Honor threw off the hood of her cloak. “Is it true?” She held the back of a chair to keep her fury in check. “Sir Thomas as Lord Chancellor?”
“Not official yet,” Cromwell said, laying down his pen, “but he should be sworn in towards the end of the month. Certainly by All Saints’ Day. I made the recommendation myself.”
“But why? How could you?”
“Calm yourself, Mistress Larke. Please, sit down. You look quite ill.”
“Sick at heart, sir, at this news!” she said fiercely. “And sick to think I trusted you!”
“Mistress,” he said with sudden coldness, “in politics one does not grab at what one wants like a peasant snatching sausages at a wedding feast. Now sit down, and I’ll explain.”
“Explain why you have raised that monster, that enemy of justice, to the highest judicial post in the land? Yes do, sir, if you can.”
“Will you sit?” he snapped.
“No!”
He took in a deep, angry breath and held it a moment, but as it left his body it became a sigh of resignation, and the sigh ended in a chuckle. “You cannot be faulted on tenacity, mistress. And in politics that, too, is necessary.”
She glared at him. “Well?”
“Well. Cardinal Wolsey, as you know, is in disgrace. He has already signed over his lands and palaces to the King in the hope of saving his neck.”
Honor could not suppress a shiver. “You are quick to forget your former master, sir, now that the King cannot do without you.”
“Are we going to speak of former loyalties or of Sir Thomas?” His small eyes gleamed at her like wet stones. “Or are they, in your case, the same thing?”
Honor smarted at the rebuke. “Forgive me,” she said tightly. “Go on.”
Cromwell leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. “The King demanded a laymen as his new Lord Chancellor. I suggested Sir Thomas because I believe he is the right choice. All the world knows him for a brilliant and honest judge, not puffed up by arrogance or ambition. His Grace was immediately taken with the suggestion of More. ‘A man who’s fonder of his family than of riches and high place,’ he agreed. A man, he said, ‘he was proud to call his friend.’ The Lady Anne, by the way, was present at this conversation, and she asked whether so weighty a post could be entrusted to a man who had never spoken a word in favor of the divorce. ‘He has not spoken a word against it, either,’ said the King. ‘Even in that he has shown his loyalty, for he swore to me he never would cross me.’ Now that comment . . .”
“The confounded divorce!” Honor cried. “Is that all anyone can think of? What about the people Sir Thomas will burn?”
“It is the Church that condemns heretics. You know that.”
“It is the state that burns them.”
“Not if the Church is reformed and changes its rules. You had that goal clearly in mind when you summoned me to the Trident Inn six months ago. Keep to your original agenda, Mistress Larke. It is a sound one. New Queen, new Church. The divorce is the key. You want it. I want it. Because, most importantly, the King wants it. And I can get it for him.”
“How?” she scoffed. “Wolsey could not. And since the adjournment, the case now rests in Rome.”
“But the King’s power rests here. King and Parliament are the forces at home. And Parliament convenes after All Saints’ Day.”
She threw up her hands. “Good Lord, what does Parliament have to do with this?”
He chuckled again. “His Grace said the same thing. Actually, when I specified that the Commons should be our target, his response was: ‘What do I want with those blockheads?’ ”
To Honor none of this made sense. Exasperated, she leaned across the desk. “All I know is that Sir Thomas . . .”
“Forget Sir Thomas,” Cromwell said. “His proven deference to authority is a bonus for us now. The point is he will not meddle, and that leaves me free to go to work.” He leaned toward her with a cool, confident smile. “Have patience, Mistress Larke. Tenacity is necessary in this battle, yes, but if you are to see it through without tearing yourself apart you must develop patience. And trust me. Though the road ahead appears foggy, we are on track.”
With a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, Honor straightened. Trust him? Have patience? She knew she had no choice.
*
The road into Cambridge was thick with winter mud. The wheels of the tanner’s cart creaked over the sloppy ruts. Edward Sydenham nervously flicked the reins from the driver’s seat. But the horse merely kept on at the same plodding pace it had maintained from London.
