In trouble, Toby thought, in desperate trouble. And he had to rescue her.

Thames Street was the longest in the city, running three-quarters of a mile from the Customs House beside the Tower to the decaying walls of Baynard’s Castle at Ludgate. Scammell’s yard was almost in the center of the street, built where a tangle of wharves and buildings jostled to the river bank.

Throughout the journey to the yard Goodwife was triumphant. She hit at Campion, pinched and scratched her, her voice slicing at the girl like a saw-blade. Goodwife brought up every misdeed of twenty years, every small sin, every disappointment to her parents, and every ounce of grief was squeezed from this catalogue of evil. It was counterpointed by verses of scripture from Scammell. Cony’s boatmen watched, their faces impassive, while Grimmett smirked in the stern of the boat.

Goodwife tugged at the pale blue cloak. “What’s this? What’s this? You were brought up in the ways of the Lord, and you dress like this?”

Samuel Scammell knew his cue. His voice was mournful. “A woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtile of heart. She is loud and stubborn; Her feet abide not in her house.”

“Amen,” Goodwife leaped on to the end of the verse. “A disgrace you are! A disgrace to your parents, to me, to Mr. Scammell, to your Lord and Savior, and what will Sir Grenville think of us? Tell me that! What will he think of us?” This last, despairing question was asked at a shriek that invited worried looks from passing boats.

They arrived at last, the boat pulling into a narrow slip between two piers, and Campion was pushed up steps into a yard piled with timber, stinking of tar and crammed with half-finished small boats. Scammell left Grimmett and Goodwife to guard her while he cleared the area of his workmen. They were curious, his foreman especially so, but Scammell chivvied them away. Cony’s barge backed into the river, turned, and disappeared upstream.

On one side of the yard were tall sheds, filled with timber, and on the other Scammell’s big, gloomy house. Campion was pushed inside, then into a small room that led from the hall. She was locked in, alone, and the sound of the key reminded her of the times when her father would punish her, locking her first in her room while he worked himself into a state to perform God’s vengeance on a child.

The shutters of the room were locked closed, yet after a while her eyes adjusted to the gloom and she guessed she was in Scammell’s old study. The shelves were empty now, but there was a table which still held some religious pamphlets. She tore one of them into shreds, but knew the futility of the gesture. It was not a pamphlet she wanted to tear up but this whole house. She wanted to scream, to cry, to pound her fists on the door in frustration, yet she would not give her enemies the satisfaction of seeing her utterly defeated.