“What plans?” That was Mr. Bell’s apprentice.

“First, we’ll rescue those two lads they took—the baxter and the other one. Then arm ourselves and rise against the town guard and kill Captain Graeme, and then there’ll be none to stop us tearing down the papists’ houses and killing them, too.”

Mr. Bell’s apprentice thought the risk too great. “I cannot join your rising.”

“You can furnish weapons for the cause. You do not want for blades. I have a friend who has two pistols who has promised he will lend me one of them,” the other said. “Give me swords as well, and Captain Graeme when he comes tonight will wish himself elsewhere.”

“The swords are not my own to give.”

“Think on it.”

Lily heard the outer shop door slam and quickly backed away into the inner chamber, still on tiptoe, grateful for the solid timber floorboards that did not betray her with a squeak. She felt relief to know that Mr. Bell’s apprentice was an honest young man. Surely upon Mr. Bell’s return he’d tell him all, and warn him of the coming danger to the town guard and the Catholics.

In the kitchen, Lily asked Nanse, “When will Mr. Bell be home?”

“I couldnae tell ye. But that pot needs scouring in the meantime.”

Lily scoured the pot, then helped Nanse pluck and breast three moor fowl they’d cook later for the family’s dinner, throwing legs and wings and all discarded pieces in the kettle for their own good broth with barley and some well-chopped Flanders onion. It was difficult to focus on her work and not the clock in the next room that counted off the hours and their quarters, but when the clock chimed ten times Lily asked Nanse, “Did Mr. Bell go far?”

“I couldnae tell ye that, and all.” Nanse looked at her. “Is it important?”

Lily thought of telling Nanse what she had overheard, but Nanse did not approve of people listening at doors. Once when Lily had repeated gossip, Nanse had sternly told her not to scald her mouth with someone else’s broth, but to attend to her own business. Lily reassured herself that Mr. Bell’s apprentice had done nothing wrong, and he was honest. He’d tell Mr. Bell, and Mr. Bell in his turn would warn Captain Graeme, and all would be well.

Lily was deciding how best to reply to Nanse without telling her a falsehood when a sound of drumming coming from outdoors in the direction of the Netherbow distracted her.

Nanse sighed, and told her, “That will be the baxter lad, the one they took up yesterday. The council sentenced him to be whipped from the Tolbooth to the Watergate and back again this morning. He lodges with the widow Fleck, who bakes our bread, and she did tell me earlier. Poor lad. But that’s what comes,” said Nanse, “of keeping the wrong company.”

It was an awful punishment to be whipped through the streets, stripped to the waist, with one official leading you by the same rope that bound your hands while at your back the hangman followed with his knotted whip and drove you on with lashes, like a beast.