The Queen's Lady (26 page)

“But you are a layman,” she said. “Surely only the Church is empowered to interrogate.”

“Oh, no. The law gives authority to lay officials to help interrogate suspects, in the company of clergymen of course. The anti-Lollard statutes are quite clear on the point.”

“So,” she said numbly. “You questioned him.”

“And charged him.”

“With what?”

More gave her a startled smile, as though the answer was obvious. “English Bibles? Heresy, of course.” He fed the hyena. “His replies were shocking.”

“You found him guilty?”

“Yes.”

“And he recanted?”

More nodded. “Most of them do, you know.” He crossed back to her side of the aisle, opened the ocelot’s cage, and tossed in some meat. The frantic cat pounced on it. “They are not keen to die for their fantasies if they can escape the fire by perjuring themselves. Pym evaded us that time.”

“What then?”

“Well, I had a feeling about that fellow,” he said, watching the animal eat. “I’ve seen his kind before. A relapsed heretic is like a dog returning to its vomit. I knew he’d slip.”

Honor felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She was piecing the story together. He had said a moment ago that he had given his bailiff a bonus. “So, you set Holt to track him,” she said almost to herself.

He nodded. “And I was right. Not three weeks later Holt caught him in a dockside tavern rattling heresy to a rabble of lousels. Hectoring them, like a hag in her cups, that the miracle of transubstantiation is the Church’s lie. Holt snatched his arm before the ale even reached his lips.”

“And took him . . . to the Bishop’s prison?” She dreaded to hear him contradict her.

“No, here.” He gave a quick snort of satisfaction. “Sitting in my lockup he wasn’t so keen to babble his blasphemies, I can tell you.”

Honor had to force down a swell of nausea. Ralph had been chained here, at Chelsea! Mauled by Holt! She took a deep breath to steady herself. “What did he say at the second interrogation?”

“Nothing.” The wry, good humor drained from More’s face. “Pym was a hard man. Hard and stubborn. Absolutely refused to talk, though I kept him in my lockup for weeks. Oh, he muttered some insolence about his convictions belonging to himself alone. Then, not a word more.”

“What more did you want?”

“Answers. About the printer of the Bibles. About his contacts in Coventry. About the hive of heretics—the so-called Brethren—that infest Coleman Street. But he uttered not a syllable.”

“Not even in his own defense?”

More gave her a look of gentle admonishment. “Child, there
is
no defense. The Church, once struck, may turn her other cheek, but if that other cheek is smitten she must protect herself.” He added pedantically, “On the penalty for a relapsed heretic the law of 1401,
De heretico comburendo
, is unequivocal.”

“Death by burning,” Honor whispered. Her heart had contracted in her chest, a cold ball of steel. “And Holt’s testimony was all your proof?”

“Holt’s and his brother’s,” More answered, scooping out the last scraps of fat to the gorging ocelot. “I would have preferred the corroboration of a more sober man than the brother, but it sufficed. In heresy cases the law requires two witnesses.”

“The law,” she whispered, trembling. Disgust was funneling up into her throat. It spewed out, uncontrolled. “How can you talk of a law that murders justice? You, who taught me to revere the law! You, who trumpet the goodness of equity, of the judge’s duty to temper harsh laws with clemency. How can you praise the law when it is used to cut down good men and destroy them?”

More looked up, clearly astonished. “For heaven’s sake, child, the man was a colporteur of banned books. True, in civil law where only handfuls of coins are at stake a judge may exercise clemency. But we talk here of
souls
. Pym was a heretic, far more dangerous than any thief or murderer.”

“Dangerous?” she breathed, incredulous. “For encouraging people to read for themselves the word of God?”

Abruptly, he shut the ocelot’s cage. His voice became stern. “The word of William Tyndale, you mean—a clean contrary thing.”

“But it is scripture still. How can you kill people for reading scripture?”

For several moments he only stared at her. “Naturally, after the death of a childhood friend,” he said tightly, as if to remind himself, “you are distraught. Also, I must not forget that you, of course, are not familiar with Tyndale’s wickedness.” His voice became calm again, like that of a patient teacher. “Let me uncover to you some of his errors. His translation—”

“I don’t care about that. It’s
your
wickedness I have uncovered!” She took a step to leave, but he moved in front of her to block her way. She was trapped between the cages. “Let me pass,” she cried.

