“We have.” The unsmiling, thin face nodded gravely.

The girl was at Lazen Castle. The priest, Ebenezer said, had been utterly certain, certain enough to brave the winter roads to London. Sir Grenville chuckled, his bulging, frog-like eyes surrounded by happy crinkles. “And she was wearing the seal!”

“She was wearing a golden cylinder on a chain of gold,” Ebenezer corrected his master pedantically.

Sir Grenville’s spirits were rising higher. He seemed to giggle in his pleasure, a strange sound, and then he poured more wine for himself. Ebenezer’s glass rarely needed filling. Sir Grenville drank.

“Lazen Castle. Lazen Castle. We have been luckier than you know, Ebenezer.”

Ebenezer said nothing, just watched the small, grossly fat man. The flap of Sir Grenville’s breeches lay on his thighs, the cloth greasy from fat dripped from the roast meats. Sir Grenville looked at Ebenezer. “They’re going to fortify Lazen, so my man in Oxford tells me.”

Ebenezer frowned. “Shouldn’t we take her before they do?”

“No, Ebenezer, no!” Sir Grenville seemed filled with delight. “It would be difficult at the best of times to snatch her from that house, but I think a word from Sir Grenville Cony would send troops against it. We shall besiege it, we shall take it, and we shall take her. And much more besides.” He laughed, pouring more wine. “Do you know the castle?”

“No.”

“It’s very fine, very fine.” Sir Grenville nodded happily. “Half of it goes back to Elizabeth, and there’s a splendid modern wing designed by Lyminge. I’m told the plasterwork in the long gallery is quite exquisite. There’s a good acreage of forest, over a thousand in plow and twice that in sheep.” He laughed silently, his shoulders heaving. When he spoke his voice was curiously gleeful, like that of a small, naughty boy. “I think the County Committee for Sequestration would look happily on awarding the property to me, don’t you think?”

Ebenezer gave one of his rare smiles. He knew that Sir Grenville, using his position on the Parliamentary Committee that oversaw the fate of captured enemy property, was amassing land for himself throughout southern England. “Who owns it now?”

“Sir George Lazender. A painfully honest man. He has a formidable wife. Sir George has seen fit to join our enemies, Ebenezer, so I think we can punish him with a clean conscience.”

“Amen.”

“And amen. And he has a son, I can’t remember the boy’s name. I presume that is why your dear sister is there?”

Ebenezer shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Not that it matters, so long as she is there.”

He laughed as he heaved himself out of his chair, holding his unlaced breeches with one hand while, with the other, he unlocked and opened a great iron chest. He took from it a piece of paper which he presented, with a flourish, to Ebenezer. “Do the needful, dear boy.”

Ebenezer took the paper, holding it in his fastidious way as if it might infect him. It was the marriage certificate of Samuel Scammell and Dorcas Slythe, signed by James Bollsbie, Clerk in Holy Orders. Ebenezer looked at Sir Grenville. “You’re sure?”