She tried to pull the dress up. She was shrinking back into the corner of the bay window, and again the foot lashed at her. She was screaming, one hand protecting her face, the other fumbling at the torn dress.

“Don’t you want her, brother? Look at the breasts! Touch them! Touch them! Go on, take her!” Ebenezer forced Scammell’s head down. “Touch her!”

Scammell tried to straighten up, but Ebenezer had drawn his knife again and he pricked the blade into Scammell’s neck. “Touch her, brother. Touch her.”

“You’re mad!”

“I said, touch her!” He shouted it, forcing the heavier man down.

“I’ll touch her!” Scammell put out his right hand. Touched Campion’s hair. She was screaming, trying to bury herself into the corner of the window, and then she heard Ebenezer laughing above her.

“But you’re not married, brother. Your wedding certificate was burned six months ago! And now I find you molesting my sister! I’m surprised at you, brother! I am shocked! I had thought you a man of God, and you are nothing but lust!”

Scammell was trying to straighten up, trying to protest, but the knife was already at his throat, piercing through skin, fat and into the blood vessels. Samuel Scammell tried to throw Ebenezer off. He pulled back and raised his arm, but Ebenezer laughed and hooked the blade. Blood poured on to Campion. It soaked the curtain, the window, the polished floorboards. With a despairing, choking breath of air and blood, Scammell fell dead on top of Campion.

She screamed. She was choking in blood, crushed by the weight of man and armor. She thought she was drowning in it, that the sky itself ran with ribbons of the thick, warm liquid. She screamed again, knowing it was a dream and her scream faded away.

Ebenezer looked at her. She would regain consciousness soon. He had seen it happen before. She would be calmer when she came round, but not if the body was still slumped over her. He stooped, grunting with the effort, and rolled Scammell’s body off her legs.

Ebenezer wiped the blade clean again, doing it meticulously, and then returned the knife to its sheath. He wiped his hands, spitting on them to remove the last of the blood that he found offensive. He glanced at his sister. She was moaning, the moans hinting at hysterical sobs.

He went to the table. Sir Grenville Cony, he knew, would want the seal delivered to him, and Ebenezer had thought long and hard about how that could be avoided. Ebenezer was young, too new to the world of power and men to have garnered the support he would need to fight Sir Grenville yet, but he would not easily surrender the Seal of St. Matthew. He knew too though, that if he did not give the jewel to his patron, then his patron would destroy him as easily as he had made Ebenezer destroy Scammell.

He smoothed a piece of paper on the table. He took the candle and held its flame on to a stick of red sealing-wax. The wax turned blackish, dripped, and Ebenezer swiftly put the candle down, picked up the seal and pressed the broad axe head into the hot wax. He smiled at the result.