Page 190 of A Column of Fire

Dan said: ‘What if word got around that we have had this discussion and decided not to act? Won’t that putusunder suspicion?’

Around the table there were several reluctant nods, and Rollo began to think Dan would get his way.

Cordwainer said: ‘I think we must take a vote. Those in favour of Alderman Cobley’s proposal, please raise your hands.’

Ten hands went up. Only Rollo and Tinsley were against.

Cordwainer said: ‘The resolution is passed.’

Rollo stood up and left the room.

*

MARGERY LAYin bed at New Castle early on a July morning, listening to the birds. She felt happy, guilty and scared.

She was happy because she loved Ned and he loved her. He had stayed in Kingsbridge all through May, and they had met several times a week. Then he had been ordered to report on south-coast defences. It was Margery’s normal practice to go with Stephen Lincoln at least once a week to celebrate Mass clandestinely in remote villages and suburban barns, and she and Ned contrived to make their paths cross. They would manage to spend a night in the same town, or nearby villages. After dark, when most people had gone to bed, they would rendezvous. If she was staying in a tavern, Ned would creep into her room. On warm nights they sometimes met in woods. The secrecy made their meetings almost unbearably thrilling. Right now he was only a few miles from New Castle, and she was hoping to slip away on some pretext and see him today. She lived in a state of continuous excitement that made it almost impossible for her to eat. She lived on wheat bread with butter and watered wine.

Bart seemed oblivious. It would never occur to him that his wife might be unfaithful, any more than he would expect his own dog to bite him. Margery’s mother, Lady Jane, probably had her suspicions, but would not say anything for fear of causing trouble. However, Margery knew she and Ned could not get away with this behaviour indefinitely. It might take a week or a year, but sooner or later they would be found out. Nevertheless, she could not stop.

She was happy, but at the same time tortured by guilt. Often she thought back to where she had gone wrong. It had been the moment when she ordered her lady-in-waiting and man-at-arms to walk back to Wigleigh for food. She must have known, in her heart, that she was going to lie with Ned among the wild flowers beside the stream; and the prospect had been too sweet to resist. She had seen the steep and thorny way to heaven, but had chosen the primrose path of dalliance. She was committing a sin, enjoying it, and repeating it. Every day she vowed to end it, and every time she saw Ned her resolution evaporated.

She was afraid of the consequences, both now and in the afterlife. God would surely punish her. He might afflict her with a terrible disease, or drive her mad, or strike her blind. She sometimes gave herself a headache thinking about it. And she had additional reasons for fear. Her foreboding about the effects of the Papal Bull had turned out to be tragically accurate. Puritans could now gleefully point to Catholics as a danger to national security. Intolerance had gained a pretext.

Bart now had to pay the large sum of a pound a week, instead of a shilling a week, for not going to church. A pound was the price of a musket, a fancy shirt or a small pony. It made a dent in Bart’s income from rents, which came to about fifty pounds a week. The parish churchwarden was naturally afraid of the earl, but summoned up the courage once a week to come to the castle and ask for the money, and Bart had to pay.

Much worse was the effect on Rollo. He had lost his business because he would not swear to the Thirty-Nine Articles. He had been forced to sell Priory Gate, and Dan Cobley had exultantly bought it. Lady Jane was now living at New Castle with Margery and Bart. Rollo himself had gone away, and even his mother did not know where.

Ned was incandescent with rage. Queen Elizabeth had risked everything for the ideal of religious freedom, and had maintained it for a decade, proving that it could be done; but now, he fumed, she was being undermined – by the Pope, of all people. Margery did not like to hear him criticizing the Pope, even though she secretly agreed with him, so she just tried to avoid the topic.

In fact, she avoided all serious thoughts as much as she could, and let her mind dwell on love. When she was not with Ned, she daydreamed about the next time they would meet, and what they would do. Now, as her imagination began to depict them together, and she heard, in the ear of fantasy, the intimate words he would murmur to her as he touched her, she felt the familiar sensation in her loins, and her hand drifted to the place between her legs where delight arose. Strangely, her meetings with Ned did not quench this desire: in fact, she did it more now, as if one sin fed the other.

Her dog, Mick, lying beside the bed, woke up and growled. ‘Hush,’ she murmured, but then he barked. A moment later, there was a hammering at the door of the house.

The sound itself told Margery that trouble had arrived. The knocking was loud, repeated, demanding, authoritative. Few people dared to knock on an earl’s door in that aggressive, arrogant manner. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Outside she saw Sheriff Matthewson with a group of nine or ten men.

She could not guess exactly what the sheriff wanted, but she had no doubt it had to do with religion.

She ran from the room, pulling a wrapper over her nightdress. Along the corridor, Bart looked out of his room. ‘What is it?’ he said thickly.

‘Don’t open the door,’ Margery said.

The knocking continued.

Margery hurried across the landing to Stephen Lincoln’s room. She burst in: there was no time for niceties. But he was up and dressed and kneeling at his prie-dieu. ‘The sheriff is at the door,’ she said. ‘Come with me. Bring the sacramentals.’

Stephen picked up a box containing all they needed for the Mass and followed Margery out.

She saw Bartlet, in his nightshirt, followed by a sleepy young nurse. ‘Go back to your room, Barty,’ she said. ‘I’ll come for you when breakfast is ready.’ She ran down the stairs, praying that the servants had not already let Matthewson in. She was almost too late: young Nora Josephs was in the act of unbarring the door, shouting: ‘All right! All right! I’m coming!’

‘Wait!’ Margery hissed.

All the servants were Catholic. They would understand what was happening and keep silent about what they knew.

With Stephen close behind, Margery ran along the corridor and through a storeroom to a spiral staircase. She went up the stairs and then down a shorter flight into a dead-end passageway that was the bakery of the old castle, now disused. She pulled open the iron door to the massive bread oven where she had kissed Ned all those years ago. ‘In here!’ she said to Stephen. ‘Hide!’

‘Won’t they look here?’

‘Go all the way to the back and push against the wall. It leads to a secret room. Quickly!’