1
Ned Willard came home to Kingsbridge in a snowstorm.
He sailed upstream from Combe Harbour in the cabin of a slow barge loaded with cloth from Antwerp and wine from Bordeaux. When he reckoned the boat was at last nearing Kingsbridge, he wrapped his French cloak more tightly around his shoulders, pulled the hood over his ears, stepped out onto the open deck, and looked ahead.
At first he was disappointed: all he could see was falling snow. But his longing for a sight of the city was like an ache, and he stared into the flurries, hoping. After a while his wish was granted, and the storm began to lift. A surprise patch of blue sky appeared. Gazing over the tops of the surrounding trees, he saw the tower of the cathedral – four hundred and five feet high, as every Kingsbridge Grammar School pupil knew. The stone angel that watched over the city from the top of the spire had snow edging her wings today, turning the tips of her feathers from dove-grey to bright white. As he looked, a momentary sunbeam struck the statue and gleamed off the snow, like a benison; then the storm closed in again and she was lost from view.
He saw nothing except trees for a while, but his imagination was full. He was about to be reunited with his mother after an absence of a year. He would not tell her how much he had missed her, for a man should be independent and self-sufficient at the age of eighteen.
But most of all he had missed Margery. He had fallen for her, with catastrophic timing, a few weeks before leaving Kingsbridge to spend a year in Calais, the English-ruled port on the north coast of France. Since childhood he had known and liked the mischievous, intelligent daughter of Sir Reginald Fitzgerald. When she grew up, her impishness had taken on a new allure, so that he found himself staring at her in church, his mouth dry and his breath shallow. He had hesitated to do more than stare, for she was three years younger than he, but she knew no such inhibitions. They had kissed in the Kingsbridge graveyard, behind the concealing bulk of the tomb of Prior Philip, the monk who had commissioned the cathedral four centuries ago. There had been nothing childish about their long, passionate kiss: then she had laughed and run away.
But she kissed him again the next day. And on the evening before he left for France they admitted that they loved one another.
For the first few weeks they exchanged love letters. They had not told their parents of their feelings – it seemed too soon – so they could not write openly, but Ned confided in his older brother, Barney, who became their intermediary. Then Barney left Kingsbridge and went to Seville. Margery, too, had an older brother, Rollo; but she did not trust him the way Ned trusted Barney. And so the correspondence ended.
The lack of communication made little difference to Ned’s feelings. He knew what people said about young love, and he examined himself constantly, waiting for his emotions to change; but they did not. After a few weeks in Calais, his cousin Thérèse made it clear that she adored him and was willing to do pretty much anything he liked to prove it, but Ned was hardly tempted. He reflected on this with some surprise, for he had never before passed up the chance of kissing a pretty girl with nice breasts.
However, something else was bothering him now. After rejecting Thérèse, he had felt confident that his feelings for Margery would not alter while he was away; but now he asked himself what would happen when he saw her. Would Margery in the flesh be as enchanting as she seemed in his memory? Would his love survive the reunion?
And what about her? A year was a long time for a girl of fourteen – fifteen now, of course, but still. Perhaps her feelings had faded after the letters stopped. She might have kissed someone else behind the tomb of Prior Philip. Ned would be horribly disappointed if she had become indifferent to him. And even if she still loved him, would the real Ned live up to her golden remembrance?
The storm eased again, and he saw that the barge was passing through the western suburbs of Kingsbridge. On both banks were the workshops of industries that used a lot of water: dyeing, fulling of cloth, papermaking and meat slaughtering. Because these processes could be smelly, the west was the low-rent neighbourhood.
Ahead, Leper Island came into view. The name was old: there had been no lepers here for centuries. At the near end of the island was Caris’s Hospital, founded by the nun who had saved the city during the Black Death. As the barge drew closer Ned was able to see, beyond the hospital, the graceful twin curves of Merthin’s Bridge, connecting the island to the mainland north and south. The love story of Caris and Merthin was part of local legend, passed from one generation to the next around winter fireplaces.
The barge eased into a berth on the crowded waterfront. The city seemed not to have altered much in a year. Places such as Kingsbridge changed only slowly, Ned supposed: cathedrals and bridges and hospitals were built to last.
He had a satchel slung over his shoulder, and now the captain of the barge handed him his only other luggage: a small wooden trunk containing a few clothes, a pair of pistols and some books. He hefted the box, took his leave, and stepped onto the dock.
He turned towards the large stone-built waterside warehouse that was his family’s business headquarters, but when he had gone only a few steps, he heard a familiar Scots voice say: ‘Well, if it isn’t our Ned. Welcome home!’
The speaker was Janet Fife, his mother’s housekeeper. Ned smiled broadly, glad to see her.
‘I was just buying a fish for your mother’s dinner,’ she said. Janet was so thin she might have been made of sticks, but she loved to feed people. ‘You shall have some, too.’ She ran a fond eye over him. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘Your face seems thinner, but your shoulders are broader. Did your Aunt Blanche feed you properly?’
‘She did, but Uncle Dick set me to shovelling rocks.’
‘That’s no work for a scholar.’
‘I didn’t mind.’
Janet raised her voice. ‘Malcolm, Malcolm, look who’s here!’
Malcolm was Janet’s husband and the Willard family’s groom. He came limping across the dockside: he had been kicked by a horse years ago when he was young and inexperienced. He shook Ned’s hand warmly and said: ‘Old Acorn died.’
‘He was my brother’s favourite horse.’ Ned hid a smile: it was just like Malcolm to give news of the animals before the humans. ‘Is my mother well?’
‘The mistress is in fine fettle, thanks be to God,’ Malcolm said. ‘And so was your brother, last we heard – he’s not a great writer, and it takes a month or two for letters to get here from Spain. Let me help with your luggage, young Ned.’
Ned did not want to go home immediately. He had another plan. ‘Would you carry my box to the house?’ he said to Malcolm. On the spur of the moment he invented a cover story. ‘Tell them I’m going into the cathedral to give thanks for a safe journey, and I’ll come home right afterwards.’
‘Very good.’
Malcolm limped off and Ned followed more slowly, enjoying the familiar sight of buildings he had grown up with. The snow was still falling lightly. The roofs were all white, but the streets were busy with people and carts, and underfoot there was only slush. Ned passed the notorious White Horse tavern, scene of regular Saturday-night fights, and walked uphill on the main street to the cathedral square. He passed the bishop’s palace and paused for a nostalgic moment outside the Grammar School. Through its narrow, pointed windows he could see lamplit bookshelves. There he had learned to read and count, to know when to fight and when to run away, and to be flogged with a bundle of birch twigs without crying.
On the south side of the cathedral was the priory. Since King Henry VIII had dissolved the monasteries, Kingsbridge Priory had fallen into sad disrepair, with holed roofs, teetering walls and vegetation growing through windows. The buildings were now owned by the current mayor, Margery’s father, Sir Reginald Fitzgerald, but he had done nothing with them.
Happily the cathedral was well maintained, and stood as tall and strong as ever, the stone symbol of the living city. Ned stepped through the great west door into the nave. He would thank God for a safe journey and thereby turn the lie he had told Malcolm into a truth.
As always, the church was a place of business as well as worship: Friar Murdo had a tray of vials of earth from Palestine, guaranteed to be genuine; a man Ned did not recognize offered hot stones to warm your hands for a penny; and Puss Lovejoy, shivering in a red dress, was selling what she always sold.
Ned looked at the ribs of the vaulting, like the arms of a crowd of people all reaching up to heaven. Whenever he came into this place he thought of the men and women who had built it. Many of them were commemorated in Timothy’s Book, a history of the priory that was studied in the school: the masons Tom Builder and his stepson, Jack; Prior Philip; Merthin Fitzgerald, who, as well as the bridge, had put up the central tower; and all the quarrymen, mortar women, carpenters and glaziers, ordinary people who had done an extraordinary thing, risen above their humble circumstances and created something eternally beautiful.
