“The Scottish Commissioners can bubble the Thames by farting, Sillers. We have work.”

The punishment was administered during Cony’s dinner, so that Sir Grenville could watch while he ate. He enjoyed it. Bush’s squeals of pain made a better sauce for the lamb, chicken, prawns and beef than anything his kitchen could provide. He felt better afterward, much better, so he no longer regretted that he had forgotten to summon Dr. Chandler. After dinner, when Bush had been taken away to be hurled into some gutter, Sir Grenville graciously allowed the Scottish Commissioners to see him. They were, he knew, all fervent Presbyterians, so he prayed aloud with them, praying for a Presbyterian England, before settling to his work with them.

The girl. He thought of her, wondering where she was in London, and whether she would bring him the seal. Above all he wondered whether she would bring him that. St. Matthew! He could feel the excitement of it, the joy of a long-ago plot well laid. He sat up late that night, drinking claret before the darkened river, and he raised his glass to the grotesque reflection in the diamond paned window, a window that broke his squat, heavy body into a hundred overlapping fragments. “To the Covenant,” he toasted himself. “To the Covenant.”

Campion could only wait. Mrs. Swan seemed genuinely glad of her company, not least because Campion could read the news-sheets aloud to her. Mrs. Swan did not see the “point” in reading, but she was avid for news. The war had made the news-sheets popular though Mrs. Swan did not approve of the London sheets which naturally, supported Parliament’s cause. At heart Mrs. Swan supported the King and what she felt in her heart emerged easily on to her tongue. She listened as Campion read the stories of Parliamentary victories, and each one was greeted with a scowl and a fervent hope that it was not true.

Not much news that summer brought relief to Parliament. Bristol had fallen and there had been no great victory by which the balance of that defeat could be redressed. There were numerous small skirmishes, enlarged by the news-sheets into premature Armageddons, but the victory Parliament wanted had not come. London had other reasons to be gloomy. In their search for money to prosecute the war, the Parliament had raised new taxes, on wine, leather, sugar, beer and even linen, taxes that made King Charles’s burden on London look light. Mrs. Swan shook her head. “And coal’s short, dear. It’s desperate!”

London was warmed by coal brought by ship from Newcastle, but the King held Newcastle so the citizens of London faced a bitter winter.

“Can’t you move away?” Campion asked.

“Dear me, no! I’m a Londoner, dear. Move away! The thought of it!” Mrs. Swan peered closely at her embroidery. “That’s very nice, though I say it myself. No, dear. I expect King Charles will be back by winter, then everything will be all right.” She shifted closer to the window light. “Read me something else, dear. Something that will cheer a body up.”