“He will die.”

“Then let him die!”

She slapped him. A swift, open-palmed crack that echoed about the long gallery like a pistol shot. Sir Grenville raised his own arm, fury contorting his face, but the Earl of Fleet stepped forward, his sword already inches out of its scabbard. “Sir Grenville!”

Cony’s bodyguard, taken by surprise, looked on appalled. Sir Grenville, slowly, lowered his arm. “You will get out of this house, Lady Margaret, you and your family, and you will take nothing, you hear? Nothing but your clothes. Nothing!” He turned to Fuller. “They have one hour!”

“Yes, sir.”

Sir Grenville wheeled back. His eyes, angry now, looked at the Earl of Fleet. “And you, my Lord, in this house of the enemy. I hear you wished to know the fate of Dorcas Slythe?”

The Earl of Fleet, surprised that his message should be so widely known, nodded.

Sir Grenville laughed. “She’ll be dead soon, if not yet. Either hung as a witch, or burned as a husband murderer.” He smiled. “She was my enemy, my Lord, which I think you are now, too. Get out.”

Lady Margaret did not look back. She, Caroline and Anne shared the Earl of Fleet’s travelling coach with Toby. He lay on one bench, groaning. Colonel Washington, his eyes still bandaged, rode on the groom’s seat outside. The servants whom Lady Margaret had asked to come walked behind. They skirted the ruins of the gatehouse and climbed into the humped northern hills which were grazed by Sir Grenville’s sheep.

Lady Margaret held her son’s hand and she knew, with a terrible sickness inside, that her enemies were winning. She had lost everything. Husband and house. Her son’s life was flickering, her daughters were silent beside her. The Reverend Perilly caught up with the coach, riding his old nag. She smiled out of the window at him, knowing that he, like she, had nowhere to go.

Caroline sniffed. Lady Margaret frowned at her. “Quiet, child! There’s no need for tears.”

“But, mother…”

“Don’t ‘but mother’ me.” Lady Margaret heard James Wright’s voice chivvying the horses up one of the slopes that led from the alder-bordered streams. “We shall be back, Caroline. You can be sure of that. We shall be back.” She gripped her son’s hand as if she would pour into Toby all her own formidable strength. “We shall dance on that man’s grave. We shall be back.”

Twenty

Sunlight almost blinded Campion. She cried out, dazzled by the glare, tripped, and one of the two soldiers who had fetched her kicked her. “Get up! Come on!”

They took her to a small, stone chamber. The July sun warmed these rooms, but she was still cold. Her hair was matted and filthy, some of Scammell’s blood still clotted in it. She was cruelly thin. Her skin was scabrous and filthy, her body a thing of fleas and lice.

The soldiers had come for her, but had not told her why. She leaned on the stone wall and saw the ring of filth about her wrists. She rubbed at the dirt, spitting on it, but somehow the hopelessness of the effort made her cry. A soldier growled.