It was the supper hour in Cambridge, and getting dark. Most people were indoors. Chilly fog filled the quiet streets as if claiming a squatter’s authority to the space the citizens had abandoned.
Edward looked at his two companions on the seat beside him, and tried to stifle his anxiety. Neither his mother nor Brother Frish seemed worried. They were engrossed in a private, murmured conversation. Edward looked past the back of Frish’s head and watched the movements of his mother’s thin mouth. She was discussing strategy, again. Again, only with Frish. Frish, the Great Man.
Frish was the reason for this trip. He, and the forbidden Antwerp books stacked under hides in the cart behind them: Tyndale’s Parable of the Wicked Mammon, and Frish’s own treatise against the doctrine of purgatory. They were bringing Frish to a meeting of the Cambridge Brethren. After that, he’d stay on to organize them. A sermon from him tonight, and distribution of the books, would go a long way towards heartening the dispirited Brethren here, Bridget Sydenham had decreed. And ever since her husband’s burning, no one in their circle questioned Bridget Sydenham’s decisions.
Edward watched the two conferring so earnestly. How could they remain calm? Under the new Chancellor’s crackdown, scores of people were being arrested all over the country. But then, he thought with a touch of envy, their tasks here were important, and clear-cut. His mother was essential as the contact; her job was to introduce the preacher. The preacher’s job was to inspire. And me? Edward wondered bitterly. Well, someone has to unload the books.
He caught his mother’s sharp glance back at him.
“Watch where you’re going, Edward.” She frowned at the houses looming out of the fog. “Don’t take a wrong turning. We’re late as it is.”
“Yes, Mother.” Edward’s head snapped back to his duty. Mustn’t be late delivering the Great Man.
Edward saw the draper’s bay window emerging from the mist, and said, “Master Price’s is just up ahead, Mother.” The house hadn’t been difficult to find. He’d been there once before, helping his father. He wanted to point that out to his mother, but she was busy with Frish, tugging tight the hood around his face to mask him. Edward said nothing.
He stopped the horse in front of the draper’s house. He glanced furtively up and down the foggy street, but the few pedestrians, intent on making their way home for supper, ignored the arrivals.
Bridget Sydenham climbed down. Frish followed her. “Keep an eye out, Edward,” Bridget ordered. “I’ll find where Master Price wants his load delivered. There’s likely a back entrance.”
Edward watched his mother and the preacher walk toward the draper’s front door. Then the fog swallowed them.
He waited in the street. The gloomy mist closed in around him, chill and damp. He shivered and hugged himself, listening. In an alley someone was sawing wood. A baby bawled. Nearby, a dog’s teeth clicked over a bone. He hated being alone with the books. He hoped Price would send out a man or two to help unload; the faster it was done, the sooner he and his mother could be on their way again.
The draper’s door slammed. Edward stiffened. In a moment his mother was standing beside him—and with no one to help unload, he noticed.
“Master Price is jumpy,” Bridget said in a stern whisper. “With the meeting going on, he refuses to have these goods on the premises.” Edward recognized the irritation in her voice; his mother, he well knew, had no
patience with cowardice. “The goods are to be taken to his storeroom around the block,” she said, showing a padlock key.
“Dangerous for us,” Edward growled. Instantly, he regretted this display of his anxiety, for his mother, scowling, climbed up onto the seat. Edward made no protest, knowing it would be futile, but his cheeks burned with humiliation: she didn’t even trust him to manage the delivery. She motioned to him to take up the reins. “Go now.”
Edward drove the cart around the corner, then into a mucky lane. He stopped at the storeroom doors and climbed down. Bridget unlocked the doors. “I’ll stand watch,” she said. “Be quick about this now.” She marched back to the lane entrance, not even bothering to lift her skirt in the mud, and stopped at the corner as sentry.
Edward yanked off the hides that covered the books. After a quarter-hour of hauling out heavy armloads, squelching through the mud into the storeroom, and stacking the books inside, he was sweating. Grunting under the last load, he was halfway to the doors and raising his shoulder to swipe away the sweat that prickled his upper lip, when he heard his mother come running. He whirled around to face her. His foot slid in the muck. He lost his balance and fell, and the whole armload—twenty-odd books—tumbled around him.
