Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Julius gave a dismissive wave and began to pace up and down impatiently.

Sir Reginald was taking a nap. Rollo woke him and told him the bishop was downstairs. Reginald groaned and got out of bed. ‘Give him a cup of wine while I dress,’ he said.

A few minutes later the three men were seated in the hall. Julius began immediately. ‘Alice Willard has heard from Calais. The St Margaret has been confiscated by the French and her cargo sold.’

Despair seized Rollo. ‘I knew it,’ he said. It had been his father’s last throw of the dice, and he had lost. What would they do now?

Sir Reginald flushed with anger. ‘What the devil was the ship doing in Calais?’

Rollo answered him. ‘Jonas Bacon told us that when he met the ship, its captain was intending to go into port for minor repairs. Hence the delay.’

‘But Bacon didn’t say the port was Calais.’

‘No.’

Reginald’s freckled face twisted with hatred. ‘He knew, though,’ he said. ‘And I’ll bet Philbert did, too, when he sold us the cargo.’

‘Of course Philbert knew, the lying hypocritical Protestant swindler.’ Rollo was boiling with rage. ‘We’ve been robbed.’

The bishop said: ‘If that’s so, can you get your money back from Philbert?’

‘Never,’ said Reginald. ‘A town like this can’t let people renege on contracts, even when there has been sharp practice. The contract is sacred.’

Rollo, who had studied law, knew he was right. ‘The court of quarter sessions will uphold the validity of the transaction,’ he said.

Bishop Julius said: ‘If you’ve lost that money, will you be able to repay Alice Willard?’

‘No.’

‘And you pledged the priory as security for the loan.’

‘Yes.’

‘Alice Willard told me this morning that the priory is hers, now.’

‘Damn her eyes,’ said Reginald.

‘So she’s right.’

‘Yes.’

‘You were going to let the Church have the priory back, Reginald.’

‘Don’t ask for sympathy from me, Julius. I’ve just lost four hundred pounds.’

‘Four hundred and twenty-four, Willard told me.’

‘Correct.’

Julius seemed to think the exact figure was significant, and Rollo wondered why, but he did not get a chance to ask. His father stood up restlessly and walked across the room and back again. ‘I’ll get Philbert for this, I swear it. He’ll find out that no one swindles Reginald Fitzgerald and gets away with it. I’ll see him suffer. I don’t know how...’

Rollo experienced a flash of inspiration, and he said: ‘I do.’

‘What?’

‘I know how to get revenge on Philbert.’

Reginald stopped pacing and stared at Rollo with narrowed eyes. ‘What have you got in mind?’

‘Philbert’s clerk, Donal Gloster, was drunk in the Slaughterhouse this afternoon. He’s been rejected by Philbert’s daughter. Drink loosened his tongue and resentment made him malicious. He told me that the Cobleys and their friends hold services.’

Bishop Julius was outraged. ‘Services? With no priest? That’s heresy!’

‘As soon as I took him up on it, Donal changed his story, and said they were only meetings; then he looked guilty and clammed up.’

The bishop said: ‘I’ve long suspected that the rats perform Protestant rites in secret. But where? And when? And who attends?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rollo. ‘But Donal does.’

‘Will he tell?’

‘Perhaps. Now that Ruth has rejected him, he no longer has any loyalty to the Cobley family.’

‘Let’s find out.’

‘Let me go and see him. I’ll take Osmund.’ Osmund Carter was the head of the watch. He was a big man with a brutal streak.

‘What will you say to Donal?’

‘I’ll explain that he is suspected of heresy, and he’s going to be put on trial unless he tells all.’

‘Will that scare him?’

‘He’ll shit.’

Bishop Julius said thoughtfully: ‘This could be a good moment to strike against the Protestants. The Catholic Church is sadly on the defensive. Queen Mary Tudor is unpopular because of the loss of Calais. Her rightful heir, Mary Stuart, the queen of the Scots, is about to get married in Paris, and a French husband will turn the English against her. Sir William Cecil and his pals are going around the country trying to drum up support for the illegitimate Elizabeth Tudor as heir to the throne. So a clampdown on Kingsbridge heretics now would be a useful boost to Catholic morale.’

So, Rollo thought, we will be doing God’s will as well as getting our revenge. He felt ferocity boil up in his heart.

His father clearly felt the same. ‘Do it, Rollo,’ Reginald said. ‘Do it now.’

Rollo put on his coat and left the house.

The Guild Hall was right across the street. Sheriff Matthewson had a room on the ground floor, with a clerk, Paul Pettit, who wrote letters and kept documents in careful order in a chest. Matthewson could not always be relied upon to do the bidding of the Fitzgerald family: he would occasionally defy Sir Reginald, saying that he served the queen, not the mayor. Happily, the sheriff happened to be away from his room today, and Rollo had no intention of sending for him.

Instead he went down to the basement, where Osmund and the rest of the watchmen were preparing for their Saturday night duties. Osmund wore a close-fitting leather helmet that made him look even more pugnacious. He was lacing up knee boots.

‘I need you to come with me to question someone,’ Rollo said to Osmund. ‘You won’t need to say anything.’ He was going to add Just look menacing , but that would have been superfluous.

They walked down the main street together in late-afternoon light. Rollo wondered whether he had been right to assure his father and the bishop that Donal would crack. If Donal had sobered up by now he might be tougher. He could apologize for talking trash while drunk and deny point-blank that he had ever been to any kind of Protestant service. Then it would be hard to prove anything.

Passing the wharves, Rollo was greeted by Susan White, a baker’s daughter of his own age. She had a heart-shaped face and a sweet nature. When they were both younger they had kissed, and tried other mild experiments. That was when Rollo had realized that sex did not have the power over him that it had over boys such as Donal Gloster and Ned Willard, and his dalliance with Susan had come to nothing. He might marry anyway, one day, in order to have someone to manage his household, but in that event he would hope for someone of higher rank than a baker’s daughter.

Susan bore him no resentment: she had had plenty of boyfriends. Now she looked sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry you lost your cargo,’ she said. ‘It seems unfair.’

‘It is unfair.’ Rollo was not surprised that the story was getting around. Half of Kingsbridge was involved, one way or another, in trading by sea, and everyone was interested in good or bad shipping news.

‘You’re due for some good luck next,’ Susan said. ‘That’s what people say, anyway.’

‘I hope it’s true.’

Susan looked with curiosity at Osmund, evidently wondering what he and Rollo were up to.

Rollo did not want to have to explain, so he brought the conversation to an end. ‘Forgive me, I’m in a hurry.’

‘Goodbye!’

Rollo and Osmund walked on. Donal lived in the south-west of the city, the industrial quarter known as the Tanneries. The north and east had long been the desirable neighbourhoods. The priory had always owned the land upstream of Merthin’s Bridge, and there the water was clean. The borough council directed industry downstream, and all of Kingsbridge’s dirty enterprises — leather tanning, textile dyeing, coal washing, paper making — sluiced their filth into the river here, as they had done for centuries.