Ned knelt before the altar for a minute. A safe journey was something to be thankful for. Even on the short crossing from France to England, ships could get into trouble and people could die.
But he did not linger. His next stop was Margery’s house.
On the north side of the cathedral square, opposite the bishop’s palace, was the Bell Inn, and, next to that, a new house was going up. It was on land that had belonged to the priory, so Ned guessed Margery’s father was building. It was going to be impressive, Ned saw, with bay windows and many chimneys: it would be the grandest house in Kingsbridge.
He continued up the main street to the crossroads. Margery’s current home stood on one corner, across the road from the Guild Hall. Although not as imposing as the new place promised to be, it was a big timber-framed building occupying an acre of the priciest land in town.
Ned paused on the doorstep. He had been looking forward to this moment for a year but, now that it had come, he found his heart full of apprehension.
He knocked.
The door was opened by an elderly maid, Naomi, who invited him into the great hall. Naomi had known Ned all his life, but she looked troubled, as if he were a dubious stranger; and, when he asked for Margery, Naomi said she would go and see.
Ned looked at the painting of Christ on the cross that hung over the fireplace. In Kingsbridge there were two kinds of picture: Bible scenes and formal portraits of noblemen. In wealthy French homes Ned had been surprised to see paintings of pagan gods such as Venus and Bacchus, shown in fantastic forests, wearing robes that always seemed to be falling off.
But here there was something unusual. On the wall opposite the crucifixion was a map of Kingsbridge. Ned had never seen such a thing, and he studied it with interest. It clearly showed the town divided into four by the main street, running north–south, and the high street running east–west. The cathedral and the former priory occupied the south-east quarter; the malodorous industrial neighbourhood the south-west. All the churches were marked and some of the houses too, including the Fitzgeralds’ and the Willards’. The river formed the eastern border of the town, then turned like a dog’s leg. It had once formed the southern border too, but the town had extended over the water, thanks to Merthin’s bridge, and there was now a big suburb on the far bank.
The two pictures represented Margery’s parents, Ned noted: her father, the politician, would have hung the map; and her mother, the devout Catholic, the crucifixion.
It was not Margery who came into the great hall but her brother, Rollo. He was taller than Ned, and good-looking, with black hair. Ned and Rollo had been at school together, but they had never been friends: Rollo was four years older. Rollo had been the cleverest boy in the school, and had been put in charge of the younger pupils; but Ned had refused to regard him as a master and had never accepted his authority. To make matters worse, it had soon become clear that Ned was going to be at least as clever as Rollo. There had been quarrels and fights until Rollo went away to study at Kingsbridge College, Oxford.
Ned tried to hide his dislike and suppress his irritation. He said politely: ‘I see there’s a building site next to the Bell. Is your father putting up a new house?’
‘Yes. This place is rather old-fashioned.’
‘Business must be good at Combe.’ Sir Reginald was Receiver of Customs at Combe Harbour. It was a lucrative post, granted to him by Mary Tudor when she became queen, as a reward for his support.
Rollo said: ‘So, you’re back from Calais. How was it?’
‘I learned a lot. My father built a pier and warehouse there, managed by my Uncle Dick.’ Edmund, Ned’s father had died ten years ago, and his mother had run the business ever since. ‘We ship English iron ore, tin and lead from Combe Harbour to Calais, and from there it’s sold all over Europe.’ The Calais operation was the foundation of the Willard family business.
‘How has the war affected it?’ England was at war with France, but Rollo’s concern was transparently fake. In truth he relished the danger to the Willard fortune.
Ned downplayed it. ‘Calais is well defended,’ he said, sounding more confident than he felt. ‘It’s surrounded by forts that have protected it ever since it became part of England two hundred years ago.’ He ran out of patience. ‘Is Margery at home?’
‘Do you have a reason to see her?’
It was a rude question, but Ned pretended not to notice. He opened his satchel. ‘I brought her a present from France,’ he said. He took out a length of shimmering lavender silk, carefully folded. ‘I think the colour will suit her.’
‘She won’t want to see you.’
Ned frowned. What was this? ‘I’m quite sure she will.’
‘I can’t imagine why.’
Ned chose his words carefully. ‘I admire your sister, Rollo, and I believe she is fond of me.’
‘You’re going to find that things have changed while you’ve been away, young Ned,’ said Rollo condescendingly.
Ned did not take this seriously. He thought Rollo was just being slyly malicious. ‘All the same, please ask her.’
Rollo smiled, and that worried Ned, for it was the smile he had worn when he had permission to flog one of the younger pupils at the school.
Rollo said: ‘Margery is engaged to be married.’
‘What?’ Ned stared at him, feeling shocked and hurt, as if he had been clubbed from behind. He had not been sure what to expect, but he had not dreamed of this.
Rollo just looked back, smiling.
Ned said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Who to?’
‘She is going to marry Viscount Shiring.’
Ned said: ‘Bart?’ That was incredible. Of all the young men in the county, the slow-witted, humourless Bart Shiring was the least likely to capture Margery’s heart. The prospect that he would one day be the earl of Shiring might have been enough for many girls – but not for Margery, Ned was sure.
Or, at least, he would have been sure a year ago.
He said: ‘Are you making this up?’
It was a foolish question, he realized immediately. Rollo could be crafty and spiteful, but not stupid: he would not invent such a story, for fear of looking foolish when the truth came out.
Rollo shrugged. ‘The engagement will be announced tomorrow at the earl’s banquet.’
Tomorrow was the twelfth day of Christmas. If the earl of Shiring was having a celebration, it was certain that Ned’s family had been invited. So Ned would be there to hear the announcement, if Rollo was telling the truth.
‘Does she love him?’ Ned blurted out.
Rollo was not expecting that question, and it was his turn to be startled. ‘I don’t see why I should discuss that with you.’
His equivocation made Ned suspect that the answer was No. ‘Why do you look so shifty?’
Rollo bridled. ‘You’d better go, before I feel obliged to thrash you the way I used to.’
‘We’re not in school any longer,’ Ned said. ‘You might be surprised by which of us gets thrashed.’ He wanted to fight Rollo, and he was angry enough not to care whether he would win.
But Rollo was more circumspect. He walked to the door and held it open. ‘Goodbye,’ he said.
Ned hesitated. He did not want to go without seeing Margery. If he had known where her room was he might have run up the stairs. But he would look stupid opening bedroom doors at random in someone else’s house.
He picked up the silk and put it back in his satchel. ‘This isn’t the last word,’ he said. ‘You can’t keep her locked away for long. I will speak to her.’
Rollo ignored that, and stood patiently at the door.
Ned itched to punch Rollo, but supressed the urge with an effort: they were men now, and he could not start a fight with so little provocation. He felt outmanoeuvred. He hesitated for a long moment. He could not think what to do.
So he went out.
Rollo said: ‘Don’t hurry back.’
Ned walked the short distance down the main street to the house where he had been born.
The Willard place was opposite the west front of the cathedral. It had been enlarged, over the years, with haphazard extensions, and now it sprawled untidily over several thousand square feet. But it was comfortable, with massive fireplaces, a large dining room for convivial meals, and good feather beds. The place was home to Alice Willard and her two sons plus Grandma, the mother of Ned’s late father.
Ned went in and found his mother in the front parlour, which she used as an office when not at the waterfront warehouse. She leaped up from her chair at the writing table and hugged and kissed him. She was heavier than she had been a year ago, he saw right away; but he decided not to say so.
He looked around. The room had not changed. Her favourite painting was there, a picture of Christ and the adulteress surrounded by a crowd of hypocritical Pharisees who wanted to stone her to death. Alice liked to quote Jesus: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ It was also an erotic picture, for the woman’s breasts were exposed, a sight that had at one time given young Ned vivid dreams.
He looked out of the parlour window across the market square to the elegant façade of the great church, with its long lines of lancet windows and pointed arches. It had been there every day of his life: only the sky above it changed with the seasons. It gave him a vague but powerful sense of reassurance. People were born and died, cities could rise and fall, wars began and ended, but Kingsbridge Cathedral would last until the Day of Judgement.
