“Isn’t it very dangerous to come to England?”

He hesitated. There was a death sentence for spying, and a death sentence for heresy. His college were proud of their history of martyrs, and kept candles burning before a wall of their carved names. When he was young he had longed to be one of the sainted dead. “My college has sent many martyrs to England, ever since King Henry turned from the true Church. The Church was changed, despite people’s wishes, more than a hundred years ago; but we never changed. I am following where many saints have trod.” He smiled at her wondering gaze. “Truly, I choose this. And there are many safe houses and many friends to help me. I can cross the country and never leave Roman Catholic lands. I can pray in a hidden sacred chapel every night. Now, the parliament has gone too far against the king, the army even more so. Now is our chance. All over the country, towns and villages are declaring for the king and saying that they want him back on the throne. People want peace, and they want to be free to worship.”

“Won’t you go back to your college till then?” she asked doubtfully, thinking that the day would never come.

“No. There is one thing, a great thing, I have to do before I can go home.” He resisted the temptation to tell her more.

She guessed at once. “You’re never going to the Isle of Wight?” she whispered. “Not to the king?”

His silence told her that she was right.

“So you see why you should not be seen with me,” he said. “And I will never admit that I met you, that you hid me. Whatever happens, whatever befalls me, I will never betray you.”

Gravely she nodded. “If you want to go to the Priory, we should go through the mire while it’s low tide. We can see the steward as he has his breakfast, and if he won’t have you in the house, there’ll still be time to walk back through the mire before the tide gets too high.”

He got up from his seat on the nets, brushed down his jacket, and swung his cloak around his shoulders. “We go through the mire?”

She nodded again. “We shouldn’t meet anyone. Hardly anyone comes here. As we get to the Priory we’ll be in the hollow lane of bushes. If you meet anyone there you can just drop over the bank into the ditch and hide. If you have to run, follow the line of the ditch and it will take you inland. You can hide in the woods.”

“And what will you do?”

“I’ll say that I never saw you following me. That I was going out to the beach for tern eggs.” She turned and opened the door. “Wait here.”

Suddenly, like a cannonade on the still air, there was an explosion of noise, a cascade of water, and then a terrible rumbling sound.