The Heretic’s Wife (24 page)

John got up and, ducking his head under the low-hanging beam that marked a boundary of sorts between the eating and sitting areas, indicated that Kate should take the bent-willow chair closest to the chimney. He sat on the hearth in front of a smoked ham hanging in the inglenook and dodged a braided rope of onions and bunches of dried herbs as he stuck another log on the fire. The flames sucked at it greedily.

“So you’re the keeper of the flame,” Kate said, trying to steer the conversation away from dangerous waters.

“And not much else,” he answered.

Kate was aware of Mistress Clapham’s murmuring and the occasional grunt from “Squire.”

She and John talked of small things: the weather when she left London, how pretty the countryside was.
Bucolic
was the word she used;
lonely
was a better word, she thought.

“I sold the Wycliffe Bible to Henry Monmouth,” she said when the murmuring in the kitchen died down, and the lantern had been extinguished, her host and hostess having gone discreetly off to bed.

“What did you get for it?”

“Ten pounds.”

“Ten pounds! Bless Henry Monmouth. I’m glad I didn’t burn it.”

“I spent some for food,” she said, “but I was going to use the rest of it to buy inventory to keep the shop open. Now I suppose I’ll use it for a dowry—if that’s all right with you, of course.”

“Lulay, lulay thou little child,”
Mary’s sweet pure soprano drifted in. The wood shifted in the firebox. She waited for him to answer. John poked at the fire again, sending up showers of sparks.

“So do I have your permission, then?”

“And if I said no—what then? It’s a dangerous life you’ve chosen, Kate, to tie your destiny to such a man. But no more so, I suppose, than trying to make it on your own, smuggling contraband.”

“And is this, then, the life you’ve chosen? After months of this country life, you are content to stay buried in this backwater, cramped like pickles in a jar?”
When you could be doing so much for the cause our father died for
—but she did not say this. What right did she have to gainsay his choice?

“Content? If a man’s not content in his soul it really doesn’t matter where he lives. Mary’s father has promised us a piece of land. There’s a fine stand of poplar down the road a piece. Come spring I should have enough timbers for roof beams and a frame. Things will be better when we have our own place.”

“Do you plan to farm then?”

He gave a little half-laugh. “Nay. I’m no farmer. But there are a fair number of illiterate yeomen within the surrounding area. I’m a decent scribe. We’ll get by with that and what we can raise.”

“I’m happy for you, John. I really am,” she said, thinking how he’d settled for so little.

The fire was dying down. No sound came from Mary’s bedroom. Pipkin was probably asleep, his cherub’s body curled inside the too-small cradle beside the bed or nestled against the warm body of his mother, waiting for his father to join them. It made a lovely picture in her mind. Maybe John had not settled for so little after all, she thought, suddenly bone-weary and a little frightened. How did she know what awaited her on the Continent? She hardly knew John Frith. Here was at least a home and a warm hearth. Here was love and intimacy. But she couldn’t think about that now. All she wanted was to sink into sleep. “Are you sure you’ll be all right to sleep here?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine.” He indicated a blanket and a pillow piled in the corner. “I sleep here most nights anyway—if you can call it sleep. I don’t want to disturb Mary with my restlessness.”

“And why are you so restless?” But she knew.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, his voice suddenly vehement. “I did the right thing by denying my Lutheran involvement. The apostle Peter once denied our Lord. Three times. And three times, Christ forgave him. ‘Feed my sheep, Peter,’ he said. He looked down at his hands. “I’m just trying to figure out how to ‘feed the sheep.’ ”

“Don’t think I judge you for your decision, John. How can I? When I think of what you have sacrificed for those two sleeping in that room. It’s just that you were always my hero.”

“It looks as though you may have found a new hero,” he said somberly. “And I pray John Frith never has to face that same choice.”

She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t really know what to say. He stood up. “I’ll check on the coachman to make sure he is warm and dry in the stable,” he said.

When he did not come back she tiptoed by the firelight into the next room, stripped down to her shift, and climbed in bed beside her sister-in-law. She lay awake a long time listening to Mary’s rhythmic breathing, listening for the sound of her brother returning. Finally she drifted off to sleep, trying to summon John Frith’s warm smile to chase away her fears.

For how many men be there whose sons in childhood are greatly disposed by nature to paint, to carve, to embroider, or do other like things . . . which as soon as they say it, be therewith displeased and forthwith bindeth them to tailors, weavers, cloth-dressers, and sometimes to cobblers.

—S
IR
T
HOMAS
E
LYOT ON THE
LACK OF ARTISTS IN
ENGLAND FROM
HIS BOOK
T
HE
B
OKE
N
AMED THE
G
OVERNOR

A
fter his third visit to Hampton Court in as many weeks, Thomas More was glad to be back at Chelsea. It was Friday, and he had finished his early-morning ritual, returned his instrument of penance to its box, and fortified himself to face a scourge of another sort, Dame Alice’s tongue. “What’s the use of having a husband at court, if he is such a close-mouth,” she’d grumbled at breakfast when he professed to not having noticed what Lady Boleyn wore, what she looked like, and other trivialities with which women concerned themselves.

“Gossip is a sin, Alice,” he’d retorted in his most long-suffering voice. “And court gossip is especially pernicious.”