But he would not. “I understand your grief,” he said steadily, “but I cannot allow you to continue on in ignorance of the blasphemies of these men. Hear what abominations Tyndale has written, for God’s sake. The Greek word ‘presbyter’ he has rendered not as ‘priest’ but as ‘elder’—as if any old man may dispense the sacraments. With this alone he blasts away fifteen hundred years of the ascendancy of the priesthood. He translates ‘ecclesia’ not as ‘church’—our Holy Mother Church—but as ‘congregation.’ As if Holy Communion were an idle gathering of friends. Worse, for ‘penance’ he substitutes mere ‘repentance.’ The church has always, everywhere, demanded that sinners
do penance
, but Tyndale tells us that if we will only repent in our hearts, God is satisfied. Don’t you see? These are the lies that Pym was spreading.”

“I see that you killed him for splitting hairs!” Her voice rose, shrill, choked with disbelief. “For quibbles over words.” Again, she tried to push past him. His arms shot out, stretching to the cage tops of either side of her and pinning her to the spot.

“Quibbles?” he cried. “Girl, you know not what you say.” He reined in his shock, but his arms still barred her way. “I grant that an English Bible may not be a bad thing in itself. But if such a book were someday to be made, it must be authorized by the Church, and its translation undertaken by learned men. This reckless, individual, headlong search for God in the maze of scripture lures men into appalling error. All the heretics, Lutheran and Lollard and Anabaptist alike, wail that salvation comes only from the Bible—
‘sola scriptura
,’ they cry—but it is a Bible interpreted by their own perverted minds.”

“If interpretation is what this bloodshed is over,” she snapped, “then who is to say which mind is perverted? Could it be your own?”

She saw that she had stunned him. She was glad.

“Look at Erasmus,” she cried. “He is as learned a man as you, and he welcomes a vernacular Bible. He wishes learning were more common, so that scripture could be read by every fisherman and plowboy. Even by Turks and whores.”

“My old Dutch friend is often swept away in his enthusiasms,” More said sourly. “No. I tell you, it is Holy Church which instructs Christians how to live, not the Bible. Christians could be pure in their faith even if the Bible had never been written. Doctrine has passed
orally
from one generation to the next, through Holy Mother Church, God’s instrument on earth. ‘
Quod semper, quod ubique, quod omnibus
.’ ‘What has been believed always, everywhere, and by all.’ Tradition. Founded by the Apostles and continuing, unbroken, to the present day. Christ founded a church. He did not write a book!”

“Unbroken tradition?” she blinked. “Listen to yourself. The Church was in schism for decades, with three Popes at one time. The Greek Church, with millions of believers, is
still
schismatic. And doctrine
has
changed. The command for circumcision withdrawn . . . dietary laws . . . the formula of baptism . . . even the teaching of the immaculate conception of the Virgin . . . all modified.”

More’s smile was indulgent. “Your knowledge of the decrees of the Church’s general councils does you credit. I am glad that your studies here were not in vain. And the supremacy of those councils is the very point I wish to impress on you. You see, the Church resolves her crises
internally
, in councils that represent all Christendom, just as in secular government Parliament decides for the realm. To let every individual decide changes in doctrine—or in law—is worse than madness.”

Pinned between the cages she found she was shaking. She was furious at his power to hold her, furious at her own impotence to smash through his complacency.

But he seemed to read her silence as a sign that her hysteria was spent. “That’s right,” he said gently, “listen to reason.” He removed his hands from the cage tops, though his body still blocked her way. He smiled. “Goodness, what would happen if I let every coarse fellow who grumbled against a judgment in the law courts traipse into my library and rummage through my legal books until he found a word or phrase to exonerate him from the law’s penalties? Well, the heretics do just that. They catch at a word or a phrase from Holy Scripture, hoping it will release them from their duty to God. But the Church has ruled, and Christians must obey.”

