In his bedroom at the Priory, James was packing a clean shirt and clean hose in a saddlebag with his Bible and a purse of gold coins, all that was left from the queen’s money to buy her husband’s freedom. Sir William was standing by the window and looking down into the orchard below.

“You can leave your sacred things here,” he said. “I’ll keep them safe for you, until you return to claim them.”

“Thank you,” James said. “If I don’t come back, you can be sure that another priest will.” He tried to smile. “My replacement. I pray that he does better than I.”

“Don’t take it so hard,” Sir William said. “You did what you were asked to do. You reached him with a good plan and a waiting ship. You didn’t miscarry. You didn’t steal the gold, you didn’t betray him. Half the people he employs would have sold him to our enemies. If he had wished it, he would be free now, and you would be the savior of the kingdom.”

“Yes,” James said. “But he did not wish it, and I am very far from the savior of the kingdom. I am a Nobody. Worse than that, I am a Nobody with no home and no family and no faith. No king either.”

“Ah! You take things hard when you’re a young man. But listen to me: you’ll recover. You’re not even well yet, just up from your sickbed. When you get back to France, tell the Fathers that you need some time. Rest for a while, eat well, and only then tell them about your doubts. It all looks better when you’re well. Trust me. It all looks different when you’ve had a good sleep and a good meal. These are hard times for us all. We have to get through them one step at a time. Sometimes we fall back, sometimes we press forward. But we keep going. You’ll keep going.”

James straightened up from tightening the straps on his bag and looked at Sir William. Even the lord of the manor, a cheerful thoughtless man, was struck by the bleakness of his pale young face.

“I wish I could believe it, but I feel as if everything that I know, and everything that I am, has been knocked out of me. And all I can pray is to be allowed to do something else and live another life entirely.”

“Ah, well, perhaps your road lies that way, who knows? These are times of great change. Who knows what will happen? But there will always be a welcome for you here. If they send you back to England you can return here as Walter’s tutor until he goes to Cambridge, and as a welcome guest anytime after that.”

“What will become of young Robert?”

“I’ve taken care of that. We owed Goodwife Reekie a debt, don’t you think? She came as soon as I sent for her, and she went in with you when we didn’t know what was wrong. She could’ve been locked up with a dying man, for all we knew. She risked taking the plague and God knows what would have been the end of that. She nursed you well, didn’t she?”