The Queen's Lady (27 page)

Honor saw in her mind the rotund Sydenham and his gaunt wife. She remembered the moment of high alarm during the raid when they had reached out to touch one another, a touch that both begged, and offered, comfort—a touch that symbolized their bond as man and wife. She felt tears welling, felt her vision blurring, her strength ebbing. “Perhaps,” she murmured, “because he finds happiness in marriage . . .”

“Because he lusts! And rather than confess his sin, he mangles the words of Christ so that he may wallow in the filth of that lust!”

Honor could not tell if he was speaking now of Sydenham, or Luther, or all mankind, so strange was the gleam in his eye.

“And at this very moment,” More said with disgust, “the heretic merchant lies in the Lollard’s Tower, still refusing to recant. Well, we’ll see how long he clings to his heresies when he smells the straw lit under him.”

Her hand flew to her mouth to muffle her cry. The muscles of her legs dissolved. She had to grab his shoulder to keep from falling. He caught her by the elbows and held her up.

“You
are
ill! Oh, forgive me for speaking so crudely, child. I wish you could go through life knowing nothing of such people, such depravity.”

She looked into his face. In his obvious anxiety for her welfare his gaze was ranging over her forehead, her cheek, her mouth, her throat. He was so close that she felt the heat of her own quick breaths reach his neck and then return to her. His fingers dug into the flesh of her arms. For a moment she had the irrational sensation that he was holding her this tightly in order to keep himself from falling.

He turned his head and stared for a moment at the shed’s open doorway, as if in need of the fresh air beyond. He looked back at her sharply, struck with a thought. “Pym had changed his name, did you say? Oh, child,” he warned, “beware any man who would hide behind a false name.”

With a sudden rush of fierceness she wrenched her arms free. “Ralph never hid behind anything in his life!” she flared, the tears finally spilling.

“He hid behind heresy. Hid behind silence. But in the end, God found him out.”

“It was not God who destroyed him, it was you! God would have seen Ralph’s
heart
. You see only words. Doctrine. Contraband. Authority. Sedition. You are the one who hides. You use words to blind yourself to the carnage you do. But tear away the words and what do you see? What have you done? Murder! The brutal torture and murder of a good man!”

She pushed past him and ran towards the door. Her hip crashed against a stack of empty cages and they clattered to the ground, frightening the animals. She burst out into the sunlight and ran down to the barge on the river with the shrieks and yowls of More’s creatures pursuing her.

14

H
onor stood at a window of the long gallery in the Marchioness of Exeter’s town house and watched the sun burn off the late morning mist above St. Paul’s across the street. She was exhausted. Her sleep had been deranged by nightmares, as black and turbid as if she had been drugged. After rising with leaden limbs, dressing, and tugging a comb through her hair, she had wandered from her room, meaning to join the Marchioness downstairs. But as she passed the gallery, its quiet had lured her in. She gazed out at the bustle around the cathedral, and gradually her mind awoke.

The scene before her shocked her in its normality. Pigeons flapped onto the roof of Paul’s Cross, the octagonal outdoor pulpit in the crook of the transept. Swallows wheeled around the great spire and the Lollard’s Tower. Activity hummed through the village of church buildings inside the cathedral’s walled enclosure: the Bishop’s palace, assaulted this morning by glaziers on a scaffold; the cemetery cloister, with visitors strolling in to view its famous painting of the Dance of Death; St. Paul’s school, where boys darted, as quick as fish, in and out of slamming doors. A gravedigger hustled his cart of bones over a path to the charnel house, and along Paul’s Walk the usual stream of Londoners flowed through the cathedral itself. Inside it, she knew, merchants would already be haggling over exchange rates and lawyers drumming up trade, all of them jostling with the whores and beggars and dogs.

She watched in wonder. How could the world go on as blithely as before? How could people bustle into the great nave to gossip and buy and sell as if nothing had changed. For her, nothing would ever be the same.

How she had deceived herself! How blind she had been in her hunger for vengeance. And how wrong. Every night for months as Ralph writhed before her she had sworn her vow against his murderer, certain it was the same man who had terrorized her father on his deathbed and then abducted her. She had hoarded her hatred like so much rope, coiling it and laying it up with such confidence to snare Father Bastwick.

And then Sir Thomas stepped into the trap. What was she to do? Spring her hatred on the man who had opened his house and heart to her, and opened her mind to the world?

There was a screech of female laughter. A moment later the Marchioness, an elegant woman in her forties, breezed into the far end of the gallery. Three ladies skittered after her gasping in the throes of mirth.

“Oh, you’re here!” the Marchioness called to Honor, still laughing. “No, no, don’t leave on our account, dear. In fact join us, if Primero is to your liking. Take Nell’s place,” she said, nodding toward a green-eyed beauty. “You’ll do the rest of us a favor—she’s far too wicked for such an early hour. That’s your ploy, isn’t it, Nell?” she called gaily to her friend. “With your naughty tongue a-wagging we can’t concentrate on our cards and you rake in your winnings.”

The green-eyed lady sauntered to the middle of the gallery. “Maybe that’s how the Earl’s son I was telling you about raked his stepmother into his bed,” she smiled. “I hear the fellow is possessed of a dexterous, cunning tongue, indeed.” The ladies shrieked with laughter. The Marchioness’s plump, younger sister had to hold onto her tall friend’s arm to keep from falling over.

Servants scurried in with a table, chairs, and trays of cold partridge and capon. Pages followed with cards and wine. The Marchioness’s friends, waiting out the bustle of assembly, strolled the gallery, chatting.

