Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He was still in the pay of the earl of Tyne, and in fact still carried out legal tasks for the earl from time to time to give credibility to his cover story. He was not sure what clandestine duties there might be for him to do now. The Catholic insurrection had failed. But he hoped fervently that sooner or later there would be a renewed effort to bring England back to the true faith, and that he would be part of it.

On his way to Tyne he had stopped over at Kingsbridge where he joined up with a group of travellers heading for London. It happened to be the twelfth day of Christmas, and there was a play in the courtyard of the Bell, so they were going to see the show then set off the following morning.

Rollo had watched for a minute, but he thought the play vulgar. At a particularly uproarious moment he caught the eye of a small middle-aged woman in the audience who stared at him as if trying to place him.

He had never seen her before and had no idea who she was, but he did not like the way she frowned as if trying to remember him. He pulled up the hood of his cloak, turned away, and walked out of the courtyard.

In the market square he looked up at the west front of the cathedral. I might have been bishop here, he thought bitterly.

He went mournfully inside. The church was a drab and colourless place under the Protestants. Sculptured saints and angels in their stone niches had had their heads chopped off to prevent idolatry. Wall paintings were dimly perceptible through a thin coat of whitewash. Amazingly, the Protestants had left the gorgeous windows intact, perhaps because it would have cost so much to replace the glass; but the colours were not at their best on this winter afternoon.

I would have changed all this, Rollo thought. I would have given people religion with colour and costume and precious jewels, not this cold cerebral Puritanism. His stomach churned with acid at the thought of what he had lost.

The church was empty, all the priests having gone to the play, he thought; but, turning around, he looked back the length of the nave and saw that the woman who had stared at him in the market square had followed him into the cathedral. When he met her eye again, she spoke to him in French, and her words echoed in the vaulting like the voice of doom. ‘ C’est bien toi — Jean Langlais? Is it really you — Jean Langlais?’

He turned away, mind racing. He was in terrible danger. He had been recognized as Langlais. It seemed she did not know Rollo Fitzgerald — but she soon would. At any moment she would identify him as Langlais to someone who knew him as Rollo — someone such as Ned Willard — and his life would be over.

He had to get away from her.

He hurried across the south aisle. A door in the wall there had always led to the cloisters — but now, as he jerked on the handle, it remained firmly shut, and he realized it must have been blocked off when the quadrangle had been turned into a market by Alfo Willard.

He heard the woman’s light footsteps running up the nave. He guessed that she wanted to see him close up — to confirm her identification. He had to avoid that.

He dashed along the aisle to the crossing, looking for a way out, hoping to disappear into the town before she could get another look at him. In the south transept, at the base of the mighty tower, there was a small door in the wall. He thought it might lead out into the new market but, when he flung it open, he saw only a narrow spiral staircase leading up. Making a split-second decision, he went through the door, closing it behind him, and started up the steps.

He hoped the staircase would have a door leading to the gallery that ran the length of the south aisle, but as he went farther up he realized he was not going to be that lucky. He heard footsteps behind him, and had no option but to carry on up.

He began to breathe hard. He was fifty-three years old, and climbing long staircases was more difficult than it had been. However, the woman chasing him was not much younger.

Who was she? And how did she know him?

She was French, evidently. She had addressed him by toi rather than vous , meaning either that she knew him intimately — which she did not — or that she did not think he was entitled to the respectful vous . She must have seen him, probably in Paris or Douai.

A Frenchwoman in Kingsbridge was almost certainly a Huguenot immigrant. There was a family called Forneron, but they were from Lille, and Rollo had never spent any time there.

However, Ned Willard had a French wife.

She must be the woman panting up the stairs behind Rollo. He recalled her name: Sylvie.

He kept hoping that, just around the curve, there would be an archway leading off the staircase to one of the many passages buried in the massive stonework, but the spiral seemed to go on forever, as if in a nightmare.

He was panting and exhausted when at last the steps ended at a low wooden door. He threw the door open, and a blast of cold air struck him. He ducked under the lintel and stepped out, and the door blew shut behind him. He was on a narrow stone-paved walkway at the top of the central tower that rose over the crossing. A wall no higher than his knees was all that stood between him and a drop of hundreds of feet. He looked down to the roof of the choir far below. To his left was the graveyard; to his right the quadrangle of the old cloisters, now roofed over to form the indoor market. Behind him, hidden from his view by the breadth of the spire, was the marketplace. The wind flapped his cloak violently.

The walkway ran around the base of the spire. Above, at the point of the spire, was the massive stone angel that looked human-sized from the ground. He went quickly around the walkway, hoping that there might be another staircase, a ladder, or a flight of steps leading away. On the far side he glanced down into the marketplace, almost deserted now that everyone was in the Bell watching the play.

There was no way down. As he arrived back where he started, the woman emerged from the doorway.

The wind blew her hair across her eyes. She pushed her locks off her face and stared at him. ‘It is you,’ she said. ‘You’re the priest I saw with Pierre Aumande. I had to be sure.’

‘Are you Willard’s wife?’

‘He’s been searching for Jean Langlais for years. What are you doing in Kingsbridge?’

His surmise had been right: she had no idea that he was Rollo Fitzgerald. Their paths had never crossed in England.

Until today. And now she knew his secret. He would be arrested, tortured, and hanged for treason.

And then he realized that there was a simple alternative.

He stepped towards her. ‘You little fool,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know what danger you’re in?’

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said, and she flew at him.

He grabbed her by the arms. She screamed and struggled. He was bigger, but she was a spitfire, wriggling and kicking. She got one arm free and went for his face, but he dodged her hand.

He pushed her along the walkway to the corner, so that her back was to the low wall, and somehow she squirmed around him. Then his back was to the sheer drop, and she shoved him with all her might. He was too strong for her, and forced her back. She was screaming for help, but the wind took her cries, and he was sure no one could hear. He pulled her sideways, so that she was off balance, then got on the other side of her, and almost had her over the edge, but she foiled him by going limp, and slumping to the floor. Then she twisted out of his grasp, scurried away, got to her feet and ran.

He followed her, careering along the walkway, darting around the corners, with the fatal drop just one misstep away. He could not catch her. She reached the doorway, but the door had blown shut again and she had to stop to open it. In that split second he got hold of her. He grabbed her collar with one hand, and with the other grasped a fistful of the skirt of her coat, and jerked her out of the doorway back onto the walkway.