The Heretic’s Wife (34 page)

“We can get it later,” John said, with a familiar gleam in his eye as he sat down on the bed. He patted it with his hand. “Let’s test this new feather mattress as soon as she leaves. See if being on dry land has a deleterious effect on our lovemaking.”

Kate glanced at the woman, who was digging out an extra coverlet, releasing the sharp smell of herbs into the air to mix with the turpentine. She appeared oblivious.

Kate pulled a face mimicking shock and murmured, “Why, Master Frith, for a theologian you are quite the ardent husband.”

The woman handed them the coverlet and smiled, her eyes showing unusual merriment. “I hope you will be happy,” she said in careful but perfect English. “It is good to have joy in this room again. Quentin would have been pleased too. He did not paint ugly women only. You may see his work in the cathedral. The altarpiece is very well known. People come from miles to see it.”

John’s face turned the color of the crimson bed hangings. “Th . . . thank you, Mistress Massys. It is very . . . Christian of you to take us in during your time of mourning. I did not realize you spoke English. And so well. We are mindful of your loss and will treat your brother’s studio with respect, I assure you.”

Kate stifled a giggle. It was good for John to get caught out once in a while.

Catherine Massys nodded gravely, but her eyes still sparkled. “Thank you for that assurance. I shall look forward to seeing you at the Bible study at the English House. Though not tonight, I expect.”

As she was speaking, she moved mercifully toward the door. “If you require anything else, Merta, my maid, will deliver your breakfast each day. Just tell her. She does not speak English, but that should be no problem for you of course.”

She closed the door as John was still sputtering an answer.

He lay spread-eagled across the bed as Kate burst out laughing. “John, how can we ever face that woman again?”

“Let’s not think about that now,” he said. “Let’s just be glad we’re safe and we have a roof over our heads.”

“And not to mention this lovely bed,” she said, lying down beside him and then as quickly getting up again.

“Now what?” he wailed as she walked across the room and turned the easel around, then began to strip down to her shift.

“I’ll have no ugly duchess watching over us,” she said. “She might mark our unborn children.”

. . . old crones who still wish to play the goat and display their foul and withered breasts . . . who industriously smear their faces with paint and never get away from the mirror.

—E
RASMUS OF
R
OTTERDAM
(
PROBABLY THE
INSPIRATION FOR
M
ASSYS’S SATIRICAL
PORTRAIT OF A
G
ROTESQUE
O
LD
W
OMAN
)

I
t was as John had promised. By Christmas Kate was beginning to feel at home in Flanders. She’d gotten used to the constant clamor of polyglot curses and riotous greetings, the sounds of rolling carts on cobblestones and the jangling of harness bells outside their little town house chamber. And they had only to latch the wide glass-paned windows and fasten the creaking wooden shutters to banish all the world.

Each morning, after they had breakfasted on Merta’s fresh milk and buttery hot cross buns, John left to go down to the Grote Markt, where among the many guild houses he found ready employment as a translator. Leaning out the window, Kate watched him down the narrow winding street until with a sweep of his hand and a quickly blown kiss he turned the corner and passed out of sight. On dreary days she puttered around the little apartment like any common hausfrau, sweeping up crumbs, plumping the cushions, spreading the counterpane on the handsome feather bed, giving it an affectionate final flourish with a sweep of her hand—for it was indeed a very fine bed.

On clear crisp days she ventured as far as the marketplace, her basket on her arm, walking as purposefully as the strangers she encountered until she reached the tented stalls. Then she would wander from pavilion to pavilion, indulging her senses with the exotic goods they offered: fingering a fine piece of Venetian lace, gasping at the colors of a tapestry from Bruges, inhaling the spicy smells of cinnamon and anise and dried fruits. Once she even bought a bit of bound fabric with a carefully stenciled cartoon of a fountain and unicorn and the silk threads to embroider. John deserved an accomplished wife and the tapestry would look pretty hanging above their bed. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

She bought fresh bread and cheese and sometimes hot soup to keep warm on the little brazier Catherine Massys had sent “to break the early morning chill,” though Kate seldom felt that chill. She enjoyed lingering abed with her new husband, snuggled deep in the feather bed—until the morning sun warmed the room through the east-facing windows. But it was the market bookstalls she could not resist. Antwerp was the printing center of the world. She spent hours browsing—so many books in so many languages, and more than one of the vendors carried English books. Yesterday she had seen a book she wanted to buy, but today it was gone. She wondered if the bookseller could understand her inquiry.

“Luther?” she asked, enunciating slowly.

The vendor nodded, dug under the pile, and handed her a book which she could not read, but she recognized the German language.

“English?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said clearly. “I have it in English. I have lots of English. The English merchants buy from me. I buy directly from the printers.”

He reached into a large sack and pulled out three different works. “I have Tyndale—it says Hitchens but that’s just another name Tyndale uses—and Erasmus’s
Adagia
and a book of Luther’s sermons.” She reached for the book of sermons. It was the one she’d seen yesterday.

“You do not display them? I thought I saw this one yesterday.”

He shrugged. “Not in large numbers. This is still a Catholic town even though the city fathers usually look the other way for the sake of trade.”

