The Queen's Lady (60 page)

He had watched and despaired. Then, one morning he had read a letter, cautiously circulated, from an Anabaptist preacher in Münster. It told of the wonders that had occurred in that city. A group of Anabaptists led by a Dutchman named Matthias—called The Prophet by his followers, the letter said—had won the people’s support over both the Catholic overlords and the rich Lutheran merchants. Christian brothers and sisters in Münster were now free to follow the Inner Word. Equals in the sight of the Lord, they shared all things communally. Violence and enslavement to priests and princes were mere memories of the barbarous Old Ways. In the letter the preacher had invited all believers to join them:

He who seeketh his everlasting salvation, let him forsake all worldly goods, and let him with wife and with children come unto us here to the New Jerusalem
.

Hermann had thrilled to the words as if to a call from God himself.

The wagon lumbered up the mound and Hermann turned to the compact, sharp-featured woman on the seat beside him, his wife, Alma. She was squinting at a plume of thick smoke rising straight ahead beyond the hill.

“Of course, she may want to go on,” Hermann said, picking up the conversation with his wife that had been interrupted by the horse’s reluctance. “To Cologne, or Strassburg.”

The couple had been talking, as they often did, about the quiet young Englishwoman who rode behind in the covered part of the wagon. She had arrived on their doorstep a month ago asking for Klaus, their grown-up son. Klaus had once helped fleeing English Protestants settle in Amsterdam, and Hermann discovered from the lady through cautious questioning—he had learned to be very careful when speaking about religion—that she had organized those escapes. A remarkable accomplishment.

“Klaus lives in Deventer now,” Hermann had told her, proud of his son. “He married and moved there a year ago.” Hermann had spoken to the young lady in English, a tongue he had mastered well enough from conversing with the immigrants Klaus used to bring around for a meal; the lady seemed to know only a smattering of Dutch and German.

The news about Klaus had appeared to bewilder her.

“Have you no other friends here?” Hermann had asked, concerned, for she had looked very pale and adrift. But Klaus, it seemed, was the only name she knew in Amsterdam. “I wish I could help you,” Hermann had said, “but my wife and I are just about to leave the city ourselves.”

The young lady had nodded silently and turned away from their door. Hermann and Alma had watched her wander like a lost child into the busy street, a horseman cursing her as she drifted across his path. Alma had run after her, and when the Deurvorsts left Amsterdam they took the young Englishwoman with them.

“But I hope she’ll stay with us,” Hermann said as he watched the horse’s tail swish flies off its bony rump. “I’m afraid she couldn’t look after herself.”

“I’ve told her she’s welcome as long as she wants,” Alma said. “Heaven knows she’s no trouble. She eats almost nothing. And her needlework will fetch good money in Münster. I’ve never seen such fine handiwork as she turns out day and night. Though I’ve told her over and over, ‘Don’t strain your eyes.’ But she says she’s contented working. Poor soul. With a baby coming, too.”

Hermann shrugged philosophically. Both he and his wife had given up trying to encourage the young woman to speak of herself. She sewed in silence and helped Alma with the household tasks without complaint, but she also spent long periods staring into candle flames, and Hermann knew her heart was weighed down with some secret sorrow. “Well, whatever her trials,” he said brightening, “she accepts them with meekness. That pleases God. She’ll be alright.”

His wife nodded, but absently, for she was peering again at the far-off black smoke. It rose in an undisturbed column into the blazing blue sky.

“What could it be?” she muttered. It was too thick to be the smoke of a household chimney, and though they had passed a few stumps of burned-out castles hulking on hillsides, the legacy of the savage Peasant’s War nine years before, they had seen no recent signs of violence. Nor had they heard any reports of trouble. But, then, they heard no news at all, for they passed through villages without stopping, and camped alone; it was the wish of the Prophet Matthias, stated in the letter, that God’s Elect should distance themselves from the heathen world.

The wagon continued to creak up the incline. When it reached the top, Hermann’s eyes widened. He stopped the horse. Alma held her breath at the sight.

“Praise God,” Hermann whispered.

On the plain before them the walls of Münster stood shining under the noonday sun. The black column of smoke rose up from behind the city. A scout was galloping toward them, enveloped in a swirling cloud of white dust.

