“A woman?”

“They’re killing all the Protestants, Pierre. Men, women, children, all of them. It’s even worse than I imagined. I don’t know if it’s part of the plan, but there are mobs out in the street now. If they think someone might be a Protestant, they butcher them. One Catholic family were sheltering a Protestant, and so they killed them as well.”

“This is terrible. It must be stopped.”

“By whom, Pierre? Who’s going to stop it? This is all done by royal order. It’s the churchmen who are ringing the bells.”

“But it is evil.”

“Don’t say that, Cousin. They’ll say you’re a heretic and butcher you too. Keep your mouth shut, I beg you. And keep your door shut too. And wear those armbands. I have to go.”

Simon heard his father close the door and slip the bolts.

Then he went back into his room, and sat on the bed beside the little girl, who remained asleep, and wondered what he should do.

It was an hour later that he went downstairs into the kitchen, found his parents alone and told them what he had done.

“You did what?” His mother was past him in a flash and up the stairs. Moments later she came down again. She looked at her husband, then at Simon. It was a look of reproach, almost of hatred, that he would never forget. “She must go, Pierre,” said Suzanne. “We must put her out.” She made a gesture of desperation. “We have to.”

Simon shook his head.

“Maman, Papa hasn’t told you what Uncle Guy said when he came to the door. But I heard him from the top of the stairs. They are killing the Protestant children in the street. They will kill the little girl.” He looked from one parent to the other. “How can we put her out?”

Neither of his parents spoke.

Just then, they heard a small bump on the staircase. Then another. The child was coming down. She reached the foot of the stairs and walked back to the kitchen doorway. She looked a little sleepy. But when she saw Simon she went to his side and took his hand.

“I am Constance,” she said.

They kept her for two weeks. The difficulty was where they were to hide her.

“Nobody must know she is here,” Pierre insisted. Neither the apprentice nor the serving girl must know. Nor even his cousin Guy. “One careless word, one slip and the secret’s out.” He did not want to say what that could lead to. And there was only one way to achieve that.