21
Rollo stood on the deck of the Petite Fleur as the freighter approached the coast of England. This was the moment of greatest danger.
The ship, out of Cherbourg, was headed for Combe Harbour carrying barrels of apple brandy, huge rounds of cheese, and eight young priests from the English College at Douai.
Rollo wore a priest’s robe and a pectoral cross. His hair was thinning on top, but to compensate he had grown a full beard. Over his shoulders was a white cloak, not very priestly: it was a prearranged signal.
He had made preparations with meticulous care, but too many things could go wrong in practice. He did not even know for sure whether the captain was trustworthy. The man was being paid handsomely for making this stop, but someone else – Ned Willard, or another of Queen Elizabeth’s men – might have offered him a higher fee to betray Rollo.
He wished he was not relying so heavily on his sister. She was smart and well-organized and fearless, but in the end she was a woman. However, Rollo himself did not want to set foot on English soil, not yet, so he had to use her.
At dusk the captain dropped anchor in a bay with no name three miles along the coast from his destination. The sea was mercifully calm. In the bay close to the beach a small, round-ended fishing boat with a mast and oars was anchored. Rollo had known the vessel when his father had been Receiver of Customs at Combe Harbour: it had once been the Saint Ava, but was now simply called the Ava. Beyond the beach, in the cleft of a chine, stood a sturdy cottage of pale stone with smoke coming from its chimney.
Rollo waited anxiously, watching the cottage, looking for a sign. His hope was so intense that it made his whole body taut and he almost felt he might throw up with fear of failure. This was the beginning of the end. The young men he was escorting were secret agents for God. They were a small advance party, but they would be followed by more. One day soon the dark years would come to an end, England would give up foolish notions of religious freedom, and once again the great mass of ignorant peasants and labourers would happily bow to the authority of the one true Church. The Fitzgerald family would be restored to its rightful position – if not better: Rollo might become a bishop, and his brother-in-law Bart a duke. In Kingsbridge there would be a purge of Puritans like the one in Paris on St Bartholomew’s Day – though Rollo had to keep that part of his dream secret from Margery, who would have refused to take part if she had known what violence he had in mind.
At last he saw the agreed response to his white cloak: a white sheet was waved from an upstairs window.
It could have been a trick. Mal Roper, the staunch Catholic fisherman who lived in the cottage, might have been arrested by Ned Willard and tortured for information, and the white sheet could be the bait of a trap. But there was nothing Rollo could do about that. He and those with him were risking their lives, and they all knew it.
As the sky darkened, Rollo assembled the priests on deck, each with a bag containing his personal effects plus the items he would need to bring the sacraments to deprived English families: wafers, wine, oil for confirmation, and holy water. ‘Complete silence until you reach the house,’ he instructed them in a whisper. ‘Even low voices carry across water. This bay is normally deserted except for the fisherman’s family, but you never know, and your mission could end before you reach England.’ One of the priests was the ebullient Lenny Price, the first man he had met at the college in Douai, and the oldest in this group. ‘Lenny, you’re in charge once you’re on land.’
The captain lowered a boat and it splashed into the sea. The priests clambered down a rope ladder, Rollo last. Two sailors grasped the oars. The boat shushed through the waves. On the beach Rollo could faintly discern the figure of a small woman with a dog: Margery. He breathed more easily.
The boat bumped the slope of the beach. The priests jumped out into the shallows. Margery greeted them with a handshake, saying nothing. Her well-trained dog was equally silent.
Rollo remained in the boat. Margery looked at him, caught his eye, grinned, and touched her chin as if stroking a beard: she had not seen him like this before. Fool! he thought, and quickly turned away. The priests must not find out that Rollo was Margery’s brother: they knew him only as Jean Langlais.
The sailors pushed off the beach and began to row back to the Petite Fleur. Rollo looked astern from the boat and watched Margery lead the priests stumbling across the pebbles, then into the cottage. They crowded through the front door and were lost from sight.
*
MAL ROPER, his wife Peg, and their three strapping sons knelt on the stone floor of the single downstairs room of the cottage while Lenny Price said Mass. Margery almost wept to see the joy of these simple believers as they received the sacraments. If she lost her life for the sake of this moment, she thought, it would be worth it.
She often thought of her great-aunt, Sister Joan, now dead. The troubled young Margery, sixteen-year-old bride, had climbed to the top floor of her father’s house, where old Joan had turned two little rooms into a monastic cell and a chapel. There Joan had told her that God had a purpose for her, but she must just wait for him to reveal it. Well, Joan had been right. Margery had waited, and God had revealed his purpose, and this was it.
