"No dowry?"
"Unfortunately not. Or... not until I can make some money at the law."
"I'm very sure you will. If I may ask, sir, with respect, can you tell me what kind of a woman your sister is?"
Once again Enys needed to drink some brandy to stop a coughing fit. While he was still doing it, the player, Will Shakespeare arrived at the table, looking expectant. He was also clearly quite drunk. To Catlin's annoyance, he sat down next to them without so much as a by your leave and took some dice out of the pocket in his sleeve. Catlin glared angrily at him.
"I'll give you a penny a point," slurred the revolting player. "Anybody feeling lucky?"
"I don't like diceplay," sniffed Catlin. "It's an offence against the Lord to try and foretell the future."
"Why do you ask about my sister's character?" asked Enys when he had recovered from his coughing fit thanks to Shakespeare pounding his back. "Have you heard anything against her?"
Catlin shrugged. There was no point giving everything away at this time, in any case, the idea had only just occurred to him. But she was respectable, could keep house, was no longer married and... He narrowed his eyes. "Surely she should be one of St Bride's congregation?" he said quietly, "Why have I not seen her with you in Church?"
Enys hesitated and for a moment, Catlin thought he saw a flash of guilt there. "She has a malady," he said, "A megrim that makes it very hard for her to venture out of her house. It came on her after the smallpox."
"Is she a Papist, sir? I understand that you yourself are not, but sometimes women prove obdurate..."
Enys' face was cold. "No sir of course not. She is simply often ill on Sunday. Are you considering arresting her?"
The whole interview was somehow going badly wrong. Catlin put his hands up, palms out. "No, no, sir, I only wondered... er..." What he really wanted to ask was why hadn't she found a husband yet?
However he couldn't exactly ask that right out, it risked a duel for God's sake.
"You've not met her, have you, sir?" said Enys.
"No. But Mr Enys, to be blunt with you, sir, I would welcome a meeting... with you as escort, of course."
"Two pennies a point. More!" said the player, tossing the dice from hand to hand.
Enys had suddenly gone red, which made his pocky face uglier than ever.
"Alas, I am... likely to be busy tomorrow," he said, "Ah... I'll ask Mrs Morgan. But... er... sir... if I may be honest with you as well..."
Catlin nodded. Perhaps she wasn't respectable. If she wasn't she would be no good at all, he couldn't possibly have a scandalous wife. Nor a nosy one.
"Ah... my sister is..."
"Like the moon," said the player, making a conventional compliment and juggling all four dice quite deftly, given his state. Then he added, "Covered in pockmarks. Terrible really."
"Oh," said Catlin, taken aback. He looked at Enys. How would he take this kind of talk about his sister. Enys was coughing again.
"Mr Shakespeare, please," he said at last, quite mildly, considering. Shakespeare burped, shrugged, continued juggling. "Although I'm afraid he is right. She is scarred as I am by the smallpox that took her husband and children."
Catlin made conventional tut-tutting noises. "How terrible."
"Yes. She always says that the ruin of her complexion is a far worse thing for her than for...m..me."
Catlin considered for a while. Smallpox scars could be very off-putting – he had heard that even the Queen had a few which she covered with facepaint. But still. Of course that meant Mrs Morgan would not catch smallpox again and no doubt, although she was quite old, she could still have babies. And would be unlikely to stray. He nodded thoughtfully and smiled at Enys.
"I do hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting your sister, some time soon," he said to Enys and Enys, bright red from all the coughing, nodded silently.
After that it turned into quite a convivial evening, with the player acting the part of a fool extremely well, throwing dice, making puns and by the end, when they were all drunk, he took the Cock's hard-to-tune house lute, managed to tune it after half an hour of battle, and then sang to them in a good clear baritone. Before the end of the evening, Enys had called over Peter the Hedgehog who seemed somehow to have become the Cock's new potboy and gave him some money for something. Catlin was trying to learn a song from Mr Shakespeare and so didn't notice when Enys quietly slipped away without giving him any real answer about his sister.
