A Crowning Mercy. Bernard Cornwell

freedom. They speculated endlessly about the seal, the letter, even the pearled gloves, but in all their speculation they did not find a solution that convinced them. Sir Grenville Cony had the answer, if any man did, and Toby would not leave London till he had learned it. He would not, he said, leave Campion either. Together they planned their improbable, impossible future as if love could conquer everything.

      Yet Toby was wanted. A description had been circulated to the watch, to the soldiers in the city, and Campion was appalled at the risks he took. He walked openly in the streets with her, his dark red curls obvious beneath his wide-brimmed hat, and on the Tuesday, the day before her appointment with Sir Grenville, he came close to being caught.

      They were walking from St Giles, both soberly dressed, though Toby insisted on having black satin beneath his slashed sleeves. He was laughing at some joke he had made when a burly man stepped into their path. The man raised a hand to Toby’s chest. ‘You.’

      ‘Sir?’

      The man’s face was twisted with anger and inner hatred. ‘You’re him, aren’t you? The Lazender scum!’ He stepped back, raising his voice. ‘A traitor! A traitor!’

      ‘Sir!’ Toby’s voice was just as loud. People were watching, ready to side with the burly man, but Toby made them listen. He let go of Campion’s arm and pulled up his sleeve, pointing to a great white scar that ran ragged on his left forearm. ‘I took that wound, sir, last year on Edgehill field. Where were you, sir?’ Toby stepped a pace forward, his right hand now dropping to his basket-hilted sword. ‘I drew this sword for the Lord, sir, and I did not have you at my side when the forces of evil surrounded me!’ Toby shook his head sadly. ‘Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, for He delivered me, Captain Scammell, from the Papist hordes of that man Charles. A traitor, am I? Then I am proud to be a traitor for my Lord and Saviour! I have slain for the Lord, brethren, but was this man with me?’

      Toby’s imitation of the Puritan rabble-rousers was so convincing that the small crowd were now all in sympathy with him. The burly man, taken aback by Toby’s pious vehemence, was eager to offer apologies and beseeched Brother Scammell to kneel in prayer with him. Toby, to Campion’s infinite relief, was magnanimous in victory, declining to pray, and pushing his way through the dispersing crowd with many expressions of piety. Once they were clear he grinned at her. ‘I got that scar two years ago, falling off a horse, but it comes in useful.’

      She laughed, but there was a desperate worry in her. ‘They’ll find you, Toby!’

      ‘I’ll put on a disguise, like those actors.’

      ‘Be careful!’

      Toby was taking some precautions, however. He had stopped sleeping at his father’s house, using instead the rooms of a friend in the city itself, but the experience with the angry man in St Giles had worried him. ‘There’s only tomorrow.’

      ‘Then what?’

      They had paused outside Mrs Swan’s house. He smiled down at her; the gentle, amused smile she liked so much. ‘Then we’ll marry.’

      ‘We can’t.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Your father!’

      ‘My father will fall hopelessly in love with you.’

      ‘Toby! You said he won’t even meet me!’

      Toby smiled again, one finger on her cheek. ‘He will. He’ll have to. He can’t refuse to meet my wife, can he?’

      She looked at him, a small frown on her face. ‘Are we mad, Toby?’

      ‘Probably.’ He smiled. ‘But all will be well, I promise you. All will be well.’

      She believed him, but then she was in love, and lovers always believe that fate is on their side.

      Sir George Lazender, alone in the upstairs parlour of the house he would leave in two weeks’ time, lit a pipe of his beloved tobacco and wished that the popular belief, that the tobacco-leaf was a dangerous substance giving rise to unnatural fervour and strange fancies, was true. He faced too much reality, too many problems.

      He was about to alienate his son-in-law and his eldest daughter. He did not think the enmity would run deep, but they would undoubtedly become enemies.

      Now he had estranged Toby.

      Twice the soldiers had searched the house for his son, and twice Sir George had truthfully said that he did not know Toby’s whereabouts. He suspected his son was staying in the city and he hourly dreaded the news that Toby had been arrested and imprisoned.

      It was the girl’s fault. The Slythe girl. Sir George felt anger. She must be a conniving, ambitious girl to have snared his son.

      He walked to the eastern window and stared down into the street. It was dark, the lights of a few torches fitful. Two soldiers, their helmets catching the red glare of the flames, paced towards the Royal Mews. An empty cart went the other way.