Aumande spoke again. ‘How do you feel about Protestants? I mean personally.’
‘Personally?’ Rollo began to compose another judicious answer, but his emotions got the better of him. He clenched his fists. ‘I hate them,’ he said. He was so moved he found it hard to get the words out. ‘I want to wipe them out, destroy them, kill every last one of them. That’s how I feel.’
Aumande almost smiled. ‘In that case, I think you may have a place with us.’
Rollo realized he had said the right thing.
‘Well,’ said Allen more cautiously, ‘I hope you will stay with us for a few days, at least, so that we can get to know each other better; then we can talk some more about your future.’
Aumande said: ‘He needs an alias.’
‘Already?’ said Allen.
‘The fewer people who know his real name, the better.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Call him Jean Langlais.’
‘John the Englishman – in French. All right.’ Allen looked at Rollo. ‘From now on you are Jean Langlais.’
‘But why?’ said Rollo.
Aumande answered him. ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘All in good time.’
*
ENGLAND WAS INthe grip of invasion panic that summer. People saw the Papal Bull as an incitement to Catholic countries to attack, and any day they expected to see the galleons come over the horizon, teeming with soldiers armed to the teeth, eager to burn and loot and rape. All along the south coast, masons were repairing age-crumbled castle walls. Rusty harbour-mouth cannons were cleaned, oiled and test-fired. Sturdy farm lads joined the local militia and practised archery on sunny Sunday afternoons.
The countess of Shiring was in a different kind of fervour. On her way to meet Ned, Margery visualized the things they would do together, and she felt the anticipatory moisture inside her. She had once heard someone say that French courtesans washed their private parts every day and perfumed them, in case men wanted to kiss them there. She had not believed the story, and Bart had certainly never kissed her there; but Ned did it all the time, so now she washed like a courtesan. She knew, as she did so, that she was getting ready to commit mortal sin, again; and knew, too, that one day her punishment would come; but those thoughts gave her a pain in her head, and she thrust them away.
She went to Kingsbridge and stayed in the house Bart owned on Leper Island. Her pretext was seeing Guillaume Forneron. A Protestant refugee from France, Forneron made the finest cambric in the south of England, and Margery bought shirts for Bart and, for herself, chemises and nightdresses.
On the second morning, she left the house alone and went to meet Ned at the home of her friend Susannah, now Lady Twyford. She still had the house in Kingsbridge that she had inherited from her father, and she usually stayed there when her husband was travelling. Ned had proposed this rendezvous, and both he and Margery felt sure they could trust Susannah to keep their secret.
Margery had got used to the knowledge that Susannah had once been Ned’s lover. Susannah had been bashful when Margery revealed that she had guessed the truth. ‘You had his heart,’ Susannah had said. ‘I just had his body, which, fortunately, was all I wanted.’ Margery was living in such a daze of passion that she could hardly think straight about that or anything else.
Susannah received her in her parlour, then kissed her on the lips and said: ‘Go on up, you lucky girl.’
An enclosed staircase led from the parlour up to Susannah’s boudoir, and Ned was waiting there.
Margery threw her arms around him and they kissed urgently, as though starved of love. She broke the kiss to say: ‘Bed.’
They went into Susannah’s bedroom and pulled off their clothes. Ned’s body was slender, his skin white, with thick dark hair on his chest. Margery loved just looking at him.
But something was wrong. Ned’s penis was unresponsive, limp. This happened quite often with Bart, when he was drunk, but it was the first time with Ned. Margery knelt in front of him and sucked it, as Bart had taught her to do. It sometimes worked with him, but today with Ned it made no difference. She stood up, put her hands to his face, and looked into his golden-brown eyes. He was embarrassed, she saw. She said: ‘What is it, my darling?’
‘Something on my mind,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘What are we going to do? What is our future?’
‘Why think about it? Let’s just love each other.’
He shook his head. ‘I have to make a decision.’ He put his hand into the coat he had thrown aside and took out a letter.
‘From the queen?’ Margery asked.
