“We’re clearing the Squirrelhawk . . . we’ll clear the Donkey Dancer . . . our stern’s three paddle lengths from the shore, Skipp’am!” The final word, to judge by the confused salute that accompanied it, was a compromise between “skipper” and “madam.”

“Gentlemen, we are on the river, and out of the Duke’s jurisdiction!” Miss Kitely’s declaration was met by a brief burst of cheering on all sides. One radical even slapped Blythe heartily on the back, almost toppling him forward into the water, and earning himself a glare.

There was a violent crack, like a tree bough snapping, and suddenly there was a new knothole in the northern wall, and another in the southern wall.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Pertellis in consternation, gazing down at Blythe, who was now lying at full length upon his face. “Are you all right, sir?”

Blythe lifted himself onto his elbows and directed a red-faced, disbelieving glare around the room.

“Weeping Lord of the Bloody Eye, will you all get down? They are shooting at us.”

The other men in the Laurel Bower obediently lowered themselves, some of them carefully laying down their coffee dishes first, others looking around for the cleanest place on the floor. When a second shot punctured a sampler and gonged off a coffeepot, the floorboards suddenly looked a lot more comfortable to everyone.

“They cannot be.” Miss Kitely’s voice was fragile. “No one . . . no one would shoot at us on the river . . . The Watermen would never . . . never allow . . .” Blythe grabbed for her sleeve to pull her down. Her skirt ballooned about her as she sank to her knees, then subsided around her with a silken sigh.

Clent and Mosca had crouched scarcely a second after Blythe had flung himself flat, and now they peeped at each other between their fingers.

“Madam,” Clent muttered, “I owe you an apology. You were correct, and I was in error. The Duke is pixilated.”

“Where’s the Cakes?” Mosca looked about.

She need not have worried. Carmine had taken it upon himself to save the Cakes. This involved dragging her down to a corner of the floor and wrapping his arms protectively around her. Even the floor must have seemed quite a dangerous place to him, since he appeared to be in no hurry to let her go.

“Dulcet!” A flush was creeping up from Miss Kitely’s collar. “Dulcet, run to the galley and put another cauldron on the boil, then come back here with those three muskets. Shrewlie, go with her and bring back as much shot as you can carry. You other girls, help them carry.” Seeing both the coffeemaidens scampering for the internal door, Mosca suddenly realized that “you other girls” must mean the Cakes and herself. It did not look as if the Cakes would escape from her savior at any time soon, so Mosca followed the coffeemaidens.