The demand for Catholic priests was huge. Margery talked to aristocratic and wealthy Catholics in London whenever Bart attended Parliament. Discreetly, she sounded them out, and soon found that many were desperate for the sacraments. In London Margery was careful to stay away from the French and Spanish embassies, to avoid the suspicion of conspiracy. She had persuaded Bart to be equally chary. He supported her mission. He hated Protestantism, but in middle age he had become lazy and passive, and he was happy to let her do all the work as long as she let him feel like a hero. Margery did not mind.
After the service, Peg Roper served them all a hearty fish stew in wooden bowls with coarse home-baked bread. Margery was glad to see the priests tucking in: they had a long way to go before daybreak.
The Ropers were not rich, but Mal refused money. ‘I thank you, my lady, but we don’t need payment to do God’s will,’ he said. Margery saw that he was proud to say this, and she accepted his refusal.
It was midnight when they left.
Margery had two lanterns. She led the way with one, and Lenny brought up the rear with the other. She headed due north along a familiar road. She urged silence on the men every time they approached a village or farmhouse, for she did not want them to be heard or seen. A group of nine people walking at night would arouse suspicion and hostility in the mind of anyone who saw them. Margery was particularly cautious near larger manor houses, where there might be men-at-arms who could be sent out with torches to question the travellers.
The night was mild and the road was dry. All the same, Margery found the walking hard. Ever since the birth of her second child, Roger, she had suffered occasional backache, especially when she had to walk a long distance. She just had to grit her teeth and bear it.
Every two or three hours she stopped at a preselected spot, far from human habitation, where they rested, drank water from a stream, ate some of the bread Peg Roper had given them for their journey, and relieved themselves before setting off again.
Margery listened hard as she walked along, alert for the sounds of other people on the road. In a city there would have been people skulking along the lanes, usually about some criminal business, but here in the countryside there was little to steal and therefore fewer criminals. All the same she remained cautious.
Margery had cried for a whole day when she heard about the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. All those people murdered by Catholics! It was much worse than a battle, in which soldiers killed soldiers. In Paris the citizens had slaughtered defenceless women and children in their thousands. How could God permit it? And then, to make it worse, the Pope had sent a letter of congratulation to the king of France. That could not be God’s will. Hard though it was to believe, the Pope had done wrong.
Margery had known that Ned was in Paris at the time, and she had feared for his life, but then it was announced that everyone in the English embassy had survived. Hard on the heels of that came the news that Ned had married a French girl. It made Margery sad – quite unreasonably, she felt. She had had the chance to run away with him and she had refused. He could not spend his life yearning for her. He wanted a wife and a family. She should be glad that he had found happiness without her. But she could not bring herself to rejoice.
She wondered what the new Mrs Willard was like. People said that French women were terribly sophisticated. Would she be beautifully dressed and dripping with jewellery? Margery found herself hoping that the girl was an empty-headed flibbertigibbet who would quickly bore Ned. What an unworthy hope, she thought. I should wish him happiness. I do.
A faint light was visible in the east as they approached New Castle, and she was able to make out the battlements against the sky. A feeling of weary relief came over her: it had been a long walk.
The road led directly to the entrance. As always, the rooks on the walls jeered at the visitors.
Margery hammered on the gate. A face appeared briefly at an arrow-slit window in the gatehouse, and a minute later a sleepy sentry hauled open the heavy wooden door. They went in, and the door was barred behind them. At last Margery felt safe.
She led her charges across the courtyard and ushered them into the chapel. ‘In a few minutes the castle servants will bring you breakfast and bedding,’ she told them. ‘Then you can sleep – all day and all night, if you wish. But remember the need for secrecy. The people here are all Catholics, but even so, you should not ask their names, nor tell them yours. Don’t ask questions about where you are or who owns the castle. What you don’t know, you can’t reveal – even under torture.’ They had been told all this before by Rollo, but it could hardly be repeated too often.
Tomorrow she would take them out in pairs and set them on the roads for their different destinations. Two were going west to Exeter, two north to Wells, two north-east to Salisbury, and two east to Arundel. When she said goodbye they would be on their own.
She left the church and crossed the courtyard to the house. The arrival of the priests had already caused a flurry of activity, and the servants were up and busy. She went upstairs to the boys’ room. They were asleep in side-by-side beds. She leaned over Bartlet, now seven, big for his age, and kissed his head. Then she moved to little Roger, not yet two, with fair hair. She kissed his soft cheek.
Roger opened his eyes. They were golden brown. The same as Ned’s.
