Reginald and Rollo hung back when the others left the room. Reginald said: "I think we set him straight."
Rollo shook his head. There were times when he wished his father's mind were more devious. "Cecil knew, before he came here, that loyal Catholics such as you and Swithin would never pledge support for Elizabeth."
"I suppose he did," said Reginald. "He's nothing if not well informed."
"And he's evidently a clever man."
"Then why is he here?"
"I've been wondering about that," said Rollo. "I think he came to assess the strength of his enemies."
"Oh," said his father. "I never thought of that."
"Let's go in to dinner," said Rollo.
Ned was restless all through the banquet. He could hardly wait for the eating and drinking to end so that the game of Hunt the Hart could begin. But just as the sweets were being cleared away, his mother caught his eye and beckoned him.
He had noticed that she was deep in conversation with Sir William Cecil. Alice Willard was a vigorous, tubby woman, wearing a costly dress of Kingsbridge Scarlet embroidered with gold thread, and a medallion of the Virgin Mary around her neck to ward off accusations of Protestantism. Ned was tempted to pretend he had not seen her summons. The game would take place while the tables were being cleared and the actors were getting ready to perform the play. Ned was not sure what Margery had in mind, but whatever it was, he was not going to miss it. However, his mother was strict as well as loving, and she would not tolerate disobedience, so he went to her side.
"Sir William wants to ask you a few questions," Alice said.
"I'm honored," Ned said politely.
"I want to know about Calais," Cecil began. "I gather you've just returned from there."
"I left a week before Christmas, and got here yesterday."
"I need hardly tell you and your mother how vital the city is to English commerce. It's also a matter of national pride that we still rule a small part of France."
Ned nodded. "And deeply annoying to the French, of course."
"How is the morale of the English community there?"
"Fine," said Ned, but he began to worry. Cecil was not interrogating him out of idle curiosity: there was a reason. And, now that he thought about it, his mother's face looked grim. But he carried on. "When I left, they were still rejoicing over the defeat of the French at St. Quentin back in August. That made them feel that the war between England and France was not going to affect them."
"Overconfident, perhaps," Cecil muttered.
Ned frowned. "Calais is surrounded by forts: Sangatte, Frethun, Nielles--"
Cecil interrupted him. "And if the fortresses should fall?"
"The city has three hundred and seven cannons."
"You have a good mind for details. But can the people withstand a siege?"
"They have food for three months." Ned had made sure of his facts before leaving, for he had known that his mother would expect a detailed report. He turned to Alice now. "What's happened, Mother?"
Alice said: "The French took Sangatte on the first day of January."
Ned was shocked. "How could that happen?"
Cecil answered that question. "The French army was assembled in great secrecy in nearby towns. The attack took the Calais garrison by surprise."
"Who leads the French forces?"
"Francois, duke of Guise."
"Scarface!" said Ned. "He's a legend." The duke was France's greatest general.
"By now the city must be under siege."
"But it has not fallen."
"So far as we know, but my latest news is five days old."
Ned turned to Alice again. "No word from Uncle Dick?"
Alice shook her head. "He cannot get a message out of a besieged city."
Ned thought of his relations there: Aunt Blanche, a much better cook than Janet Fife, though Ned would never tell Janet that; Cousin Albin, who was his age and had taught him the French words for intimate parts of the body and other unmentionable things; and amorous Therese. Would they survive?
Alice said quietly: "Almost everything we have is tied up in Calais."
Ned frowned. Was that possible? He said: "Don't we have any cargoes going to Seville?"
The Spanish port of Seville was the armory of King Felipe, with an insatiable appetite for metal. A cousin of Ned's father, Carlos Cruz, bought as much as Alice could send, turning it all into cannons and cannonballs for Spain's interminable wars. Ned's brother, Barney, was in Seville, living and working with Carlos, learning another side of the family business, as Ned had done in Calais. But the sea journey was long and hazardous, and ships were sent there only when the much nearer warehouse at Calais was full.
Alice replied to Ned's question: "No. At the moment we have no ships going to or from Seville."