‘So you went into the cathedral to give thanks,’ she said. ‘You’re a good boy.’
He could not deceive her. ‘I went to the Fitzgerald house as well,’ he said. He saw a brief look of disappointment flash across her face, and he said: ‘I hope you don’t mind that I went there first.’
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘But I should remember what it’s like to be young and in love.’
She was forty-eight. After Edmund died, everyone had said she should marry again, and little Ned, eight years old, had been terrified that he would get a cruel stepfather. But she had been a widow for ten years now, and he guessed she would stay single.
Ned said: ‘Rollo told me that Margery is going to marry Bart Shiring.’
‘Oh, dear. I was afraid of that. Poor Ned. I’m so sorry.’
‘Why does her father have the right to tell her who to marry?’
‘Fathers expect some degree of control. Your father and I didn’t have to worry about that. I never had a daughter . . . who lived.’
Ned knew that. His mother had given birth to two girls before Barney. Ned was familiar with the two little tombstones in the graveyard on the north side of Kingsbridge Cathedral.
He said: ‘A woman has to love her husband. You wouldn’t have forced a daughter to marry a brute like Bart.’
‘No, I suppose I wouldn’t.’
‘What is wrong with those people?’
‘Sir Reginald believes in hierarchies and authority. As mayor, he thinks an alderman’s job is to make decisions and then enforce them. When your father was mayor he said that aldermen should rule the town by serving it.’
Ned said impatiently: ‘That sounds like two ways of looking at the same thing.’
‘It’s not, though,’ said his mother. ‘It’s two different worlds.’
*
‘I WILL NOT marry Bart Shiring!’ said Margery Fitzgerald to her mother.
Margery was upset and angry. For twelve months she had been waiting for Ned to return, thinking about him every day, longing to see his wry smile and golden-brown eyes; and now she had learned, from the servants, that he was back in Kingsbridge, and he had come to the house, but they had not told her, and he had gone away! She was furious at her family for deceiving her, and she wept with frustration.
‘I’m not asking you to marry Viscount Shiring today,’ said Lady Jane. ‘Just go and talk to him.’
They were in Margery’s bedroom. In one corner was a prie-dieu, a prayer desk, where she knelt twice a day, facing the crucifix on the wall, and counted her prayers with the help of a string of carved ivory beads. The rest of the room was all luxury: a four-poster bed with a feather mattress and richly coloured hangings; a big carved-oak chest for her many dresses; a tapestry of a forest scene.
This room had seen many arguments with her mother over the years. But Margery was a woman now. She was petite, but a little taller and heavier than her tiny, fierce mother; and she felt it was no longer a foregone conclusion that the fight would end in victory for Lady Jane and humiliation for Margery.
Margery said: ‘What’s the point? He’s come here to court me. If I talk to him, he’ll feel encouraged. And then he’ll be even angrier when he realizes the truth.’
‘You can be polite.’
Margery did not want to talk about Bart. ‘How could you not tell me that Ned was here?’ she said. ‘That was dishonest.’
‘I didn’t know until he’d gone! Only Rollo saw him.’
‘Rollo was doing your will.’
‘Children should do their parents’ will,’ her mother said. ‘You know the commandment: “Honour thy father and mother”. It’s your duty to God.’
All her short life Margery had struggled with this. She knew that God wished her to be obedient, but she had a wilful and rebellious nature – as she had so often been told – and she found it extraordinarily difficult to be good. However, when this was pointed out to her, she always suppressed her nature and became compliant. God’s will was more important than anything else, she knew that. ‘I’m sorry, Mother,’ she said.
‘Go and talk to Bart,’ said Lady Jane.
‘Very well.’
‘Just comb your hair, dear.’
Margery had a last flash of defiance. ‘My hair’s fine,’ she said, and before her mother could argue she left the room.
Bart was in the hall, wearing new yellow hose. He was teasing one of the dogs, offering a piece of ham then snatching it away at the last moment.
Lady Jane followed Margery down the stairs and said: ‘Take Lord Shiring into the library and show him the books.’
‘He’s not interested in books,’ Margery snapped.
‘Margery!’
Bart said: ‘I’d like to see the books.’
Margery shrugged. ‘Follow me, please,’ she said, and led the way into the next room. She left the door open, but her mother did not join them.
Her father’s books were arranged on three shelves. ‘By God, what a lot of them you have!’ Bart exclaimed. ‘A man would waste his life away reading them all.’
There were fifty or so, more than would normally be seen outside a university or cathedral library, and a sign of wealth. Some were in Latin or French.
Margery made an effort to play host. She took down a book in English. ‘This is The Pastime of Pleasure,’ she said. ‘That might interest you.’
He gave a leer and moved closer. ‘Pleasure is a great pastime.’ He seemed pleased with the witticism.
She stepped back. ‘It’s a long poem about the education of a knight.’
‘Ah.’ Bart lost interest in the book. Looking along the shelf, he picked out The Book of Cookery. ‘This is important,’ he said. ‘A wife should make sure her husband has good food, don’t you think?’
‘Of course.’ Margery was trying hard to think of something to talk about. What was Bart interested in? War, perhaps. ‘People are blaming the queen for the war with France.’
‘Why is it her fault?’
‘They say that Spain and France are fighting over possessions in Italy, a conflict that has nothing to do with England, and we’re involved only because our Queen Mary is married to King Felipe of Spain and has to back him.’
Bart nodded. ‘A wife must be led by her husband.’
‘That’s why a girl must choose very carefully.’ This pointed remark went over Bart’s head. Margery went on: ‘Some say our queen should not be married to a foreign monarch.’
Bart tired of the subject. ‘We shouldn’t be talking of politics. Women ought to leave such matters to their husbands.’
‘Women have so many duties to their husbands,’ Margery said, knowing that her ironic tone would be lost on Bart. ‘We have to cook for them, and be led by them, and leave politics to them . . . I’m glad I haven’t got a husband, life is simpler this way.’
‘But every woman needs a man.’
‘Let’s talk about something else.’
‘I mean it.’ He closed his eyes, concentrating, then came out with a short rehearsed speech. ‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world, and I love you. Please be my wife.’
Her reaction was visceral. ‘No!’
Bart looked baffled. He did not know how to respond. Clearly he had been led to expect the opposite answer. After a pause he said: ‘But my wife will become a countess one day!’
‘And you must marry a girl who longs for that with all her heart.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’ She tried not to be harsh. It was difficult: understatement was lost on him. ‘Bart, you’re strong and handsome, and I’m sure brave too, but I could never love you.’ Ned came into her mind: with him she never found herself trying to think of something to talk about. ‘I will marry a man who is clever and thoughtful and who wants his wife to be more than just the most senior of his servants.’ There, she thought; even Bart can’t fail to understand that.
He moved with surprising speed and grabbed her upper arms. His grip was strong. ‘Women like to be mastered,’ he said.
‘Who told you that? Believe me, I don’t!’ She tried to pull away from him but could not.
He drew her to him and kissed her.
On another day she might just have turned her face away. Lips did not hurt. But she was still sad and bitter about having missed Ned. Her mind was full of thoughts of what might have happened: how she might have kissed him and touched his hair and pulled his body to hers. His imaginary presence was so strong that Bart’s embrace repelled her to the point of panic. Without thinking, she kneed him in the balls as hard as she could.
He roared with pain and shock, released her from his grasp, and bent over, groaning in agony, eyes squeezed shut, both hands between his thighs.
Margery ran to the door, but before she got there her mother stepped into the library, obviously having been listening outside.
Lady Jane looked at Bart and understood immediately what had happened. She turned to Margery and said: ‘You foolish child.’
‘I won’t marry this brute!’ Margery cried.
Her father came in. He was tall with black hair, like Rollo, but unlike Rollo he was heavily freckled. He said coldly: ‘You will marry whomever your father chooses.’
That ominous statement scared Margery. She began to suspect that she had underestimated her parents’ determination. It was a mistake to let her indignation take over. She tried to calm herself and think logically.