But even her fractious company and incessant inquiries were more to be desired than being in the cesspit that was Henry’s court. Better Alice’s whiplash tongue than watching the king of England fawn over his black-eyed
Lutheran whore whilst his good Catholic queen languished in Greenwich. Thomas entered the sanctuary of his study, and taking up the book on his desk, sighed heavily. Here was another unpleasant duty.

On the morning Thomas was leaving Hampton Court, the vicar-general had quietly pulled him aside. Someone within the very household of a lawyer on the King’s Bench had deliberately broken the law. Thankfully, before Thomas could comment on such an outrage, the vicar-general had thrust the little codex in his face and demanded, “What make you of this, Master More?”

A quick glance showed the slim little volume to be an English translation of Erasmus’s
Treatise of the Paternoster
. And it was translated by his own daughter Meg! Her tutor, Richard Hyrde, a man in More’s employ, had written the preface. But the vicar-general pointed out—even as More’s heart was swelling with pride at his daughter’s accomplishment—that its author, Margaret Roper
née
More, had neglected to gain ecclesiastical permission to publish it. The vicar-general thumped the title page where the imprimatur
cumprivilegio a rege indulto
should be and was not.

“Your daughter has broken the law,” the cleric said.

“I—I have never seen this book before,” Thomas stammered. “I knew she was working on it, but I had no idea she was close to finishing it. I assure you it will be withdrawn immediately if we cannot gain license to publish. My daughter committed this offense in ignorance, and I beg—”

“See to it immediately. We would not want to have to call it to the king’s attention. Not now. Not when you are marked with the king’s favor.”

Now, in the quiet of his study, Thomas thumbed through the book, noting the clean structure, the clear prose style. If only she’d shown it to him first. Certainly a man “marked with the king’s favor” could have gained permission for his daughter to publish a pious little booklet, even in English. But maybe not. The image of Wolsey, who had also once been marked with the king’s favor, packing up his study to leave his beloved Hampton Court leaped to mind. Thomas had interrupted him at his study window. The cardinal was watching the garden below where the king’s whore flirted with Secretary Cromwell. “Look out for that pair, Thomas,” the old man had said. “They’re very friendly of late.”

It was only a face-saving ruse that the cardinal was retiring to York to take over more of his duties as archbishop. The talk at court was that Henry would not suffer him long. Wolsey had grown too powerful, and he had failed in the king’s great matter. It was only a question of time before the lord chancellor would be asked to surrender the seal. There was talk—more
of that pernicious gossip—that Parliament might even bring him up on charges of violating the Statute of Praemunire because he was a legate to Rome. Wolsey was a legate to Rome because of his own ambition—in his cardinal’s heart he’d no doubt harbored the ambition to one day be pope—but he was also a legate because Henry had asked him to be. Sometimes, in the darkest shadow of his soul, Thomas quaked at what entanglements he’d gotten himself into.

“Be careful of the king’s favor, Master More,” the old man had mumbled. “It is more easily lost than a woman’s virtue.”

A servant tiptoed into Thomas’s study with a coal scuttle and bent to stoke the fire in the grate.

“Barnabas, summon Mistress Roper,” Thomas said to his servant’s back. “Tell her that her father would speak with her on a matter of extreme urgency.”

Margaret Roper did not look up when her father’s servant appeared at the door. She was unpacking the boxes from the printer. At last. The books! The winged bird that was her heart must certainly burst its ribbed cage with so much fluttering. Her hands caressed the leather bindings—that had cost her a pretty penny. She would have to wear last year’s cloak and bonnet to pay for it. But it was worth it, she thought as she turned to the title page and traced the letters there: “
Treatise of the Paternoster
by Desiderius Erasmus, translated to the English by Margaret Roper.” How pleased Father would be when he saw it.

“What is it, Barnabas?” she said, without looking up.

“You father wishes to see you, mistress.”

“Tell him I’ll wait upon him anon.” Maybe she should not have printed so many, she was thinking. Perhaps the girl in the bookshop on Paternoster Row would sell some for her when she reopened. Her shelves were fair sparse. She might be glad to have the inventory on consignment.

Barnabas coughed discreetly. “Sir Thomas said it was urgent.”

“Well then, I’ll go now,” she said, clutching a book to her chest, suddenly eager to see his face. Whatever his “urgent” matter, this should certainly make him smile.

But when she entered her father’s study a few minutes later, she found him in a rare temper. He wore such a scowl as he scarcely ever showed to her—to others maybe, but not to her.

“What is it, Father?”

He held up a book. She recognized the cover with dismay. “Oh,” she said. “You’ve already seen it. I was hoping to surprise you—”

“You succeeded admirably,” he said dryly. “I might add that it was not a pleasant surprise.”

“I don’t understand—”

He slammed the book down on his desk, rattling the ink bottles and quill pens lined up there like little soldiers. It was like a slap across the face. “The vicar-general showed it to me. It seems, daughter, that you have broken the law.”

“Broken the law! But how—”

He opened the book to the front matter, shoving it so close to her face she shrank away to see it. “Look. Do you see anything wrong with this?”

She tried to focus on the letters. What could possibly be wrong? She’d given due credit to the author. Spelled the title of the work correctly. She shook her head as she fought back tears of chagrin.

He took down a book from the shelf and opened it to the title page, thumped it with his knuckle. “Here, right here. You did not get the king’s permission. It is the law, Margaret. You cannot publish without the Church’s permission and the king’s seal.”