“I did. You?”

“There’s not a lot happening. They were quiet all night.” Tugwell’s silhouette nodded toward the lights of the village. “They were moving early this morning, but that’s probably their new man, Fuller. A new broom, Miss Campion.”

“I expect so.”

Tugwell hitched his sword belt higher and thrust his brass-hilted pistol further into its holster. “Captain Lazender’s at the gatehouse ruins, Miss Campion.”

“I know. Thank you. I’m going to the church.”

“Say one for me!”

She smiled. “I will.”

She saw the faintest strip of pearl-gray light limning the eastern horizon. The trees of the great woods were outlined by the first appearance of dawn. She hesitated by the church porch, unwilling to exchange this first token of day for the gloom of the chancel.

“You’re up early!” It was Mr. Perilly, Lazen’s vicar.

“Mr. Perilly!”

He was coming from the church. A candle was lit inside, revealing him as he came to stand beside her. He sounded downhearted. “Another window gone.”

“That’s sad.”

The Roundheads had been trying, with increasing success, to shoot out the stained windows with their musket fire. Anything that was beautiful and dedicated to God gave them offense. Each depredation of his church made Mr. Perilly more gloomy. “I’ve swept it up as best I can, but there’s still a lot on the floor.” He sighed. “The rain gets in, you know.”

“I know.”

He stood beside her, staring unhappily at the sheen of light on the moat. “I hear you’re leaving us, Campion.”

“I’m afraid so. James is taking me, if it’s dark enough.”

Mr. Perilly shook his head. “It’s dark enough. Darkness throughout the land, Campion. I don’t understand it, I truly don’t. God tests his servants, but I sometimes wish we could be more certain of the outcome.”

A cock crowed in the stable-yard. The sound seemed to shake Mr. Perilly from his depression. He smiled. “I’ll see you at matins?”

“Of course.”

“Be careful on the south aisle! It was the window of the raising of Lazarus. Quite destroyed! Quite destroyed! And there’s no one who can do work like that nowadays! We can only destroy, it seems, only destroy.” His gloom was returning.

The explosion came.

At first Campion did not know what was happening. It seemed as if the ground shook, a small quiver that startled her, and she saw the moat, that had been silver and quiet, suddenly ripple with small, urgent flickerings of pre-dawn light.

Then there was thunder, the growling of rocks, the sound of ancient, massive stones moving and splintering, and then the great keep, whose stones had dominated Lazen for four hundred years, was lit by a spike of fire, a sheet of flame following, and then the noise came properly. It shattered the air, it fled outward across the valley. It hammered at the defenders.

“Mr. Perilly!” She seized his arm.

The keep was boiling flame and smoke now, a cauldron of fire that spewed its foul cloud over the valley. It reminded her of Samuel Scammell’s burning yard, only this smoke seemed to erupt at far greater speed. There were new explosions now, smaller, but each one sent another flash of light to illumine the stones that toppled from the keep.