“Indeed and indeed.” Scammell swallowed, hardly believing the thunderous pit which belched flame and smoke into the sky. “Amen.”

The first Roundhead standards were going through the old breach into the kitchen garden, turning right to assault the Old House, and Ebenezer urged his horse forward. “Come along, Brother Scammell. We take possession of your bride!”

Scammell stumbled forward, his feet clumsy in the darkness. His sword almost tripped him. They went onward toward the shouts and the steel-ring of battle.

Colonel Washington was blinded, stone scraps taking his eyes and leaving him helpless. He sat, his face a mask of blood, and listened to the rush of enemy feet in the yard.

Toby, cutting through the Old House, met the first enemy in the washroom. Toby felt about Lazen as his mother did. This was home, the seat of the Lazenders, and his fury gave him a massive strength. One man, then another, was slashed by his sword, tipped bloodily into the low stone trough where the castle’s linen was scrubbed. James Wright, beside him, hewed with an axe, saying nothing as he slaughtered two men with horrid efficiency.

“Lazender! Lazender!” Toby bellowed his war cry, leading his men out into the lurid yard. He caught a fragmentary glimpse of the carnage wrought by the explosion, of the house savaged by masonry blocks, and then he was all but overwhelmed by a rush of Roundheads. A flag was close to him, its legend from the second book of Kings: “Smite them with the edge of the sword.” Toby did the smiting. He was sobbing in anger and hatred as he chopped down the standard-bearer and thrust his sword into the belly of an officer who tried to defend the falling flag. James Wright was beside him, axe whirling in the flame-light, driving their enemy back.

“Lazender! Lazender!”

Pike blades came for them, the fifteen-foot weapons offering safety to the Roundheads, and Toby swept in impotence at the steel-spiked poles. As soon as a blade was pushed aside, another pike would take its place, jabbing forward.

“Come back, Toby!” James Wright forgot about rank, remembering only his boyhood companion of stream and forest. “Come back.”

“Damn them!” He hammered with the sword, hearing it ring on a pike blade, seeing another come forward, and then Toby saw the flash of a musket from the enemy ranks.

He seemed to be on fire, such was the pain, and the echo of the ringing blade rose to a screeching pitch in his ears. His sword fell. The pain was slamming back and forth and the pikes were coming over him. He fell. James Wright tried to pick him up, to pull him backward, but the Roundheads were charging now and the huge man went back before the pikes, seeking safety in the warren of rooms in the Old House.

Toby moaned, rolled over, tried to rise, but a sword blade slashed light in the early dawn, came down, and there was a terrible pain in his left hand. He screamed, fell back and the boots of the enemy went over his unconscious body. Lazen Castle had fallen, as so many houses fell, to treachery.