The young scout led the wagon to the closed western gate, and Hermann and Alma gazed up with open mouths. The city walls were lined with hundreds of people crowding and craning down at them. Some clutched scythes and pitchforks. There seemed to be many more women than men. Despite the large number of people there was an eerie, overwhelming silence.

“Who goes there?” a voice shouted from a tower.

“Brethren from Amsterdam, so they claim,” the scout shouted back.

The thousand eyes stared down. No one moved.

The scout, waiting, nervous, whispered to Hermann from the corner of his mouth, “God must be watching over you, Brother. Incredible that the enemy didn’t see you.”

“Enemy?” Hermann asked, astounded. He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. The scout’s dialect was difficult to follow.

“The Prince-Bishop’s army,” the scout said.

“But we saw no soldiers,” Hermann protested. “We saw no one!”

“I believe you. The question is”—he nodded to the staring multitude on the walls—“will they?”

Someone called out, “Here comes The Prophet!”

The crowd shuffled and parted. A wizened man dressed in gray robes limped to the edge of the wall. His long beard was striped black and gray, his face sour as a crab-apple. At his side walked a lean, handsome young man with yellow hair. He was clothed in sky blue silk, and rings sparkled on his fingers. He was smiling. But the old man glowered down at the wagon as if ready to hurl thunderbolts upon it.

As the throng waited for the Prophet’s response, Honor stepped down from the back of the wagon. She wore a simple white dress of Alma’s, and sunlight glinted off her loosened hair. She looked up at the walls and blinked in the sun’s glare after the gloom of the wagon.

At that moment the pounding of hooves made the thousand watching eyes snap up. A white horse, saddled but riderless, plunged across the mound in the distance behind Honor, then disappeared. The old man on the wall clutched his chest and lurched backwards. “It is a sign!” he croaked. “The Heavenly Father speaks to His Prophet! ‘Behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death.’ ”

He stared down at the intruders. “The Heavenly Father will have none but the Pure, none but the Elect, in His city!” His skeletal finger homed in on Honor.

The thousand eyes narrowed.

“She is our sister!” the Prophet cried. “The Lord has led her through the valley of the shadow of death! Let them enter!”

The gate rumbled open.

Honor walked into the city after the wagon and looked up, dumbfounded. People were cheering from the walls as if for a conquering hero. Laughing men and women swarmed the wagon and pulled it forward. There were shouts of, “Welcome, Sisters! Welcome, Brother!” A girl tossed down a garland.

Honor heard Hermann breathlessly call to the scout who rode alongside. “Was that really the great Prophet Matthias?”

“In the flesh,” said the scout exultantly. “He brought us our miracle.”

“Miracle?”

As the wagon was led through the cheering streets the scout explained. For months, he said, Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldeck, overlord of the territory before the righteous revolution, had been massing an army of mercenaries several miles from the city. That very morning the Prince-Bishop had finally attacked the eastern gates. The Münsterites had swarmed out and, with God on their side, the scout said, had inflicted dreadful casualties. They had beaten back the soldiers, and the Prince-Bishop’s armored knights had thundered away in humiliating retreat, leaving scores of their men writhing and dying on the plain at the eastern side of the city. To the west, though, where the Deurvorsts had come from, there was no sign of the carnage. All this had happened not more than two hours before.

Amid the clamor Hermann strained sideways to follow the fantastic story. “You fought?” he asked, as though trying to grasp it. Honor wondered, as well. Anabaptists were forbidden to bear the sword.

“And won!” the scout grinned, kicking his horse forward.

Everywhere, people rushed out of doorways with greetings, gifts of sausages, wineskins. Men, women and children danced around the wagon, singing psalms, ecstatic at their deliverance from the might of the enemy and thrilled at the sign of God’s favor embodied in the innocent newcomers.

The Deurvorsts’ wagon was brought to the broad market square. The square was flanked by the cathedral and the former Prince-Bishop’s palace. Hermann and Alma climbed down from the wagon and joined Honor in acknowledging the onion-breath embraces of women. The horse and wagon were led away.

A lieutenant in an iron helmet stalked over. His crooked nose appeared to have been broken more than once. “Brother, are you and your family re-baptized?” He looked Honor up and down, skeptically.

“Of course!” Hermann declared, beaming.

“Well,” the lieutenant grunted, “the preachers will check your story. Meanwhile,” he jerked a thumb at the cathedral, “your family will be billeted there.”

