Читать книгу The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle - Страница 17

Honor banged her fist against the merchant’s door. Rain pummeled her head and shoulders and drenched her hooded cloak as she waited. A metal bolt scraped, the door swung open, and a young man stood before her. Behind his lantern, his narrow face glowed white against lank orange hair that hung to his shoulders.

“Master Humphrey Sydenham?” she asked.

He thrust the lantern out close to her face, examining her with fearful eyes. “No.”

“I must see him.” Her voice emerged with more strength than she felt. “His life is in danger.”

“What?” The man looked frightened. “What’s happened? Who are you?”

“I’ll tell only Master Sydenham that. Is he here or not?”

The man gnawed his lip, hesitating, then pulled her in and shut the door. “Follow me.”

He led her down a corridor and past a fine-looking great hall to a snug room bright with a fire and candles, though deserted. “Wait here,” he said. He turned to go.

“But it’s late and I—”

“Wait here!” He walked out and closed the door on her. His footfalls sounded down the corridor.

Honor threw off her hood and looked around. The room was paneled in fashionable linenfold-carved oak. Expensive silver plate gleamed in cupboards. The chairs were soft with velvet cushions. This was not at all what she had expected. She had steeled herself for a bleak, ascetic compound with a ring of zealots chanting in religious fervor. This room exuded nothing but domestic comfort.

She paced. Where was Sydenham? It was almost midnight. The Queen had kept her so long, there was no time left. If she waited any longer she would be in danger herself. She snatched up a candle and hurried to the door.

The corridor was empty. She started in the direction she had heard the man’s footsteps take. She passed along a room-length of paneled hallway and came to a closed door. The latch lifted easily. Beyond the door, almost immediately, was an unlit flight of descending stone stairs. The hem of her sodden cloak slapped over the steps as she went down. The walls, too, were stone. The air was dank. A cloying smell—unpleasantly familiar, though she could not identify it—curled in her nostrils.

At the bottom the floor was beaten earth. A low, barrel-vaulted stone passageway hulked around her candle. She walked on. The passage led to another flight of steps, these ones going up. She heard voices, very faint, and she halted. The voices quieted. She climbed the stairs. At the top stood an arched, wooden door. She swept her candle over it and noticed a small opening at a man’s eye level. It was a chink of less than a square inch, gouged out of the solid wood, a squint-hole for monitoring the identity of the person seeking entry.

She snuffed her candle and set it down. In the darkness she went up on her toes and pressed her eye to the hole. Her breath caught in her throat. She was looking into a huge warehouse, and near the rear wall thirty-five, perhaps forty people stood inside a ring of hand-held torches. Their faces were lifted towards a man who stood on the lip of a loft, his head raised and eyes closed as if in silent prayer. Honor felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise. This was a huge coven of heretics.

She was shocked to see so many women. Children, too. A couple of boys were rolling chestnuts on the dirt floor under a torch hitched to one of the loft-bearing posts. Stacks of animal hides were ranged along the windowless walls, and in the middle of the warehouse were three huge, round wooden vats, the kind she had seen used in ale brewing. Beside the loft on the far wall was a closed door as wide as a cart. She realized the warehouse must sprawl all the way back to the next street.

The man in the loft snapped from his trance and began to prowl along the edge. He was in his early twenties, Honor guessed, slight, and very fair. His white-blond hair, shaved in a monk’s tonsure, stood out in short spikes over his ears, looking indeed like the thorns of Christ’s crown that the tonsure was made to symbolize. Yet he wore no priest’s cassock or friar’s robe, only a laborer’s faded tunic over sagging hose. He stopped and stared at the faces below him. The fervor in his eyes blazed all the way to the squint-hole at the back of the warehouse.

He slapped his hand on his chest. “Love of God!” he cried. “That is what should fill our hearts.” He thrust out his other hand, palm up like a beggar. “Lust for gold! That is what drives our priests.” Honor was struck by the vibrancy of his voice. It was a voice made for rallying men.