"So if we lose Calais . . ."
"We lose almost everything."
Ned had thought he understood the business, but he had not realized it could be ruined so quickly. He felt as he did when a trustworthy horse stumbled and shifted under him, making him lose his balance in the saddle. It was a sudden reminder that life was unpredictable.
A bell was rung for the start of the game. Cecil smiled and said: "Thank you for your information, Ned. It's unusual for young men to be so precise."
Ned was flattered. "I'm glad to have been of help."
Dan Cobley's pretty, golden-haired sister, Ruth, passed by saying: "Come on, Ned, it's time for Hunt the Hart."
"Coming," he said, but he did not move. He felt torn. He was desperate to talk to Margery, but after news like this he was in no mood for a game. "I suppose there's nothing we can do," he said to his mother.
"Just wait for more information--which may be a long time coming."
There was a gloomy pause. Cecil said: "By the way, I'm looking for an assistant to help me in my work for the lady Elizabeth, a young man to live at Hatfield Palace as part of her staff, and act on my behalf when I have to be in London, or elsewhere. I know your destiny is to work with your mother in the family business, Ned, but if you should happen to know a young man a bit like yourself, intelligent and trustworthy, with a sharp eye for detail . . . let me know."
Ned nodded. "Of course." He suspected that Cecil was really offering the job to him.
Cecil went on: "He would have to share Elizabeth's tolerant attitude to religion." Queen Mary Tudor had burned hundreds of Protestants at the stake.
Ned certainly felt that way, as Cecil must have realized during the argument in the earl's library about the succession to the throne. Millions of English people agreed: whether Catholic or Protestant, they were sickened by the slaughter.
"Elizabeth has told me many times that if she should become queen, it is her dearest wish that no Englishman should lose his life for the sake of his beliefs," Cecil went on. "I think that's an ideal worthy of a man's faith."
Alice looked mildly resentful. "As you say, Sir William, my sons are destined to work in the family business. Off you go, Ned."
Ned turned around and looked for Margery.
Earl Swithin had hired a traveling company of actors, and now they were building a raised platform up against one long wall of the great hall. While Margery was watching them, Lady Brecknock stood beside her and did the same. An attractive woman in her late thirties with a warm smile, Susannah Brecknock was a cousin of Earl Swithin's, and was a frequent visitor to Kingsbridge, where she had a house. Margery had met her before and found her amiable and not too grand.
The stage was made of planks on barrels. Margery said: "It looks a bit shaky."
"That's what I thought!" said Susannah.
"Do you know what they're going to perform?"
"The life of Mary Magdalene."
"Oh!" Mary Magdalene was the patron saint of prostitutes. Priests always corrected this by saying "Reformed prostitutes," but that did not make the saint any less intriguing. "But how can they? All the actors are men."
"You haven't seen a play
before?"
"Not this kind, with a stage and professional players. I've just seen processions and pageants."
"The female characters are always played by men. They don't allow women to act."
"Why not?"
"Oh, I expect it's because we're inferior beings, physically weak and intellectually feeble."
She was being sarcastic. Margery liked Susannah for the candid way she talked. Most adults responded to embarrassing questions with empty platitudes, but Susannah could be relied upon to tell the plain truth. Emboldened, Margery blurted out what was on her mind: "Did they force you to marry the lord Brecknock?"
Susannah raised her eyebrows.
Margery realized immediately that she had gone too far. Quickly she said: "I'm so sorry, I have no right to ask you that, please forgive me." Tears came to her eyes.
Susannah shrugged. "You certainly do not have the right to ask me such a question, but I haven't forgotten what it was like to be fifteen." She lowered her voice. "Who do they want you to marry?"
"Bart Shiring."
"Oh, God, poor you," she said, even though Bart was her second cousin. Her sympathy made Margery feel even more sorry for herself. Susannah thought for a minute. "It's no secret that my marriage was arranged, but no one forced me," she said. "I met him and liked him."
"Do you love him?"
