“Nothing. A void, Sir Grenville.”

“Excellent, excellent!”

Sir Grenville truly was happy. For months now, Barnegat had reported a tangle of influences, but now the truth emerged. Sir Grenville was safe. No enemies across the sea, and, though the astrologer had not confirmed it, the certainty of the death of Dorcas Slythe. The two men talked as Barnegat rolled up his charts and put almanacs into his case. The astrologer believed, as Sir Grenville was beginning to believe, that the Presbyterians were losing ground. The Independents, the radicals of the revolution like Ebenezer Slythe, were in the ascendant. Barnegat, who was consulted by some of the Independent leaders, offered Sir Grenville the news that soon they would be seeking money.

“A lot of money?”

“They wish to raise their own forces,” Barnegat sneered. “A fervent army of rabid Puritans, doubtless chanting psalms as they lop heads. They could be formidable, Sir Grenville.”

“And victorious.”

“If they raise the money. At present they feel the Low Countries might be more friendly toward them.”

Sir Grenville knew he was being sounded out. He nodded slowly. “They might save themselves a journey, Barnegat. I will be happy to talk.”

“Many of them want no king.”

Sir Grenville smiled. “At present we have no king. The sky does not seem to have fallen in.” He did not bother to ensure Barnegat’s silence. The astrologer was not a man to betray his own clients, and Sir Grenville’s slow defection from the Presbyterians, who would keep a figurehead king, to the Independents who thought the ship of state would sail quite well without one, was safe in Barnegat’s memory. Nevertheless, Sir Grenville knew, he had put out a secret hand of friendship to the turbulent Puritans of the revolution. “We’ll meet next week?”

“Indeed, Sir Grenville. The same time?”

“Of course!”

Sir Grenville waited for his next visitors, men with whom he would talk politics, and stared at the river which went past to the Tower. He smiled. The girl would die tomorrow, and he, Sir Grenville Cony, would continue to take the income of the Covenant. Some he would pass to Ebenezer, as he had passed some to Ebenezer’s father, but not even Ebenezer Slythe, a subtle young man, would ever know just how much was never passed on.

Sir Grenville had two seals, and no one could take them from him. His enemy across the sea, the one man who could rescue Dorcas Slythe, was ill. As Septimus Barnegat had said, all was indeed well in Sir Grenville’s heaven.

All was not well in the heaven of the Reverend Simon Perilly. Lady Margaret had asked him to travel to London, a dangerous business, and there find a lawyer who would defend Campion.

Sir George’s old London lawyer, on hearing the request, developed a sudden and inconvenient illness. Another man, whom Perilly had thought a friend, threatened to report Perilly’s presence to the authorities. He could be arrested as a spy. The Reverend Perilly had failed miserably. Now it was too late and he could see no way to save the girl.