The Heretic’s Wife (12 page)

He opened it carefully, his expression almost glowing as he turned the pages, commenting on how the language had changed and the rich pigments of the illuminations.

At least it would be with someone who appreciated it, she thought.

“I shall treasure it,” he said.

“I hope it does not bring you trouble.”

“It is the Word of God. It should be worth whatever it costs,” he said, handing her the money. Then, wrapping it back up, he said, “I’m sorry John is not here. Tell him that a shipment is due to arrive in Bristol Channel September third. It should be safe for him to meet it.”

She had not the inclination to say,
I cannot tell him because he isn’t coming back, and he wouldn’t meet your shipment if he could.
Instead she said, “His memory is bad since he came home. Just in case, give me exact details so I can answer if he asks.”

“Lord and Lady Walsh, in Little Sodbury. They will know where the goods will land as always. I will not be going. I fear my presence might put everyone in danger. My house is closely watched. But one of the other merchants, a man named Swinford, will be going. He went with us once before. Tell John that Swinford will leave from dockside at dawn on September first.”

“Swinford, Little Sodbury, dawn,” she repeated, as if she would really pass on the information.

He picked up the Bible and prepared to leave then turned back briefly. “Tell John to call on me when he feels inclined. I would talk with him. And don’t worry about the Wycliffe Bible. You know where it is should you want
it back at any time.” He inclined his head toward the little leather pouch she held in her hand. “That is but a rental fee. Perhaps you can use some of it to buy more inventory. I will merely hold the Bible for you until such a time as it is safe in England to have such a magnificent thing in your possession.”

When he had closed the door and left with the Bible, Kate felt an uncontrollable urge to cry and break something. But, alas, there was nothing left to break except her heart, and she was determined that should not happen. One broken heart in the family was quite enough. Besides, the ghost of an idea was forming in her mind.

September first. Little Sodbury. Swinford. Dawn.

New inventory.

But she had promised John. Was that promise binding now that he had abandoned the business? Abandoned her? What if she didn’t sell from the shop? She knew the customers who bought from them. She could call on them directly. Or she could change the name to Gough’s Stationer’s Shop—this would keep the letter of her promise, if not the spirit—and operate under the same license, and sell paper and quills and sealing wax and such, and Lutheran books with a wink and a nod to her old customers.

She was still scheming when she opened the door to the backroom print shop. The smashed press had been pushed to one corner of the room, where it hulked like some great squat beast, taunting her to action. Littering the floor in crumpled balls lay the reminders of her most recent endeavor. Kicking them aside with more force than necessary, she began to rummage in the storage closet until she found what she was looking for. Hanging on a peg behind a couple of old dried, cracked ink pads was a pair of men’s trousers, an old shirt, and one of John’s caps.

She had a week until September first, a week in which to contemplate the silly notion. It was a foolish fantasy, but at least the idea of such an adventure gave her something to think about besides the bleakness of her future. She wadded her hair into a ball and put the cap on her head. It felt like a perfect fit.

I was by good honest men informed that in Bristol there were of these pestilent books some thrown into the streets and left at men’s doors by night, that where they durst not offer their poison to sell, they would of their charity poison men for naught.

—S
IR
T
HOMAS
M
ORE
ON THE SMUGGLING OF
B
IBLES

J
ohn Frith lay in the dark, fighting the fatigue that threatened to sink him into blissful sleep, listening for the sound of a key turning in the lock. He recited Homer in his head as he’d done in the fish cellar to keep his mind working and alert, trying not to think of Clerke and Sumner dying in his arms, as they begged for water in the fetid cellar, trying not to think of the despair at the end. God had saved him from the fish cellar and that could only mean one thing. He had more work to do.

He’d forced himself to stay awake ever since the old nun left, trying to work out a plan. When none was forthcoming—he’d gone over in his head all the ways Ulysses had escaped his peril and none seemed adaptable to this situation—finally, he’d decided to just wrap the woolen blanket under his armpits and flee barefoot into the fresh, sweet-smelling air of the night. He’d worry about clothes once he was outside. Of course if the beadle were about, and he would almost surely be, he would be picked up soon enough as a
lunatic, in which case he could plead robbery, but that would land him in a magistrate’s residence giving witness and that was the last thing he needed. My mind is going in circles, he thought, longing for sleep.

For hours now, he’d heard only the snores and groans of his ward mates, punctuated by the creak of a wooden bed frame as some tormented soul thrashed about. When he was sure he could stay awake no longer, the chimes at midnight startled him to wakefulness. Shortly after, just as the old nun had said, the sound of keys jangling in the door made his heart race.

By the time the last chime had sounded, the porter had already lit two rush lights at each end of the ward and was collecting the first of the chamber pots; the clink of his bucket echoed down the ward. In the flickering light, the man was a bent shadow flitting between the beds.

The porter approached his cot and bent to retrieve the pot at the foot.

“Thank you,” Frith whispered to his back.

The man, a smallish, old man with a bent back, rose up and looked at him with a mixture of alarm and curiosity.

“You talking to me?”

“Yes, I just wanted to say thank you. It’s a very valuable service you perform.”

“Sorry to wake you,” the old man grunted.