“The Church hoards one third of the landed wealth of this sovereign realm, my friends. Our rich Bishops send carts of gold to Rome, English gold from the sweat of English brows. They leech it from us in rents and tithes to finance the bawdy banquets and lascivious pleasures of the princes of the Church, and their wicked wars.” He shook his head, then smiled grimly. “Glad I am of the spirituality’s oath of celibacy, for if the Abbot of Glastonbury were to wed the Abbess of Shrewsbury, their heir would inherit more land than the demesne of the King.”

There was soft laughter from the listeners. “If the priests have no heirs, Brother Frish,” a man called up, “it’s not for lack of fornicating.”

Brother Frish laughed along with his audience. Then, suddenly, his arms shot up. “I say the priests are worse than Judas. He sold almighty God for thirty shillings but the priests will sell God for half a penny. They barter off their sacred wares like pork hocks at a fair-stall. They sell the seven sacraments, they sell dispensations,”—he held out his palm again like a collection plate and slammed his fist onto it with every transaction—“the chanting of masses, prayers. And all this on top of their endless tithes and fines, fees and mortuaries…”

Honor shivered at this last word. For a moment she was a child again watching Bastwick wrench the sapphire from her father’s dead hand, the curse of excommunication still ringing. All for a mortuary.

She shook her head to clear it of such visions of the past—and of her unease at going among these criminals. I must finish this, she told herself. Get inside, find Sydenham, and then get out again before it’s too late. I’ve come this far. I’ll see it through.

She lifted the latch and opened the door. A draught of stale air rolled over her. She trembled, for the warehouse stank of an odor that somehow dredged up the horror of Smithfield. A cold hand grabbed her wrist. It was the orange-haired young man. He hauled her into the warehouse and hustled her along the wall among the stacked hides.

“I told you to wait,” he whispered fiercely. He glanced nervously at the gathering, but the preacher talked on and the crowd listened, apparently unaware of the intrusion.

“I tell you, I’ve got to see Master Sydenham,” Honor whispered, equally insistent.

“Quiet!” He tightened his grip on her wrist until it was painful.

“But this cannot wait!”

He jerked a knife from his belt and held it at her rib. “You’ll wait until the sermon’s done, and you’ll be quiet.”

Heart pounding, she stood still, a hostage witness to the heretical sermon.

“And let us not forget indulgences,” Frish cried cynically. “The priests will sell indulgence letters for fornication, for the breaking of vows, for shunning confession, for ignoring fasts, and, of course, for rescuing souls from purgatory. Purgatory,” he repeated with a sneer. “This dread place exists, the Church teaches, for the cleansing of sinful man’s soul after death, but the Church will gladly give you remission of years of your soul’s agony there—for a price. Now, tell me this. If the Pope has the power to deliver a soul out of purgatory, why then can he not deliver it without money? And if he can deliver one soul, then why does he not deliver a thousand? Why not all? Let loose all the poor, tortured souls, and thus destroy purgatory.” His fist punched the air. “I say the Pope is a tyrant if he keeps souls within purgatory’s prison until men give him money!”

He wiped his brow with his sleeve, and then eased himself down onto the edge of the loft so that his legs dangled. His voice became gentle and warm. “Good friends,” he said with a smile, “I am here to tell you that the Pope has no power to loose souls from purgatory because there is no purgatory. I am here to tell you that there are no priests, only God. That the painted images of saints the poor ignorant folk pray to for intercession in their worldly woes are only sticks and stones—and man must pray to God alone. That all the spells a priest may mumble over a piece of bread to conjure it into the body of our Lord cannot make it anything other than bread, for I have read in scripture that God made man, but nowhere have I read that man can make God.”

Honor’s mouth fell open at this litany of heresies, especially the last one. The miracle of transubstantiation—the bread of the Mass transformed into the living body of Christ—was the cornerstone of Catholic faith. Yet this preacher’s words were full-blooded with conviction. His passion, so fearless, so generous, stunned her. It was as if, while she slept, someone had dashed her face with ice water.

