Page 192 of A Column of Fire
Margery said gaily: ‘Did you think we might keep priests in the oven?’ Then she hoped he had not noticed the slight tremor in her voice.
He looked annoyed and did not trouble to answer her facetious question.
They returned to the entrance hall. Matthewson was angry. He suspected he had been hoodwinked but he could not figure out how.
Just as he was about to leave, the front door opened and Sir Ned Willard walked in.
She stared at him in horror. He knew the secret of the old bakery. Why was he here?
There was a light film of perspiration on his forehead, and he was breathing heavily: clearly he had been riding hard. She guessed that somehow he had heard about the sheriff’s mission. But what was his purpose? No doubt he was worried about Margery. But he was a Protestant, too: would he be tempted to flush out the fugitive priest? His loyalty to Queen Elizabeth was profound, almost like love: would it be outweighed by his love for Margery?
He gave Matthewson a hostile glare. ‘What’s going on here?’ he said.
The sheriff repeated his explanation. ‘Stephen Lincoln is suspected of treason.’
‘I haven’t heard of any such suspicion,’ Ned said.
‘As I understand it, Sir Ned, you haven’t been in London since before Easter, so perhaps you haven’t heard.’ The sheriff’s words were polite, but he said them with a sneer.
Ned felt foolish, Margery could tell by his face. He prided himself on knowing everything first. He had slipped – and undoubtedly it was because of her.
Margery said: ‘Stephen Lincoln is not here. The sheriff has searched my house very thoroughly. If we’d had a Catholic mouse in the pantry I believe he would have found it.’
‘I’m glad to hear the queen’s orders are being carried out so meticulously,’ Ned said, apparently changing sides. ‘Well done, sheriff.’
Margery felt so tense she wanted to scream. Was Ned about to sayBut did you find the secret room behind the old oven?Controlling her voice with an effort she said: ‘If that’s all, sheriff . . .’
Matthewson hesitated, but he had nothing left to do. Looking like thunder, he walked away, rudely without saying farewell.
One by one his men followed him through the door.
Bart came out of the dining room. ‘Have they gone?’ he said.
Margery could not speak. She burst into tears.
Bart put his arms around her. ‘There, there,’ he said. ‘You were magnificent.’
She looked over his shoulder at Ned, who wore the face of a man in torment.
*
ROLLO WAS GOINGto have his revenge.
He was weary, dusty, and seething with hatred and resentment when he arrived at the university town of Douai, in the French-speaking south-west of the Netherlands, in July of 1570. It reminded him of Oxford, where he had studied: there were many churches, gracious college buildings, and gardens and orchards where teachers and students could walk and talk. That had been a golden age, he thought bitterly; his father had been alive and prosperous, a strong Catholic had sat on the throne of England, and Rollo had seemed to have an assured future.
He had walked a long way across the flat landscape of Flanders, but his feet were not as sore as his heart. The Protestants were never satisfied, he thought furiously. England had a Protestant queen, compliant bishops, an English Bible and a reformed prayer book. The paintings had been taken down, the statues beheaded, the golden crucifixes melted down. And still it was not enough. They had to take away Rollo’s business and his home, and drive him out of his own country.
One day they would regret it.
Speaking a mixture of French and English, he found his way to a brick town house, large but not beautiful, in a street of shops and tenements. All his hopes were now invested in this disappointingly ordinary building. If England was to return to the true faith, and if Rollo was to be revenged on his enemies, it would all start here.
The door was open.
In the hall he met a lively pink-faced man about ten years his junior – Rollo was thirty-five. ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ he said politely.
‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ said the other man.
‘Is this the English College?’