Still passionate, but more measured, she said: ‘I’m not a princess! We’re gentry, not aristocracy. My marriage isn’t a political alliance. I’m the daughter of a merchant. People like us don’t have arranged marriages.’
That angered Sir Reginald, and he flushed under his freckles. ‘I am a knight!’
‘Not an earl!’
‘I am descended from the Ralph Fitzgerald who became earl of Shiring two centuries ago – as is Bart. Ralph Fitzgerald was the son of Sir Gerald and the brother of Merthin the bridge-builder. The blood of the English nobility runs in my veins.’
Margery saw with dismay that she was up against not just her father’s inflexible will but his family pride as well. She did not know how she could overcome that combination. The only thing she was sure of was that she must not show weakness.
She turned to Bart. Surely he would not want to marry an unwilling bride? She said: ‘I’m sorry, Lord Shiring, but I’m going to marry Ned Willard.’
Sir Reginald was startled. ‘No, you’re not, by the cross.’
‘I’m in love with Ned Willard.’
‘You’re too young to be in love with anyone. And the Willards are practically Protestants!’
‘They go to Mass just like everyone else.’
‘All the same, you’re going to marry Viscount Shiring.’
‘I will not,’ she said with quiet firmness.
Bart was recovering. He muttered: ‘I knew she’d be trouble.’
Sir Reginald said: ‘She just needs a firm hand.’
‘She needs a whip.’
Lady Jane intervened. ‘Think of it, Margery,’ she said. ‘You will be the countess one day, and your son will be the earl!’
‘That’s all you care about, isn’t it?’ Margery said. She heard her own voice rising to a defiant yell, but she could not stop. ‘You just want your grandchildren to be aristocrats!’ She could see from their faces that her surmise had touched the truth. With contempt she said: ‘Well, I will not be a broodmare just because you have delusions of nobility.’
As soon as she had said it she knew she had gone too far. Her insult had touched her father where he was most sensitive.
Sir Reginald took off his belt.
Margery backed away fearfully, and found herself up against the writing table. Sir Reginald grabbed her by the back of her neck, using his left hand. She saw that the tongue end of the belt had a brass sleeve, and she was so scared that she screamed.
Sir Reginald bent her over the table. She wriggled desperately, but he was too strong for her, and he held her easily.
She heard her mother say: ‘Leave the room, please, Lord Shiring.’ That scared her even more.
The door slammed, then she heard the belt whistle through the air. It landed on the backs of her thighs. Her dress was too thin to give her any protection, and she screamed again, in pain this time. She was lashed again, and a third time.
Then her mother spoke. ‘I think that’s enough, Reginald,’ she said.
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ said Sir Reginald. It was a grimly familiar proverb: everyone believed that flogging was good for children, except the children.
Lady Jane said: ‘The Bible verse actually says something different. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” It refers to boys, not girls.’
Sir Reginald countered with a different verse. ‘Another biblical proverb says: “Withhold not correction from the child”, doesn’t it?’
‘She’s not really a child any more. Besides, we both know this approach doesn’t work on Margery. Punishment only makes her more stubborn.’
‘Then what do you propose?’
‘Leave her to me. I’ll talk to her when she’s calmed down.’
‘Very well,’ Sir Reginald said, and Margery thought it was over; then the belt whistled again, stinging her already painful legs, and she screamed once more. Immediately afterwards she heard his boots stamp across the floor and out of the room, and it really was over.
*
NED WAS SURE he would see Margery at Earl Swithin’s feast. Her parents could hardly keep her away. It would be like an announcement that something was wrong. Everyone would be talking about why Margery was not there.
The cartwheel ruts in the mud road were frozen hard, and Ned’s pony picked her way daintily along the treacherous surface. The heat of the horse warmed his body, but his hands and feet were numb with cold. Beside him his mother, Alice, rode a broad-backed mare.
The earl of Shiring’s home, New Castle, was twelve miles from Kingsbridge. The journey took almost half a short winter day, and made Ned mad with impatience. He had to see Margery, not just because he longed for a sight of her, but also so that he could find out what the devil was going on.
Ahead, New Castle appeared in the distance. It had been new a hundred and fifty years ago. Recently the earl had built a house in the ruins of the medieval fortress. The remaining battlements, made of the same grey stone as Kingsbridge Cathedral, were adorned today with ribbons and swags of freezing fog. As he drew near, Ned heard sounds of festivity: shouted greetings, laughter, and a country band – a deep drum, a lively fiddle, and the reedy whine of pipes drifting through the cold air. The noise bore with it a promise of blazing fires, hot food and something cheering to drink.
Ned kicked his horse into a trot, impatient to arrive and put an end to his uncertainty. Did Margery love Bart Shiring, and was she going to marry him?
The road led straight to the entrance. Rooks strutting on the castle walls cawed spitefully at the visitors. The drawbridge had gone long ago, and the moat had been filled in, but there were still arrow-slit windows in the gatehouse. Ned rode through to the noisy courtyard, bustling with brightly dressed guests, horses and carts, and the earl’s busy servants. Ned entrusted his pony to a groom and joined the throng moving towards the house.
He did not see Margery.
On the far side of the courtyard stood a modern brick mansion, attached to the old castle buildings, the chapel on one side and the brewery on the other. Ned had been here only once in the four years since it had been built, and he marvelled again at the rows of big windows and the ranks of multiple chimneys. Grander than the wealthiest Kingsbridge merchants’ homes, it was the largest house in the county, although perhaps there were even bigger places in London, which he had never visited.
Earl Swithin had lost status during the reign of Henry VIII, because he had opposed the king’s breach with the Pope; but the earl’s fortunes had revived five years ago with the accession of the ultra-Catholic Mary Tudor as queen, and Swithin was once again favoured, rich and powerful. This promised to be a lavish banquet.
Ned entered the house and passed into a great hall two stories high. The tall windows made the room light even on a winter day. The walls were panelled in varnished oak and hung with tapestries of hunting scenes. Logs burned in two huge fireplaces at opposite ends of the long room. In the gallery that ran around three of the four walls, the band he had heard from the road was playing energetically. High on the fourth wall was a portrait of Earl Swithin’s father, holding a staff to symbolize power.
Some guests were performing a vigorous country dance in groups of eight, holding hands to form rotating circles then stopping to skip in and out. Others conversed in clusters, raising their voices over the music and the stomping of the dancers. Ned took a wooden cup of hot cider and looked around the room.
One group stood aloof from the dancing: the ship owner Philbert Cobley and his family, all dressed in grey and black. The Kingsbridge Protestants were a semi-secret group: everyone knew they were there, and could guess who they were, but their existence was not openly acknowledged – a bit like the half-hidden community of men who loved men, Ned thought. The Protestants did not admit to their beliefs, for then they would be tortured until they recanted, and burned to death if they refused. Asked what they believed, they would prevaricate. They went to Catholic services, as they were obliged to by law. But they took every opportunity to object to bawdy songs, bosom-revealing gowns, and drunk priests. And there was no law against dull clothes.
Ned knew just about everyone in the room. The younger guests were the boys with whom he had attended Kingsbridge Grammar School and the girls whose hair he had pulled on Sunday after church. The older generation of local notables were equally familiar; they were in and out of his mother’s house all the time.
In the search for Margery his eye lit on a stranger: a long-nosed man in his late thirties, his mid-brown hair already receding, his beard neatly trimmed in the pointed shape that was fashionable. Short and wiry, he wore a dark red coat that was unostentatiously expensive. He was speaking to Earl Swithin and Sir Reginald Fitzgerald, and Ned was struck by the attitudes of the two local magnates. They clearly did not like this distinguished visitor – Reginald leaned back with folded arms, and Swithin stood with legs apart and hands on hips – yet they were listening to him intently.
The musicians ended a number with a flourish, and in the relative quiet Ned spoke to Philbert Cobley’s son, Daniel, a couple of years older than himself, a fat boy with a pale round face. ‘Who’s that?’ Ned asked him, pointing at the stranger in the red coat.
