Grimmett raised his own sword, but Campion was pulling at him, kicking and obstructing him, and Grimmett knew his parry would be too late. He bellowed in rage.

Toby had never killed. He had never known this killing rage, and he watched, almost detached as, in the light of the candles and the fire’s glow, his blade hit Grimmett’s bent neck.

Despite Campion, it seemed as if the head came upright as Toby’s blade pierced tendon and muscle. Campion let go, and Grimmett came upright. He forced himself against the sword and Toby sawed the blade toward him. The big man’s eyes shut. Toby staggered backward, the blade free, and there was blood everywhere.

Grimmett fell slowly to his knees. His sword clattered on the floor and his hands came up, as if he wanted to pray, clawing at his own face and neck. Toby watched as his enemy fell forward, slumped like a sack of oats on the floor. Toby had killed for the first time and killed for love.

Goodwife screamed. She was standing in the doorway, staring at Toby. Campion stared too, her hands clutched in front of her mouth, and then she looked up at Toby. Suddenly he seemed to become aware again of the noise, of the fire, of the heat that was making the room unbearable. “Come on!”

Goodwife cringed aside as Toby led Campion into the hall. The priest was in the corner, rescuing fallen bottles, sucking a second bottle dry. The heat through the open door was searing, the light brilliant.

“Come on!” Toby pulled Campion into the flame-light, his excitement overcoming the shock of his first kill, his vision of the bubbling throat and the astonished, shocked, fading eyes.

Scammell saw Campion come into the yard. He grabbed the captain of the watch. “Stop them!”

“This way!” Toby turned, holding Campion’s wrist, and whirled her round in the yard, blue cloak flying outward. “Come on!” They ran, hand in hand, toward the wharf, to the small boat Toby remembered drawn up on the mud.

“Stop them!” Scammell’s first shout had been involuntary, startled from him by the sight of Campion with a strange man, but now the watch took up the shout. There was nothing they could do to save Scammell’s yard, even his neighbors’ property was doomed, but the shout convinced them that they had found the culprits. The shout was picked up, men started running, and the cries were for vengeance.

Toby and Campion jumped on to the mud. Campion fell forward into the stinking slime and Toby whirled his blood-stained sword and chopped down on the rope that tied the small boat. “Push!”

Campion slipped in the mud again and Toby tossed his blade into the boat and heaved at it. His boots were inches deep in muck, the boat was firmly anchored in the mud, but his country breeding had given him strength and he felt the boat’s keel release itself from the slimy suction and then slide down toward the lapping water.