“Best walk round the bridge, my lady,” says the master of my barge, and they set me down on the wet slimy stairs and row the barge out into the middle channel to shoot the stormy waters of the bridge and pick me up on the other side.

One of my granddaughters, Katherine, takes my arm and we have a liveryman before and behind us as we walk the short way around to the water stairs on the other side of the bridge. There are beggars, of course, but they clear from the path when they see us coming. I hide my flinch of dismay when I notice a nun’s habit, fouled by months of sitting and waiting, and see the strained, desperate face of a woman who had given herself to God and then found herself flung into the gutter. I nod to Katherine’s sister Winifred, who, unasked, tosses the woman a coin.

A man comes out of the darkness and stands before us. “Who’s this?” he asks one of my servants.

“I am Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury,” I say briskly, “and you had better let me pass.”

He smiles, as merry as an outlaw in the greenwood, and he bows low. “Pass, your ladyship, pass with our blessing,” he says. “For we know who our friends are. And God be with you, for you too are a pilgrim and have a pilgrimage gate to go.”

I stop short. “What did you say?”

“It’s not a rebellion,” he says very quietly. “You would know that as well as I, perhaps. It is a pilgrimage. We are calling it the Pilgrimage of Grace. And we tell each other that we have to pass through the pilgrimage gate.”

He hesitates and sees my face as I hear the words “Pilgrimage of Grace.” “We are marching under the five wounds of Christ,” he says. “And I know you, and all the good old lords of the white rose, are pilgrims just like us.”

The rebels who say they march on the Pilgrimage of Grace have captured Sir Thomas Percy, or else he has joined with them; nobody seems to know. They are under the leadership of a good man, an honest Yorkshireman, Robert Aske, and in the middle of October we learn that Aske rode into the great northern city of York without an arrow flying in its defense. They threw open the gates to him and to the force that everyone is now calling the pilgrims. They are twenty thousand strong. This is four times the force that took England at Bosworth, this is an army great enough to take all of England.

Their first act was to restore two Benedictine houses in the city, Holy Trinity and the nunnery of St. Clement. When they rang the bells at Holy Trinity, the people cried for joy as they went in to hear Mass.

My guess is that the king will do anything to avoid an open battle. The rebels in Lincolnshire have been offered a pardon if they will only go home, but why should they do so, now the massive county of Yorkshire is up in arms?

“I’m ordered to muster the tenants and to get ready to march,” Montague says to me. He has come to L’Erber as the servants are clearing away the tables after dinner. The musicians are tuning up and there is a masque to be performed. I beckon Montague to sit beside me, and I lean my head towards him so that he can speak softly against my hood.

“I am commanded to go north and put down the pilgrimage,” he says. “Geoffrey has to raise a force too.”

“What will you do?” In my pocket I touch the embroidered badge that Lord Darcy gave me, the five wounds of Christ and the white rose of York. “You can’t fire on the pilgrims.”

He shakes his head. “Never,” he says simply. “Besides, everyone says that when the king’s army sees the pilgrims, they’ll change sides and join them. It’s happening every day. Every letter that the king sends out with orders to his commanders he follows with one asking them if they are staying true to him. He trusts no one. He’s right. It turns out that no one can be trusted.”

“Who’s he got in the field?”

“Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and the king trusts him no farther than he can see him. Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury, is marching in support, but he is for the old religion and the old ways. Charles Brandon refused to go, saying that he wanted to be at home to keep his county down; he’s been ordered to Yorkshire against his will. Thomas Lord Darcy says he’s pinned down by the rebels in his castle, but since he’s been arguing against the pulling down of the monasteries since the first moment of the queen’s divorce, nobody knows if he’s just waiting for the right moment to join the pilgrims. John Hussey sent a letter to say he’s been kidnapped by them, but everyone knows he was the princess’s chamberlain and loves her dearly, and his wife is outright on her side. The king is chewing his nails to the quick; he’s in a frenzy of rage and self-pity.”

“And what . . .” I break off as a messenger in Montague’s livery comes into the hall and walks close to him and waits. Montague beckons him forward, listens intently, and then turns to me.

“Tom Darcy has surrendered his castle to the rebels,” he says. “The pilgrims have taken Pontefract and everyone under Tom Darcy’s command in the castle and in the town has sworn the pilgrim oath. The Archbishop of York is with them.”

He sees my face. “Old Tom is on his last crusade,” he says wryly. “He’ll be wearing his badge of the five wounds.”

“Tom is wearing his badge?” I ask.

“He had the crusader badges at his castle,” he says. “He issued it to the pilgrims. They are marching for God against heresy and wearing the five wounds of Christ. No Christian can fire on them under that sacred banner.”

“What should we do?” I ask him.

“You go to the country,” Montague decides. “If the South rises for the pilgrims, they’ll need leadership and money and supplies. You can lead them in Berkshire. I’ll send to you so you know what’s happening in the North. Geoffrey and I will go north with our force, and join the pilgrims when the time is right. I’ll send a message to Reginald to come right away.”

“He’ll come home?”

“At the head of a Spanish army, please God.”

BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, OCTOBER 1536

I get a letter from Gertrude who tells me that her husband, my cousin Henry Courtenay, has been commanded by the king to muster an army and put himself under the command of Lord Talbot and march north as soon as possible. The king had said that he would lead his army, but the news from the North is so terrifying that he is sending my kinsmen instead.