the long strips of carpet off the hanging shelves, bringing down their contents. Plates and beakers crashed and shattered.
The result was inevitable. The commotion brought Catherine Keevil running down to investigate.
Lovell stilled. 'Oh she is a delight!' he announced, eyeing up Catherine with a leer. 'If you will not have me, madam, maybe your pretty maid will!'
'Leave her alone.' Juliana was still hastily writing.
She did not see Catherine's eyes dart to the stairs, as the girl decided to bolt for help. Then Catherine hesitated fatally. Lovell grabbed her. Juliana cried out a warning but Catherine's wild struggles became unmanageable. Lovell reacted professionally. He pulled out the carbine, cocked it, placed it to the young girl's forehead and shot her.
Frozen with horror, Juliana watched the slow slide floorwards of the lifeless Catherine Keevil. Blood and human tissue had spread on the door-frame and adjacent wall. The dead girl had joined all those other household servants who lost their lives accidentally and unfairly in the civil wars… Lovell dropped the corpse quite casually. 'Any other concealed helpers?'
Frantic and mute, Juliana shook her head. Lovell strode to the table, cast a glance at the written note, then grasped his trembling wife by the arm. As he pulled her with him, she had to step over Catherine, trying not to see what the bullet had done.
Lovell hauled Juliana down the steep stairs. Her skirts tangled in a dog-gate; Lovell impatiently dragged her free. He pushed her ahead, intending her to stumble and weep and plead with him, tyrannising her so she would obey him. In the sun-drenched yard, he shed Juliana roughly as he strode to the baby. He picked up the child, by her leading-reins; he swung her like a boy's top on a piece of rope. Many cavaliers had played ghastly games like this. If Celia's dress and the strings had been less robust, she would have fallen. Juliana screamed and reached out. Lovell grinned as he whirled the frightened child away from her. Terrified, Celia began to wail loudly.
Lovell slung the baby under one arm. He had to use his other forearm to shield himself from Juliana's pummelling fists. To defend himself from her furious rain of blows, Lovell swung his arm hard and felled her to the ground.
As she lay winded, she was vaguely aware of hammering at the shop door; farther away, dogs were yelping hysterically. Lovell lowered the wailing baby back onto the rug. He was almost exhausted. Restively, he unbuttoned his coat further, in order to rub at his bandaged shoulder. His savagery seemed to subside. With an expression of apology, he turned back towards Juliana, holding out a hand. She thought he intended to pull her to her feet, perhaps as a courtesy, perhaps so she could support him if he fainted.
Too late. There was a flash of white. A small figure, nightshirted and barefoot, burst upon them.
Juliana gasped. He had blood on his feet; he had run through Catherine's blood. Shock after what he had seen upstairs gave him impetus even before Orlando struck Juliana. The boy had witnessed that.
He was clutching a sword, the one the smith Lucas once rejected, that old weapon they had had for years. Recently, Gideon had sharpened it. The sword was heavy for a lad of twelve, even when held tightly in both hands. Barely able to manage, he kept the point up bravely, as he rushed forwards. He aimed where soldiers said you should, up and under the fifth rib; he guessed, but by chance he guessed correctly. Using all his strength, he ran the man through.
Gideon Jukes arrived moments later. He watched Lovell collapse. He saw Juliana, her head flung back, staring at the sky in despair; the way she was clutching the baby told him much. He saw the stricken boy, deep in shock. The sword had broken; its hilt and half the blade lay at his feet. Gideon's heart filled up with pity, though it was obvious no amount of compassion would help. The child had withdrawn into a horror that must last him all his life.
Like so many thousands of others, they were neither a cavalier nor a Roundhead family, neither wholly Royalist nor Parliamentarian. What had happened to them went beyond all matters of government. As Gideon started to grasp the events in his house today, he realised heavily how the civil war had claimed its newest victims. One more son and his brother had to live with the unthinkable. Another mother faced the endless effects of tragedy. Guilt, blame, recrimination, loneliness, misery and change lay ahead of them. They could move home, start again, seem to recover, but from this day they were all permanently damaged.
He knelt by the prone man, grasped him to provide human contact through his final moments, but his soul had ebbed out already. Nothing could be done. Not knowing who the stranger was, Valentine Lovell had just killed his father.
