There were shouts at the gate; the watch bellowed orders; Scammell threw leather buckets at them as though pails of water might put out the furnace-like intensity of the fire. Now was Toby’s moment. He ran, jumped the three steps into Scammell’s house and began to shout: “Fire! Out! Out!”

The priest was in the hall, a clinking bag of bottles in one hand, another bottle held to his lips. Toby cannoned into him, knocked him down, and then was in the candlelit room. “Fire! Out! Out!”

“We hear you!” the big man shouted at Toby. “Go on, lad! We’re coming!” He was dragging Campion by one arm.

Toby ignored him. He seized Campion’s other arm and went on shouting as though he was an excited watchman. “Hurry! Out!” He pulled Campion away from the man, trying to prise her loose.

“Leave her!”

Thomas Grimmett’s shout seemed to wake Campion up. To Toby’s eyes she had appeared dazed, almost half asleep, and her bonnet had come off in her struggles leaving her hair falling gold over her slapped, reddened face. Now she looked at her rescuer and recognition dawned. “Toby!” She jerked away from Grimmett, clung to Toby, and the huge man bellowed in surprise. He heard her use the name, realized Toby was not of the watch and letting Campion go, he barred the door with his body and rasped his sword from its scabbard.

“Toby!”

“Stand back!” Toby drew his own sword, feeling the movement clumsy compared to the big man’s ease. He had never fought for his life, he had never killed, and the elation of the rescue was evaporating in the face of the other man’s evident confidence.

Grimmett half smiled. “You came for her, did you? You’re not going to have her, lad. She’s mine.” His sword suddenly lunged, a streak of silver light in the red glare of the fire, and Toby parried, trying to remember his fencing lessons, and felt a surge of relief as the blades rang, scraped, and Toby disengaged stepping back. Grimmett followed fast, threatening again. Again Toby parried and felt the fear rise in him. The big man was good, far better than Toby, and Toby tried to force the fear down by attacking. He tried to loop his sword beneath the other’s guard, thought for a moment that he had succeeded, that he had tempted the other blade wide and that his own was poised at the big man’s belly, but then he saw the sword coming fast at his head and ducked clumsily. His assailant laughed.

“You’ll have to do better than that, son.”

Goodwife was screaming. Campion ran for the door, left unguarded by Grimmett’s advance and the huge man stepped backward to block her, but she changed direction. She leaped at Grimmett, teeth bared, hands clawing, and managed to catch his hair in her fingers. She screamed at him, her fingers hooked in filthy hair, pulling his head down. He shouted at Goodwife to get her off, swore, but Campion hung on and Toby jumped toward his enemy at the same time. He raised his sword, forgetting his teacher’s constant adage that the point will always beat the edge, and hacked the blade down and sideways as if it were a pruning hook and his enemy a tangle of brambles.