Ebenezer laughed. “You have the honor to be sucking the teat of the scarlet whore of Babylon. What do you want?”

Mr. Perilly looked at Lady Margaret, his hands clenched as if in prayer. “Sir George, Lady Margaret!” He stopped.

Lady Margaret took her arms from the girl’s shoulders. She was suddenly very calm, very erect. “Go on, Simon. Tell me.”

“He’s dead, your Ladyship. And your son’s wounded, but Sir George is dead. A musket ball, your Ladyship. Dead!”

Caroline cried out, the maids sobbed, but Lady Margaret called for quiet. Campion seemed frozen, the news clamoring in her head. Toby wounded? She remembered she had not prayed for him that morning and she cried out.

“Quiet, Campion.” Lady Margaret looked scornfully at Ebenezer. “I am going, young man, to my husband and my son. If you wish to stop me, you will have to kill me. I have no doubt you are capable of any such filthiness. Come!”

With that she began walking. Ebenezer stepped aside, half smiling, as if Lady Margaret had paid him a compliment. He watched the women go past, but, as Campion followed Caroline, he reached out a claw-like hand and took her elbow. “Not you, sister.”

She wanted to pull away, she wanted to cry out, but this was no time to call on Lady Margaret for help. Lazen Castle had been overtaken by a tragedy far greater than Campion’s fate. She hardly felt her brother’s hand gripping her arm. She could only watch Lady Margaret follow Mr. Perilly from the room, and she cried out inside for Toby. It was her fault, her fault, and she wondered if Lady Margaret would ever forgive her for bringing this vengeance on Lazen because it had sheltered her and the Seal of St. Matthew. The cat stirred in her right arm and she stroked it. It was the only scrap of love left in her destroyed world.

A soldier shut the long gallery door behind the women. Scammell, who had watched them go, turned to Campion and gave her a nervous smile. She did not see it.

Another soldier, who had been searching the rooms of the New House, came into the gallery through its western door. “Sir?”

Ebenezer looked at the man. “Yes?”

“I found somewhere, sir.”

“Good.” Ebenezer looked at Scammell. “Come along, brother.”

He took Campion with him, the soldiers coming behind, and she hardly knew what was happening. Toby wounded was all she could comprehend.

The soldier had found the bedroom that opened off the western end of the long gallery. It was rarely used for sleeping because, in the evening, it was filled with a delicate, fading light and Lady Margaret liked to sit there before dinner. Campion had often read aloud in the room.

Ebenezer glanced inside. A second door opened on to the corridor. “Is it locked?”

“Just locked it, sir.” The soldier held out the key.

“Good.” Ebenezer smiled. “In you go, sister. I trust the bed is comfortable.” He laughed. The soldiers, all men in Sir Grenville Cony’s debt, laughed with him. She was pushed inside.