Page 27 of A Column of Fire

The Fitzgeralds were the leading family in town – and they looked the part, Rollo thought proudly as they stood in the hall putting on their warmest clothes, while the great bell in the cathedral tower boomed its summons to Mass. Sir Reginald was tall and lean, and the freckles that marred his face also gave him a kind of distinction. He put on a heavy cloak of chestnut-brown cloth. Lady Jane, small and thin, had a sharp nose and darting eyes that did not miss much. She wore a coat lined with fur.

Margery, also short, was more rounded. She was in a furious sulk, and had not been allowed out of the house since the earl’s party; but she could not be held incommunicado for ever, and this morning the bishop of Kingsbridge would be at Mass, a powerful ally whom the family could not risk offending.

Margery had clearly decided not to look as miserable as she felt. She had put on a coat of Kingsbridge Scarlet and a matching hat. In the past year or so she had grown up to be the prettiest girl in town – even her brother could see that.

The fifth member of the family was Rollo’s great-aunt. She had been a nun at Kingsbridge Priory, and had come to live with the Fitzgeralds when the priory was shut down by King Henry VIII. She had turned her two rooms on the top floor of the house into a little nunnery, the bedroom a bare cell and the parlour a chapel; Rollo was awed by her devotion. Everyone still called her Sister Joan. She was now old and frail, and walked with two sticks, but she insisted on going to church when Bishop Julius was there. The maid Naomi would carry a chair to the cathedral for Sister Joan, for she could not remain standing a whole hour.

They stepped outside together. They lived at the crossroads at the top of the main street, opposite the Guild Hall, a commanding position, and for a moment Sir Reginald paused and looked down over the close-packed streets descending like stairs to the river. A light snow was falling on the thatched roofs and smoking chimneys. My town, his expression said.

As the mayor and his family made their stately procession down the slope of the main street their neighbours greeted them respectfully, the more prosperous ones wishing them good morning, the lower classes silently touching their hats.

In the daylight Rollo noticed that his mother’s coat was slightly moth-eaten, and he hoped no one would notice. Unfortunately, his father had no money for new clothes. Business was bad in Combe Harbour, where Sir Reginald was Receiver of Customs. The French had captured the port of Calais, the war dragged on, and Channel shipping was minimal.

As they approached the cathedral, they passed the other cause of the family’s financial crisis: the new house, to be called Priory Gate. It stood on the north side of the market square, on land that had been attached to the prior’s house in the days when there had been a priory. Construction had slowed almost to a stop. Most of the builders had gone elsewhere, to work for people who could pay them. A crude wooden fence had been erected to discourage curious people from entering the unfinished building.

Sir Reginald also owned the complex of priory buildings on the south side of the cathedral: the cloisters, the monks’ kitchen and dormitory, the nunnery and the stables. When Henry VIII had dissolved the monasteries, their property had been given or sold to local magnates, and Sir Reginald had got the priory. These mostly old buildings had been neglected for decades and were now falling down, with birds’ nests in the rafters and brambles growing in the cloisters. Reginald would probably sell them back to the chapter.

Between the two shabby lots the cathedral stood proud, unchanged for hundreds of years, just like the Catholic faith it represented. In the last forty years Protestants had tried to alter the Christian doctrines that had been taught here for so long: Rollo wondered how they had the arrogance. It was like trying to put modern windows in the church walls. The truth was for eternity, like the cathedral.

They went in through the great arches of the west front. It seemed even colder inside than out. As always, the sight of the long nave with its ordered lines of precisely repeated columns and arches filled Rollo with a reassuring sense of a systematic universe regulated by a rational deity. At the far end, winter daylight faintly lit the great rose window, its coloured glass showing how all things would end: God sitting in judgement on the last day, evildoers being tortured in Hell, the good entering Heaven, balance restored.