Catlin wasn't worried. The more he thought of it, the more he liked the scheme, even though he had never met Mrs Morgan. Catlin himself was wealthy, respectable and all in all, aside from a slight shortage of hair along the sides of his head (much less serious than poor Shakespeare's at that), quite good-looking. Mrs Morgan on the other hand was pock-marked, poor, respectably widowed though with good prospects thanks to her brother. And it stood to reason that Mr Enys would want to have his sister off his hands so he could be unencumbered to make a good match for himself.
Felix Bellamy hurried after the man he had been eavesdropping on while he drank his last penny in the form of beer. His head was spinning from not eating all day and from the nervous tension of needing always to keep moving and watch for Topcliffe and his men. Once he had glimpsed the poor cook who had given the game away, his face horribly swollen black and blue, his nose a bloody remnant that a barber-surgeon was attempting to stanch with a red hot iron while he screamed and struggled and three men held him down. Luckily, he thought the cook hadn't noticed him. He had hurried away, murmuring guilty prayers for the man.
It seemed as if the lawyer's sister might just be willing to help if she were faithful to the Church, despite her brother's apostasy. Perhaps God or one of his holy angels had led him to the Cock tavern to help him out at last, after a day spent praying for help. He had to find somewhere to hide for the night and if the brother and sister gave him up to Topcliffe, well, he would just have to sell his life dearly, that was all. At least, dressed as a gentleman, he had a sword at his side again – it felt comforting there, although it was a loan from Mrs Crosby. On a thought he drew it and checked the blade, which was blunt and pitted with rust. The thing was no more than a decorative metal club and of a piece of his experience of Mrs Crosby.
He sheathed the weapon and went up the last flight of stairs two at a time as he heard the key turn in the lock at the top. He wanted to appeal to the lawyer while his sister was there – the man would probably value his career over his immortal soul but the woman, if she was reluctant to go to an heretical Mass, perhaps she would be sympathetic...
The lawyer spun on his threshold and put his hand to his own swordhilt as Felix came up behind him.
Felix backed off quickly. "I'm sorry, sir, I was hoping to speak to your sister?"
"My sister is away from home at the moment, staying with her gossip," said the lawyer after a moment's pause.
Felix could have groaned. He was sunk. Again. Some of that must have shown in his face for the lawyer asked suspiciously, "Why? Do you know my sister?"
It was a reasonable question but Felix was stuck. What could he say? He'd listened to the lawyer's conversation with the puritan and dared to hope that his sister was a Catholic and might shelter a stray priest...
"It's all right," he said hollow with disappointment, "It doesn't matter," Out of sheer habit he lifted his hand in the gesture of blessing, then dropped it. What a stupid slip.
The lawyer's face hardened again. He had seen. From the look of him, he wasn't a Catholic at all.
"Are you a missionary priest, a Jesuit?" demanded the man harshly. Numbly Felix nodded.
"Although..." he offered, knowing in advance how lame it would sound, "I'm not really here officially..."
"No?"
"I'm here trying to find mine own sister," he said sadly, "Her name is Ann Bellamy and she was foully dishonoured by Her Majesty's favourite priest hunter, Richard Topcliffe."
The lawyer hesitated. "What do you mean?"
&
nbsp; "She was forced, sir," said Felix, the rage boiling up in his stomach again at the thought, "When she was arrested last spring by Topcliffe, she was a virgin. By summer she wrote to my parents that she was with child. Then somehow he got her to betray my dear friend Fr. Robert Southwell that my parents were hiding. Now my parents have aged ten years and they will not speak of her nor contact her though she is still in his hands. Nor will my other brother or sisters. They all say that it is her wicked lewdness that caused the trouble and that she is damned for fornication and her selling of Fr Southwell to her heretic lover."
The words had come tumbling out, stuttering with his anger. He didn't think he had been very convincing and no doubt the lawyer in front of him would think the same way as his parents – that if she quickened with child, then she was not raped, but was willing.
"And you?" asked the lawyer, "What do you say?"
