I HAD A QUIET DINNER on my own, good food cooked by Agnes and Josephine and served by Martin with his usual quiet efficiency. I looked at his neat profile. What had he been doing that day Josephine saw him going through my desk? The uncomfortable thought came to me that Josephine was heavy-footed, and it would not be difficult for Martin to ensure she was not near before doing something illicit again. But I thought, more likely he had simply yielded to a momentary temptation, to see if he could find some money for his son. Temptation which, in any case, he had resisted, for I had carefully gone over my accounts and no money had ever gone missing.

Afterwards, it still being light, I took the papers I had brought home out to my little pavilion in the garden. They concerned a Court of Requests case for the autumn, a dispute between a cottager and his landowner over the cottager’s right to take fruit from certain trees. As with all these cases the landlord was rich, the cottager penniless, the Court of Requests his only recourse. I looked up to see Martin approaching across the lawn, his footsteps soundless on the grass, a paper in his hand.

He bowed. ‘This has just come for you, sir. Brought by a boy.’

He handed me a scrap of paper, folded but unsealed. ‘Thank you, Martin,’ I said. My name was drawn in capitals. I remembered uneasily the note telling me of Nicholas’s kidnap.

‘Can I fetch you some beer, sir?’

‘Not now,’ I answered shortly. I waited till he had turned his back before opening the paper. I was surprised but relieved to see that it was written in Guy’s small spiky hand.

Matthew,

I write in haste from St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where I do voluntary work. A man, a Scotchman, was brought in two days ago suffering from bad knife wounds, and is like to die. He is delirious, and has spoken all manner of strange things. Among them he has mentioned your name. Could you come, as soon as you get this note?

Guy

This had to be McKendrick, the only one of the Anabaptist group to escape the fight at the wharf. He must have been attacked after his flight, and very recently by the sound of it. I stood up at once, then as I walked to the stable, realized that Guy had simply signed his name, not prefixed it with the customary farewell of good fellowship, Your loving friend.

I FETCHED GENESIS and rode up to Smithfield. I had not been there since Anne Askew’s burning over three weeks before. I remembered noticing then how what was left of the old monastic precinct of St Bartholomew’s was hidden by the new houses built by Rich.