Frish’s voice rose again and his face was bright. “I come before you this night to bring you good news, my friends. We can cast off the chains of bondage to Rome. I have done it. I have been freed. How?” He reached over to a barrel beside him and lifted a black book that lay on top. He held it high. “With this. The word of Our Lord, Our Savior. His blessed word, illuminated by the sublime translation of Master William Tyndale into our own tongue.” He waved the book slowly, like a banner over his head.

Honor shuddered as a voice from Smithfield echoed: “…selling illegal Bibles in the English tongue…”

This was the book for which Ralph had been burned.

“Not the word of Christ’s desecrated Church,” Frish cried, “where the priests would have us grovel dumbly at their mystical Latin prayers, then shuffle home more ignorant than when we came. No! I have read Christ’s message for myself.” He clasped the book against his chest like a lover. His eyes gleamed with tears, and his voice was gentle as a song. “And scripture did so exhilarate my heart, being before almost in despair, that immediately I felt a marvelous comfort and quietness, and my weary bones leaped for joy. This is salvation, my friends. The shining, unadulterated word of God. Come! See!” He gestured to a large crate on the warehouse floor. “I have brought enough for all of you.” He stood and climbed down the ladder from the loft, and people moved in around him with excited questions and comments.

Honor could restrain herself no longer. She wanted only to finish what she had come to do and then get out of this dangerous place. She glanced down at the knife at her rib. She sensed that the young man was more nervous than dangerous. “You’re not going to use the knife,” she said steadily. “Let me go.”

He appeared startled by her sudden steeliness, and Honor seized his moment of indecision to wrench free of his grip. “I tell you,” she said, “everyone here is in danger. Now, one last time, take me to Sydenham, or I’ll leave you all to your miserable fate!”

He looked anxious but he said nothing. She took a few steps forward. He followed on her heels and grabbed her elbow. She was shaking him off when she saw a figure hurrying toward them: a portly, apple-cheeked man dressed in the rich, flowing clothing of a merchant. Behind him, the people carried on with their meeting. “What is it, Edward?” the man said in a menacing whisper. Under tufted gray eyebrows he was squinting at Honor in the way of the shortsighted. When he reached her his menacing look widened into surprise. “Who’s this?”

“Wants to see you. I left her above, but she’s come snooping.”

Honor almost pounced, so great was her relief. “Master Sydenham?”

“Let her go, son,” the merchant said. “Aye, I’m Sydenham. What be your business with me?” His voice was wary, but so gentle that it betrayed him; clearly he felt more curiosity than wrath at her presence.

“Sir, I bring a warning—” She stopped, surprised by the approach of a woman.

“Humphrey, what’s the matter?” the woman asked. As she came to Sydenham’s side her hand groped for his, and their fingers wove together in an unconscious gesture of comfort that told Honor the two were man and wife.

Mrs. Sydenham was a formidable-looking person, several inches taller than her husband and a startling contrast to him, for she was as gaunt as he was stout, and as pale as he was florid. Only their common gray hair unified them, but while his lay in short, springy curls, hers was stretched tightly back from a center part under a starched white cap. Her face was almost as sallow and bony as a cadaver, but the eye sockets blazed with life at their hazel cores. She was staring at Honor with a frown. Suddenly, she gasped and grabbed her husband’s sleeve.

“What is it, Bridget?” he asked gently.

“I know this girl.”

Honor was amazed at her effect on the woman. “Indeed, madam, I am surprised to hear it, for I know you not.”

“You are Sir Thomas More’s daughter.”

“You are mistaken,” Honor said.

“You lie! I’ve seen you with him at Paul’s Cross. Sir Thomas More and all his family.”

Honor bit back the anger rising within her. “If I had not known since childhood that lying is a sin, madam, my guardian would surely have instructed me, for Sir Thomas is known to all the world as the most upright, Christian teacher.”

“Your guardian?” Sydenham blurted. “You are Sir Thomas More’s ward?”

“Ward or daughter,” his wife spat, “where’s the difference?”

“The difference, madam, is that I do not lie!”

The eyes of the two women locked in animosity.

Sydenham held up his hands. “Now, now, Bridget. Let’s hear what the girl has to say.”