Felix only lifted his shoulders. "I say that I know Ann, she is closest to me in age, a year younger. And she is a good and virtuous woman and has been wickedly treated. I say it is nonsense that a woman cannot fall with child if she is forced, or there would be no marriages arranged against the woman's will. Jesus Christ himself would not condemn the woman caught in adultery, why would he condemn a woman that was raped? And so why would I?"
The lawyer nodded as though Felix had made a good case which he was sure he hadn't.
"What was your plan?"
Felix shrugged again. "I came only to investigate, to try and find out where she is – she'll be ready to lighten of her babe soon – and help her in any way I can."
"Is that all?"
Felix coughed. "And also I have hoped to call out that evil man Richard Topcliffe and prove him a rapist and a liar in fair fight..." He looked down. "I know it makes me very unworthy to be a priest but I can't help it that I want satisfaction for my sister's ruin. I can only pray I'll have the strength to resist temptation and God's guidance to find my poor sister and bring her to a safe place with her child if they live through their hour."
The lawyer dropped his hand from his sword hilt, opened the door wide and gestured for Felix to go in front of him. Hardly able to believe such a change, he went.
The room was dark and the fire out. The lawyer bent to the grate to start up the fire and take the edge off the chilly air in the chamber. As he used the tinderbox and the flames leapt up in the kindling, Edward looked around. It was a plain enough pair of rooms. The main room was lined and piled with books and papers and a door led to the bedchamber where Edward could see the outline of a fourposter bed with drawn curtains.
"Have you eaten today, Father?" asked the lawyer quietly and Felix spun on his heel to see the man hanging his sword on the hook by the door and going to the food safe next to the window for the cold. Felix shook his head.
"Well, have some supper," said the other man, and cut a hunk of bread which he put on a pewter plate with a couple of herrings, cheese and an apple.
Edward sat down at the small table, pulled out his eating knife and then remembered just in time and said grace. The lawyer turned aside and did not join in, pouring two horn cups of mild ale from a flagon.
The place was no bachelor hovel, Felix could see the woman's touch wherever he looked. All the surfaces were clean, the papers in neat piles, the rush mats had been recently swept and there were clean shirts and shifts hanging up to dry near the fire. On a stand in the corner were a woman's linen caps and falling bands, neatly starched and drying on poking sticks.
"My sister is staying at her gossip's house to help with a baby," said the lawyer again.
"Forgive me, sir," said Felix, "I don't even know your name."
The man paused. "Enys," he said, "James Enys, esquire, utter barrister."
Felix had his mouth full of bread but inclined his head politely. "Father Felix Bellamy, SJ," he said in return. "Are you a Catholic, sir? Perhaps in your heart if not in your actions?" He was already thanking God in his own heart for the food and refuge.
Enys shook his head, his face darkening. "Once I was a church Papist, Father," he said, "But no more. I go to the Protestant church when I have to."
"And your sister?"
"Mrs Morgan is the same."
"Why did you change? Was it to become a lawyer so you could take the oath?" Felix wondered if he should have asked that, after all, it sounded bad no matter how you put it.
Enys smiled briefly. "No, sir, though I'll admit it was convenient to be able to swear the oath of supremacy without troubling my conscience. It was more that I had a quarrel with God and felt it best we not meeet for a while."
Felix managed to hold his tongue but couldn't help raising his brows in question.
James Enys sighed. "God took my... my sister's husband and my best friend and three fair children with the smallpox, leaving her too badly scarred to marry again. I was scarred as well, though it doesn't matter to me. I know others have come through such fire and worse with a deeper faith. But I'm afraid, I simply said to myself, would I remain friends with a man that did such a thing as to kill a husband and three children in terrible agony and sickness, as God does over and over throughout the world? And I answered myself, no, I would not. And so I attend where I must and agree where I must and let God go about His business, but I'll have no truck with him."
“"My ways are not your ways,"" quoted Felix softly, ""My thoughts not your thoughts, I am the Lord thy God, saith the Lord.""
Enys shrugged. "I don't dispute His power, I just want nothing to do with the man."