*
SYLVIE HAD BEEN looking forward to her first visit to Kingsbridge. This was the town that had made the man she loved. They had been married less than a year and she felt there was still much to be learned about Ned. She knew that he was brave and kind and clever. She knew every inch of his body, and cherished it all, and when they made love she felt as if she was in his head, and knew everything he was thinking. But there were gaps in her knowledge, topics he did not say much about, times in his life he rarely referred to. He talked a lot about Kingsbridge, and she was eager to see it. Most of all she wanted to meet the people who had been important to him, people he loved and hated; especially the woman in the little painting that had stood beside his shaving mirror in his room in Paris.
They were prompted to visit by a letter from Ned’s brother, Barney. He had come home to Kingsbridge, he said, with his son.
‘I didn’t know he had a son,’ Ned said, reading the letter in the parlour of the small house they had rented near St Paul’s Cathedral.
Sylvie said: ‘Does he have a wife?’
‘I presume so. You can’t have children otherwise. But it’s odd that he doesn’t mention her.’
‘Can you get Walsingham’s permission to leave London?’ Sylvie knew that Ned and Walsingham were busy enlarging Queen Elizabeth’s secret intelligence service, making lists of men who might conspire to overthrow the queen and replace her with Mary Stuart.
‘Yes,’ Ned said. ‘He’ll want me to make a few discreet inquiries about Catholics in the county of Shiring, especially Earl Bart, but I can manage that easily.’
They went from London to Kingsbridge on horseback, taking a relaxed five days for the journey. Sylvie was not yet pregnant, so there was no danger to her from horseback riding. She was disappointed that it was taking her so long to conceive, but happily Ned had not complained.
Sylvie was used to capital cities: she had always lived in Paris until she married Ned, and since coming to England they had lived in London. Provincial towns felt safer, more tranquil, less frenetic. She liked Kingsbridge immediately.
She was struck by the stone angel on top of the cathedral spire. Ned told her that, according to legend, the angel had the face of Caris, the nun who had founded the hospital. Sylvie wondered disapprovingly why the statue had not been beheaded like all the other idolatrous images of saints and angels. ‘They can’t reach it,’ Ned explained. ‘They’d need to build scaffolding.’ He spoke lightly: he was somewhat lax about such matters. He added: ‘But you should go up the tower one day. The view over the town is magnificent.’
Kingsbridge reminded her of Rouen, with its riverside docks and the great cathedral at its heart. It had the same air of lively prosperity. Thinking of Rouen turned her mind to her plan to continue smuggling Protestant literature into Paris. She had received one letter from Nath, forwarded by the English embassy. It had been an enthusiastic missive: Nath was thriving as a clandestine bookseller, but for now she had plenty of stock, and she would write to Sylvie as soon as she began to run low.
Meanwhile, Sylvie had come up with another plan to run parallel with the first. There were thousands of Huguenot refugees in London, many of them struggling to learn English, and she thought she could sell them books in French. A foreigner would not be allowed to open a bookshop within the city of London, Ned told her, so she was looking for premises outside the walls, perhaps in the suburb of Southwark, where many of the refugees lived.
Sylvie liked Barney immediately: most women did, Ned told her with a smile. Barney wore a sailor’s baggy breeches with tightly laced shoes and a fur hat. His red beard was luxuriant, covering most of his weather-beaten face. He had a rapscallion grin that Sylvie guessed would make many girls go weak at the knees. When they arrived at the house opposite the cathedral, he embraced Ned warmly and kissed Sylvie a little more enthusiastically than was quite appropriate.
Both Ned and Sylvie were expecting his son to be a baby, but Alfo was nine years old. He was dressed in a miniature version of Barney’s seafaring outfit, including the fur hat. The child had light-brown skin, curly red hair like Barney’s, and the same green eyes. He was obviously African, and even more obviously Barney’s son.
Sylvie crouched down to talk to him. ‘What’s your name?’ she said.
‘I am Barnardo Alfonso Willard.’
Barney said: ‘We call him Alfo.’
Sylvie said: ‘Hello, Alfo, I am your Aunt Sylvie.’
‘I am pleased to meet you,’ the boy said formally. Someone had taught him good manners.
Ned said to Barney: ‘And his mother?’
Tears came to Barney’s eyes. ‘The loveliest woman I ever knew.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In a graveyard in Hispaniola, New Spain.’
‘I’m so sorry, brother.’
Alfo said: ‘Eileen looks after me.’
The house was still cared for by the Fifes, now an elderly couple, and their daughter Eileen, who was in her twenties.
Ned smiled. ‘And soon you’ll go to Kingsbridge Grammar School, like your father and me, and you’ll learn to write Latin and count money.’