Panting, Bridget reached the cart. Edward kicked aside a book and scrambled to his feet in dread. “What is it?”
“The Chancellor’s men, I fear,” Bridget whispered, grabbing the edge of the cart seat to climb up.
Edward froze. “They’re coming here?”
“Coming down Poultry Street. Maybe heading for here. Or maybe for Price’s house. That’s worse.”
Her resolution to flee energized Edward. He lunged for the cart to join her.
But Bridget held up her hand to stop him. “No. You’ve got to clear this evidence away. For Price’s sake. For all our sakes!” She snatched up the reins.
Edward’s mouth fell open. “You’re leaving me?”
“I must reach Brother Frish before they do. Don’t you see? We can’t risk losing him!”
“But, Mother . . .”
“Finish here, Edward,” she commanded. “Then run to the crossroads past the bridge. We’ll pick you up there in the cart. Wait for us under the bridge.”
She snapped the reins. The horse jolted into motion. The cart joggled up the lane, turned the corner, and was gone.
Edward swallowed. The metallic taste of fear was as bitter as his humiliation. Damn the preacher! Frantically, he began to scoop up the slimy books. But he was shaking so much that as quickly as he clutched them to his chest they slipped away like thrashing fish.
He heard a shout. He turned to face the lane entrance. A lantern swung into view and halted. It lighted the fog into a murky halo around the fist that held it. A second lantern joined the first one. Then another. And another.
Edward flung the last few books into the muck. He turned and ran. He didn’t know where the lane led. He couldn’t see. The fog was too thick. He heard his attackers’ feet pounding behind him. He ran on, skidding in the mud. The lane narrowed. A wall of boards emerged dead ahead. Buildings rose on either side. There was no way out. Oh, God, to be trapped . . . !
He glanced behind him. Voices were shouting. The crowd of lanterns was bobbing closer, closer . . .
Edward turned to the boards. “Mother!” he cried. With arms raised and fingers clawing the air, he flung himself at the wall.
Snow was falling in London. Bridget Sydenham, sitting on the edge of her grandchildren’s bed, glanced at the flakes drifting down outside the window. She looked back at little Jane and smoothed the dark curls away from the child’s forehead. The boy beside Jane was already dreaming, eyes closed. These were the children of Bridget’s older son.
“Grandmama,” the girl asked sleepily, “must we always add Uncle Edward to our prayers? How long will the evil men keep him in jail?”
Bridget tried not to flinch as she looked into the girl’s eyes. Edward had failed. Master Price was in prison and several others of the Cambridge Brethren too. All because of Edward. But she told herself daily that it must be God’s plan. After all, God had allowed Brother Frish to reach the cart and return with her safely to London. And why? Because Brother Frish was essential to the cause. Could God also have a great task in store for her younger son, even if she could not see it? A glorious task? Every day, she prayed that it was so. And prayed that Edward would be able to meet it with courage. Just as dear Humphrey had.
“Yes, child, keep praying,” Bridget answered. “God wants you to be very proud of your Uncle Edward.” She looked out at the cold white flakes descending, straight and silent. “He is suffering in the name of the Lord.”
17
The Devil’s Hive
Hail clattered against the window like a handful of stones flung by a furious god. Honor put down her sewing and walked past the cradle where Cecily was tucking in her latest child, a daughter. At the window Honor hugged herself against the cold draft that whined in around the panes. She looked down at the gravel path that led from the house to More’s wharf. Beyond, the swollen Thames heaved. No one was out in this weather. The path and the lawns lay deserted, bearing their backs to March’s punishment.
“Sir Thomas cannot be traveling on the river this morning,” Honor murmured. Both she and Cecily had been speaking in low voices, for the baby had just fallen asleep, but this remark came more softly still, and Honor knew she was trying to convince herself. She made her rare visits to Cecily only when she was certain Sir Thomas was far from home. Today, he was at Hampton Court.