She hesitated again, and Margery could see that she was torn between discretion and compassion. "I shouldn't answer that."
"No, of course not, I apologize--again."
"But I can see that you're in distress, so I'll confide in you, provided you promise never to repeat what I say."
"I promise."
"Brecknock and I are friends," she said. "He's kind to me and I do everything I can to please him. And we have four wonderful children. I am happy." She paused, and Margery waited for the answer to her question. At last Susannah said: "But I know there is another kind of happiness, the mad ecstasy of adoring someone and being adored in return."
"Yes!" Margery was so glad that Susannah understood.
"That particular joy is not given to all of us," she said solemnly.
"But it should be!" Margery could not bear the thought that a person might be denied love.
For a moment, Susannah looked bereft. "Perhaps," she said quietly. "Perhaps."
Looking over Susannah's shoulder, Margery saw Ned approaching in his green French doublet. Susannah followed her look. Perceptively she said: "Ned Willard is the one you want?"
"Yes."
"Good choice. He's nice."
"He's wonderful."
Susannah smiled with a touch of sadness. "I hope it works out for you."
Ned bowed to her, and she acknowledged him with a nod but moved away.
The actors were hanging a curtain across one corner of the room. Margery said to Ned: "What do you think that's for?"
"They will put on their costumes behind the curtain, I think." He lowered his voice. "When can we talk? I can't wait much longer."
"The game is about to begin. Just follow me."
Philbert Cobley's good-looking clerk, Donal Gloster, was chosen to be hunter. He had wavy dark hair and a sensual face. He did not appeal to Margery--too weak--but several of the girls would be hoping to be found by him, she felt sure.
New Castle was the perfect location for the game. It had more secret places than a rabbit warren. The parts where the new mansion was joined to the old castle were especially rich in odd cupboards, unexpected staircases, niches, and irregular-shaped rooms. It was a children's game and Margery, when young, had wondered why nineteen-year-olds were so keen to join in. Now she understood that the game was an opportunity for adolescents to kiss and cuddle.
Donal closed his eyes and began to say the paternoster in Latin, and all the young people scattered to hide.
Margery already knew where she was going, for she had scouted hidey-holes earlier, to be sure of a private place in which to talk to Ned. She left the hall and raced along a corridor toward the rooms of the old castle, trusting Ned to follow her. She went through a door at the end of the corridor.
Glancing back, she saw Ned--and, unfortunately, several others. That was a nuisance: she wanted him to herself.
She passed through a small storeroom and ran up a twisting staircase with stone steps, then down a short flight. She could hear the others behind her, but she was now out of their sight. She turned into a passageway she knew to be a dead end. It was lit by a single candle in a wall bracket. Halfway along was a huge fireplace: the medieval bakery, long disused, its chimney demolished in the building of the modern house. Beside it, concealed by a stone buttress, was the door to the enormous oven, virtually invisible in the dimness. Margery slipped into the oven, pulling her skirts behind her. It was surprisingly clean, she had noted when scouting. She pulled the door almost shut and peeped through a crack.
Ned came charging along the passageway, closely followed by Bart, then pretty Ruth Cobley, who probably had her eye on Bart. Margery groaned in frustration. How could she separate Ned from the others?
They dashed past the oven without seeing the door. A moment later, having run into the dead end, they returned in reverse order: Ruth, then Bart, then Ned.
Margery saw her chance.
Bart and Ruth disappeared from view, and Margery said: "Ned!"
He stopped and looked around, puzzled.
She pushed open the oven door. "In here!"
He did not need to be asked twice. He scrambled in with her, and she shut the door.
It was pitch-dark, but they were lying knee to knee and chin to chin, and she could feel the length of his body. He kissed her.
She kissed him back hungrily. Whatever else happened, he still loved her, and for the moment that was all she cared about. She had been afraid he would forget her in Calais. She thought he would meet French girls who were more sophisticated and exciting than little Marge Fitzgerald from Kingsbridge. But he had not, she could tell, from the way he hugged and kissed and caressed her. Overjoyed, she put her hands on his head and opened her mouth to his tongue and arched her body against his.
