The King James Men

by Samantha Grosser

  Kemp hesitated. ‘I know my son,’ he said finally. ‘That’s all I’m saying. I know my own son.’

  Richard’s stomach turned. So Bancroft’s suspicions were founded on truth: Ben was still living outside the law, risking prison and death for his faith. An image of Bancroft rubbing his wrestler’s hands together in glee at the news flickered behind his eyes. He lifted the wine glass to his lips and drank off the last few drops. Then he rose and went to the cupboard and poured himself some more.

  Chapter 6

  November 1604

  Beloued, let vs loue one another; for loue is of God: and euery one that loueth, is borne of God and knoweth God. Hee that loueth not, knoweth not God: for God is loue.

  (1 John 4:7–8)

  * * *

  Ben had left in the early-morning dark, startling the sleepy lad who rose hurriedly at the unexpected sound of hooves. By sunrise he was out of London and on the Great North Road, a mist rising from grass that was heavy white with dew beside the road, the track firm with cold beneath the horse’s feet. Farm carts, loaded with the foodstuffs that kept the capital fed, forced him often off the road, but he made good time even so and the chill air was fresh in his face and hard in his lungs after the unclean atmosphere of London.

  A shepherd’s whistle, carrying sweet and clear through the winter morning, disturbed his thoughts, and he lifted his head to see. Across the field a shepherd was working his flock, two dogs responding in perfect harmony to divide the sheep into separate groups. Ben slowed the mare to an amble and watched for a moment, enjoying the skill of the shepherd, the agility of the dogs, and the sight brought to mind again the ageing greyhound he had left at Thieving Lane. He still wished he could have brought her with him. Turning his eyes away from the shepherd and back to the road, he nudged the horse forward into a trot. But thoughts of the greyhound had stirred other memories, drawing his mind back to those first days with Cecily, when she had given him the pup and named her Hope, and his life had seemed to hold such promise.

  With nothing else to distract him and a long ride ahead he let the recollection come. He could still recall each moment perfectly, every detail vivid in his memory, the images visited over and over through the years since her death. The thought of those early days still made him smile, the delight of anticipation, the apprehension his feelings would not be returned. Before it all went wrong and the innocence was lost. Youthful desire, he knew now, but the force of the love he had for her could wake him from his sleep even still, calling out her name to the empty dark.

  Ben had not long returned from his three years in Holland when they met at the door of her father’s house near the Strand. He was working for his father and he hated it. ‘You must start at the bottom,’ his father had said, ‘so you know every detail of the company,’ but it was an ill-tasting pill for a man of Ben’s age and education to be sent out delivering documents.

  In his anger at the meanness of the task he had stridden all the way from Westminster, growing hot in the weak April sun, his shirt clinging wetly to his back as he wound through the busy narrow streets. He found the house with ease – even in strange cities he had never lost his way – and he hammered at the new oak door, unimpressed by its quality or the elegant stonework surrounding it. He wanted only to deliver the papers and be gone, his pride still smarting at the menial work. It was not what he imagined when he came home from Holland.

  When there was no answer to his knock he lifted his fist again, only barely quelling the urge to turn and walk away. Eventually the door swung open and a servant dressed in rich grey livery looked him up and down.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am here to see your master,’ he snapped. ‘My name is Benjamin Kemp.’

  The servant stepped back with practised courtesy and Ben followed him into the sudden cool of the house, where he was told to wait in the entrance hall while the servant disappeared with unhurried unconcern. With nothing else to do he filled the impatient moments gazing round him. The hall was vast. New and ostentatious, it was lit by a morning sun that fell golden through a high arched window at the bend in the stairs. Herbs among the rushes at his feet gave off a heady scent, thyme and something sweeter he could not put a name to. The hall at Thieving Lane seemed dark and narrow in comparison.

