The sun was setting; rather, the sky dissolving from the overcast that defined this October in the Midlands to full-on night. The wind was chilly; it promised if not rain, then perpetual damp, a morning frost. Cromwell, Edmund and Trooper Kitson, having crossed the Avon at Stratford some hours earlier, rode a rutted track along the eastern bank in which direction lay, they’d been told, a handsome church and a manor house, property of the Lucy family, which might provide quartering for the troop. And indeed, against the darkening sky a church tower could be seen.

“There’s a story,” Edmund said, “Shakespeare was caught poaching on the estate.”

“Really,” Cromwell said. “I wasn’t aware.”

“They’ve shut the theaters,” Trooper Kitson said. “Vile dens of lechery.”

“The history plays are edifying,” Cromwell said. “The theaters themselves, on the other hand. . . wait. What’s this?”

Two riders were approaching, cohering out of the gloom.