“Fuller!” Colonel Washington frowned. “I know of Fuller.”

“Who is he?” Sir George asked.

“One of these new men, Sir George.” Colonel Washington stroked his moustache. “A ranting Puritan, if you’ll forgive me. He was a cobbler in Bedford and now he’s called a colonel.”

“Is he honorable?”

“I don’t suppose he can spell the word.” Colonel Washington shrugged. “But he’s not a bad soldier.”

Sir George went back to the letter, reading it aloud. Fuller was not impolite. He offered safe conduct, even promising an armed guard, for Lady Margaret, her daughter, “and those other females of the household who wish to depart,” yet the letter singled out an exception.

“You have inn your midst one Dorcas Scammell, Wife to one of Mine Officers, and she wee cannot release. Her marriage was Witnessed before Almightie God, in Whose Cause wee fight, and this Warrant of Safe-Conduct depends Upon her Restorral to her Rightful Husband.”

Lady Margaret had one word for him. “Bastard!”

There was an unhappy silence in the long gallery. Campion felt the horrid weight of her past coming on her, as if the river of her life had carried her back to the mud of Werlatton. She saw the worry in Toby’s eyes, and she felt responsible for the carnage that was being wreaked on Lazen Castle. She turned to Lady Margaret. “You must go. You must.”

“You’ve lost your wits, child. I might be persuaded out by Lord Atheldene, but not by some cobbler from Bedford. Colonel Fuller, indeed! If you think such a man can frighten me from my home, you are very much mistaken.”

Sir George rubbed his eyes. In the new silence Campion again felt that this siege was her fault, that the seal about her neck had drawn the Roundhead forces to Lazen and had turned its peaceful acres into a place over which the gunsmoke drifted and in which men were daily buried. She sat down, her face troubled, but Sir George smiled at her. “It’s not your fault, Campion. They would have come anyway.” A crackle of musketry sounded from outside. He looked at Washington. “Can we hold them, Colonel?”

Colonel Washington nodded. “I think so, Sir George, I think so.” His fingers tugged at his gray moustache. “We’ve deepened the trench between the Old House and the moat and I think we can flood it tomorrow. I think we can hold them.”

“Of course we can hold them!” Lady Margaret looked imperiously on the group. She needed only a chariot and spear and she would have personally scoured her enemies from about her house. “Two more deserted yesterday! They’d hardly be deserting if they thought their own side was winning!”

Colonel Washington nodded. “That’s true, your Ladyship, very true.” Two Roundhead gunners had come to the castle at night, as other deserters had come before, risking the sentries’ musketry, to come safely into the defenses. Very few men had deserted the other way, a sure sign that the soldiers themselves believed Lazen could resist siege. The two new deserters were, so Colonel Washington said, scoundrels both, but experienced gunners were always welcome and the two men manned one of the murderers that threatened their erstwhile colleagues.