‘Sir William Cecil. He is estate manager for Princess Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth Tudor was the younger half-sister of Queen Mary. ‘I’ve heard of Cecil,’ Ned said. ‘Wasn’t he secretary of state for a while?’
‘That’s right.’
At the time Ned had been too young to follow politics closely, but he remembered the name of Cecil being mentioned with admiration by his mother. Cecil had not been sufficiently Catholic for Mary Tudor’s taste, and as soon as she became queen she had fired him, which was why he now had the less grand job of looking after Elizabeth’s finances.
So what was he doing here?
Ned’s mother would want to know about Cecil. A visitor brought news, and Alice was obsessed with news. She had always taught her sons that information could make a man’s fortune – or save him from ruin. But as Ned looked around for Alice he spotted Margery, and immediately forgot about William Cecil.
He was startled by Margery’s appearance. She looked older by five years, not one. Her curly dark hair was pinned up in an elaborate coiffure and topped by a man’s cap with a jaunty plume. A small white ruff around her neck seemed to light up her face. She was small, but not thin, and the fashionably stiff bodice of her blue velvet gown did not quite conceal her delightfully rounded figure. As always, her face was expressive. She smiled, raised her eyebrows, tilted her head, and mimed surprise, puzzlement, scorn and delight, one after another. He found himself staring, just as he had in the past. For a few moments it seemed as if there was no one else in the room.
Waking from his trance, he pushed through the crowd towards her.
She saw him coming. Her face lit up with pleasure, delighting him; then it changed, faster than the weather on a spring day, and her expression became clouded with worry. As he approached, her eyes widened fearfully and she seemed to be telling him to go away, but he ignored that. He had to speak to her.
He opened his mouth, but she spoke first. ‘Follow me when they play Hunt the Hart,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Don’t say anything now.’
Hunt the Hart was a hide-and-seek game played by young people at feasts. Ned was bucked by her invitation. But he was not willing to walk away from her without at least some answers. ‘Are you in love with Bart Shiring?’ he asked.
‘No! Now go away – we can talk later.’
Ned was thrilled, but he had not finished. ‘Are you going to marry him?’
‘Not while I have enough breath to say go to the devil.’
Ned smiled. ‘All right, now I can be patient.’ He walked away, happy.
*
ROLLO OBSERVED WITH alarm the interaction between his sister and Ned Willard. It did not last long but it was obviously intense. Rollo was concerned. He had been listening outside the library door yesterday, when Margery was beaten by their father, and he agreed with his mother that punishment just made Margery more obstinate.
He did not want his sister to marry Ned. Rollo had always disliked Ned, but that was the least of it. More importantly, the Willards were soft on Protestantism. Edmund Willard had been quite content when King Henry turned against the Catholic Church. Admittedly, he had not seemed very troubled when Queen Mary reversed the process – but that, too, offended Rollo. He could not bear people who took religion lightly. The authority of the Church should be everything to them.
Almost as importantly, marriage with Ned Willard would do nothing for the prestige of the Fitzgeralds: it would merely be an alliance between two prosperous commercial families. However, Bart Shiring would take them into the ranks of the nobility. To Rollo, the prestige of the Fitzgerald family mattered more than anything except the will of God.
The dancing finished, and the earl’s staff brought in boards and trestles to make a T-shaped table, the crosspiece at one end and the tail stretching the full length of the room; then they began to lay the table. They went about their work in a somewhat careless spirit, Rollo thought, tossing pottery cups and loaves of bread onto the white tablecloth haphazardly. That would be because there was no woman in charge of the household: the countess had died two years ago, and Swithin had not yet remarried.
A servant spoke to Rollo. ‘Your father summons you, Master Fitzgerald. He’s in the earl’s parlour.’
The man led Rollo into a side room with a writing table and a shelf of ledgers, evidently the place where Earl Swithin conducted business.
Swithin sat on a huge chair that was almost a throne. He was tall and handsome, like Bart, though many years of eating well and drinking plenty had thickened his waist and reddened his nose. Four years ago he had lost most of the fingers of his left hand in the battle of Hartley Wood. He made no attempt to conceal the deficiency – in fact, he seemed proud of his wound.
Rollo’s father, Sir Reginald, sat next to Swithin, lean and freckled, a leopard beside a bear.
Bart Shiring was there, too, and to Rollo’s consternation so were Alice and Ned Willard.
William Cecil was on a low stool in front of the six local people but, despite the symbolism of the seating, it looked to Rollo as if Cecil was in charge of the meeting.
Reginald said to Cecil: ‘You won’t mind my son joining us? He has been to Oxford University, and studied law at the Inns of Court in London.’
‘I’m glad to have the younger generation here,’ Cecil said amiably. ‘I include my own son in meetings, even though he’s only sixteen – the earlier they begin, the faster they learn.’
Studying Cecil, Rollo noticed that there were three warts on his right cheek, and his brown beard was beginning to turn grey. He had been a powerful courtier during the reign of Edward VI, while still in his twenties, and although he was not yet forty years old he had an air of confident wisdom that might have belonged to a much older man.
Earl Swithin shifted impatiently. ‘I have a hundred guests in the hall, Sir William. You’d better tell me what you have to say that is important enough to take me away from my own party.’
‘At once, my lord,’ Cecil said. ‘The queen is not pregnant.’
Rollo let out a grunt of surprise and dismay.
Queen Mary and King Felipe were desperate for heirs to their two crowns, England and Spain. But they spent hardly any time together, being so busy ruling their widely separated kingdoms. So there had been rejoicing in both countries when Mary had announced that she was expecting a baby next March. Obviously something had gone wrong.
Rollo’s father, Sir Reginald, said grimly: ‘This has happened before.’
Cecil nodded. ‘It is her second false pregnancy.’
Swithin looked bewildered. ‘False?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There has been no miscarriage,’ Cecil said solemnly.
Reginald explained: ‘She wants a baby so badly, she convinces herself that she’s expecting when she’s not.’
‘I see,’ said Swithin. ‘Female stupidity.’
Alice Willard gave a contemptuous snort at this remark, but Swithin was oblivious.
Cecil said: ‘We must now face the likelihood that our queen will never give birth to a child.’
Rollo’s mind was awhirl with the consequences. The longed-for child of the ultra-Catholic Queen Mary and the equally devout King of Spain would have been raised strictly Catholic, and could have been relied upon to favour families such as the Fitzgeralds. But if Mary should die without an heir, all bets were off.
Cecil had figured this out long ago, Rollo assumed. Cecil said: ‘The transition to a new monarch is a time of danger for any country.’
Rollo had to suppress a feeling of panic. England could return to Protestantism – and everything the Fitzgerald family had achieved in the last five years could be wiped out.
‘I want to plan for a smooth succession, with no bloodshed,’ Cecil said in a tone of reasonableness. ‘I’m here to speak to you three powerful provincial leaders – the earl of the county, the mayor of Kingsbridge, and the town’s leading merchant – and to ask you to help me.’
He sounded deceptively like a diligent servant making careful plans, but Rollo could already see that he was, in fact, a dangerous revolutionary.
Swithin said: ‘And how would we help you?’
‘By pledging support for my mistress, Elizabeth.’
Swithin said challengingly: ‘You assume that Elizabeth is heir to the throne?’
‘Henry the Eighth left three children,’ Cecil said pedantically, stating the obvious. ‘His son, Edward the Sixth, the boy king, died before he could produce an heir, so Henry’s elder daughter, Mary Tudor, became queen. The logic is inescapable. If Queen Mary dies childless, as King Edward did, the next in line to the throne is clearly Henry’s other daughter, Elizabeth Tudor.’
Rollo decided it was time to speak. This dangerous nonsense could not be allowed to pass unchallenged, and he was the only lawyer in the room. He tried to speak as quietly and as rationally as Cecil but, despite the effort, he could hear the note of alarm in his own voice. ‘Elizabeth is illegitimate!’ he said. ‘Henry was never truly married to her mother. His divorce from his previous wife was disallowed by the Pope.’
