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

his.
    He rolled on top of her. At that moment, she would have opened her body to him gladly and let him take her virginity, but something happened. There was a thump, as if his foot had struck something, then a noise that might have been a panel of wood falling to the ground and suddenly she could see the walls of the oven around her.
    She and Ned were both sufficiently startled to stop what they were doing and look up. They saw that the back of the oven had fallen away. Clearly it connected with another place that was dimly lit and Margery realized with trepidation that there might be people there who could see what she and Ned were doing. She sat upright and looked through the hole.
    There was no one in sight. She saw a wall with an arrow-slit window that was admitting the last of the afternoon light. A small space behind the old oven had simply been closed off by the building of the new house. It led nowhere: the only access was through the oven. On the floor was a panel of wood that must have closed up the hole until Ned kicked it in his excitement. Margery could hear voices, but they came from the courtyard outside. She breathed more easily: they had not been seen.
    She crawled through the hole and stood upright in the little space. Ned followed her. They both looked around wonderingly, and Ned said: ‘We could stay here for ever.’
    That brought Margery back to reality, and she realized how close she had come to committing a mortal sin. Desire had almost overwhelmed her knowledge of right and wrong. She had had a lucky escape.
    Her intention in bringing Ned here had been to speak to him, not kiss him. She said: ‘Ned, they want to make me marry Bart. What are we going to do?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Ned.
    *
    S WITHIN WAS quite drunk, Rollo saw. The earl was slumped on a big chair opposite the stage, a goblet in his right hand. A young serving girl refilled his glass, and as she did so he grasped her breast with his maimed left hand. She squealed with horror and pulled away, spilling the wine, and Swithin laughed.
    An actor came on stage and began a prologue, explaining that in order to tell a story of repentance it was necessary first to show the sin, and apologizing in advance if this should give offence.
    Rollo saw his sister Margery come slinking into the room with Ned Willard, and he frowned in disapproval. They had taken advantage of the game of Hunt the Hart to go off together, Rollo realized, and no doubt they had got up to all kinds of mischief.
    Rollo did not understand his sister. She took religion very seriously, but she had always been disobedient. How could that be? For Rollo, the essence of religion was submission to authority. That was the trouble with Protestants: they thought they had the right to make up their own minds. But Margery was a devout Catholic.
    On stage a character called Infidelity appeared, identifiable by his oversized codpiece. He winked and spoke behind his hand and looked from left to right as if making sure he was not overheard by any other characters. The audience laughed as they recognized an exaggerated version of a type they all knew.
    Rollo had been unnerved by the conversation with Sir William Cecil, but now he thought he might have overreacted. Princess Elizabeth probably was a Protestant, but it was too soon to worry about her: after all, Queen Mary Tudor was only forty-one and in good health, apart from the phantom pregnancies – she could reign for decades more.
    Mary Magdalene appeared on stage. Clearly this was the saint before her repentance. She sashayed on in a red dress, fussing with her necklace, batting her eyes at Infidelity. Her lips were reddened with some kind of dye.
    Rollo was surprised because he had not seen a woman among the actors. Furthermore, although he had not seen a play before, he was pretty sure women were not allowed to act. The company had appeared to consist of four men and a boy of about thirteen. Rollo frowned at Mary Magdalene,