“I was not party to any councils or explanations,” he said. “I can only tell you what I saw.”

“The view of an honest man. The report of an honest man is all we want from you,” the minister assured him, and some of the more godly parishioners said: “Amen.”

Alinor found she was holding her hands tightly under the shelter of her shawl. She did not know what Sir William would make of Ned’s report; she did not know if Ned might, with this encouragement, overstep the line of deference. Rob glanced upwards over his shoulder, to the gallery where his mother stood, and she knew he would be thinking the same thing. His apprenticeship in Chichester did not start till the next day. His chance could be blighted before it had even begun.

Ned walked to the minister and then turned to the people in the church. He bowed slightly to Sir William, who gestured that he should speak.

“King Charles was put on trial for eight days,” he said. “I was present from first till last. I was there on the first day in Westminster Hall, when they brought him in.”

Alinor saw Sir William shift slightly in his seat.

“There were more than sixty judges sitting to hear how the king answered the accusation of tyranny and betrayal of the people,” Ned went on.

The door at the back of the church opened for a latecomer, but no one turned at the gust of cold air. The congregation was completely attentive to Ned’s story.

“The king did not speak as they read the charges, and when he did speak he refused to plead guilty or not guilty.”

“Why?” someone called out. “Why would he not speak up?”

“He spoke,” Ned specified. “He spoke. But he would not plead.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know for certain,” Ned admitted. “It was a lawyer’s argument.”

There was a quiet rumble of disapproval. “But why didn’t they let the king answer?”

“It was he that would not speak to them. They called witnesses against him, in a smaller room, but he did not even attend. Men who had seen him on the battlefield taking arms against his own people. They had many witnesses for that. I saw it myself.”

“May I speak?”

Everyone in the body of the church turned to the doorway to see the latecomer, but he was standing beneath the public gallery and neither Alinor nor Alys could see who it was.

“I, too, was at the trial. I, too, have come directly from London.”

Alinor recognized his voice at once, cramming her fist against her mouth so she did not cry out, biting her fingers against the sudden wave of faintness.

“Who is it?” Alys nudged her mother.

“I don’t know,” Alinor whispered.

He walked up the central nave of the church, the collar of his dark traveling cape set square on his shoulders, the hem of it brushing the tops of his polished riding boots. Alinor, looking down from the gallery, could see only his hat, and when he doffed it, his dark curly head. She could see nothing but his assured stride to the chancel steps and the swirl of his expensive cape.

“Is that you? Mr. Summer?” the minister asked.

James bowed to Sir William and then stood before the minister. “It is I, James Summer, tutor to Sir William’s son, Walter. I was in London for business, and I attended the trial of the king. Now I am here for a brief visit to Sir William. I should be happy to tell you what I understood and add my witness to that of Edward Ferryman’s.”

The preacher made a gesture, inviting James to bear witness. James turned towards the congregation and nodded at Ned. For the first time Alinor saw his face. He was pale. His determined expression made him look older than when she had seen him last, drunk with desire, recklessly in love. She put her hand on her belly and felt the child stir as if he knew his father had come for him.

“It is just as Edward Ferryman says,” James confirmed. “The king would not plead for two reasons. He said that the court was not legally created: there has never been a court commissioned by parliament. There have only been courts commissioned by kings. And he said that no court could try a king who was ordained by God.” James paused. “Legally, I think his argument was good. But it would mean that no king could ever be tried by his people; and the parliament and the judges were convinced that the king should answer.”

“He’d made war on us,” Ned interrupted. “And when he promised peace he broke his promise. He brought the Scots down on us, and he was planning to bring the Irish against us. What d’you think his wife, his papist wife, is doing in Paris, if not trying to persuade the French to invade us? What d’you think his son is doing in The Hague but meeting with our enemies? All enemies of Englishmen! Tell me this: if he was at war with Englishmen, allied to our enemies, commanding our enemies, how was he our king?”

There was a murmur in the church supporting Ned. Everyone had suffered during the wars, many had lost fathers, brothers, and sons who followed Sir William to the disaster at Marston Moor.

“I think it is a tragedy,” James said frankly. “I think he was ill-advised from the beginning, but I wish, at the end, that he would have pleaded guilty and gone into exile.”

“Aye, but would he have stayed in exile?” Ned demanded hotly. “He was in prison for years, and he wouldn’t stay in prison.”

James bowed his head and then looked up to meet Ned’s furious gaze. “Perhaps not,” he said calmly. “But I know that he lost good men, when he lost the loyalty of men like you.”

“Nothing to do with me!” Ned shrugged off the compliment. “It’s nothing to do with what you think of me, or what you think of him. It’s wrong for a king to be a tyrant to his people and we have stopped him. From this day on there will never be a tyrant ruling Englishmen. We will be free.”

James nodded and said nothing. Sir William shifted in his chair and bowed his head, as if in thought.

“Did he make a godly end?” the minister asked.

Ned glanced at James, but answered for both of them. “Aye, he did. There were thousands watching in the street outside the palace, and they told us that he spent the night in prayer. He stepped out bravely enough, put his head on the block, and signaled that he was ready. The public executioner beheaded him with one blow.”

There was a sigh all around the church. Somewhere in the gallery a woman was weeping.

“God will judge him now,” James said. “And that is a court to which we all must come.”

“Amen,” the minister said. “And now I have to call the banns for a marriage for the third and final time.”

The two men, Alinor’s brother and her lover, turned without looking at each other again and Ned took up his place at the back of the church among the workingmen, and James stood beside Sir William’s chair.

“I publish the banns for the marriage of Alys Reekie, spinster of this parish, and Richard Stoney, bachelor of Sidlesham,” the minister said.

Alinor felt Alys’s hand come into hers, and she squeezed it and found a smile for her daughter.

“This is the third and final time of asking.”

There was a little ripple of interest and pleasure from the congregation, and young Richard Stoney, attending St. Wilfrid’s to hear his banns called, craned around and looked up into the women’s gallery and winked at Alys.