Swithin added: ‘Bastards cannot inherit property or titles – everyone knows that.’
Rollo winced. Calling Elizabeth a bastard was unnecessary rudeness to her counsellor. Coarse manners were typical of Swithin, unfortunately. But it was rash, Rollo felt, to antagonize the self-possessed Cecil. The man might be out of favour, but still he had an air of quiet potency.
Cecil overlooked the incivility. ‘The divorce was ratified by the English parliament,’ he said with polite insistence.
Swithin said: ‘I hear she has Protestant leanings.’
That was the heart of it, Rollo thought.
Cecil smiled. ‘She has told me, many times, that if she should become queen, it is her dearest wish that no Englishman should lose his life for the sake of his beliefs.’
Ned Willard spoke up. ‘That’s a good sign,’ he said. ‘No one wants to see more people burned at the stake.’
That was typical of the Willards, Rollo thought: anything for a quiet life.
Earl Swithin was equally irritated by the equivocation. ‘Catholic or Protestant?’ he said. ‘She must be one or the other.’
‘On the contrary,’ Cecil said, ‘her creed is tolerance.’
Swithin was indignant. ‘Tolerance?’ he said scornfully. ‘Of heresy? Blasphemy? Godlessness?’
Swithin’s outrage was justified, in Rollo’s opinion, but it was no substitute for legal argument. The Catholic Church had its own view on who should be the next ruler of England. ‘In the eyes of the world, the true heir to the throne is the other Mary, the queen of the Scots.’
‘Surely not,’ Cecil argued, clearly having expected this. ‘Mary Stuart is no more than the grand-niece of King Henry VIII, whereas Elizabeth Tudor is his daughter.’
‘His illegitimate daughter.’
Ned Willard spoke again. ‘I saw Mary Stuart when I went to Paris,’ he said. ‘I didn’t talk to her, but I was in one of the outer rooms of the Louvre Palace when she passed through. She is tall and beautiful.’
Rollo said impatiently: ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Ned persisted. ‘She’s fifteen years old.’ He looked hard at Rollo. ‘The same age as your sister, Margery.’
‘That’s not the point—’
Ned raised his voice to override the interruption. ‘Some people think a girl of fifteen is too young to choose a husband, let alone rule a country.’
Rollo drew in his breath sharply, and his father gave a grunt of indignation. Cecil frowned, no doubt realizing that Ned’s statement had a special meaning hidden from an outsider.
Ned added: ‘I was told that Mary speaks French and Scotch, but she has hardly any English.’
Rollo said: ‘Such considerations have no weight in law.’
Ned persisted. ‘But there’s worse. Mary is engaged to marry Prince Francis, the heir to the French throne. The English people dislike our present queen’s marriage to the King of Spain, and they will be even more hostile to a queen who marries the King of France.’
Rollo said: ‘Such decisions are not made by the English people.’
‘All the same, where there is doubt there may be fighting, and then the people may pick up their scythes and their axes and make their opinions known.’
Cecil put in: ‘And that’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent.’
That was actually a threat, Rollo noted angrily; but before he could say so, Swithin spoke again. ‘What is this girl Elizabeth like, personally? I’ve never met her.’
Rollo frowned in irritation at this diversion from the question of legitimacy, but Cecil answered willingly. ‘She is the best-educated woman I have ever met,’ he said. ‘She can converse in Latin as easily as in English, and she also speaks French, Spanish and Italian, and writes Greek. She is not thought to be a great beauty, but she has a way of enchanting a man so that he thinks her lovely. She has inherited the strength of will of her father, King Henry. She will make a decisive sovereign.’
Cecil was obviously in love with her, Rollo thought; but that was not the worst of it. Elizabeth’s opponents had to rely on legalistic arguments because there was little else for them to take hold of. It seemed that Elizabeth was old enough, wise enough, and strong-minded enough to rule England. She might be a Protestant, but she was too clever to flaunt it, and they had no proof.
The prospect of a Protestant queen horrified Rollo. She would surely disfavour Catholic families. The Fitzgeralds might never recover their fortunes.
Swithin said: ‘Now, if she were to marry a strong Catholic husband who could keep her under control, she might be more acceptable.’ He chuckled lasciviously, making Rollo suppress a shudder. Clearly Swithin was aroused by the thought of keeping a princess under control.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Cecil drily. A bell rang to tell the guests to take their places at table, and he stood up. ‘All I ask is that you don’t rush to judgement. Give Princess Elizabeth a chance.’
Reginald and Rollo hung back when the others left the room. Reginald said: ‘I think we set him straight.’
Rollo shook his head. There were times when he wished his father’s mind were more devious. ‘Cecil knew, before he came here, that loyal Catholics such as you and Swithin would never pledge support for Elizabeth.’
‘I suppose he did,’ said Reginald. ‘He’s nothing if not well informed.’
‘And he’s evidently a clever man.’
‘Then why is he here?’
‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ said Rollo. ‘I think he came to assess the strength of his enemies.’
‘Oh,’ said his father. ‘I never thought of that.’
‘Let’s go in to dinner,’ said Rollo.
*
NED WAS RESTLESS all through the banquet. He could hardly wait for the eating and drinking to end so that the game of Hunt the Hart could begin. But just as the sweets were being cleared away, his mother caught his eye and beckoned him.
He had noticed that she was deep in conversation with Sir William Cecil. Alice Willard was a vigorous, tubby woman, wearing a costly dress of Kingsbridge Scarlet embroidered with gold thread, and a medallion of the Virgin Mary around her neck to ward off accusations of Protestantism. Ned was tempted to pretend that he had not seen her summons. The game would take place while the tables were being cleared and the actors were getting ready to perform the play. Ned was not sure what Margery had in mind but, whatever it was, he was not going to miss it. However, his mother was strict as well as loving, and she would not tolerate disobedience, so he went to her side.
‘Sir William wants to ask you a few questions,’ Alice said.
‘I’m honoured,’ Ned said politely.
‘I want to know about Calais,’ Cecil began. ‘I gather you’ve just returned from there.’
‘I left a week before Christmas, and got here yesterday.’
‘I need hardly tell you and your mother how vital the city is to English commerce. It’s also a matter of national pride that we still rule a small part of France.’
Ned nodded. ‘And deeply annoying to the French, of course.’
‘How is the morale of the English community there?’
‘Fine,’ said Ned, but he began to worry. Cecil was not interrogating him out of idle curiosity: there was a reason. And, now that he thought about it, his mother’s face looked grim. But he carried on. ‘When I left, they were still rejoicing over the defeat of the French at St Quentin back in August. That made them feel that the war between England and France was not going to affect them.’
‘Over-confident, perhaps,’ Cecil muttered.
Ned frowned. ‘Calais is surrounded by forts: Sangatte, Fréthun, Nielles—’
Cecil interrupted him. ‘And if the fortresses should fall?’
‘The city has three hundred and seven cannons.’
‘You have a good mind for details. But can the people withstand a siege?’
‘They have food for three months.’ Ned had made sure of his facts before leaving, for he had known that his mother would expect a detailed report. He turned to Alice now. ‘What’s happened, Mother?’
Alice said: ‘The French took Sangatte on the first day of January.’
Ned was shocked. ‘How could that happen?’
Cecil answered that question. ‘The French army was assembled in great secrecy in nearby towns. The attack took the Calais garrison by surprise.’
‘Who leads the French forces?’
‘François, duke of Guise.’
‘Scarface!’ said Ned. ‘He’s a legend.’ The duke was France’s greatest general.
‘By now the city must be under siege.’
‘But it has not fallen.’
‘So far as we know, but my latest news is five days old.’
Ned turned to Alice again. ‘No word from Uncle Dick?’
Alice shook her head. ‘He cannot get a message out of a besieged city.’
Ned thought of his relations there: Aunt Blanche, a much better cook than Janet Fife, though Ned would never tell Janet that; cousin Albin, who was his age and had taught him the French words for intimate parts of the body and other unmentionable things; and amorous Thérèse. Would they survive?