The Marchioness took Honor’s elbow. “It’s all arranged,” she whispered, her eyes glinting with mischief. She hurried through the plan that she hoped would help the Queen, her dear friend of twenty years and more. “Tonight, you’ll retire to the bedchamber next to mine, as you did last night, and in the morning I’ll tell the servants that you’ve come down with a fever and must not be disturbed.”

“And the doctor?”

“Yes, yes, his palm has been greased. He’ll make daily visits to his ‘patient,’ so Wolsey’s men—if they’re still watching the house—will assume you’re lying on your sickbed within.”

Honor nodded. She had devised the scheme herself; only the doctor’s acquiescence had been in question.

“Tonight,” the Marchioness went on, “you can slip out amongst the musicians with my manservant, Owen. Under a cloak, and carrying a viol case, you’ll look like one of them. Horses will be waiting at the Golden Dog, as you requested. You ride for Scotland at dawn. And take Owen. He’s a quiet, stoic old thing but he’s a fine swordsman.”

Honor thanked her. She was satisfied that the Marchioness had believed her story about carrying the Queen’s plea to the young Scottish King who was a staunch supporter of the papacy; it was safer for all that the Marchioness remain ignorant of her real mission. Now, everything was arranged. She was glad. She longed to be away from London. Away from England. Away from every sight connected with Sir Thomas More. Tomorrow’s dawn could not come soon enough.

“Come, ladies, Primero!” the Marchioness called, clapping her hands. “Help yourselves to wine, my dears, and I’ll begin the wagering with three crowns.” She winked at Honor, adding, “I feel lucky this morning.” And with much rustling of silk and clinking of glasses the ladies prepared to settle down to play.

Honor excused herself. There was still much to do to arrange the journey. She was passing the large, mullioned window when the rumble of a drum in the street made her turn. People were hurrying along Cheapside and crowding through Little Gate in the churchyard wall.

The green-eyed lady, curious, joined Honor at the corner of the window. “What is it, Mistress Larke? A robbery?”

“I know not, my lady,” Honor said, pulling the louvered wooden shutter farther open.

The lady raised her glass in the direction of the pulpit, and said, “Some fuss over there at Paul’s Cross.” Around the pulpit people were jostling and squeezing each other for seats in the wooden galleries between the cathedral buttresses.

The other ladies crowded in behind Honor, pressing against her back to see. Each had a theory about the commotion. The tall one, still engrossed in sorting her cards, said it must be a proclamation for the Maundy Thursday ceremonies. The Marchioness wondered if it was to be the funeral oration for the Earl of Pembroke’s mother who had died the week before of a flux. “No, look,” the Marchioness’s sister cried, pointing with a partridge wing.

A procession was turning the corner of the cathedral around the Lollard’s Tower. Bishop Tunstall walked at its head, followed by several church officials and a trio of mounted men. Behind them came a mule-drawn cart loaded with a jumble of books. At the tail of the cart walked seven barefoot men and women, penitents who had abjured their heresies. The penitents stumbled on in their shame, bearing faggots on their shoulders as a symbol of the fire they had been spared.

The Marchioness’s sister said brightly, “Oh, look, it’s a burning, too. They’re on their way to Smithfield.”

But Honor had already seen. Behind the seven penitents came a black workhorse dragging a hurdle. A man was strapped to it, facedown. He was half naked and barefoot. He wrenched his face onto his cheek and Honor sucked in a breath. Even at this distance she recognized the face of Humphrey Sydenham.

How thin he was! And how gray. Gray skin sagged over his ribs. Gray strands of filthy hair jerked in the breeze. Gray sockets rimmed his eyes. Honor stared, stunned by the realization of what he had done. He had refused to abjure. Captured by Sir Thomas, abused by Holt in the Chelsea lockup, imprisoned for months in the Lollard’s Tower, Sydenham had refused to give his tormentors the answers that would have saved him. He was going to burn for his beliefs.

The procession halted. Two of the Bishop’s men clambered up with shovels onto the cart of books and began pitching them out. The other officials banked the books into a mound as high as the mule’s neck. The crowd shuffled back to make room for the Bishop’s Archdeacon who was coming forward with a torch. He tossed it up onto the top of the pile. The books smoked, then burst into orange flames. The black horse lurched with sudden panic and someone had to restrain it.

While the books burned, Bishop Tunstall, splendid in gold miter and embroidered robes, climbed the spiral steps of the pulpit and began a sermon. The crowd politely ignored him, for all necks were craned toward a burly officer striding forward with a whip. It hung from his hand and trailed along the ground like a pet viper. He took a wide-legged stand before Sydenham on the hurdle and cracked the whip high in the air. The crowd hummed with admiration at his expertise.

“Now that’s a clever idea, to stop on the way,” a lady’s voice simpered over Honor’s shoulder. “Lets the common people hereabouts see some of the punishment.” She nibbled her partridge tidbit. “I mean, not every fellow can just drop his work and set off to Smithfield fairground.”

“Oh, a vast improvement,” the green-eyed lady laughed. “I’m sure the wretch who’s about to be whipped would agree. Maybe you could have him brought into your servants’ hall to provide a demonstration, Bess. A lesson in consequences for all sloppy maids and snot-nosed scullions.”

Surrounded by the women’s banter Honor lowered her head, unable to watch what was to come, unwilling to hear it. But their voices subsided, and the crowd across the street stilled, and when the sound came her ears could not escape it: the slash of leather raging over flesh. Once, twice, three times. She gritted her teeth until her jaws ached. Seven, eight, nine lashes. Ten!