Cursing, John Chalker watched Lord Garnthorpe vanish from sight.
“Damn you, Garnthorpe. Damn you and damn myself.”
Chalker stared across the green at the meeting house, its whitewashed walls yellowed by twilight. He’d waited opposite Garnthorpe’s columned portico in St. James’s so he’d know exactly what the man looked like. Then he’d dogged him for two hours, all the way to this village of Newington, hoping for a quiet place to have his words. But now, just when he’d got close, his ignoble lordship had slipped into the sanctuary of his fellow Fifth Monarchist madmen. Saints, as they called themselves.
Thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, John gripped his blackthorn cudgel and his razor. Though he’d never planned to use them as more than threat, he did not think he would get even t