Alice said quietly: ‘Almost everything we have is tied up in Calais.’
Ned frowned. Was that possible? He said: ‘Don’t we have any cargoes going to Seville?’
The Spanish port of Seville was the armoury of King Felipe, with an insatiable appetite for metal. A cousin of Ned’s father, Carlos Cruz, bought as much as Alice could send, turning it all into cannons and cannonballs for Spain’s interminable wars. Ned’s brother, Barney, who was in Seville, was living and working with Carlos, learning another side of the family business, as Ned had done in Calais. But the sea journey was long and hazardous, and ships were sent there only when the much nearer warehouse at Calais was full.
Alice replied to Ned’s question: ‘No. At the moment we have no ships going to or from Seville.’
‘So if we lose Calais . . .’
‘We lose almost everything.’
Ned had thought he understood the business, but he had not realized that it could be ruined so quickly. He felt as he did when a trustworthy horse stumbled and shifted under him, making him lose his balance in the saddle. It was a sudden reminder that life was unpredictable.
A bell was rung for the start of the game. Cecil smiled and said: ‘Thank you for your information, Ned. It’s unusual for young men to be so precise.’
Ned was flattered. ‘I’m glad to have been of help.’
Dan Cobley’s pretty, golden-haired sister, Ruth, passed by saying: ‘Come on, Ned, it’s time for Hunt the Hart.’
‘Coming,’ he said, but he did not move. He felt torn. He was desperate to talk to Margery, but after news like this he was in no mood for a game. ‘I suppose there’s nothing we can do,’ he said to his mother.
‘Just wait for more information – which may be a long time coming.’
There was a gloomy pause. Cecil said: ‘By the way, I’m looking for an assistant to help me in my work for the lady Elizabeth; a young man to live at Hatfield Palace as part of her staff, and to act on my behalf when I have to be in London, or elsewhere. I know your destiny is to work with your mother in the family business, Ned, but if you should happen to know a young man a bit like yourself, intelligent and trustworthy, with a sharp eye for detail . . . let me know.’
Ned nodded. ‘Of course.’ He suspected that Cecil was really offering the job to him.
Cecil went on: ‘He would have to share Elizabeth’s tolerant attitude to religion.’ Queen Mary Tudor had burned hundreds of Protestants at the stake.
Ned certainly felt that way, as Cecil must have realized during the argument in the earl’s library about the succession to the throne. Millions of English people agreed: whether Catholic or Protestant, they were sickened by the slaughter.
‘As I said earlier, Elizabeth has told me many times that if she should become queen, it is her dearest wish that no Englishman should lose his life for the sake of his beliefs,’ Cecil repeated. ‘I think that’s an ideal worthy of a man’s faith.’
Alice looked mildly resentful. ‘As you say, Sir William, my sons are destined to work in the family business. Off you go, Ned.’
Ned turned around and looked for Margery.
*
EARL SWITHIN HAD hired a travelling company of actors, and now they were building a raised platform up against one long wall of the great hall. While Margery was watching them, Lady Brecknock stood beside her and did the same. An attractive woman in her late thirties with a warm smile, Susannah Brecknock was a cousin of Earl Swithin’s, and was a frequent visitor to Kingsbridge, where she had a house. Margery had met her before and found her amiable and not too grand.
The stage was made of planks on barrels. Margery said: ‘It looks a bit shaky.’
‘That’s what I thought!’ said Susannah.
‘Do you know what they’re going to perform?’
‘The life of Mary Magdalene.’
‘Oh!’ Mary Magdalene was the patron saint of prostitutes. Priests always corrected this by saying: ‘Reformed prostitutes,’ but that did not make the saint any less intriguing. ‘But how can they? All the actors are men.’
‘You haven’t seen a play before?’
‘Not this kind, with a stage and professional players. I’ve just seen processions and pageants.’
‘The female characters are always played by men. They don’t allow women to act.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, I expect it’s because we’re inferior beings, physically weak and intellectually feeble.’
She was being sarcastic. Margery liked Susannah for the candid way she talked. Most adults responded to embarrassing questions with empty platitudes, but Susannah could be relied upon to tell the plain truth. Emboldened, Margery blurted out what was on her mind: ‘Did they force you to marry the Lord Brecknock?’
Susannah raised her eyebrows.
Margery realized immediately that she had gone too far. Quickly she said: ‘I’m so sorry, I have no right to ask you that, please forgive me.’ Tears came to her eyes.
Susannah shrugged. ‘You certainly do not have the right to ask me such a question, but I haven’t forgotten what it was like to be fifteen.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Who do they want you to marry?’
‘Bart Shiring.’
‘Oh, God, poor you,’ she said, even though Bart was her second cousin. Her sympathy made Margery feel even more sorry for herself. Susannah thought for a minute. ‘It’s no secret that my marriage was arranged, but no one forced me,’ she said. ‘I met him and liked him.’
‘Do you love him?’
She hesitated again, and Margery could see that she was torn between discretion and compassion. ‘I shouldn’t answer that.’
‘No, of course not, I apologize – again.’
‘But I can see that you’re in distress, so I’ll confide in you, provided you promise never to repeat what I say.’
‘I promise.’
‘Brecknock and I are friends,’ she said. ‘He’s kind to me and I do everything I can to please him. And we have four wonderful children. I am happy.’ She paused, and Margery waited for the answer to her question. At last Susannah said: ‘But I know there is another kind of happiness, the mad ecstasy of adoring someone and being adored in return.’
‘Yes!’ Margery was so glad that Susannah understood.
‘That particular joy is not given to all of us,’ she said solemnly.
‘But it should be!’ Margery could not bear the thought that a person might be denied love.
For a moment, Susannah looked bereft. ‘Perhaps,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps.’
Looking over Susannah’s shoulder, Margery saw Ned approaching in his green French doublet. Susannah followed her look. Perceptively she said: ‘Ned Willard is the one you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good choice. He’s nice.’
‘He’s wonderful.’
Susannah smiled with a touch of sadness. ‘I hope it works out for you.’
Ned bowed to her, and she acknowledged him with a nod but moved away.
The actors were hanging a curtain across one corner of the room. Margery said to Ned: ‘What do you think that’s for?’
‘They will put on their costumes behind the curtain, I think.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When can we talk? I can’t wait much longer.’
‘The game is about to begin. Just follow me.’
Philbert Cobley’s good-looking clerk, Donal Gloster, was chosen to be hunter. He had wavy dark hair and a sensual face. He did not appeal to Margery – too weak – but several of the girls would be hoping to be found by him, she felt sure.
New Castle was the perfect location for the game. It had more secret places than a rabbit warren. The parts where the new mansion was joined to the old castle were especially rich in odd cupboards, unexpected staircases, niches and irregular-shaped rooms. It was a children’s game and Margery, when young, had wondered why nineteen-year-olds were so keen to join in. Now she understood that the game was an opportunity for adolescents to kiss and cuddle.
Donal closed his eyes and began to say the paternoster in Latin, and all the young people scattered to hide.
Margery already knew where she was going, for she had scouted hidey-holes earlier, to be sure of a private place in which to talk to Ned. She left the hall and raced along a corridor towards the rooms of the old castle, trusting to Ned to follow her. She went through a door at the end of the corridor.
Glancing back, she saw Ned – and, unfortunately, several others. That was a nuisance: she wanted him to herself.
She passed through a small storeroom and ran up a twisting staircase with stone steps, then down a short flight. She could hear the others behind her, but she was now out of their sight. She turned into a passageway she knew to be a dead end. It was lit by a single candle in a wall bracket. Halfway along was a huge fireplace: the medieval bakery, long disused, its chimney demolished in the building of the modern house. Beside it, concealed by a stone buttress, was the door to the enormous oven, virtually invisible in the dimness. Margery slipped into the oven, pulling her skirts behind her. It was surprisingly clean, she had noted when scouting. She pulled the door almost shut and peeped through a crack.
