Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Margery nodded. It was true.

‘It’s your sacred duty to do as you’re told.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered miserably.

‘It’s not enough to repent, though, is it, Margery? You know that.’

‘What must I do?’

‘You must cease to sin. You must obey.’

She looked up and met his eye at last. ‘Obey?’

‘This is what God wants.’

‘Is it, really?’

‘It is.’

He was the bishop. He knew what God wanted. And he had told her. She looked down again.

‘I want you to speak to your father, now,’ said Julius.

‘Must I?’

‘You know you must. And I think you know what you have to say. Do you?’

Margery was too choked up to speak, but she nodded.

The bishop made a sign to Lady Jane, who went to the door and opened it. Sir Reginald was waiting there, and he stepped in. He looked at Margery and said: ‘Well?’

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ she said.

He said: ‘So you should be.’

There was a pause. They were waiting for her.

At last she said: ‘I will marry Bart Shiring.’

‘Good girl,’ he said.

Margery stood up. ‘May I go?’

Lady Jane said: ‘Perhaps you should thank the bishop for steering you back into the path of God’s grace.’

Margery turned to Julius. ‘Thank you, bishop.’

‘Very well,’ said Lady Jane. ‘Now you may go.’

Margery left the room.

On Monday morning Ned looked out of the window and saw Margery, and his heart quickened.

He was standing in the parlour, and his tortoiseshell cat, Maddy, was rubbing her head against his ankle. He had named her Madcap when she was a kitten, but now she was an old lady who was pleased, in a restrained, dignified way, to see him home.

He watched Margery cross the square to the Grammar School. Three mornings a week she held an infants’ class, teaching them numbers and letters and the miracles of Jesus, getting them ready for real school. She had been absent from her duties for the whole of January, but now she was returning, Ned assumed. Rollo was with her, apparently as an escort.

Ned had been waiting for this.

He had had romances before. He had never committed the sin of fornication, although he had got close once or twice; he had certainly felt himself very fond of Susan White and Ruth Cobley at different times. However, as soon as he had fallen for Margery he had known this was different. He did not want merely to get Margery behind the tomb of Prior Philip and kiss and caress her. He wanted that, yes, but he also wanted to spend long leisurely hours with her, to talk to her about plays and paintings, Kingsbridge gossip and English politics; or just to lie next to her on a grassy bank by a stream in the sunshine.

He restrained the impulse to rush out of the house now and accost her in the marketplace. He would speak to her when the class ended at noon.

He spent the morning at the warehouse, making entries in ledgers. His older brother, Barney, hated this part of the work — Barney had always struggled with letters and had not learned to read until he was twelve — but Ned liked it: the bills and receipts, the quantities of tin and lead and iron ore, the voyages to Seville and Calais and Antwerp, the prices, and the profits. Sitting at a table with a quill pen and a bottle of ink and a fat book of lists, he could see an entire international business empire.

However, it was now an empire on the edge of collapse. Most of what the Willard family owned was in Calais, and had probably been confiscated by the king of France. The stocks of materials here in Kingsbridge were valuable, but difficult to sell while cross-Channel shipping was restricted by war. Several employees had been dismissed because there was nothing for them to do. Ned’s ledger work consisted of trying to add up what was left and see whether it was enough to pay outstanding debts.

His work was constantly interrupted by people asking him why he had a black eye. He told them the plain truth, just as he had told his mother: Bart and Rollo had beaten him up for kissing Margery. No one was shocked or even surprised: fist fights were not unusual among young men, especially at the end of the week, and it was commonplace to see bruises on Monday morning.

Grandma had been indignant. ‘That Rollo is a sly fox,’ she had said. ‘He was a spiteful little boy and now he’s a vindictive big man. You be careful of him.’ Alice had cried over Ned’s lost tooth.

When the daylight brightened towards midday, Ned left the warehouse and walked up the slushy main street. Instead of going into his home, he went to the entrance of the Grammar School. The cathedral bell struck noon just as he arrived. He felt decades older than the boy who had left that school three years ago. The dramas that had engaged him so powerfully then — tests, sports, rivalries — now seemed ridiculously trivial.

Rollo came across the marketplace to the school. He was here to escort Margery home, Ned guessed. When Rollo saw Ned he looked startled and a bit scared. Then he blustered: ‘You stay away from my sister.’

Ned was ready for him. ‘You make me stay away, you feeble-minded peasant.’

‘Do you want me to black your other eye?’

‘I want you to try.’

Rollo backed down. ‘I’m not going to brawl in a public place.’

‘Of course not,’ Ned said contemptuously. ‘Especially now that you haven’t got your big friend Bart to help you.’

Margery came out of the school. ‘Rollo!’ she said. ‘For heaven’s sake, are you trying to start another fight?’

Ned stared at her, his heart in his mouth. She was tiny but magnificent, her chin tilted up, her green eyes radiating defiance, her young voice commanding.

‘You are not to speak to the Willard boy,’ Rollo said to her. ‘Come home with me now.’

‘But I want to speak to him,’ she said.

‘I absolutely forbid you.’

‘Don’t grab my arm, Rollo,’ she said, reading his mind. ‘Instead, be reasonable. Stand by the door of the bishop’s palace. From there you can see us but not hear us.’

‘You have nothing to say to Willard.’

‘Don’t be stupid. I have to tell him what happened yesterday. You can’t deny that, can you?’

‘Is that all?’ Rollo said sceptically.

‘I promise you. I simply have to tell Ned.’

‘Don’t let him touch you.’

‘Go and stand by the bishop’s door.’

Ned and Margery watched while Rollo walked twenty paces then turned round and stood glowering.

Ned said: ‘What happened yesterday, after the fight?’

‘I realized something,’ Margery said, and tears came to her eyes.

Ned had a doomed feeling. ‘What did you realize?’

‘That it is my holy duty to obey my parents.’

She was crying. Ned reached into his pocket and took out a linen handkerchief his mother had made, hemmed and embroidered with acorns. He touched her cheeks gently with it, drying her tears; but she snatched it from him and wiped her eyes roughly, saying: ‘There’s nothing more to be said, is there?’

‘Oh, but there is.’ Ned gathered his wits. He knew that Margery was deeply pious at heart, despite also being passionate and strong-willed. ‘Isn’t it a sin to lie with a man you hate?’

‘No, that’s not part of the Church’s teaching.’

‘Well, it should be.’

‘You Protestants always want to revise God’s laws.’

‘I’m not a Protestant! Is that what this is about?’

‘No.’

‘What have they done? How did they get to you? Were you threatened?’

‘I was reminded of my duty.’

Ned felt she was hiding something. ‘Who by? Who reminded you?’

She hesitated, as if she did not want to answer the question; then she gave a little shrug, as if it did not make any real difference, and said: ‘Bishop Julius.’