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darkness.
    ‘Eleanor, is that really you?’ I heard her voice utter faintly.
    I dropped to my knees beside her and threw my arms around her.
    I hugged her tight in the darkness, noticing how thin and frail she felt.
    ‘Eleanor, it’s the middle of the night,’ protested Mother, half crying, half laughing. We clung to one another, and Mother was kissing me on the cheek, and stroking my hair. It was comforting.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ Mother asked.
    ‘Mother, you are in such danger. I am so afraid for you,’ I said. ‘Did you get my note?’
    ‘I did, an hour since, and I penned a reply by candlelight. You must not fear. I shall eat or drink nothing that does not come from you, my dear one.’
    I pulled back, trying to look at her face, but I could not see it in the darkness. The window was closely shuttered. I got up and threw open the shutters to let in what little light there was. It turned the room a ghostly grey, but I could still not see the expression on Mother’s face.
    ‘Does the chaplain not wonder that you eat and drink nothing?’ I asked her.
    ‘Eleanor, my dearest girl, I am not stupid. I throw the food and drink he brings into the moat.’
    ‘Mother, leave Farleigh with me,’ I begged her. ‘Right now, while I have the key.’
    ‘In the middle of the night?’ asked my mother gently. ‘How would we get out?’
    ‘We cannot, but we could hide in the stables and leave at first light, when they let down the drawbridge,’ I urged her. ‘Before they discover you are missing. Please. I cannot bear being parted from you like this. I cannot live with the dread of what they might do to you.’
    ‘Eleanor.’ Mother stroked my hair back from my face. ‘Do you really think the guards would let me pass? And if they did, where would we go? Do you have money? For I have none.’
    I shook my head despairingly.
    ‘Not a single coin.’
    Mother hugged me again, and rocked me a little in her arms.
    ‘We must pray that your father relents, my dear daughter,’ she whispered. She took my face in her hands and they were thin and dry like birds’ feet. ‘Are you well, at least, Eleanor? Does he treat you properly?’
    ‘I am well enough,’ I replied. ‘But I am to be betrothed again. I dread to think who my husband will be. If he is half as old and repulsive as the last one, I would rather die than marry him. And if I am forced to wed him and leave Farleigh, who will take care of you?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said Mother, ‘he may be a good man. You could tell him of my situation. He may be able to help. To speak to the king or to Thomas Cromwell.’
    ‘I could try,’ I replied doubtfully. ‘But, Mother, Cromwell will not help you. He is Sir Walter’s closest friend. And I overheard him the other day, ordering the chaplain to … ’
    ‘Hush … ’ said Mother suddenly, clutching my arm. ‘I hear something.’
    The words had barely left her when the door behind me swung open. There was the click of a lantern being unshuttered and a light shone into my eyes. From somewhere behind the light a male voice spoke.
    ‘Well, well. What a nice surprise, Mistress Eleanor.’

CHAPTER FIVE

     
    I jumped to my feet. I could not see who the speaker was, but I knew his voice. The chaplain was standing in the room with us, and I could well imagine his malicious glee. But there was another man with him. A second lantern moved into the small room, and lit up the angry face of my father, a tunic and leggings hastily pulled over his nightshirt by the look of him. His hair was tousled and his eyes were wild. He had none of the chaplain’s calm enjoyment of the situation.
    ‘Father?’ I faltered. My lips felt numb with shock as I tried to speak. I realized my hands were shaking and took hold of the folds of my gown to steady them.
    The chaplain stepped forward and stopped right in front of me.
    ‘Did you really think we were so easy to fool? That I did not hear you sneaking into my room like some shameless