“It’s good to be awake. That way I know I’m alive.”

The man stood up, holding the chamber pot in his arms, apparently unperturbed by its foul contents. He favored Frith with a toothless grin. “Never thought about it like that,” he said, and took a step toward Frith’s cot.

“Don’t come too close. I’ve had the sweating sickness,” Frith whispered.

“I beint worried about that. I’ve seen it all. Never caught anything yet. A man’s got to piss and a man’s got to eat. I carry out your piss, I get to eat.”

Frith smiled. “I never thought about it like that.”

Frith watched him as he collected the pot of his nearest neighbor. This time he did not go to the outside door but went to the center window, opened it and flung the contents out. He came back and bent to put the pot back in its place.

“I’ll leave the window open, so you can get a night breeze,” he said.

And the smell it carries with it, Frith thought, but he supposed the porter no longer noticed the smell.

“It’s hot enough to roast a chicken in here, and you’ve got that blanket pulled up like it was January. You feverish? I might could wake one of the nuns.”

“They took my clothes away.”

“Aye.” He nodded knowingly. “Not much chance for a man to keep his private parts private in here. I probably burned yer clothes. If you’re contagious they burn your clothes. Some porters give them to the ragpickers. But not me. Everybody might not be as hardy as me. It’d hurt my conscience like a scourge if some innocent person caught the pestilence on account of a farthing I might get.” He lowered his voice to an even lower whisper, as if the mention of death might bring distress to some of the occupants who overheard their conversation. “If somebody—you know—and they haven’t burned his clothes, then I might—come to think of it, there’s a corpse at the end of the hall, waiting to be taken out. His clothes were piled in a nice little bundle at the foot of his bed. I could bring them to you if you’d like. He looked a bit bigger than you, but it’d be better than the blanket.”

Frith could not believe his good fortune. “I don’t have any money to pay you,” he said, “but—”

“No need. There’ll be others.”

“You are an angel of mercy,” he said when the man came back and handed him the clothes.

“Naw.” The porter laughed. “I’m just a pisser like you. Wear ’em in good health.”

But a few minutes later, before the porter went to the other wing to complete his chores, Frith saw the old man’s shadow float to the end of the ward and heard the unmistakable sound of the click of the lock. His heart sank. The nun had been wrong. The porter had locked the door after all.

Fool! It’s because he knows you’re awake! If you hadn’t opened your big mouth!
He got out of bed, gingerly, testing the floor with rubbery legs, and put on the shirt and trousers. The old porter was right. They were a bit long, but he rolled the pants up at the waist and tied the yeoman’s shirt with the rope belt. At least he had some clothes, if the opportunity should present itself again. Maybe tomorrow night. He would pretend to be sleeping like a dead man—if he was still here tomorrow night, he thought ruefully.

A noxious breeze drifted in from the window carrying the smell of urine and feces. Frith wrinkled his nose in disgust. What did a man have to do to get a breath of untainted air in this world?
Idiot!
He slapped his forehead.
The window.

Minutes later, John Frith with much wriggling and contorting of his body—much leaner now than three months earlier, but it was a narrow window—let himself down carefully until his bare feet encountered the ground below the
window. So relieved was he to be outside the hospital and a free man that he hardly noticed the muck squishing between his toes.

Wearing a dead man’s clothes and on legs as unsteady as a newborn colt’s, he headed for the Steelyard. He remembered what Garrett had told them about how the books entered England. Maybe he could bargain his labor for passage out of England—and some shoes. The Brethren at the Hanseatic Merchants League would help him get to the Continent where he would join his friend and mentor William Tyndale. Maybe that’s why God had saved him from the cellar.

Besides, he knew what fate awaited him if he stayed in England.

Rain pelted down on the little wherry as it floated up the Thames toward Reading. Kate was grateful for the protection of the heavy cloak John had left hanging on a peg by the door.

It had been hanging there since the night he was arrested. These many weeks, she’d been loath to take it down, wanting to leave it there, until he would come back to claim it. Well, it could at least help to hide her figure, she had thought when she took it down and shook it out, holding it up for closer scrutiny. She was as tall as John . . . maybe with just a little padding stuffed into the shoulder lining . . .

It had worked.

In the pale light of early dawn, the merchant Swinford had not questioned her. To his “Glad to see you’re a free man again, Gough,” Kate had croaked in a raspy whisper, “But not a well man,” and pointed toward her throat.

An auspicious beginning and a sign, she thought, a sign that she was supposed to follow through on her plan. Indeed, it was too late to turn back now. She’d lain awake the night before fretting over her silly scheme, finally deciding to abandon it and go to sleep. But somewhere a rooster’s herald of the dawn had wakened her again, so at first light, dressed as her brother John, she’d headed toward the docks, thinking she should turn back, thinking that the merchant would probably already be gone and the docks would be deserted, thinking he would see through her immediately.

But he had only nodded at her and climbed into the little boat tied up at the dock, motioning for her to follow. “We’d best hurry. The weather will slow us down and we’re moving upstream.”

Then he’d leaned forward to untie the rope from the dock, and Kate had
her first moment of panic, wondering if she could copy his surefooted movement.