The Preacher's Bride (26 page)

“It’s time you learned your place, Costin.” Wingate stood and reached for the slender walking stick that rested against his chair. “God Almighty ordains some men to be leaders. The rest are followers. You are poor and ignorant. Your place belongs among the dumb sheep.”

Heat pumped through John’s veins. Wingate was just like the others—threatened by a laborer like himself who had dared to upset the balance of power. The hierarchy of rich and poor had been the same since the days of William the Conqueror—the few nobility and gentry held all the power and wealth, while the rest of them struggled to survive with the little they could scavenge. Men like Wingate didn’t want the system to change.

“Doesn’t Scripture say we are all like sheep gone astray?” John couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. “If the Shepherd and Overseer of my soul considers me a dumb sheep, then that must make you one too, Mr. Wingate.”

The man raised his walking stick and swung at John’s gut. The force of the hit knocked the wind from John and doubled him over with pain. Immediately Wingate’s men were at his side. Each jerked one of John’s arms behind his back in an upward movement that ripped his joints into a blinding anguish. The hold exposed his stomach and stretched it taut.

Wingate swung his stick again. The blow connected with his ribs with a crack. He grunted, dizzy with the searing heat that burned through his skin.

“You need to learn your place, Costin.” Wingate tapped the walking stick on the wooden floor. “And you need to stay in it.”

John struggled to breathe. “What do you want me to confess?” His voice was ragged. “You’re privileged and I’m not?”

John knew what was coming even before the words were out. “I want you to confess that you’ll stop all preaching.” Wingate lifted the stick and pushed the end of it into John’s neck at his windpipe.

The pressure cut off the flow of air, and he choked like a drowning man.

The room swirled before him. This was it—his time to die. He’d prepared himself for the possibility of martyrdom. He’d just not expected it so swiftly.

If only he’d had one last chance to see Elizabeth, to kiss her good-bye.

What would she say when she heard of his murder?

John shook his head and wrenched away from the men, away from Wingate’s deathly grip.

The men grabbed him from behind and tried to wrestle his arms behind his back again.

John knocked them away.

The cold point of a rapier sliced into his jerkin and skimmed the skin of his back. The burning trail brought him to a standstill.

“Tie him up,” Wingate said in disgust.

The man pierced his skin deeper with the rapier before pulling it away. Then they jerked his arms behind him again. They wrapped the rope tight, chafing the skin of his wrists.

“You must agree to leave off preaching.” Wingate stalked back to his chair and sat down. “Or I will break the neck of these unlawful meetings.”

John’s breath came in deep raspy gulps. “If you want me to admit I am of the lowest rank of men, of the most despised of all families in the land, I will do so. I have naught to boast of noble blood or of a highborn state.” Blood made a slow trickle down his back. He pushed down the pride that threatened to rear itself. “I can admit you are better than I. But I cannot, I will not, abstain from preaching. This I cannot do.”

Wingate stared at John through narrowed eyes. “I was told you were stubborn. And I believe a lesson in humility is in order.” He nodded to his men.

He quickly realized the nod was the signal to begin their work of beating him into submission. With his hands tied he had no way to defend himself as they took turns at him, slamming their fists into him, until finally he sank to his knees in agony.

He hung his head. The room flickered. Blood dripped from his nose onto the floor.

“Enough,” Wingate finally said. “He’ll ruin my rug.”

Blessedly, the beating ceased. But the roaring in his head grew louder, and blackness wavered before his eyes. He didn’t want to die yet. Not before he could tell Elizabeth he was sorry.

Chapter
32

The
thump, thump
of a fist against the cottage door brought Elizabeth to the edge of her chair. Her heartbeat echoed the urgent pounding.

She’d waited hours for news, yet now that it had come, she wished it would go away.

She heaved her aching body out of her chair. With one fist pressed into her back, she lumbered to the door and opened it far enough to peek outside. The face peering at her was surrounded by a shock of red hair. She couldn’t remember the boy’s name but recognized him as one of Willie’s children.

“Got news about Uncle John,” he said breathlessly, clutching his side. He had likely run the whole distance from Elstow to Bedford to bring her the tidings.

With trembling hands she swung the door open. The cold darkness of the November dawn stepped inside with the boy. It took a grip on her belly and squeezed. She gasped with the intensity of it.

The boy greeted Mary, seated near the warmth of the hearth. Of the children, only Mary was awake at the early hour, or perhaps she’d never gone to sleep. She was sure Mary sensed something had happened, although neither of them had talked about it.

The boy didn’t wait for an invitation, nor did he think to render his message gently. “Uncle John’s been arrested. He’s gonna be transferred to the Bedford gaol today.”

Elizabeth’s stomach tightened again. ’Twas what she’d feared but prayed would never happen. Her thoughts raced back to the last time John had been taken in. He’d been released then. Was there a chance he could go free now too?

“Is it for sure, then?”

“As sure as the cock crows.”

Another sharp pain clenched her like a chain and pulled tighter and tighter until she couldn’t breathe.

“Here tell they got all manner of charges against him.” The boy eyed the bread and cheese on the table. “He ain’t gonna get out of them this time.”

