'Return home with me this instant!'
'I like not your tone.'
'Had you heard it sooner, with a hand to back it up, we might not now be in this predicament.'
'Do you threaten me, sir?'
She was calm and unafraid and he was halted for a moment but those round blue eyes and smooth skin worked him back into resolution. He grabbed her arm.
'Leave off, sir. You hurt me.'
'Come back home and settle this argument in our bedchamber. You will not be the loser by it.'
'Unhand me, Humphrey. Mingling flesh is sinful.'
'Not in marriage.
'We arc no longer man and wile.'
He grabbed her other arm as she tried to pull free and wrestled with her. The feel of her body against his drove him on beyond the bounds of reason.
'Submit to my embraces!'
'I will not, sir.'
'It is my right and title.'
'No further,'
Her struggling only increased his frenzy the more.
'By this hand, and you will not obey, I'll take you here on the spot among the dead of Nottingham.'
'You dare not do so.'
'Do I not?' he wailed.
'God will stop you.'
Roused to breaking point, he laid rude hands on the front of her shift and tore it down to expose one smooth shoulder and the top of one smooth breast, but even as the material ripped, it was joined by another sound. The door of the church opened and Miles Melhuish emerged in a state of frank bewilderment. He could not understand how Eleanor Budden had vanquished the Dean. When he saw the scene before him, however, he understood all too well and trembled at the sacrilege of it.
'Here upon consecrated ground!' he boomed.
'I was driven to it, sir,' bleated the lacemaker.
'To use force against the gentler sex!'
'You counselled strength of purpose.'
'Not of this foul nature.'
'Forgive him, sir,' said Eleanor. 'He knows not what he does. I looked for no less. God warned me to expect much tribulation. And yet He saved me here, as you did see. He brought you from that church to be my rescue.'
Eleanor fell to her knees in earnest prayer and Melhuish took the defeated and detumescent husband aside to scold him among the chiselled inscriptions. When she was finished, the vicar helped her to her feet and nudged her spouse forward with a glance.
'Forgive me for my wickedness, Eleanor.'
'You acted but as a man.'
'I sinned against you grievously.'
'Then must you wash yourself clean. Call on God to make you a pure heart and to put out all your misdeeds.'
Humphrey Budden was desolate. Abandoned by his wife and now censured by the Church, his case was beyond hope. Instead of taking home a dutiful partner in marriage, he had lost her for ever to a voice he had never even heard.
'May I know your will, wife?'
'I follow the path of righteousness.'
'She must answer the Dean's command,' said Melhuish.
'I go to Jerusalem,' she said.
'To York,' he corrected. 'Only the holy Archbishop himself can pronounce on this. You must bear a letter to him from the Dean and seek an audience.'
'York!' Budden was distraught. 'May I come there?'
I travel alone,' she said firmly.
'What will you do for food and shelter?'
'God will provide.'
'The roads are not safe for any man, let alone for a woman such as you. Be mindful of your life!
'There is no danger for me.
'For you and for every other traveller.'
'I have the Lord's protection on my way.'
It began to rain.
Oliver Quilley cursed the downpour and spurred his horse into a canter. There was a clump of trees in the middle distance with promise of shelter for him and his young companion. Quilley was a short, slight creature in his thirties with an appealing frailty about him. Dressed in the apparel of a courtier, he was an incongruous sight beside the sturdy man in fustian who rode as his chosen bodyguard on the road from Leicester. The trees swished and swayed in the rain but their thick foliage and overhanging branches promised cover from the worst of the storm. As Quilley rode along, one hand clutched at his breast as if trying to hold in his heart.
'Swing to the right!' he urged.
'Aye, Master.'
'We shall be shielded from the wind there.'
'Aye, Master.'
The young man had little conversation but a strength of sinew that was reassuring company. Quilley forgave him for his ignorance and raced him to the trees. They were drenched when they arrived and so relieved to be out of the bad weather at last that they dispensed with caution. It was to be their downfall.
'Ho, there, sirs!'
'Hey! Hey! Hey!'
'Fate has delivered you unto us.'
'Dismount!'
Four rogues in rough attire leapt from their hiding place with such suddenness that the riders were taken totally by surprise. Two of the robbers had swords, the third a dagger and the last a clump of wood that looked the most dangerous weapon of them all. The young man did not even manage to unsheath his rapier. Terrified by the noise and intensity of the assault, his horse reared its front legs so high that he was unsaddled in a flash. He fell backwards through the air with no control and landed awkwardly on his neck. There was a sickly crack and his body went limp. It was a death of great simplicity.
The others turned their attention to Quilley.
'Away, you murderers!' he yelled.
'Come, sir, we would speak with you.'
'Leave go of that rein!'
But Quilley's puny efforts were of no avail. He punched and kicked at them but only provoked their ridicule. The biggest ruffian reached up a hand and yanked him from his perch as if he were picking a flower from a garden. Oliver Quilley was thrown to the ground.
'They'll hang each one of you for this!'
He tried to get up but they tired of his presence. The clump of wood struck him behind his ear and he pitched forward into oblivion. Pleased with the day's handiwork, the four men assessed their takings. They were soon riding off hell for leather.
Quilley was unconscious for a long time but the rain finally licked him awake. The first thing he saw was the