“Husband, do not trust her. She has come to harm us.”

Sydenham removed his wife’s hand from his elbow and held it affectionately. He scrutinized Honor. “What is this warning you bring, girl?”

“Sir,” Honor blurted, “the Bishop’s men are on their way to raid this place. You must save yourselves.”

Sydenham’s mouth opened in dismay.

His wife intervened to ask coldly, “And how do you know this?”

“I overheard…some talk.”

“Whose talk?” Mrs. Sydenham snapped in scorn. “The Bishop’s? I suppose you are a frequent visitor at his palace?”

“No.”

“Then whom did you overhear?”

“A boatman.”

“A servant of the Bishop?”

“No. A Westminster boatman.”

Mrs. Sydenham sneered. “Gossip?”

“What difference how or where I heard it? The danger is the same.”

“The difference, mistress, is that I do not trust you.”

Honor trembled with anger. An attack on her integrity was the last thing she had expected from this coven of criminals—criminals she was risking herself to save!

“But Bridget,” Sydenham said gently, “why should she come to warn us if not as a friend?”

“Perhaps to spy us out. Make a list of names and faces. Perhaps only to confound and terrify us. Or perhaps both, and with this tale about a raid she could cause chaos enough and slip away in our confusion.”

“But, my dear—”

“I know nothing of why!” Mrs. Sydenham’s voice rasped, sharp with exasperation. “But I know that midnight raids are not Bishop Tunstall’s method, and—”

“Not the Bishop,” Honor broke in. “An evil man on his staff.”

Unmoved, Mrs. Sydenham’s eyes fell on her, burning with suspicion. “And I know this girl is attached to More.”

Sydenham cast an anxious glance over his shoulder at the meeting, and Honor, appalled at the delay, saw that his wife’s counsel had cut deeply into his own trusting instincts. When he turned back and reached out both his hands for hers she was not sure if it was in friendship or to take her captive.

“Thank you,” he murmured simply. His grip was surprisingly firm. He let her hands go. “My dear,” he said, smiling sadly at his wife, “friends of the Brethren are not so thick that we may cast one away when fate draws her to our door. Now, we have little time to move Brother Frish and all these good people out. Mistress,” he said to Honor, “my son Edward here will escort you—”

“Wait.” Mrs. Sydenham’s arm swept toward the warehouse in an exaggerated gesture of invitation, and she asked Honor in a voice unctuous with disdain, “Mistress, will you fly to safety with us? Are you one of us?”

“No!” Honor’s answer shot out too fast, an arrow loosed from her heart, and she took a step back, as fearful of contamination as if this were a gathering of lepers.

Mrs. Sydenham’s smile was wry. “In this, at least, I believe you speak the truth.” Her face hardened. “And if you are not with us, you must be against us.”

Sydenham’s eyes darted from one woman to the other. Sweat beaded his brow. He wrung his hands, trying to decide.

Honor’s face flushed with rage. “This is madness! Madam, I came in good faith to save your husband from the flames of Smithfield. I see, however, that you are eager to embrace widowhood. Very well. I’ll not stand between you and your heart’s desire.” She turned on her heel. Edward, suddenly bold, barred the door with crossed arms. She punched him on the shoulder. The blow was nothing, but he blinked in surprise and unfolded his arms. She stepped around him.

“Stay!” It was Mrs. Sydenham’s voice again. Honor turned. The woman’s face was stark with worry; her former hardness had vanished. “Please, tell my husband what you know,” she said. “I will alert our friends.”

Amazed though she was at this about-face, Honor sighed with relief.

Sydenham had already taken a step toward the meeting. “No, Humphrey,” Mrs. Sydenham said brusquely, “if you speak you’ll cause panic. I’ll do it.”

She hurried toward the gathering. The excited people, still unaware of any disturbance, were chattering and laughing around the preacher. Mrs. Sydenham pushed through to reach him. She bent to whisper in Frish’s ear while the people babbled on. Frish shot a look back at Honor. Under his scrutiny she was uncomfortably conscious of the richness of her clothing in contrast to the drab group he stood with, and she turned her head away. As she did, she noticed, above the huge rear door, an odd movement in the air, as if dust were sifting from the roof, dislodged from the rafters to drift and sparkle down through the torchlight. The people sensed it too and hushed. Mrs. Sydenham looked up. Everyone turned breathlessly toward the wide, closed door.

