Page 30 of A Column of Fire
At the same moment, Lady Jane came up. ‘It’s time to go home,’ she said. ‘Dinner will be ready.’
Rollo looked around for his sister.
Margery was nowhere to be seen.
*
AS SOON ASthe Fitzgeralds were out of earshot, Ned said to his mother: ‘Why did you agree to lend so much money to Sir Reginald?’
‘Because he would have made trouble for us if I’d refused.’
‘But he may default! We could lose everything.’
‘No, we’d have the priory.’
‘A collection of tumbledown buildings.’
‘I don’t want the buildings.’
‘Then . . .’ Ned frowned.
‘Think,’ said his mother.
If not the buildings, what did Alice want? ‘The land?’
‘Keep thinking.’
‘It’s in the heart of the city.’
‘Exactly. It’s the most valuable site in Kingsbridge, and worth a lot more than four hundred pounds to someone who knows how to make the most of it.’
‘I see,’ said Ned. ‘But what would you do with it – build a house, like Reginald?’
Alice looked scornful. ‘I don’t need a palace. I would build an indoor market that would be open every day of the week, regardless of the weather. I’d rent space to stallholders – pastry cooks, cheesewrights, glovers, shoemakers. There, right next to the cathedral, it would make money for a thousand years.’
The project was an idea of genius, Ned judged. That was why his mother had thought of it, and he had not.
All the same, a trace of his worry remained. He did not trust the Fitzgeralds.
Another thought occurred to him. ‘Is this a contingency plan in case we’ve lost everything in Calais?’
Alice had made strenuous efforts to get news from Calais, but had learned no more since the French had taken the city. Perhaps they had simply confiscated all English property, including the richly stocked Willard warehouse; perhaps Uncle Dick and his family were on their way to Kingsbridge empty-handed. But the city had prospered mainly because English merchants brought trade, and it was just possible that the French king realized it was smarter to let the foreigners keep what was theirs and stay in business.
Unfortunately, no news was bad news: the fact that no Englishmen had yet escaped from Calais and come home with information, despite the passage of a month, suggested that few were left alive.
‘The indoor market is worth doing in any circumstances,’ Alice answered. ‘But yes, I’m thinking we may well need a whole new business if the news from Calais is as bad as we fear.’
Ned nodded. His mother was always thinking ahead.
‘However, it probably won’t happen,’ Alice finished. ‘Reginald would not have lowered himself to beg a loan from me unless he had a really attractive deal lined up.’
Ned was already thinking about something else. The negotiation with Reginald had temporarily driven from his mind the only member of the Fitzgerald family in whom he was really interested.
He looked around the congregation but he could no longer see Margery. She had already left, and he knew where she had gone. He walked down the nave, trying not to appear hurried.
Preoccupied as he was, he marvelled as always at the music of the arches, the lower ones like bass notes repeated in a steady rhythm, the smaller ones in the gallery and the clerestory like higher harmonies in the same chord.
He pulled his cloak closer around him as he stepped outside and turned north, as if heading for the graveyard. The snow was falling more heavily now, settling on the roof of the monumental tomb of Prior Philip. It was so big that Ned and Margery had been able to stand on the far side of it and canoodle without fear of being observed. According to legend, Prior Philip had been forgiving towards those who gave in to sexual temptation, so Ned imagined the soul of the long-dead monk might not have been much troubled by two young people kissing over his grave.
