Sir Grenville Cony, in public, espoused the Presbyterian faith. Most members of the House of Commons now did, but Sir Grenville would not allow political Presbyterianism to affect his celebration of Christmas. On Christmas Day itself, once he had made an obligatory appearance at Westminster, and scowled at the evidence of shuttered shops and open ale-houses, Sir Grenville went back to his house on the Strand where a huge fire roared in the great marble fireplace beneath the unshuttered picture of the naked Narcissus. Sir Grenville had secured a swan, that was even now being roasted, but he began his Christmas feast with goose and pork. He gorged himself throughout the afternoon, washing the delicacies down with his favorite claret, and not once did his stomach protest. Even when he was forced to loosen the top of his breeches, fumbling with the laces that joined them to his coat, his stomach was free of pain. He could feel great bubbles of air moving upward, erupting in his throat, but that was usual and there was no pain. He rubbed his hands with glee as the roasted swan, filled with a forcemeat stuffing, was brought to his fireside table. “My dear Ebenezer, let me carve for you. Pour yourself wine! Please! More!”

Life was good for Sir Grenville again. He had weathered the storms of autumn, and now he could see the end of the struggle. The Covenant would be his. He lifted slices of swan breast on to Ebenezer’s plate. “There are turnips on your left, dear boy, and giblet gravy. Do cut the new loaf. A wing? You’re sure?”

They ate for a moment in companionable silence. Ebenezer, nineteen now, would have been as unrecognizable to his sister as she would have been to him. He had aged for a start, his darkly shadowed face seeming to possess a bitter wisdom far beyond his few years. His hair was longer too, swept back in a great wave to fall at the nape of his neck. It gave him a predatory look, a look enhanced by eyes that seemed to glitter with an inner fire.

He was crippled still and would always be so, yet now he had found the power that was within him, a power that gave him mastery over the whole-bodied. He was dressed, not in black, but in ecclesiastical purple, and he would have liked the thought that his clothes were the color of religious vestments. He, like his sister, was happy, though where his sister had found happiness in love and generosity, Ebenezer had found it in darker, bloodier pathways. He had harnessed his religion to pain and he had discovered, thanks to Sir Grenville Cony’s influence, a vocation.

In the name of God, and in the service and employ of Parliament’s Committee of Safety, Ebenezer tortured the truth from those suspected of disloyalty. The screams of women torn on the rack, the moans of those who fainted as the iron boot was screwed tight on their feet, crushing all the bones, those sounds were joy to Ebenezer. He used the blade, the fire, the pulley, the hooks, the needles, the pincers of his profession, and in the infliction of pain he had discovered a freedom. He was above the law, man’s law or God’s law, and he knew himself to be a special person, unfettered by the moral constraints he would impose on others. He was different, he had always been different, but now Ebenezer knew himself to be superior. Yet he still acknowledged one master: Sir Grenville Cony.