Elizabeth bit her lip to keep from groaning—whether from the news or the painful cinching around her middle, she wasn’t sure.

“My father wanted me to make sure yer okay before I head back home.”

Elizabeth nodded, unable to speak through the pain. She’d had a few contractions from time to time, but nothing like this. Surely she ought not to have them so quick and hard. The babe was not due for two months.

“Have a fill of bread and cheese,” she managed. A chill crawled through her with such force she shuddered at its violence. She clutched her back and fell to her knees. A cry slipped from her lips before she could hold it back.

“Mother!” Mary screamed.

The boy rushed to her.

A wet trickle made a trail down her legs—the birthing waters escaping from her womb where there should be none—at least none yet. Panic rose up within her.

“Is everything okay?” the lad asked.

She shook her head, and her belly began to constrict again. “Go get Sister Norton.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and he ran to the door.

She heard Mary banging into benches and knocking things over in her haste to get to her. She ought to pray, but she had an overwhelming feeling of being abandoned—by both God and John. She thought she had done everything right. She had labored to please them, had worked to earn their approval, had desired their love. But somehow, whatever she had done had not been enough.

They had left her anyway.

* * *

John had broken his nose often enough in the past to know it was broken again. Cracked ribs, bruises, cuts—his body ached just as it had during the war after he’d been wounded. When he’d told the gathering at Samsell that he would face whatever God ordained, he hadn’t anticipated Wingate would beat him senseless.

He wouldn’t change the decision he’d made to stay and preach. But the more time he had to think about what lay before him, the empty days, the separation from his family—the more he wished he could go back and change time and be with them, even if just for a day.

Wingate turned him back over to the constable and ordered him taken to Bedford and locked in the gaol. They’d only just started down the road when Brother Smythe and Brother Wheeler arrived breathless from Bedford, having heard the news of his arrest. They convinced the constable to return with them to Harlington House, certain they could do something to gain John’s release.

Even though they were Puritans, they were too wealthy and prestigious for Wingate to ignore. He allowed them into his office, while John waited with the constable in the dark hallway.

John leaned against the wall, trying not to put any pressure against the burning cut in his back.

At the clomp of approaching footsteps, he straightened.

The man lifted his candle and revealed his face. It was William Foster.

“What? John Costin?” His voice was so amiable that an observer would have thought him pleasantly surprised to find John there. “Why, John, what are you doing here? I suppose you’ve gotten yourself in trouble again?”

John eyed him warily. Did Foster think him an ignorant sot? “You know why I’m here, Foster.”

The man’s face widened with feigned innocence, but the light of the candle gleamed against a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Have you finally gotten caught at one of your unlawful meetings?”

“Last I knew there was no law against meeting together to edify one another with God’s Word.”

“Oh, but there is. Haven’t you heard of the Acts of Elizabeth, specifically the statute of ’35?”

John glared at the man. The Acts of Queen Elizabeth? Was Foster so desperate as to stoop to unearthing ancient, outdated laws to persecute him?

“The law states that all who refuse to attend public worship in their parish churches will be subject to fines. And those who resort to a gathering of five or more shall be imprisoned until they submit. If they refuse to submit, then they are to be banished from the realm.”

“If it is a sin to meet together to seek the face of God and exhort one another to follow Christ, then I shall continue to be a sinner.”

“But, John,” said Foster, as if talking to an old friend, “don’t you think you can seek God’s face at the parish church? Have you received a gift so far above others that you cannot come to the public worship like everyone else to hear the Divine Service?”

“I’m as willing to be taught as to teach, and I look upon it as my duty to do both.”

“Now, John, you know no man ought teach or preach Christ’s Gospel unless he is sent forth by the bishop and Parliament.”

“The epistle of Peter encourages everyone to minister as he has received the gift.”

“You, a lowborn, uneducated man have been given the gift of tinkering.” His tone was quickly losing all pretense of friendliness. “You’re a nothing, a nobody, and should not presume to be more than you are.”

“God’s gifting does not depend upon man’s prestige. One need only look at Scripture to see that the Lord often works through humble
nobodies
.”

Foster passed his candle to the constable, who stood nearby. He made a move as if to walk away, but instead reeled back and swung his knuckle into John’s eye.

The pain and force threw John against the wall. The impact against the open flesh on his back took his breath away.

“I should have had the men finish you off earlier,” Foster snarled. All efforts at pleasantries vanished like the mirage they had been. “Maybe I ought to put an end to your miserable life right now.”

He took another swing, but John raised his arms and deflected the blow. He grabbed Foster’s fist and twisted the man’s hand like a piece of tin. Foster grunted and struggled against him, but John squeezed harder. He wanted nothing more than to inflict pain on this man who had hurt Elizabeth and nearly killed her.

Foster’s breath came in short huffs, and the stench of it assaulted John.

He took a step back and dropped Foster’s hand. The snake deserved a beating like the one he’d given the wet nurse. But John would not be the one to give it.

Foster stumbled backward.

“I refuse to do anything that might dishonor the Lord or wrong my own soul,” John said.

