Page 187 of A Column of Fire

It was a fine spring day, and she decided to stop worrying and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. She was twenty-seven years old and a countess, rich and healthy and attractive: if she could not be happy, who could?

She stopped at an inn on the road for a glass of beer and a piece of cheese. Mick, who seemed tireless, drank at the pond. The man-at-arms gave each horse a handful of oats.

They reached Wigleigh in the early afternoon. It was a prosperous village, with some fields still cultivated on the old strip system and others belonging to individual farmers. A fast stream drove an old watermill for fulling cloth, called Merthin’s Mill. In the centre were a tavern, a church and a small manor house. Ned was waiting in the tavern. ‘Where’s Bart?’ he said.

‘He’s sick,’ Margery replied.

He looked surprised, then pleased, then apprehensive, all in quick succession, as he digested this news. Margery knew why he might be apprehensive: it was the risk of temptation. She felt the same anxiety.

Ned said: ‘I hope it’s not serious.’

‘No. It’s the kind of illness a man suffers after drinking too much wine.’

‘Ah.’

‘You get me instead – a poor substitute,’ she said with facetious modesty.

He grinned happily. ‘No complaints here.’

‘Shall we go to the site?’

‘Don’t you want something to eat and drink?’

Margery did not want to sit in a stuffy room with half a dozen peasants staring at her. ‘No, thank you,’ she said.

They rode a path between fields of spring-green wheat and barley. ‘Will you live in the manor house?’ Margery asked.

‘No. I’m too fond of the old house in Kingsbridge. I’ll just use this place for a night or two when I need to visit.’

Margery was seized by a vision of herself creeping into Ned’s house at night, and she had to put the wicked thought out of her mind.

They came to the wood. The stream that drove the mill also marked part of the boundary of Wigleigh, and the land beyond belonged to the earl. They followed the stream for a mile, then came to the location in question. Margery could see immediately what had happened. A peasant who was more enterprising than most, or greedier, or both, had cleared the forest on the earl’s side of the stream and was grazing sheep on the rough grass that had sprung up there.

‘Just beyond here is the patch I’m offering Bart in exchange,’ Ned said.

Margery saw a place where the ground on the Wigleigh side was forested. They rode across the stream, then dismounted and walked the horses into the wood. Margery noted some mature oaks that would provide valuable timber. They stopped at a pretty clearing with wild flowers and a grassy bank beside the stream. ‘I can’t see why Bart would object to the exchange,’ Margery said. ‘In fact, I think we’ll be getting a bargain.’

‘Good,’ said Ned. ‘Shall we rest here a while?’

The prospect was delightful. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.

They tethered the horses where they could crop some grass.

Ned said: ‘We could send your people to the tavern for food and drink.’

‘Good idea.’ Margery turned to the man-at-arms and the lady-in-waiting. ‘You two, go back to the village. You can walk – the horses need a rest. Fetch a jug of ale and some cold ham and bread. And enough for yourselves, of course.’

The two servants disappeared into the woods.

Margery sat on the grass by the stream and Ned lay beside her. The wood was quiet: there was just the shush of the stream and the breath of a light breeze in the spring leaves. Mick lay down and closed his eyes, but he would wake and give warning if anyone approached.

Margery said: ‘Ned, I know what you did for Father Paul.’

Ned raised his eyebrows. ‘News travels fast.’

‘I want to thank you.’

‘I suppose you supply the sacramental wafers.’ She was not sure what to say to that, but Ned quickly added: ‘I don’t want to know the details, please forget I asked.’