There was a creaking, like giant wagon wheels beginning to move. For one frozen moment Honor saw the wooden door bulge. Then it burst. Huge splinters flew. Men-at-arms swarmed in. Cries of men and women pierced the rafters and ricocheted off the vats. The ragged ring of torches burst apart and their flames flared in the wind of rushing bodies. Honor turned to flee the way she had come, but an officer stood in the open door beckoning behind him to armed men running along the passage. She whirled around. Beyond the crush of people the splintered rear door lay open. If she could make it there she could escape. She dashed into the melee.

It was madness. Women snatched up children and were in turn snatched by officers. Men dropped under cudgel blows. Honor saw Sydenham running to reach his wife. Mrs. Sydenham stretched out her hand to him. As their fingers touched, a young officer lunged for Sydenham and hauled him sideways. He pinned Sydenham’s belly against a vat, and scraped his cheek bloody along the surface. Mrs. Sydenham was engulfed by screeching people herding for the rear door. Honor glimpsed Edward among them, his orange hair flying. She could see that the first people outside were instantly trapped by officers in the alley, but a few who went after broke through and bolted into the night. It was the only way out. She groped her way around a vat, eyes on the door.

From behind, an arm locked around her head, covering her eyes. She was jerked backwards, lost her balance, and fell against her attacker. As he hauled her by the head, she had to clutch his sleeve to keep her neck from being wrenched. His other hand pushed brutally down on the top of her head, forcing her to the ground. She was dragged along the floor on her back, then bumped over a ridge that banged her backbone, then hauled into a narrow passage. Her captor crammed himself behind her and stopped. They lay together on their sides, her back against his chest. She felt his leg kick at something, then heard a sound like a metal door snapping shut.

His arm dropped from her forehead to her waist, pinning her arm. His other hand clamped her mouth. His palm was slippery with sweat. She sucked breaths through her nose. The smell of the place was foul, but she could see nothing in the pitch blackness around them. They lay with knees bent, as tightly packed as spoons, breathing together and sweating together in a grotesque parody of spent lovers. Honor could hear screams and scuffles outside their fetid cage.

The man’s hand on her mouth lifted, but hovered as if ready to muzzle her again. “They’ll leave soon,” he breathed. “Hold on!” Even in a whisper the sterling voice was unmistakable. Frish, the preacher.

“Where…”—she coughed—“…where are we?”

“Under the vat. Sydenham built a false bottom. For the Bibles.”

Of course! The hides, the smell…it was animal fat, rendered for soap-making. This was the same stench that had drifted over Smithfield from the butchers’ yards the day Ralph was burned. The rancid reek of death. Nausea swelled in her and she almost retched.

“Hold on,” he urged. “Just hold on!”

Outside, the cool rain tasted delicious. Honor and Frish crouched in a muddy alley against a wall of the emptied warehouse. A lantern in the neighbor’s stable yard cast the faintest of beams over them. The downpour had lightened, and Honor lifted her face with closed eyes to let it drizzle her skin and wash her clean.

“‘As cold waters to a thirsty soul,’” Frish murmured, watching her.

“Proverbs,” Honor said, and found herself smiling, for despite the cramps in her muscles and the residue of nausea and fear, she was aware of a light-headed clarity, an exhilaration that came with the joy of escape. She ran her tongue over salty lips. It was good to be alive!

She looked at Frish. Instantly, he lowered his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him close-up. His frame was very slight, his features small, his face fragile-looking. And every inch of it was cratered with pockmarks. Under her gaze he hunched into himself, and she realized that he was used to people shrinking from his ravaged face. Down from his makeshift pulpit, alone with her, all his sparkle and fire was snuffed out.

“Lady,” he stammered, “I thank you. For the warning you brought. Mrs. Sydenham told me only that much. May I…”—he plucked at his frayed sleeve—“may I know your name?”

