“Now?”

“Yes. Tell him to meet us on the coast Monday night. Seven o’clock at the latest.”

Mason repeated it.

“And tell him that if he’s got no news of Aretine by ten tomorrow morning to send a patrol to the Reverend Hervey’s house. He’ll know where it is.”

“Sir.”

“And you’re to meet me at the girl’s house in Oxford tomorrow night.”

Mason seemed to think nothing of such a journey in such a short time. “Oxford, tomorrow night, sir.”

Devorax laughed. “The cat’s in the dovecote, John. Tooth and claw! Off you go!”

He watched as Mason turned his horse, listened to the hoofbeats in Leadenhall Street, and then urged his own horse forward. He left the shoes and jacket in the alleyway, then bullied his way through Aldgate. He shouted at the guards to hurry, called the captain a whoreson piece of filth, then urged his horse into the brief, stone tunnel.

He turned left outside the gate, planning to circle London to the north before joining Oxford Street at St. Giles. After a murder it was best to be outside the city gates.

He let his horse gallop across Moorfields. He could smell rain in the night wind, but he did not care. He put his head back and laughed at the cloud-shrouded moon. “Kit Aretine! You bastard! You’d have been proud of me! Proud!”

He laughed and rode west into the night.

Thirty-one

Sir Toby Lazender was tired. He had spent a fruitless day leading a hundred men in a chase beyond Walling-ford. Roundheads were said to have raided a village, stripping the barns of the winter’s grain, but the stories turned out to be false. He came back to Oxford tired, wet and irritated, only to find that new problems awaited him. His mother met him in the hall. “Toby!”

“Mother?”

“There’s an extraordinary man here. My dear boy, you’re soaked. He insisted on talking to Campion alone. I don’t like him. He was quite rude to me. You’re to find out what’s happening.”

Toby pulled off sword, jacket and boots. He looked up from his seat on the hall chest as James Wright took them away. “Who is he, mother?”

“Devorax.” Lady Margaret sniffed, “I know he saved her life, Toby, but that’s no reason for drunken rudeness. He positively barred me from the room! I can’t imagine that he’s related to that nice Sir Horace Devorax. Do you remember him, Toby? He ran very good hounds in Somerset.”

Toby shook his head. “I don’t remember. Where are they?”

“Still in Somerset, I should think. Unless our enemies have declared war on hounds.”

Toby smiled. “Where are Campion and Devorax?”

“In the garden room. I suspect you’re leaving us, Toby.”

Toby suspected his mother had listened from the garden. He leaned his dark red curls against the hall’s panelling. “Amsterdam?”

“Yes. It appears the seals are being gathered.” She looked down at him. “I won’t stay in Oxford, Toby.”

He smiled. “I know.” It seemed there was a small but fine house in Wiltshire that could be rented. The money had come from Lopez’s loan to Campion, but Toby knew his mother’s desire to go to Wiltshire arose because of a small, kind, sightless man. “I don’t suppose we’ll stay long in Holland, mother.”