“Billeted?” Hermann asked, startled. “In a church?”

“We’ve had hundreds of you refugees tramp here. Dutch, German, even some Spaniards. There’s more of you than us. Now,” he said gruffly, “you must give over your purse. All goods are held in common here. The Elders”—he pointed across the square to a dozen well-dressed men standing at the door of the palace, the sour-faced Prophet and the yellow-haired young man among them—“they hold the treasury in trust until God can claim His own.” He held out a dirty palm, waiting.

“Gladly, gladly, Brother,” Hermann laughed. Quickly, he pulled three small purses of coins from his clothes. His face was flushed with excitement as he dropped the money into the lieutenant’s hand. He smiled at his wife. “All goods held in common, Alma. Isn’t it wonderful? The New Jerusalem. It’s all we hoped it would be.”

Alma did not answer. She was watching their savings disappear into the lieutenant’s tunic. His grunt was the only receipt he offered before marching away.

Honor distractedly felt for the small bulge of coins tucked inside her underskirt. The brothel owner who had hidden her in Southwark and the ship’s master who had carried her to Amsterdam had both demanded exorbitant sums, and although the Deurvorsts had refused any payment from her, this small purse was the last of her money. She must hold on to it.

Hermann looked around them, his smile undimmed, then said to Alma, “The scout who brought us in, my dear, his dialect was so thick, and what with all this noise I must have misunderstood what he said. These good people rejoicing cannot be fighters.”

Horns blasted. Drums rattled. Honor and the Deurvorsts joined the excited people higher on the cathedral steps and looked out, unsure of what was happening. A bent old woman poked Honor’s rib and cackled, “The victory celebration. You interrupted it.”

There were shouts and cheers as grimy but smiling soldiers marched into the square. They were followed by a black clump of preachers, then a procession of rowdy, costumed actors. At the palace doors the twelve elders stood in a line and looked on approvingly.

The actors cavorting at the rear of the parade were parodying the princes of the Church. One, dressed as the Pope, was strapped at the waist to a hurdle, and a long carrot was jammed in his mouth. Then came a wheeled platform carrying fat cardinals counting money bags, and leering saints who swiped at women’s breasts. The crowd roared with laughter. The platform was hauled by six sweating, manacled prisoners in harness.

Hermann was distressed by the obvious misery of the prisoners. He plucked the sleeve of the cheering old woman, “Who are they?” he asked, pointing.

“Captives?” Alma asked anxiously.

“No,” the old woman said. She spat into the dust. “They’re the scum among us. Drunkards. Fornicators. Filth.”

A band of teenage boys burst through the crowd. With ropes they were dragging a life-sized, painted wooden image of a saint. In the distance behind them the black column of smoke that Alma had noticed earlier could still be seen billowing outside the walls.

“That’s St. Mauritz’s,” the old woman winked, following Alma’s gaze. “Up in smoke!” She laughed.

The boys dragged their church booty facedown like a prisoner, making its rigid feet carve channels in the white dust. People formed a circle around them. One of the boys straddled the statue, raised his dagger, plunged it into the saint’s eye and gouged out wood pulp.

Honor shuddered. Her vision blurred. She closed her eyes and saw the narrow roof on London Bridge again, saw the arrow ripping into Thornleigh’s eyesocket, saw him fall. His blood pooled crimson on the backs of her eyelids. She felt for the step and sat, shivering.

From the crowd two men rushed forward with swords to attack the statue. They hewed off its arms, then its head. A woman scurried out clutching a kitchen knife and hacked at the trunk in a frenzy to destroy the hidden genitals. The crowd clapped and stomped.

“Good God,” Hermann whispered.

There was a thunder of moving feet. Honor opened her eyes. The crowd was rushing to the edge of the cathedral close where the six manacled prisoners were being tied to the lime trees.

“Sinners!” a woman shrilled.

As a dozen guards armed with muskets filed in front of the prisoners, the Prophet Matthias climbed the cathedral steps. His arms flew up. The guards aimed at the captives. The crowd hushed.

“‘And all the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,’ ” the Prophet intoned. “God will have nothing unclean in his city. He will have a holy people to praise His name!” He dropped one arm in a chopping signal. The guards fired. The prisoners slumped dead over their ropes. The people cheered.