A Column of Fire by Ken Follett Read Free Book Online Page A

moment, Susannah looked bereft. ‘Perhaps,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps.’
    Looking over Susannah’s shoulder, Margery saw Ned approaching in his green French doublet. Susannah followed her look. Perceptively she said: ‘Ned Willard is the one you want?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Good choice. He’s nice.’
    ‘He’s wonderful.’
    Susannah smiled with a touch of sadness. ‘I hope it works out for you.’
    Ned bowed to her, and she acknowledged him with a nod but moved away.
    The actors were hanging a curtain across one corner of the room. Margery said to Ned: ‘What do you think that’s for?’
    ‘They will put on their costumes behind the curtain, I think.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When can we talk? I can’t wait much longer.’
    ‘The game is about to begin. Just follow me.’
    Philbert Cobley’s good-looking clerk, Donal Gloster, was chosen to be hunter. He had wavy dark hair and a sensual face. He did not appeal to Margery – too weak – but several of the girls would be hoping to be found by him, she felt sure.
    New Castle was the perfect location for the game. It had more secret places than a rabbit warren. The parts where the new mansion was joined to the old castle were especially rich in odd cupboards, unexpected staircases, niches and irregular-shaped rooms. It was a children’s game and Margery, when young, had wondered why nineteen-year-olds were so keen to join in. Now she understood that the game was an opportunity for adolescents to kiss and cuddle.
    Donal closed his eyes and began to say the paternoster in Latin, and all the young people scattered to hide.
    Margery already knew where she was going, for she had scouted hidey-holes earlier, to be sure of a private place in which to talk to Ned. She left the hall and raced along a corridor towards the rooms of the old castle, trusting to Ned to follow her. She went through a door at the end of the corridor.
    Glancing back, she saw Ned – and, unfortunately, several others. That was a nuisance: she wanted him to herself.
    She passed through a small storeroom and ran up a twisting staircase with stone steps, then down a short flight. She could hear the others behind her, but she was now out of their sight. She turned into a passageway she knew to be a dead end. It was lit by a single candle in a wall bracket. Halfway along was a huge fireplace: the medieval bakery, long disused, its chimney demolished in the building of the modern house. Beside it, concealed by a stone buttress, was the door to the enormous oven, virtually invisible in the dimness. Margery slipped into the oven, pulling her skirts behind her. It was surprisingly clean, she had noted when scouting. She pulled the door almost shut and peeped through a crack.
    Ned came charging along the passageway, closely followed by Bart, then pretty Ruth Cobley, who probably had her eye on Bart. Margery groaned in frustration. How could she separate Ned from the others?
    They dashed past the oven without seeing the door. A moment later, having run into the dead end, they returned in reverse order: Ruth, then Bart, then Ned.
    Margery saw her chance.
    Bart and Ruth disappeared from view, and Margery said: ‘Ned!’
    He stopped and looked around, puzzled.
    She pushed open the oven door. ‘In here!’
    He did not need to be asked twice. He scrambled in with her and she shut the door.
    It was pitch-dark, but they were lying knee to knee and chin to chin, and she could feel the length of his body. He kissed her.
    She kissed him back hungrily. Whatever else happened, he still loved her, and for the moment that was all she cared about. She had been afraid that he would forget her in Calais. She thought he would meet French girls who were more sophisticated and exciting than little Marge Fitzgerald from Kingsbridge. But he had not, she could tell, from the way he hugged and kissed and caressed her. Overjoyed, she put her hands on his head and opened her mouth to his tongue and arched her body against