more than once in the past, he knew carried a standard penalty of eight years' purification.
With just a hint of weariness, Redgrave had said, 'Where were you hatched, Father? Surely you must know that everything is our concern. Now do as Officer Foot tells you, and if you've any craft you'll do so at once, on the spot, rather than a little later, down at the Tower.'
The interval gave Lyall time to steady himself and to start thinking. 'Your indulgence, officers: I was surprised to see you. I expected Dame Anvil, my master's wife, whose confession I'm to hear.'
'In this room of yours?' asked Foot flatly.
'Of course. The luxury of the house doesn't conduce to the spirit of devotion that's needful.'
'I see. Answer my first question. You refuse to sign the document I spoke of. Why?'
Here Lyall was given another breathing space, though not one he would have chosen. A light step was heard on the stairs. At once, without reference to each other, the two officers moved over to the corner of the room by the chest-of-drawers, where they were out of sight from the doorway. Lyall bit at the inside of his cheek: if Margaret was going to do as she usually did, she would hurry up to him immediately the door was open, saying things that nobody should ever say to a priest. The door opened and she appeared. Although she had for the moment no ordinary way of knowing that there were others in the room (certainly not from any intended move by Lyall himself, who was under the careful gaze of both officers), she responded as fast as she had in the garden ten minutes before, stood her ground and uttered not a word. He said mildly, 'Dame Anvil, I'm well aware that I'm in your honoured husband's service, but these are my quarters, and I'd be greatly favoured if you'd knock before entering them. However, please come in. These are two gentlemen from the Tower.'
She gave them a distant nod as she walked forward, her mouth set. 'I, Father Lyall, should be greatly favoured if you'd refrain from admonishing me in the hearing of strangers. That's no way for anybody, high or low, to conduct himself.'
'My excuses, dame, I...'
'Perhaps you'll attend me in my sitting-room when your business here is done. Good-day, gentlemen.'
The door shut behind her. Redgrave looked sidelong at Foot, who shut his eyes briefly in negation. The pair approached Lyall again. He almost groaned aloud with the effort of not showing the smallest sign of relief at Margaret's successful departure, which he had done his best to round off with a shrug and a shake of the head. Officer Foot came and stood, legs apart, hands behind back, a yard from him. After staring him in the eyes for some seconds, he said as deliberately as ever, 'I ask you for the third time. You refuse your signature. Why?'
Lyall was no longer frightened. Relief still had hold of him, accompanied by a sense of triumph and, more than either, love. Until just now, he had supposed it impossible that his feeling for Margaret could grow, but in that moment it had, and this woman loved him. He was possessed by elation, though he had room also for the thought that here in front of him was about as good a representative as he would find of everything he most disliked in the world he had been born into. The priest had come to a very dangerous mood. Trying to match the other's tone, he said, 'I choose to. No more than that.'
'I must have more than that. Your reason for so choosing.'
'I choose not to give it.'
'Give it here and now, or elsewhere later.'
'Your indulgence, officer, but I can't take you seriously. How in the name of St Peter can why I act as I do be of import?'
'If it was on the orders of certain unlawful-' said Redgrave before Foot interrupted him.
'It's only my first question, Father.'
'Still one too many. Now I'll make a compact with you. You give me your reason for wanting to know my reason, and I'll consider giving you my reason.'
Redgrave sighed noisily. 'We don't make compacts, Father. Have you learned so little in your life?'
'Then I've nothing to tell you.'
'You first defy the wishes of your superiors, the Lord Abbot of St Cecilia's Chapel and Master Anvil, and now you defy the Holy Office,' said Foot.
'If you say so.'
'Don't be a nitwit, Father,' said Redgrave, screwing up his face. 'You ask to go to the Tower.'
Lyall had not even reached the point of dismissing this threat as idle: he simply disregarded it. 'Fuck a fox, the pair of you,' he said without warmth. 'You're mean of spirit—none who was not would lower himself to do your tasks, even so slight a one as this present errand. You're false, claiming to serve a just and merciful God and at the same time proud to wear the colour of blood on your dress. And you're dull and dismal, you're enemies of all wit. Hope at best to be laughed at, officers, with your pretty armlets like some gewgaw from a boy's motley-box. Now take yourselves back to your beloved Tower and leave me to my work.'
Foot had listened to this with close attention and total impassivity, restraining his companion's several attempts to interrupt it, one of them physical. 'Is there more?' he asked.
'You may have more.'
'No, we have enough.'
'Enough to attach you,' shouted Redgrave.
'Upon what inculpation?' Foot betrayed very slight surprise. 'It's an offence to cast a servant of the State or the Church into obloquy and disrepute, and, uttered in public, a tenth part of what we've heard would surely fetch an inculpation. But all this was in private.'
'But his gross defiance—his refusal to...'
'Our commission was only to ask questions, not to compel replies.'
'But the type outfaces our threat to remove him!'