His eyes shone with a sincerity that she had seen countless times in the exuberant discussions that had been the joy of her life here, eyes that beckoned her to follow into the trimmed and sheltered lanes of accepted belief. But her mind screamed that these convincing words were spoken by the man who had murdered Ralph, and she bled inside as belief and rationality tore at each other, ravaging her heart. “Obey,” she repeated hollowly.

“Yes,” he smiled. “It is our duty.”

“And if I dare to question, will you burn me too?”

His smile vanished. “Do not mock, child,” he said with chilling firmness. “A great principle of authority is at stake here. If ignorant people root through the Bible for the answers they want, they call the Church false. They spark the fuse of sedition, for the Church is an essential pillar and prop of the social order. Never forget that without the Church, there is anarchy.”

“And with the Church, apparently, there is carnage,” she spat. “But have you not heard, sir? Christ told St. Peter to lay up his sword.”

His mouth twitched. “I have no taste for this juvenile sermon. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, as you well know, instruct us that Christian princes must punish heretics by terrible death, for the survival of the faith and for the preservation of peace among their subjects. Heretics are the enemies of law and order.”

“But Christ bade us forgive our enemies! Are you more wise than Christ?”

“Christ,” he answered evenly, “could not imagine the depths of sin and degradation to which our world would sink. He could not have foreseen the present crisis. If we now let the Church be torn to pieces by mad dogs like Luther and Tyndale we will all topple into chaos. And from chaos, straight into hell.”

The fear kindling in his eyes dismayed her, frightened her. She wanted only to be away from him. Slowly, she took several shaky steps backwards between the cages. “I know nothing of what Luther has written,” she said, “but surely even so lunatic a man could not desire the end of the world.”

“He will wreak it nonetheless. He raves that people can be saved by faith alone—
sola fide
—even if they live wicked lives. What does this do but open the cave to let out roaring anarchy? What man will be constrained from doing wrong unless he dreads the punishments of hell? What man will strive to do right unless he hungers for the rewards of heaven? And who shall decide what is right and what is wrong? Shall a man refuse to obey the laws of Church and realm because of some paltry dictate of his individual conscience?”

Stepping backwards, she thudded against the wall. “But can there be no rational inquiry?” she gaped. “Is the Church assured in every detail?”

“We do not talk of
details
. Luther rants that man has no free will. And people in the thousands follow him. To negate free will is to blame God for man’s sins.” He had stepped after her into the narrow corridor between the cages and was moving toward her. Honor flattened her back against the wall. More stopped in front of her. They were standing almost breast to breast. “You must understand the gravity of this. If man has no free will to choose good over bad, piety over blasphemy, chastity over lewdness, then he is no better than the animals. But, of course, lewdness and licentiousness are Luther’s gospel. What else can we expect from a lecherous monk who defiles his sacred vows of chastity to marry a nun? He makes Holy Church his brothel!”

He searched her face as though appealing to her to share in his horror. But the horror she felt was only for him. She could not mask it; did not want to mask it. She saw that it wounded him, and she was glad.

“I fear you are obsessed with this Pym,” he said. “His death has twisted your heart. You must forget him. You say he was your friend, but you should know that he had other friends of the most evil sort. He was part of a criminal ring with cells in London, Coventry, Norwich, Lincoln. I myself led a raid on the warehouse of one of their leaders, a merchant in Coleman Street.”

Her breath snagged in her throat. Sydenham. “You!”

“Heaped with tracts and banned Bibles the place was,” More said, “and over them, men and women alike swooning like witches at Satan’s own coventicle. And all led by a mad disciple of Tyndale’s named Frish.”

My God
, she thought.
Brother Frish saved me that night . . . from you!

“And this heretic merchant—friend of your beloved Pym, mind—is nothing but another of Luther’s lecherous pimps. I kept him for some weeks in my lockup, and you would have been revolted had you heard his testimony.”

Honor could scarcely believe it. Was Sydenham the prisoner she had heard Holt prodding along that morning after her swim? She’d heard them go by outside the garden wall. Had he been going to his interrogation in the house? She remembered that she had seen the Bishop’s barge tethered at the pier. Had Sydenham’s Church court judges been the Bishop . . . and Sir Thomas?

As if to confirm it, More said, “The wretch actually declared to Bishop Tunstall and me that God would be better served if priests were allowed to marry.”