed their existence to the Crown, and it was the Crown that paid to ensure their security, in exchange for preferential rates on goods – farmstuffs, textiles, anything grown or manufactured within the Protectorate was taxed or forfeit to the Crown, if it wanted. In exchange, the Crown would move to defend a Protectorate should it be threatened, by mobilising the yeomanry of neighbouring Protectorates to reinforce defence. The crown could also call upon the Protectorates to provide men and arms for its own campaigns, if it so wished. The arrangement had worked well for the last two hundred and fifty years. But a Protectorate was not a place you wandered into without good reason. If those in charge of the Protectorate didn't like the look of you, your stay would be short. Perhaps terminally so. There were patrols around their borders, and watch towers that used semaphore, bells and fire-beacons to signal unwelcome visitors, and if you were that unwelcome visitor, then very quickly a large party of men would come bearing down on you holding sharp weapons and asking pointed questions.

It had to be the Protectorate the Silent Man was heading for. Easier to slip in unnoticed by sea in the middle of the night, entering by the least defensible route, and exiting the same way after doing whatever it was a man wanted to do there. Only he hadn't returned.

It had been agreed that Redgar would wait with the Guillemot for two nights and then look for the silent man on the next two high waters at the agreed rendezvous. This was now the fifth high water, and there was no sign of him.

Looking up into the main mast cross-trees where the look-out was stationed, Redgar called out, "Dewan! Do you see anything?"

"No sir, no vessels anywhere in sight, any direction," came the reply.

Dewan was a reliable man with good eyesight. However, Redgar wanted to be sure, so he stumped over to the foremast and climbed the ratlines to the cross-trees platform, which although slightly lower than the one Dewan occupied, was also larger and more suited to his bulk. As Redgar came up over the platform he grunted in surprise, and his face took on a stern, disapproving look.

"Now, daddy, don't you go getting cross with me. The boat's hardly moving and Keevan said it was alright, as long as I went slow and kept a tight hold." The girl was crouched down on the platform, looking back at Redgar defiantly, only her attempt at defiance was somewhat ruined by the smile that kept playing on her lips. Her eyes were bright blue and the intensity of her stare was fierce. Just like her mother, thought Redgar. I could never win an argument with her, either. His stern-father-dealing–with-difficult-daughter face changed into one of begrudging acceptance, and he climbed onto the platform beside her.

"Budge up, Lizzy," he said. "And hold on tight to that stay there." Redgar looked down upon his only daughter for a moment. Her eyes might have been her mother's, but her hair was definitely his. Thick and black, it tumbled down to her shoulders in an unruly mess. He sighed as he looked back to the north, across the water towards the bridge. Elizabeth being onboard was another complication he would have to deal with. She was almost twelve; nearly a grown girl, and she was on a vessel only seventy foot long and crewed with almost fifty men who hadn't been home now for nearly three months. He didn't expect any trouble - her being the captain's daughter would mean Lizzy would be treated with respect. But at the same time the sight of her would distract the men from their duty and possibly upset the crew's delicate balance. He had seen it happen before.

He'd had no choice but to take her with him. His thoughts turned to her mother, his wife of twenty years. She had been a wilful woman, full of energy and drive and passion. Just as he had been, once. When she died, he was at sea. He'd arrived home after more than four months away to find his wife had been dead and buried for three and his daughter living on her own in their house, refusing all offers of help and support, carrying on as if her mother's death had been of no consequence. But when Redgar opened the door, already having heard the news from the stevedores at the harbour, Lizzy had walked calmly over to him, allowed him to pull her into an embrace, and then collapsed with heart-rending grief that lasted a full week before she stopped crying, washed the tears from her face, put on clean clothes, and carried on, calmly performing the duties her mother had done before. Only this time, it was her father she took care of in his grief.

Since that day Lizzy had displayed a resilience that astonished Redgar. From the moment he had brought her aboard the Guillemot, his daughter had devoted herself to learning all that could be learnt - from anyone that would teach her - about the sea. And that included climbing up the rigging. The hardships of life at sea hardly seemed to affect her at all, and even falling overboard mid-Atlantic hadn't dampened her enthusiasm.

Redgar took one last look towards the north, and seeing nothing he called down to the deck below, "Take her out to sea, Mr Keevan."

The Guillemot's bows swung south and the little breeze there was died as the vessel began to move with the wind. Redgar left Lizzy and climbed back down to the deck, then walked aft to where Keevan, the Guillemot's first mate, had the tiller. "Head between the holms, then set the main course, if she will bear it. I'm going below."

"Aye, sir," said Keevan. "Between the holms, then main course it is."

Redgar went down the companionway into the gloom below decks and made his way to the cabin where the silent man had been given quarters. He stood in the doorway for a few moments, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. The cabin was small and comprised of nothing more than a hanging cot and three cubby holes for stowage. Despite embarking on a journey of almost two months, the silent man had brought very little with him, it seemed. Redgar pulled out everything from the cubby holes and rifled through the blankets and covers of the cot, looking for anything that might have been hidden. After he had checked every nook and cranny to his satisfaction, Redgar bundled the small pile of clothes and belongings into a blanket and carried them to his cabin.

In truth, he was relieved his passenger hadn't returned. He had been slightly anxious as to what, or who, he might have brought back with him, and whether there would be some kind of pursuit. The Guillemot was a fast boat, but even she couldn't evade a galley pulled by thirty oars if the wind were light or not in their favour, and the estuary was known to have a few hidden away here and there. He should forget the man, but for some reason he was curious.

The 'silent man' was the name Lizzy had given him. No-one knew his real name. He had come aboard asking for passage to England and he had paid handsomely, even bribing the dockyard to hasten repairs and get the Guillemot to sea quicker. But other than haggling a price for the charter, and telling him vaguely where he wanted to go, the man had hardly spoken. Even without conversation though, you don't spend three months with a man on a boat without getting to know him at least a little. And what Redgar had noticed, was that the silent man was acting. His real character was hidden behind a façade that was itself mysterious. It was as if the man didn't fit in somehow – like he was out of his usual surroundings and was consciously trying not to show it.

It turned out the possessions Redgar had in front of him didn't help him understand the silent man any better either. Apart from some clothes that Redgar would distribute to the men later, there was a small wooden box containing a razor and a hard square of soap, some thread and needles, and a small, empty leather bag. There were no books or journals, no letters either written and awaiting posting or received and taken along for the voyage. The only other item was a simple wooden box which the Silent Man had kept his crossbow in – now empty.

Redgar had only found out about the crossbow when the silent man had boarded the skiff just over two days earlier. Its exotic nature had been easy to see. He found himself wondering once more why someone would want to cross an ocean to kill a man, and hoped fervently that his part in all this was now over.