“You came here to pray,” he reminded her. “Are you godly? Are you one of the godly believers?”

She flushed at her own lie. “I didn’t really,” she admitted.

“Then for what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He ignored her embarrassment, assuming that she had come to meet a lover in some sordid village affair. “Where is the net shed, and your home?”

“At the top of the harbor, near the ferry-house, across the rife from the mill.”

“The rife?”

“Broad Rife,” she said. “The river that flows into the head of the harbor. It moves with the tide, ebbs and flows, but it never runs dry. It’s high now. It’s been such a wet summer, the wadeway’s not been dry for weeks.”

“Your brother’s ferry crosses the rife when the tide is full?”

“And there’s a wadeway at low tide for people to walk across.”

“I would not put you in danger. I can find my own way if you tell me the direction. You don’t need to lead me.”

“You can’t. The harbor’s like a maze of paths and there are deep pools and channels,” she explained. “The sea comes in faster than a trotting horse, and spreads across the land quicker than a man can run. You can get stuck in the mud or cut off on a path, or trapped by water. There are quicksands that you can’t see till your foot sinks beneath you and you can’t draw it out. Only us who were born and bred here ever cross the mire. I’ll have to take you.”

He nodded. “God will bless you for this. He must have sent you to guide me.”

She looked doubtful, as if God had not been generous with his blessings in her life. “Shall we go now? It’ll take us a while to get across.”

“We’ll go,” he decided. “What shall I call you? I am Father James.”

She recoiled from the priestly title. “I can’t call you that! I might as well go to the justices and get arrested at once! What’s your real name?”

“You can call me James.”

She gave a little shrug as if she was offended by his discretion. “I bear my husband’s name,” she replied. “They call me Goody Reekie.”

“What shall I call you?”

“Call me that,” she said pertly. “Since you don’t tell me your true name why should I tell you mine?”

She turned from his surprised face and led the way out of the church, waiting patiently as he bowed low to the altar, kneeling on one knee and putting his hand to the ground. She heard him whisper a prayer for his safety and hers, and for all those serving the true faith in England tonight, for the king in his cruel captivity, and the prince abroad.

“My husband’s missing,” she remarked, as he joined her at the door. “He’s been gone for more than half a year.”

“God bless him, and keep you,” he said, making the sign of the cross over her head. She had never seen the gesture before, and she did not know to bow her head and cross herself. Nobody had publicly crossed themselves in England for nearly a hundred years. The people had lost the habit, and those who were still Roman Catholic were careful to keep their faith hidden.