Horatio will have to learn to live with the heavy weight in his chest, he will have to learn to walk with it pressing down on his soul and the pain it will cause in the small hours of the night. James knows that Horatio barely sleeps as it is, that he sleeps lightly, but so do almost all officers. James rarely sleeps through the night- he normally hears each watch change.

No doubt Horatio will have even more sleepless nights in his future, but James can only pray that in the meantime, boredom will force him to sleep, to heal.

"I will leave you an entire study full of books, and a view of the sea, and all my affection." And the prospects of a newly repaired and refitted Hotspur. But James will not press that, not until he can speak to the shipwrights and ensure it.

"We could not carry you back to the fort," James says, after a moment. Horatio isn't likely to have noticed his surroundings, he would not recognise them even so. "So you are to recuperate in my lodgings. I shall have Matthews or Mr Wellard bring you news front the fort and the town. Is that not something enough for you?"

That at least is said with a rare smile, an arched eyebrow. Horatio is quiet, but that is not to say he does not make his demands. James is well aware of that.