‘I don’t want to go to school,’ Alfo said. ‘I want to be a sailor, like the Captain.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Barney. To Ned he explained: ‘He knows I’m his father, but on board ship he got into the habit of calling me Captain, as the men do.’
On the day after they arrived, Ned took Sylvie to meet the Fornerons, Kingsbridge’s leading Huguenot family, and they all chattered in French. Sylvie’s English was coming along fast, but it was a relief to be able to relax and talk without having to search for words. The Fornerons had a precocious ten-year-old daughter, Valerie, who took it upon herself to teach Sylvie some useful English phrases, which amused everyone.
The Fornerons wanted to know all about the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which was still being discussed with horror all over Europe. Everyone Sylvie met asked about it.
On the third day Sylvie received a costly gift, a bolt of fine Antwerp cloth, enough to make a dress, from Dan Cobley, the richest man in town. Sylvie had heard his name before: she and Ned had sailed from Paris to London on one of Dan’s ships. ‘He wants to ingratiate himself with me,’ Ned said, ‘just in case one day he needs a royal favour.’
Dan called the next day, and Sylvie took him into the front parlour, the room with the view of the cathedral, and gave him wine and cakes. He was a pompous fat man, and Ned spoke to him in uncharacteristically curt tones. When Dan had gone, Sylvie asked Ned why he disliked Dan so much. ‘He’s a hypocritical Puritan,’ Ned said. ‘He dresses in black and complains about kissing in plays, then he cheats people in business.’
A more important blank in the story of Ned’s life was filled in when they were invited to dinner at the home of Lady Susannah Twyford, a voluptuous woman in her fifties. It took Sylvie about a minute to figure out that Susannah had been Ned’s lover. She talked to him with an easy intimacy that could only come from a sexual relationship. Ned looked happy and relaxed with her. Sylvie felt bothered. She knew Ned had not been a virgin when they married, but actually seeing him smiling fondly at an old flame was a bit hard to take.
Susannah must have picked up Sylvie’s anxiety, for she sat down next to her and held both her hands. ‘Ned is so happy to be married to you, Sylvie, and I can see why,’ she said. ‘I always hoped he would meet someone courageous and bright as well as beautiful. He’s a special man and he deserves a special woman.’
‘He seems very fond of you.’
‘Yes,’ Susannah admitted. ‘And I’m fond of him. But he’s in love with you, and that’s so different. I do hope you and I can be friends.’
‘I hope so too,’ said Sylvie. ‘I met Ned when he was thirty-two, so I’d be foolish to imagine I was the first woman he fell for.’
‘Funny, though, how we do sometimes imagine silly things when we’re in love.’
Sylvie realized this woman was wise and kind, and she felt easier in her mind.
Sylvie entered the cathedral for the first time on Whit Sunday for the festival of Pentecost. ‘This is wonderful,’ Sylvie said as they walked along the nave.
‘It’s a magnificent church,’ Ned agreed. ‘I never tire of studying it.’
‘It is, but that’s not what I mean. There are no marble statues, no garish paintings, no jewelled boxes of ancient bones.’
‘Your Huguenot churches and meeting halls are like that.’
Sylvie switched to French in order to express herself better. ‘But this is a cathedral! It’s huge and beautiful and hundreds of years old, the way churches are supposed to be, and it’s Protestant too! In France a Huguenot service is a hole-in-corner affair in some kind of improvised space, never seeming to be quite the right thing. To have a Protestant service in a place where people have worshipped God for centuries makes me rejoice.’
‘I’m so glad,’ said Ned. ‘You’ve been through more misery than any five other people. You’re entitled to some happiness.’
They approached a tall man of about Sylvie’s age, with a handsome face reddened by drink, his stout figure clad in a costly yellow coat. ‘Sylvie, this is Bart, the earl of Shiring. An earl is the same as a count.’
Sylvie remembered that Ned had to check on the local Catholics, of whom Bart was the most prominent. She curtsied.
Bart smiled, inclined his head in a slight bow, and gave her a roguish look. ‘You’re a sly one, Ned, to come home with a pretty French wench,’ he said.
Sylvie had an idea that the word wench was not quite polite, but she decided to ignore it. The earl had an expensively dressed little boy at his side, and she said: ‘And who is this young man?’
‘My son, Bartlet, the viscount,’ Bart said. ‘He’s just had his ninth birthday. Shake hands, Bartlet, and say how do you do.’
The boy complied. He had the same vigorous physical presence as his father, despite being small. Sylvie smiled to see a wooden sword at his belt.
Ned said: ‘And this is Countess Margery.’
