Page 150 of A Column of Fire

Cecil frowned in disapproval, but Queen Elizabeth laughed heartily. ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘That’s just the kind of bishop I like!’

*

MARGERY HAD BEENmarried for five years, and every day of those years she had thought about running away.

Bart Shiring was not a bad husband by general standards. He had never beaten her. She had to submit to sex with him now and again, but most of the time he took his pleasure elsewhere, so in that respect he was like most noblemen. He was disappointed that they had no children, and all men believed that such a failure was the woman’s fault, but he did not accuse her of witchcraft, as some husbands would have. All the same, she hated him.

Her dream of escape took many forms. She thought about entering a French nunnery, but of course Bart would find her and bring her back. She could cut her hair, dress as a boy, and run away to sea; but there was no privacy on a ship and she would be discovered within a day. She could saddle her favourite horse one morning and just never come back, but where would she go? London appealed, but how would she make a living? She knew a little of how the world worked, and it was common knowledge that girls who fled to the big city usually ended up as prostitutes.

There were times when she was tempted to commit the sin of suicide.

What kept her alive was her clandestine work for England’s deprived Catholics. It gave meaning to her existence, and in addition it was exciting, though frightening. Without it she would have been nothing more than a sad victim of circumstance. With it she was an adventurer, an outlaw, a secret agent for God.

When Bart was away from home she was almost happy. She liked having the bed to herself: no one snoring, belching or lurching out of bed in the middle of the night to piss in the pot. She enjoyed being alone in the morning while she washed and dressed. She liked her boudoir, with its little shelf of books and sprays of greenery in jugs. She could come back to her room in the afternoon, to sit alone and read poetry or study her Latin Bible, without being asked scornfully why any normal person would want to do such a thing.

It did not happen often enough. When Bart travelled it was usually to Kingsbridge, and then Margery went with him, taking the opportunity to see friends and connect with the clandestine Catholics there. But this time Bart had gone to Combe Harbour, and Margery was enjoying her own company.

She appeared at supper, of course. Earl Swithin had married a second time, to a girl younger than Margery, but the teenage countess had died giving birth to her first, stillborn child. So Margery was again the lady of the house, and meals were her responsibility. Tonight she had ordered mutton with cinnamon and honey. At table were just Earl Swithin and Stephen Lincoln, who now lived at New Castle: officially he was the secretary, but in fact he was the earl’s priest. He said Mass in the chapel for the family and their servants every Sunday, except when he and Margery were away doing the same thing somewhere else.

Although everyone was discreet, such a practice could not remain hidden for ever. By now a lot of people knew or guessed that Catholic services were going on at New Castle and, probably, all over England. The Puritans in Parliament – all men, of course – were infuriated by this. But Queen Elizabeth refused to enforce the laws. It was a compromise that Margery was beginning to recognize as typical of Elizabeth. The queen was a heretic, but she was also a sensible woman, and Margery thanked God for that.

She left the supper table as soon as it was polite to. She had a genuine excuse: her housekeeper was ill, and probably dying, and Margery wanted to make sure the poor woman was as comfortable as possible for the night.

She made her way to the servants’ quarters. Sal Brendon was lying in an alcove to one side of the kitchen. She and Margery had got off to a rocky start, five years ago, but Margery had slowly made an ally of her, and eventually they had run the house as a team. Sadly, Sal had developed a lump in one of her ample breasts, and over the past year had been transformed from a fleshy middle-aged sexpot into a skeleton with skin.

Sal’s tumour had broken through the skin and spread to her shoulder. It was heavily bandaged in an attempt to suppress the bad smell. Margery encouraged her to drink some sherry wine, and sat talking to her for a while. Sal told her, with bitter resignation, that the earl had not bothered to come to see her for weeks. She felt she had wasted her life trying to make an ungrateful man happy.

Margery retired to her room and cheered herself up with an outrageously funny French book calledPantagruel, about a race of giants, some of whom had testicles so large that three would fill a sack. Stephen Lincoln would have disapproved of the book, but there was no real harm in it. She sat by her candle for an hour, chuckling now and again; then she undressed.

She slept in a knee-length linen shift. The bed was a four-poster, but she kept the curtains tied back. The house had tall windows, and there was a half-moon, so the room was not completely dark. She climbed under the bedclothes and closed her eyes.

She would have liked to showPantagruelto Ned Willard. He would delight in the author’s fantastic comic inventions the way he had in the Mary Magdalene play here at New Castle. Whenever she came across something interesting or unusual she wondered what Ned would have to say about it.

She often thought of him at night. Foolishly, she felt that her wicked ideas were more secret when she was lying in the dark. Now she remembered the first time Ned and she had kissed and petted, in the disused old oven, and she wished they had gone farther. The memory made her feel warm and cosy inside. She knew it was a sin to touch herself down there, but – as sometimes happened – tonight the feeling came over her without touching, and she could not help pressing her thighs together and riding the waves of pleasure.

Afterwards she felt sad. She thought about Sal Brendon’s regrets, and she pictured herself on her own deathbed and wondered if she would feel as bitter as Sal. Tears came to her eyes. She reached out to a small chest beside the bed where she kept her private things and took out a linen handkerchief embroidered with acorns. It was Ned’s: she had never given it back. She buried her face in it, imagining that she was with him again, and he was gently touching it to her cheeks, drying her tears.

Then she heard breathing.

There were no locks at New Castle, but she normally shut her door. However, she had not heard it open. Perhaps she had left it ajar. But who would enter silently?

The breathing could come from a dog: the earl’s hounds were allowed to roam the corridors at night, and one might have nosed in curiously. She listened: the breathing was restrained, like that of a man trying to be quiet – dogs could not do that.

She opened her eyes and sat upright, her heart beating fast. In the silver moonlight she made out the figure of a man in a nightshirt. ‘Get out of my room,’ she said firmly, but there was a tremor in her voice.

A moment of silence followed. It was too dark to identify the man. Had Bart come home unexpectedly? No – no one travelled after dark. It could not be a servant: one of them would risk death entering a noblewoman’s bedroom at night. It could not be Stephen Lincoln, for she felt sure he was not drawn to women’s beds – if he were to sin in that way it would be with a pretty boy.

The man spoke. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

It was Swithin.

‘Go away,’ said Margery.

He sat on the edge of her bed. ‘We’re both lonely,’ he said. His speech was a little slurred, as it always was by the end of the evening.

She moved to get up, but he stopped her with a strong arm.

‘You know you want it,’ he said.