He rolled on top of her. At that moment, she would have opened her body to him gladly, and let him take her virginity; but something happened. There was a thump, as if his foot had struck something, then a noise that might have been a panel of wood falling to the ground; and suddenly she could see the walls of the oven around her.
She and Ned were both sufficiently startled to stop what they were doing and look up. They saw that the back of the oven had fallen away. Clearly it connected with another place that was dimly lit, and Margery realized with trepidation that there might be people there who could see what she and Ned were doing. She sat upright and looked through the hole.
There was no one in sight. She saw a wall with an arrow-slit window that was admitting the last of the afternoon light. A small space behind the old oven had simply been closed off by the building of the new house. It led nowhere: the only access was through the oven. On the floor was a panel of wood that must have closed up the hole until Ned kicked it in his excitement. Margery could hear voices, but they came from the courtyard outside. She breathed easier: they had not been seen.
She crawled through the hole and stood upright in the little space. Ned followed her. They both looked around wonderingly, and Ned said: "We could stay here forever."
That brought Margery back to reality, and she realized how close she had come to committing a mortal sin. Desire had almost overwhelmed her knowledge of right and wrong. She had had a lucky escape.
Her intention in bringing Ned here had been to speak to him, not kiss him. She said: "Ned, they want to make me marry Bart. What are we going to do?"
"I don't know," said Ned.
Swithin was quite drunk, Rollo saw. The earl was slumped on a big chair opposite the stage, a goblet in his right hand. A young serving girl refilled his glass, and as she did so he grasped her breast with his maimed left hand. She squealed
with horror and pulled away, spilling the wine, and Swithin laughed.
An actor came onstage and began a prologue, explaining that in order to tell a story of repentance it was necessary first to show the sin, and apologizing in advance if this should give offense.
Rollo saw his sister, Margery, come slinking into the room with Ned Willard, and he frowned in disapproval. They had taken advantage of the game of Hunt the Hart to go off together, Rollo realized, and no doubt they had got up to all kinds of mischief.
Rollo did not understand his sister. She took religion very seriously, but she had always been disobedient. How could that be? For Rollo, the essence of religion was submission to authority. That was the trouble with Protestants: they thought they had the right to make up their own minds. But Margery was a devout Catholic.
Onstage a character called Infidelity appeared, identifiable by his oversized codpiece. He winked and spoke behind his hand and looked from left to right as if making sure he was not being overheard by any other characters. The audience laughed as they recognized an exaggerated version of a type they all knew.
Rollo had been unnerved by the conversation with Sir William Cecil, but now he thought he might have overreacted. Princess Elizabeth probably was a Protestant, but it was too soon to worry about her: after all, Queen Mary Tudor was only forty-one and in good health, apart from the phantom pregnancies; she could reign for decades more.
Mary Magdalene appeared onstage. Clearly this was the saint before her repentance. She sashayed on in a red dress, fussing with her necklace, batting her eyes at Infidelity. Her lips were reddened with some kind of dye.
Rollo was surprised because he had not seen a woman among the actors. Furthermore, although he had not seen a play before, he was pretty sure women were not allowed to act. The company had appeared to consist of four men and a boy of about thirteen. Rollo frowned at Mary Magdalene, puzzled; then it occurred to him that she was the same size and build as the boy.
The truth began to dawn on the audience, and there were murmurs of admiration and surprise. But Rollo also heard low but clear noises of protest, and looking around, he saw that they came from the corner where Philbert Cobley stood with his family. Catholics were relaxed about plays, provided there was a religious message, but some of the ultra-Protestants disapproved. A boy dressed as a woman was just the kind of thing to make them righteously indignant, especially when the female character was acting sexy. They were all stony faced--with one exception, Rollo noticed: Philbert's bright young clerk, Donal Gloster, who was laughing as heartily as anyone. Rollo and all the young people in town knew that Donal was in love with Philbert's fair daughter, Ruth. Rollo guessed that Donal was Protestant only to win Ruth.