The Fitzgeralds moved down the aisle to the crossing as the prayers began. From a distance they watched the priests perform the service at the high altar. Around them were the other leading families of the town, including the Willards and the Cobleys, and of the county, notably the earl of Shiring and his son Bart, and Lord and Lady Brecknock.

The singing was mediocre. Hundreds of years of thrilling choral music at Kingsbridge Cathedral had come to an end when the priory closed and the choir was disbanded. Some of the former monks had started a new choir, but the spirit had gone. They were not able to recreate the fanatical discipline of a group whose entire lives were dedicated to praising God with beautiful music.

The congregation was still for the dramatic moments, such as the elevation of the Host, and they listened politely to Bishop Julius’s sermon – on obedience – but for much of the time they talked among themselves.

Rollo was annoyed to see that Margery had slyly slipped away from the family and was talking animatedly to Ned Willard, the plume on her cap bobbing vigorously with emphasis. Ned, too, was dressed up, in his blue French coat, and he was clearly thrilled to be with her. Rollo wanted to kick him for insolence.

To compensate, Rollo went and spoke to Bart Shiring, and told him it would come right in the end. They spoke about the war. The loss of Calais had damaged more than just trade. Queen Mary and her foreign husband were increasingly unpopular. Rollo still did not think England would ever have another Protestant monarch, but Mary Tudor was doing no good to the Catholic cause.

As the service came to an end, Rollo was approached by Philbert Cobley’s plump son, Dan. The puritanical Cobleys were here unwillingly, Rollo felt sure; he guessed they hated the statues and the paintings, and would have liked to hold their noses against the whiff of incense. Rollo was driven mad by the idea that people – ignorant, uneducated, stupid ordinary people – had the right to make up their own minds about religion. If such a naive idea ever gained currency, civilization would collapse. People had to be told what to do.

With Dan was a wiry, weather-beaten man called Jonas Bacon, one of the many sea captains employed by Kingsbridge merchants.

Dan said to Rollo: ‘We have a cargo that we want to sell. Might you be interested?’

Ship owners such as the Cobleys often sold their cargoes in advance, sometimes offering quarters or eighths to multiple investors. It was a way of raising the money to finance the voyage and, at the same time, spreading the risk. Stakeholders could sometimes get back ten times the cost of their share – or they could lose it all. In more prosperous days Sir Reginald had made huge profits this way.

‘We might be interested,’ Rollo said. He was being insincere. His father had no cash to invest in a cargo, but Rollo wanted to know about it anyway.

‘TheSt Margaretis on her way back from the Baltic Sea, her hold crammed with furs worth more than five hundred pounds landed,’ Dan said. ‘I can show you the manifest.’

Rollo frowned. ‘How can you know this if she’s still at sea?’

Captain Bacon answered the question in a voice hoarse from years of shouting into the wind. ‘I overtook her off the Netherlands coast. My ship, theHawk, is faster. I hove to and took the details. TheSt Margaretwas about to go into harbour for minor repairs. But she will be in Combe in two weeks.’

Captain Bacon had a bad reputation. Many captains did. There was no one to witness what sailors did at sea, and people said they were thieves and murderers. But his story was credible. Rollo nodded and turned back to Dan. ‘So why would you sell the cargo now?’

A sly look appeared on Dan’s round white face. ‘We need the money for another investment.’

He was not going to say what. That was natural: if he had come across a good business opportunity he would not give others the chance to get in first. All the same, Rollo was suspicious. ‘Is there something wrong with your cargo?’

‘No. And to prove it we’re prepared to guarantee the value of the furs at five hundred pounds. But we’ll sell the cargo to you for four hundred.’

It was a large sum. A prosperous farmer owning his land might make fifty pounds a year; a successful Kingsbridge merchant would be proud of an annual income of two hundred. Four hundred was a huge investment – but a guaranteed profit of a hundred pounds in only two weeks was a rare opportunity.

And it would pay off all the Fitzgerald family’s debts.