Sylvie looked up and saw, with a shock, the woman in the little painting. It was a second jolt to realize that in real life she was much more striking. Although older than the painting – she had a few faint lines around her eyes and mouth, and Sylvie put her age at thirty – the living woman had an air of vivacity and charisma that was like the charged atmosphere of stormy weather. She had luxuriant curly hair, imperfectly tamed, and wore a little red hat at an angle. No wonder he loved you, Sylvie thought immediately.
Margery acknowledged Sylvie’s curtsey, studying her with frank interest; then she looked at Ned, and Sylvie saw love in her eyes. Margery radiated happiness as she said hello to Ned. You haven’t got over him, Sylvie thought. You’ll never get over him. He’s the love of your life.
Sylvie looked at Ned. He, too, looked happy. He had a big place in his heart for Margery, there was no doubt about that.
Sylvie felt dismayed. Susannah Twyford had been a bit startling, but had been no more than fond of Ned. Margery had far stronger feelings, and Sylvie was unnerved. She wants my husband, Sylvie thought.
Well, she can’t have him.
Then Sylvie noticed a child of about two years, still unsteady on his legs, standing half-concealed by the full skirt of Margery’s red dress. Margery followed Sylvie’s look and said: ‘And this is my second son, Roger.’ She bent down and picked up the toddler with a swift motion. ‘Roger, this is Sir Ned Willard,’ she said. ‘He’s a very important person who works for the queen.’
Roger pointed at Sylvie. ‘Is she the queen?’ he said.
They all laughed.
Ned said: ‘She’s my queen.’
Thank you, Ned, Sylvie thought.
Ned said to Margery: ‘Is your brother here?’
‘We don’t see much of Rollo nowadays,’ Margery said.
‘Where is he, then?’
‘He has become a counsellor to the earl of Tyne.’
‘I’m sure his legal training and business experience make him useful to the earl. Does he live at Tyne Castle?’
‘He’s based there, but the earl has properties all over the north of England, and I gather Rollo travels a lot on his behalf.’
Ned was still checking on the local Catholics, but Sylvie was looking at the little boy, Roger. There was something about him that bothered her, and after a minute she realized that the boy had a familiar look.
He resembled Ned.
Sylvie looked at Ned and saw him studying Roger with a faint frown. He, too, had noticed something. Sylvie could read his face effortlessly and she could tell, from his expression, that he had not yet figured out what was puzzling him. Men were not as quick as women to spot resemblances. Sylvie caught Margery’s eye, and the two women understood one another instantly, but Ned was merely puzzled and Earl Bart was oblivious.
The service began with a hymn, and there was no further conversation until the ceremony came to an end. Then they had guests for dinner, and with one thing and another Sylvie did not get Ned on his own until bedtime.
It was spring, and they both got into bed naked. Sylvie touched the hair on Ned’s chest. ‘Margery loves you,’ she said.
‘She’s married to the earl.’
‘That won’t stop her.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because she’s lain with you already.’
Ned looked cross and said nothing.
‘It must have been about three years ago, just before you came to Paris.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because Roger is two.’
‘Oh. You noticed.’
‘He has your eyes.’ She looked into Ned’s eyes. ‘That wonderful golden-brown.’
‘You’re not angry?’
‘I knew, when I married you, that I was not the first woman you’d loved. But . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘But I didn’t know you might still love her, or that she had had your child.’
Ned took both her hands in his. ‘I can’t tell you that I’m indifferent to her, or don’t care about her,’ he said. ‘But please understand that you are all I want.’
It was the right thing to say, but Sylvie was not sure she believed him. All she knew was that she loved him and she was not going to let anyone take him away. ‘Make love to me,’ she said.
He kissed her. ‘My goodness, you’re a hard taskmaster,’ he joked. Then he kissed her again.
But this was not enough. She wanted something with him that Susannah Twyford and Margery Shiring had never shared. ‘Wait,’ she said, thinking. ‘Is there something you’ve always thought about doing with a woman?’ She had never before talked like this to him – or to anyone. ‘Something that excites you when you imagine it, but you’ve never done it?’ She held her breath. What would he say?
He looked thoughtful and a little embarrassed.
‘There is,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I can tell.’ She was glad she could read his face so easily. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m embarrassed to say.’
Now he looked bashful. It was sweet. She wriggled closer to him, pressing her body against his. In a low voice she said: ‘Then whisper.’
He whispered in her ear.
She looked at him, grinning, a little surprised but also aroused. ‘Really?’
He shook his head. ‘No, forget it. I shouldn’t have said it.’
She felt excited, and she could tell he was, too. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But we could try it.’
So they did.