She paid for the book of sermons—a gift for John, who would enjoy comparing it to his German copy. She was learning that the translation of a language was as much art as science. “I suppose I should hide it beneath the cheese,” she said.

“Oh, you’ll not be bothered. Foreigners are seldom harassed here.” He
shrugged. “We’re all foreigners. Without our trade this city would shrivel like an old man’s—” He blushed to the top of his balding pate, blushed as only a fair-skinned man can blush. “What I mean to say is we mind our business, and they mind theirs.”

“I’ll take this one too,” she said, picking up an English translation of Homer’s
Odyssey.
The sermons were for John. The Homer was for her. John quoted Ulysses so much she wanted to share the great heroic adventure, wanted to glimpse the lure of
wine-dark seas.

What a wonderful place to live, she thought, walking home. John had chosen well. Here in Antwerp they were just two more foreigners in a city of foreigners. London seemed very far away.

Sometimes she and John walked down to the docks at sunset to watch the ships come in: Portuguese caravels, Spanish galleons, Venetian merchant ships, all carrying the colorful insignia of their nation’s origins. Whenever she spied an English ship, she strained her eyes to see if it might be the
Siren’s Song
. She would think briefly of Endor hunched over her little bake oven, and would become aware of the cheap tin medal nesting between her breasts, next to her skin, beneath her chemise. She thought, too, of Captain Lasser standing on the stern scanning the horizon with his hawk’s eyes.

But tonight there would be no time for walking down by the river. Tonight they were going to the English House.

The English House was even more welcoming than usual. A chilly drizzle had settled along the twilight streets of Antwerp and the blazing hearth promised warmth and conviviality. The hall was ablaze with candles, and ivy and holly twined the wooden rafters of the hall. As she handed her mantle to the housemaid, delicious smells drew her gaze to the linen-draped buffet.

“If that table had voice it would surely be groaning beneath the weight of so many Christmas puddings and roast meats,” she whispered to John.

“And we will do our part to relieve it of its burden, sweet wife.”

The welcome sound of English voices also greeted their senses. Not one strange syllable among them all. English laughter is even different from other laughter, she thought, feeling a rush of gratitude for this little island of home. They were greeted as old friends, and truly by now, Kate had come to recognize some familiar faces among the eight or so merchants who gathered there on this particular night, though the clientele had a tendency to
ebb and flow with their business endeavors. Of course John laughed easily with them; he worked with them every day.

It was polite for a company of mostly men. Lord Poyntz saw to that. The ale was sufficient but not overly abundant. So Kate was content to enjoy her food in silence as she listened to the current of manly conversation rippling about her. She couldn’t help but wonder about the wives they’d left behind in England.

As always, Mistress Poyntz seemed glad enough for feminine companionship in this company of men. After supper, while the merchants engaged in theological debate or tales of smuggling Bibles past the customs officials, or played at cards or chess, the two women sat with their embroidery. Their hostess laughed as Kate stabbed at the fabric folds that were looking more crumpled with each day.

“You will learn it, my dear, never worry. What’s a little crimson stain here and there? A mere blossom in a
millefleur
field.” She lifted the fabric to her dainty mouth and bit a silken thread, then asked, “How do you find your lodgings? Are they pleasing?”

“Quite. And our landlady is very accommodating, though we seldom see her.”

“That could be a good thing,” Mistress Poyntz said. “Not that Catherine Massys isn’t a very nice person . . . She comes here from time to time. She is a friend of one of the merchants and quite an intelligent woman. But you are after all still newlyweds and deserving of some privacy.”

“She speaks English surprisingly well,” Kate said, feeling herself flush at the memory. “I’m afraid John and I were a trifle . . . free in our conversation, thinking she would not understand.”

“Oh dear, I’m truly sorry. I never thought . . . but whatever you said . . . I am sure poor Catherine is thrilled to have you as tenants. She was devoted to her brother, but she worried that his studio would become a sort of shrine and be invaded by his students. Now she can plead her tenants’ privacy whenever some artist wants to nose around his studio. Quentin was quite famous. He did the triptych in the cathedral and was very well known for his portraits—one of them was even praised by the great Sir Thomas More.” She made a little face. “We know Sir Thomas because he negotiates with the merchants.”

Kate’s alarm must have shown in her face.

“Don’t worry, my dear, that is the be-all and end-all of our relationship with Sir Thomas More. He comes to Antwerp frequently, but he will
never
be invited to the English House. Anyway, he and the Dutch philosopher Erasmus—do you know of him?”

Kate nodded, indicating that she did.

“Well, Erasmus and Sir Thomas More are the greatest of friends, I understand, and they both have a fondness for Flemish culture.” She motioned for the housemaid to clear the table. “Quentin even engraved a medal for Erasmus. Though I don’t much care for his work. Quentin’s . . . not Erasmus’s. Quentin’s work is very . . . literal. Very exaggerated. Almost grotesquely so. What do you think of his Christ descending from the cross?”

“The panel in the cathedral? I haven’t seen it yet. Though there are some sketches left behind in our bedchamber . . . I know what you mean about exaggerated. The sketches are of an old woman in old-fashioned dress, really exquisitely dressed—one can see every thread in the embroidery of her horned headdress—but she is so . . .”

“Ugly?” Lady Poyntz laughed.