He touched the seal, feeling it as a lump beneath his leather coat and shirt. It had touched her skin, now it touched his, and even that triviality was turned by the distorting glass into an omen of brilliant hope.

He heard her before he saw her. He was leaning against the wall, dreaming the dreams of the shadowless future, when he heard her shriek. He turned, catching one glimpse of the silver-blue cloak in the boat’s stern, and then the oarsmen bent forward again, pulled, and the barge surged out of sight.

“Campion!” He ran to the water’s edge, but already she was gone, the river current carrying her away. “Waterman! Waterman!”

Damn, damn and damn again! There was never an empty boat when you needed one!

He ran up the alley, his boots loud between the walls, and he turned east into the Strand. He tried to think of the nearest stairs to the river. Exeter Street! The Temple Stairs! He pushed past people, careless of their complaints, and he knew that with each second his loved one was going further from him.

Scammell! It had to be Scammell! Campion had told him the whole story and he had made her tell it again and again as he searched for an escape within the legal tangle of will, Covenant and marriage settlement. He wondered, as he pushed through the evening crowds, whether it was another name from the letter, Lopez perhaps, who had seized her, but if he was to rescue her then he had to make his own fateful decision about which of her enemies had taken her and his instinct said Scammell. A maker of boats, she had said, and the barge on which she had gone looked lavish and fitting for a boat-maker.

He turned off the Strand, banging into a solid merchant who shouted at him, and then he was taking the steps of Exeter Street down toward the line of people who waited for watermen.

A pikestaff slammed across the narrow street, stopped him, and a breastplated soldier moved in front of him. Two more came up behind him. “In a hurry, lad?”

“Yes!” God damn! A patrol! One of the many that Parliament put into the streets to search for deserters.

They had him against the wall now. The other people using the street sidled at the far side, not wishing to be involved in any kind of trouble. The soldier who had stopped him looked Toby up and down. “Who are you, lad?”

He thought quickly, snatching the name of the son of one of his father’s colleagues. “Richard Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell’s son.”

“In a hurry, were you?” The soldier frowned, uncertain now.

“Yes. My father’s business.”

“Let him go, Ted,” one of the other two said, but the third was frowning.

“Red ’air.” He sniffed. “Strong build, red ’air. That’s what the captain said we was to look for.” He snatched at the leather helmet-liner, tugging it clear of Toby’s head. “There you are! Red ’air!”