Honor hesitated. “Brother, it is I who must thank you,” was all she could muster. But her gratitude was heartfelt, for she could imagine the consequences if she had been caught: at the very least, expulsion in disgrace from the Queen’s employ and shame brought on Sir Thomas, and at the worst…she shuddered, thinking of the worst. “What happened to Master Sydenham?” she asked. “And his wife and son?”

“I saw Edward run out the back. Then I looked for you. In those clothes, you were not difficult to spot. I only hope the Sydenhams escaped, too, after Edward.”

Honor watched him, wondering…

“Brother,” she blurted, “did you know Ralph Pepperton?”

“Pepperton? No.”

That was all.

“I must go,” she declared suddenly. “I have been away too long. If Her Grace finds me gone—”

“Her Grace? Do you mean . .? Have you a place at court?”

“Yes,” she said, drawn by his stare. Despite his ugliness, his pale blue eyes shone with a power both mesmerizing and disturbing. “I wait on the Queen.”

“I knew you were worth a risk!” Enthusiasm lit up his face, sweeping away all his shyness. “Lady, hear me. I have come from exile with Tyndale in Antwerp—”

“Exile?” she interrupted cautiously.

He shrugged as if to say that his personal situation was of no importance. “Arrested for preaching in Lincoln. I slipped the Bishop’s bonds. But,” he resumed in earnest, “I’ve returned to rouse support for the English Brethren. So many of us are poor—scholars, bookbinders, glaziers, bricklayers. Oh, we’ve attracted a sprinkling of well-to-do merchants like good Master Sydenham—God help him, now. But we need more friends, powerful friends. And with your ear at court you could do much to help us find them. No, do not draw back!” His small hands grabbed her shoulders. “I am not mad, I promise you. I know that there are men at court who would support us. You could sound them out. I have heard whispers that an influential gentleman sympathizes with us—a man on Cardinal Wolsey’s staff, no less. A Master Cromwell. Alas, I cannot reach such men. But you can. And there are others. Even the Lady Anne Boleyn, so I have heard—”

“What?” She pulled out of his grasp. “You’d have me plot with my mistress’s enemy? Brother,” she said severely, “I was glad to bring a warning tonight for I would not see any of you burn. But I assure you I am not one of you. For God’s sake, you are a heretic!”

Frish smiled as he would at a child, and murmured, “For God’s sake, indeed.” He cocked his head at her and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, “Mistress, did you never catch your father in a lie?”

Warily, she asked, “Your meaning, Brother?”

“I’ll tell you a story,” said Frish. “My father was a tenant farmer. I labored in his field from the day I could lift a load. When I was nine, the landlord stopped by our cottage to see my father, and when he left, my father told me the landlord had accused me of stealing some of his pears. I was desolate, not only because I was innocent, but also because the landlord had always been a friend to me, always told me I had promise. My father beat me for the theft. Years later I found out that the landlord, who had no son, had not come that day with any such accusation, but rather with an offer to pay for an education for me. My father, you see, preferred to retain my labor.” He looked Honor in the eye. “The Church keeps us from God, mistress. It frightens us and punishes us in order to keep us enslaved. But I have caught the Church in its lie.”

Again, she saw Bastwick standing over her own father, punishing him with the terror of hell, all for a mortuary.

“Are you so sure you are not one of us?” Frish asked gently.

She could find no words. Objections and denials withered under those fiercely pure eyes.

He lowered his head, disappointed by her silence. His body slumped again into meek self-consciousness. “Forgive me,” he mumbled, “I’ve made a mistake. I’ll go.” He stood. “You will not want me to escort you. I would only endanger you further.”

He flipped the hood of his tunic over his fair head. Instantly, it cut off the beam from his eyes. Without another word he left her side, his footsteps falling noiselessly. As he passed beyond the lantern’s feeble halo, clouds blotted the moon, as if some massive hand in heaven covered it to shield him, allowing him to go in darkness.

But Honor heard his clear voice as he called back softly from the end of the alley, “God be with you!”