“With three seals. That is, of course, if you still want your fortune.”

Campion was silent, oblivious of the noise of the crowd about her.

Toby frowned. “How are you doing it, sir?”

“Killing people. It’s usually the quickest method.”

“Sir Grenville?”

“He has the seals.” Devorax sounded bored. “I’ll come for you. If I can’t come, I’ll send Mason. You’ll have to be ready for travel, and you’ll be going to the east coast. And for God’s sake pack light. You don’t want to look like the Lord Mayor’s procession.” He nodded at them and turned away.

It seemed appallingly casual to Campion. She had expected more drama, more excitement at the news that, at last, the seals were to be gathered. “Colonel?”

“Yes?” He looked back, surprised.

She realized she had nothing to say. “You’re sure about supper?”

“I’m sure.” Then he was gone.

Toby shook his head. “Is he always that disagreeable?”

“He was being positively polite.”

It was still raining as they left Christ Church, the rain a promise of the quagmires that would slow travel as autumn turned to winter. Campion was suddenly frightened. She had felt safe in Oxford, secure in a household where she was loved and guarded by a husband, and now, quite suddenly, she was faced with a new journey. She held tight to Toby’s arm. They must travel eastward, across the sea, and there would be more death before she could claim Kit Aretine’s heritage.

Toby smiled down at her. “You’re frightened.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I can go on my own?”

She shook her head. Her journey had begun with one seal in a Puritan house. Now she would see that journey to its end, whatever her fears, and through whatever mires of blood it led. She would take St. Luke to the gathering.

Twenty-nine

Ebenezer Slythe’s offer of a reward to anyone who could give information about the escape of the witch from the Tower had yielded nothing except the usual crop of fools who thought they could lie their way to an easy two hundred pounds.

Then, in September, the Royalist news-sheet, the Mercurius Aulicus, simply published the news. The “witch” who had outwitted the Parliamentarians had married in Oxford. It gave her name as Lady Campion Lazender, but the writer could not help rubbing in that, as Dorcas Scammell, she had made fools of the vaunted London garrison. Ebenezer had smiled. Did she think that by changing her name to “Campion” she would escape her enemies?

Sir Grenville had been less cheered by the news. “So she’s in Oxford, what good is that? Do you think she’s not guarded? God in heaven! She’s in the middle of the King’s army, and married!” He scowled. “We have to kill both of them; legally her property is his now.”

Yet three weeks later, it seemed that the preachers of London had been right. The age of miracles had returned to earth, had come to England where the Saints struggled to rule, and Ebenezer was a witness of such a miracle. He had prayed earnestly for God to give him the seals and now, on a Monday morning of sweeping, cold rain, it seemed his prayers were answered.