‘Why do you do that?' I asked. 'Is she a flower which grows wild in the woods?'

'You can never tell about a woman,' my chaplain quips back. 'In her case,' I retort, 'it's charitable not to.'

Oh, I tease. I am sure she's a delightful maid and I have fixed the marriage date for Michaelmas. See how excited he grows! His little bottom twitching! His shoulders shaking! The little bugger had better not be laughing at me. He stares innocently over his shoulder but I know him for what he is. Any man who has two chins must have two faces! No, no, I am cruel to my little chaplain. If he left me, I'd miss him, particularly his sermons on Sunday.

Now, I’ll be honest, I don't belong to the Reformed Faith. I am still a Catholic and hear Mass secretly in my private chamber. There I hide the statue that I rescued from Walsingham, carved in ancient wood, the Mother of God holding her child. I make sure candles burn constantly before it. Anyway, as the law says, I have to attend Sunday morning service in the manor church, so I trot along. I sit in my pew in front of the pulpit and spend most of my time smiling at any pretty face. I'm always armed with a catapult and try to take care of the rats which, every so often, try to scurry across the sanctuary floor. You see, the little bastards live in the church, feasting on the candlewax. Now my theory is that usually they hide, but my chaplain is such a windbag and his sermons so long that the rats give up all hope that he’ll ever shut up, and so take their chances out in the open against my catapult. As soon as one pops out, a small black pebble goes whirling through the air. The congregation love it. My chaplain never notices.