"God is not a man," Felix couldn't help adding but Enys cut across him savagely.
"We are taught that He was a man, as Jesus Christ," pointed out the lawyer. "Come Father, I won't dispute with you or I'll end up repenting of my being moved to help you for your sister's sake."
"Do you not think it might be God Himself that so moved you?" Felix asked.
"I hope not," said Enys with finality. "I can offer you a bed for the night and a place to hide for the morrow. I'll tell my sister to stay at her gossip's... ah... no, damn it. No. You'll have to leave before dawn tomorrow. Damn it."
He busied himself with the fire until he had built it up well and warmed the chamber gratefully. After Felix had finished his supper, Enys immediately scoured off the pewter into the fire and cleaned it with sand and a cloth until it shone again. His hands were quick and neat in movement, he also rinsed and dried the cups and Felix found himself staring to see such huswifery.
"Does Topcliffe know you're in London?" Enys asked suddenly.
Felix coloured. "Yes, I was betrayed by the woman I sought refuge with..."
He told the tale of the abortive Mass and the cook and then that he had seen the cook at the Fleet Street barber-surgeon, which had been why he ducked into the Cock. Enys's ugly face drew down and became darker. After a moment he let out a heavy breath and scratched his eyebrows.
"God send that nobody saw you coming in here then," he said.
Felix nodded anxiously. "Perhaps I had better go..." he said, not really meaning it.
Enys saw straight through him and smiled crookedly."We may need to take drastic measures," he said, "But I have a plan that may work and at least the door is new. You sleep in the great bed – the sheets are not fresh but not too bad. I'll sleep out here if you help me move the truckle bed against the door so I can hear them on the stairs if they come up."
Felix helped roll the little servant's bed across the matting and wedged it against the door. "Will you be well enough out here?"
"Of course," said Enys, taking his cloak off the hook and wrapping it round himself. "My sister and I normally take turns to have the truckle."
"You are truly kind..." Felix began.
"Hmf," said Enys, "Somebody has to give God a good example." The lawyer lit a rushlight from the coals in the fireplace, then banked them up and put the curfew over them.
Felix took himself into the bedchamber, shut the door. He undressed and knelt for a time in prayer to say
the Office and to thank God for his mercy and pray for the poor lost soul of James Enys the lawyer. Then he climbed into the four poster in his shirt. It was flearidden but warm enough with the curtains shut and he tumbled headlong into sleep.
He was woken far too soon by a quiet scratch-scratching. His eyes blinked open, he froze for a moment, imagining demons led by Topcliffe and then heard a faint irritable miaow.
There was another one. And another. Nobody could sleep with that steady scratch scratch and the persistent miaow.
Muttering under his breath about bloody animals and hoping it was a rat he could simply kill, Felix hopped out of bed and went to the window. A furry face and two large green eyes reflected the moonlight. He opened the window to shoo the animal away but instead it jumped onto the sill from the thatch and then to the floor as if it owned the place.
"Out!" he whispered at it. The look the cat gave him was magnificent with contempt and Felix, who was more used to dogs, tried to pick it up and nearly had his face slashed. He caught the cat eventually and held it at arm's length to throw it out of the window and onto the roof when he froze on the spot...
There had been a flash of red light in the alleyway three storeys below. Only a flash but he knew immediately what it was. Someone had checked to see if a dark lantern was still lit. There was only one reason why anyone would be there with a dark lantern at four in the morning, which is what he thought the time might be, judging by the moon. Felix listened, poised, cat at arm's length and an occasional growl and struggle from his furry saviour. Yes. A quiet mutter, a chink of metal, movement of shadows passing through the archway leading into the courtyard.
He dropped the cat onto the mat and it immediately jumped into the bed as he padded through to the main room where Enys was snoring on the truckle bed against the door.
"Sir! Mr Enys!" whispered Felix, shaking his shoulder.
"Herkle! Grunmg!" said the lawyer, sitting up at once, "Wha...?"
"There are men in the courtyard with dark lanterns," said Felix.
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