“Gracious, no,” Cecily whispered, tucking a shawl around the baby’s feet. “He’d catch his death out in that bluster. You were lucky to make it here before it began.” She beckoned Honor out of the room, a finger at her lips. Honor closed the door gently behind them. As she followed Cecily down the stairs she coughed. Cecily looked over her shoulder in alarm.
“You’ve had that cough since Candlemas, Honor.” She shook her head. “It’s those drafty old chambers at Richmond, isn’t it? I’m sure you’re not given enough wood for fires. Come into the kitchen and I’ll give you some Angel’s Cup. My own recipe. Marigold and sowthistle in warmed ale with a pinch of white ginger. It did wonders for Lady Alice’s hoarse throat.”
They stepped into the hall and Cecily linked her arm in Honor’s. “And I’m sure you’ve lost weight, dear, since I saw you last. Doesn’t the Queen feed you? Though,” she added quickly, “it suits you, to be sure.” She laughed at herself. “I swear it’s God’s nudge at me to forestall vanity that I, who have everything a woman could want, look more like a pudding after each babe, while you shed flesh in that chill, lonely place, yet look more lovely every day.” She glanced longingly at Honor’s waist and sighed. “It’s lucky I set little store by such things.”
They were passing through the hall. At the far end, near the screened passage, Matthew was sweeping the flagstones with a rush broom. At the hearth two of More’s grandsons were playing with chestnuts in front of a low fire. The boys’ spaniel scrabbled across the floor to greet Honor. She crouched to pet it and closed her eyes as it licked her cheek.
“Matthew,” Cecily called, “the fire here is dying and we’re out of logs. Fetch some, would you?”
“Aye,” Matthew murmured, and started toward the kitchen door.
“No, not from the kitchen,” Cecily said. “That fellow’s brought us green wood again. Get some from the malthouse store. It’s seasoned.” Matthew nodded and ambled out into the passage that led to the front door.
“Oh, while I think of it,” Cecily continued to Honor, “I know I’ve given you the package of comfits and marchpane cakes for Her Grace, but don’t let me forget to wrap some of last night’s leg of venison, too, for yourself and her.”
Honor laughed as she fondled the spaniel. “Her Grace may be out of the King’s favor, Cecily, but he doesn’t starve her. And I’m sorry to dispel your fantasy of me wasting away in her service, but we sup on beef an
d beer every evening, and sit before a fire hot enough to satisfy even you of my comfort.”
The front door slammed and she jumped up. Be calm, she told herself, it’s only Matthew going out. She bent again to the dog.
“Still,” Cecily said, “the court is an unhealthy place these days.” She picked up a boy’s muddy shoe. “Dangerous, too. Look at poor Cardinal Wolsey. A warrant for treason out against him by order of the King. All his wealth forfeited. Then”—she snapped her fingers—“dead before they could bring him to the Tower.”
“But I am no longer at court,” Honor reminded her.
“No, and thank goodness for that,” Cecily said with a vehemence that almost balanced the erratic logic. “But beef suppers or no, I hear it’s not merry in the Queen’s service, either, what with the King ordering even more of her ladies away. Not many of you left, are there?”
Honor shook her head sadly as she scratched the dog’s ears. “Only a handful. Most of those who weren’t sent packing by the King have deserted. Even Margery Napier finally gave in to the pleas of her family and left. Married Lord Sandys’s son.”
“That simpleton?” Cecily grimaced. “Ah, well,” she sighed, “we all do what we must. But you, Honor, you’re like a rock. Running and fetching for Her Grace. Straining your eyes to read to her day and night. Never stirring from her side.”
Honor was about to dispute this hyperbolic picture of devotion.
“Yes,” Cecily insisted, “I think your loyalty’s quite wonderful. And I hope Her Grace appreciates it. Your sacrifice, I mean. You could have married two or three Earls’ sons by now.”
“I believe the Church still frowns on bigamy,” Honor said with a smile.
Cecily laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean. It’s been well over a year since the Blackfriars trial and you’ve stuck by the Queen through thick and thin—mostly thin—when you could have been well settled long before this. So, all I’m saying is, I hope she’s grateful.”
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