The look in Foster’s eyes was venomous. “I might not be able to kill you now. But someday I will take great pleasure in seeing you stretched by the neck, drawn and quartered.” He retrieved his candle. “In the meantime, I will make sure you rot in prison.”

* * *

Day turned into night and night into day. Elizabeth couldn’t tell when one ended and another began. At times the labor pains made her delirious, and at other times she slept with utter exhaustion. Different women came and went, always with the same anxious looks, all with the same words: “The baby is coming too early.”

She wanted to scream at them to go away. She didn’t need help. She was a strong woman and would make it on her own.

But she knew she could die on her bed giving birth to her babe. She had watched her mother die that way.

“It’s been a full week.”

Elizabeth heard the whispers as though her mind were no longer attached to her body. Someone pressed a cool rag to her forehead and forced sips of water into her mouth.

“We need to do something today,” came another urgent whisper.

The hushed voices argued around her.

When the labor pains began again, she knew that something was different. It took her a moment to realize the women had raised her into a sitting position and tied her hands to the bed frame. It took only another moment for her to realize why.

Intense agonizing pain ripped her body into two. She screamed with the little energy that remained. The torture burned, and she wrenched upward trying to free herself from the midwife who had forced her hand inside and groped for the babe. The ripping pain made her nearly delirious. Hands shoved on her womb from the outside. She screamed again and writhed with the agony.

“Push now, Elizabeth,” the midwife commanded. “Push hard.”

Elizabeth strained against the ropes and gasped for air. Darkness wavered through a dizzying haze. She suddenly longed for oblivion, where she would find relief from the torture.

“Stay with us, Elizabeth.” Sister Norton’s voice spoke gently near her ear. The woman’s cool hands smoothed Elizabeth’s hair away from her face. “It’s almost over, you poor, poor dear.”

“Push!” the midwife demanded.

“You can do this, my dear,” Sister Norton urged. “You
must
do this to live.”

Elizabeth roused all of the strength left inside her. A hoarse scream filled the air around her, too inhuman to be hers.

The command to push came over and over, until she was listless with the effort. Then finally, with one last excruciating effort, it was over, and she sank into darkness.

* * *

John paced the length of the dayroom of the gaol. Eight steps up. Eight steps back.

Two prisoners sat on a bench against the wall, and their eyes followed him back and forth. Two others sat at a small oaken table in one corner near the hearth. They tagged laces and pretended not to watch him.

John had given up trying to sit three days ago. Now he was going crazy.

The clanging of the locks on the gates outside the gaol stopped him midstride.

“Someone’s a-comin’,” said one of the prisoners on the bench, the one who’d been in the gaol the longest and didn’t have front teeth. He’d lost them to scurvy. John prayed he’d be out before the same fate could befall him.

John held up a hand for everyone to be quiet. If they listened carefully, they would be able to hear the visitor enter a second locked door and then gain entry to the building.

“It’s gots to be for yous.” The prisoner spoke again, even though John scowled at him to be quiet. “Yous gets all the visitors.”

John wanted news of Elizabeth more than he wanted his life. He prayed this time they’d finally tell him she was safe. He didn’t care anymore whether the baby lived or died. He just wanted Elizabeth to live.

After the creaking and groaning of more locks, John heard voices in the long hallway—and one of them belonged to Gibbs.

The restoration of the monarchy had been hard on his old friend. His congregation had been forced out of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Newport Pagnell, and he’d lost his living as rector.

As the gaoler’s shuffling footsteps neared the dayroom, John’s body tightened like a hangman’s noose. Heavy keys clanked in the lock, and as the door swung wide, the old gaoler offered him a kind smile.

He led John to the small room that sufficed as an office, a plain room, void of all but a desk, chair, and a few crates.

“Take as long as you need, John.” The gaoler’s look was one of sympathy, one that set John at further unease. He nodded his thanks and then turned to Gibbs, whose eyes widened at the sight of him.

“You look terrible.”

He still suffered from the bruises of Wingate’s beating. But worse was the grime after just one week. He didn’t doubt he looked as bad as he felt. He was equally certain he stunk. He was only just beginning to tolerate the stench. It permeated the men’s cell, which was unheated and dark, save for a small window in the door and a few small holes near the ceiling. It was only three feet wide and six feet long, affording him and the other prisoners little room to maneuver or stretch out at night. If it had ever been cleaned, it wasn’t in his lifetime.

He was grateful for mornings when the gaoler would unlock the cell and allow them into the men’s dayroom, where they could stretch their stiff, numb limbs. The dayroom was small and dirty too, but at least it was heated by a fireplace and had a barred window that afforded light. With the onset of winter, neither the heat nor the light seemed sufficient, but it was something.

The news of his arrest had spread rapidly. Friends had visited him to bring him paper and ink, along with a change of clothes and food. Even though the prison rations were meager—bread, cheese, onion, and suet pudding—he’d had no appetite.

Gibbs held out a small crock. “It’s stew. From Sister Wilson.”

John ignored the outstretched hand. “How’s Elizabeth?”

Gibbs hesitated and then placed the crock on the desk.

“Is she alive?”

His friend nodded but avoided his gaze.