Ned came charging along the passageway, closely followed by Bart, then pretty Ruth Cobley, who probably had her eye on Bart. Margery groaned in frustration. How could she separate Ned from the others?
They dashed past the oven without seeing the door. A moment later, having run into the dead end, they returned in reverse order: Ruth, then Bart, then Ned.
Margery saw her chance.
Bart and Ruth disappeared from view, and Margery said: ‘Ned!’
He stopped and looked around, puzzled.
She pushed open the oven door. ‘In here!’
He did not need to be asked twice. He scrambled in with her and she shut the door.
It was pitch-dark, but they were lying knee to knee and chin to chin, and she could feel the length of his body. He kissed her.
She kissed him back hungrily. Whatever else happened, he still loved her, and for the moment that was all she cared about. She had been afraid that he would forget her in Calais. She thought he would meet French girls who were more sophisticated and exciting than little Marge Fitzgerald from Kingsbridge. But he had not, she could tell, from the way he hugged and kissed and caressed her. Overjoyed, she put her hands on his head and opened her mouth to his tongue and arched her body against his.
He rolled on top of her. At that moment, she would have opened her body to him gladly and let him take her virginity, but something happened. There was a thump, as if his foot had struck something, then a noise that might have been a panel of wood falling to the ground and suddenly she could see the walls of the oven around her.
She and Ned were both sufficiently startled to stop what they were doing and look up. They saw that the back of the oven had fallen away. Clearly it connected with another place that was dimly lit and Margery realized with trepidation that there might be people there who could see what she and Ned were doing. She sat upright and looked through the hole.
There was no one in sight. She saw a wall with an arrow-slit window that was admitting the last of the afternoon light. A small space behind the old oven had simply been closed off by the building of the new house. It led nowhere: the only access was through the oven. On the floor was a panel of wood that must have closed up the hole until Ned kicked it in his excitement. Margery could hear voices, but they came from the courtyard outside. She breathed more easily: they had not been seen.
She crawled through the hole and stood upright in the little space. Ned followed her. They both looked around wonderingly, and Ned said: ‘We could stay here for ever.’
That brought Margery back to reality, and she realized how close she had come to committing a mortal sin. Desire had almost overwhelmed her knowledge of right and wrong. She had had a lucky escape.
Her intention in bringing Ned here had been to speak to him, not kiss him. She said: ‘Ned, they want to make me marry Bart. What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ned.
*
SWITHIN WAS quite drunk, Rollo saw. The earl was slumped on a big chair opposite the stage, a goblet in his right hand. A young serving girl refilled his glass, and as she did so he grasped her breast with his maimed left hand. She squealed with horror and pulled away, spilling the wine, and Swithin laughed.
An actor came on stage and began a prologue, explaining that in order to tell a story of repentance it was necessary first to show the sin, and apologizing in advance if this should give offence.
Rollo saw his sister Margery come slinking into the room with Ned Willard, and he frowned in disapproval. They had taken advantage of the game of Hunt the Hart to go off together, Rollo realized, and no doubt they had got up to all kinds of mischief.
Rollo did not understand his sister. She took religion very seriously, but she had always been disobedient. How could that be? For Rollo, the essence of religion was submission to authority. That was the trouble with Protestants: they thought they had the right to make up their own minds. But Margery was a devout Catholic.
On stage a character called Infidelity appeared, identifiable by his oversized codpiece. He winked and spoke behind his hand and looked from left to right as if making sure he was not overheard by any other characters. The audience laughed as they recognized an exaggerated version of a type they all knew.
Rollo had been unnerved by the conversation with Sir William Cecil, but now he thought he might have overreacted. Princess Elizabeth probably was a Protestant, but it was too soon to worry about her: after all, Queen Mary Tudor was only forty-one and in good health, apart from the phantom pregnancies – she could reign for decades more.
Mary Magdalene appeared on stage. Clearly this was the saint before her repentance. She sashayed on in a red dress, fussing with her necklace, batting her eyes at Infidelity. Her lips were reddened with some kind of dye.
Rollo was surprised because he had not seen a woman among the actors. Furthermore, although he had not seen a play before, he was pretty sure women were not allowed to act. The company had appeared to consist of four men and a boy of about thirteen. Rollo frowned at Mary Magdalene, puzzled; then it occurred to him that she was the same size and build as the boy.
The truth began to dawn on the audience, and there were murmurs of admiration and surprise. But Rollo also heard low but clear noises of protest and, looking around, he saw that they came from the corner where Philbert Cobley stood with his family. Catholics were relaxed about plays, provided there was a religious message, but some of the ultra-Protestants disapproved. A boy dressed as a woman was just the kind of thing to make them righteously indignant, especially when the female character was acting sexy. They were all stony-faced – with one exception, Rollo noticed: Philbert’s bright young clerk, Donal Gloster, who was laughing as heartily as anyone. Rollo and all the young people in town knew that Donal was in love with Philbert’s fair daughter, Ruth. Rollo guessed that Donal was Protestant only to win Ruth.
On stage, Infidelity took Mary in his arms and gave her a long, lascivious kiss. This caused uproarious laughter, hoots and catcalls, especially from the young men, who had by now figured out that Mary was a boy.
But Philbert Cobley did not see the joke. He was a beefy man, short but wide, with thinning hair and a straggly beard. Now he was red in the face, waving his fist and shouting something that could not be heard. At first no one paid him any attention, but when at last the actors broke the kiss and the laughter died down, people turned to look at the source of the shouting.
Rollo saw Earl Swithin suddenly notice the kerfuffle and look angry. Here comes trouble, Rollo thought.
Philbert stopped shouting, said something to the people around him, and moved towards the door. His family fell in behind him. Donal went along too, but Rollo saw that he looked distinctly disappointed.
Swithin got up from his chair and walked towards them. ‘You stay where you are!’ he roared. ‘I gave no one permission to leave.’
The actors paused and turned to watch what was going on in the audience, a reversal of roles that Rollo found ironic.
Philbert stopped, turned, and shouted back at Swithin: ‘We will not stay in this palace of Sodom!’ Then he continued marching towards the door.
‘You preening Protestant!’ Swithin yelled, and he ran at Philbert.
Swithin’s son, Bart, stepped into his father’s way, holding up a placatory hand, and yelled: ‘Let them go, Father, they’re not worth it.’
Swithin swept him aside with a powerful shove and fell on Philbert. ‘I’ll kill you, by the cross!’ He grabbed him by the throat and began to strangle him. Philbert dropped to his knees and Swithin bent over him, tightening his grip despite his maimed left hand.
Everybody began to shout at once. Several men and women pulled at Swithin’s sleeves, trying to get him away from Philbert, but they were constrained by fear of hurting an earl, even one bent on murder. Rollo stayed back, not caring whether Philbert lived or died.
Ned Willard was the first to act decisively. He hooked his right arm around Swithin’s neck, getting the crook of his elbow under the earl’s chin, and heaved up and back. Swithin could not help but step away and release his hold on Philbert’s neck.
Ned had always been like this, Rollo recalled. Even when he was a cheeky little boy at school he had been a fierce fighter, ready to defy older boys, and Rollo had been obliged to teach him a lesson or two with a bundle of birch twigs. Then Ned had matured and grown those big hands and feet; and, even though he was still shorter than average, bigger boys had learned to respect his fists.
Now Ned released Swithin and smartly stepped away, becoming one of the crowd again. Roaring with fury, Swithin spun around, looking for his assailant, but could not tell who it had been. He might find out, eventually, Rollo guessed, but by then he would be sober.
Philbert got to his feet, rubbing his neck, and staggered to the door unobserved by Swithin.
Bart grabbed his father’s arm. ‘Let’s have another cup of wine and watch the play,’ he said. ‘In a minute Carnal Concupiscence comes on.’
Philbert and his entourage reached the door.
Swithin stared angrily at Bart for a long moment. He seemed to have forgotten whom he was supposed to be mad at.
The Cobleys left the room and the big oak door slammed shut behind them.
Swithin shouted: ‘On with the play!’
The actors resumed.