Sir George had followed Toby into the gallery, Colonel Washington coming after. Lady Margaret stood, dominating the room. “Campion, you must go!”

“No!”

“Yes! George! She can stay with Tallis in Oxford?”

Sir George nodded. “She can. She might be safer even further away.”

Campion shook her head. “No!”

“You’ll not be going anywhere, Miss Campion.” Colonel Washington was looking through one of the wide windows. His face was grim. “Those laddies moved fast. Damned lobsters if you’ll excuse me, your Ladyship.”

The villagers were streaming from Lazen, hurrying toward the castle, while beyond them, beyond the mill and the cottages, Campion saw the Roundhead troopers in Lazen’s fields. Lobsters, horsemen whose jointed armor, curiously resembling a lobster’s shell, covered their bodies, thighs and arms, followed their standard-bearer on the far side of Lazen’s stream. Sir George frowned at Colonel Washington.

“You didn’t know they were close?”

“I did not, Sir George. I’ve patrolled each day, but my belief is they’ve come from the forest land to the south. You could hide an army in there.”

“From Werlatton?” Campion asked.

“That direction, Miss Campion.” Washington smiled. He was a small man, yet now he seemed to grow in stature and confidence. He walked to the fireplace and stood beneath the proud, naked Diana. “They’ll find us a tougher nut to crack than they think. The lads are shaped well.” He spoke of the tenants and laborers of Lazen who had been drilled with musket and pike, swelling the garrison to a formidable size. “Aye. I think we can make them regret their temerity.”

“We’ll make them regret more than that.” Lady Margaret stared with hatred at the growing mass of Parliamentary troops. “You’ll excuse me, Colonel.” She pushed open a window and shouted one word across the moat, startling two sentries. “Bastards!”

“Margaret!” Sir George sounded shocked.

Colonel Washington smiled, one finger brushing at his moustache. “I think they’ll be surprised. We’ll see the back of them by the end of May!”

Toby moved to Campion’s side, his eyes gentle on her nervousness. “You heard the Colonel, my love. They’ll be gone by the end of May.”

She held his arm, feeling the leather stiff and cold beneath her right hand. With her left she touched the seal and wondered if it was this talisman of gold that had brought the armored men to Lazen.

War had come to Lazen. Her enemies had come. They were surrounding her, threatening her, and she sensed, even as she listened to the garrison preparing their defense, that the river of her days was gathering her again, plucking her from the calm waters and carrying her to unknown land. She held Toby’s arm as if it was her anchor.

Lazen Castle was under siege.

Sixteen

The Roundheads were not gone by the end of May, but nor did they seem any nearer to capturing the castle. Their efforts, even to Campion’s untutored eye, seemed amateur and ineffective.

The enemy concentrated their siege works to the north, building a great battery of earth and timber in which their main guns were placed and from which, one morning, they had opened fire with a guttural thunder that startled the rooks and sent them flapping and cawing in alarm. The round shot, that seemed to crash horrendously against the north wall, did remarkably little damage. Colonel Washington was far more concerned by the enemy’s mortar, a gun he described to Campion as a “vicious cooking pot,” which threw its missiles high into the air to crash down within the defenses. The mortar claimed the first victim in Lazen, crushing the skull of a kitchen-maid within the scullery. Colonel Washington sent a letter to the enemy, carried out of the castle under a flag of truce, that mockingly congratulated them on the death of the maid. He told them of the hour of her funeral and requested a cessation of the guns during the service. The truce was observed and the Roundhead guns did not fire again that day.