  A door slammed at the back of the house and a child’s voice wailing in protest was cut short by a woman’s command. A movement on the staircase above him turned his attention upward as a female form took shape against the brilliance of the window behind her. He watched the shape descend but the face was hidden, eyes lowered as she stepped carefully down the stairs, skirts trailing lightly one step behind her. At the bottom she stopped, lifted her eyes, and noticed him. A stern narrow face with hooded eyes opened into a smile that transformed her into the most captivating woman Ben had ever seen. Green eyes challenged him, and there was laughter in their depths that unsettled him.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Good morning.’ He bowed lightly, and all the irritation of the morning slid away. ‘Ben Kemp at your service.’

  She touched a hand to her hair, flicking back an auburn strand behind her shoulder. She was almost as tall as him, he noticed, their eyes nearly level, and her skin was apple blossom pale.

  ‘I have papers for Master Lowe.’

  ‘I am Cecily Lowe. Master Lowe is my father,’ she told him. ‘Come, I’ll take you to him.’

  She turned and led him towards the back of the house, and all he could think of as he walked along one step behind her was the smile she had given him, and a strange sense that this moment would change him for ever. They came to a door too soon and she showed him into a chamber with windows that looked over the gardens. They stood looking out for a moment, watching the gardeners work, trimming and planting, the garden still new, still taking shape.

  ‘It is a new house,’ Cecily said. ‘As you can see.’

  He nodded but he had no interest in the newness of the house. She smiled and slid her gaze away from him.

  ‘I will tell my father you are here, Benjamin Kemp. Please make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Then with a whisper of silks she was gone, and the room had seemed empty without her.

  In Scrooby they had missed him. The children flew out of the door when they saw him and Love jumped into his arms, almost knocking him flat. Ben laughed, swinging her round, her small arms clinging to him with surprising fierceness. He greeted them all, squatting down to meet them one by one, delighted by their delight in seeing him again. Then he bid them quieten down before their father heard the commotion. They fell silent straight away, a habit of obedience, and their mother appeared behind them.

  ‘Ben.’ She smiled, her own pleasure in his return plain to see.

  ‘Mistress Brewster.’

  They embraced, a warmth and acceptance between them he had never known with his own mother.

  ‘How was the road?’

  ‘Very cold.’

  After four days of hard riding the view of the manor house across the fields had been a welcome sight – the thought of the hearth in the mediaeval hall had often warmed him on his journey. Kings and cardinals both had enjoyed the warmth of the hall’s great fireplace in years gone by, and though the manor still belonged to the diocese of York, Brewster remained a faithful bailiff and postmaster, as his father had been before him, for who would suspect such a respectable man of worshipping outside the law?

  Ben rubbed his hands together, stamping his numbed feet against the frozen dirt as Mistress Brewster beckoned him in, giving the children orders to take his things and the horse, to fetch him food and ale.

  ‘Be good to Bessie,’ he said to Jonathan, handing him the reins. ‘We rode hard.’ He ran an appreciative hand down the mare’s dark neck. It was slick with her sweat and she butted her head against his shoulder for more attention. He smiled and rubbed his fingers in her forelock before the boy led her away toward the stables.

/>   Inside, he stood before the hearth in the old timbered hall, still the heart of the house, and let the warmth suffuse him, toes painful as they thawed. Then he sat at the table as the children brought him bread and cheese and ale. He had eaten nothing since morning and the loaf was still warm from the oven. It steamed as he broke it, and filled him with its wholesome scent. It was good to be home. The children stood silently, watching him eat until Jonathan returned from taking care of the horse and their mother sent them back to their chores.

  ‘You can talk to Master Kemp later. Let him recover from the journey first of all.’

  He saw their disappointment, their eagerness to hear about the world of London, so he gave them a wink as they filed out into the passage. Jonathan nodded his understanding, a flicker of a smile touching his lips.

  Mistress Brewster sat across from Ben, and with the firelight flickering behind her in the gloom of the hall it was hard to see the details of her face, but he knew them well enough. Though she seemed older than her years, there was a kindness etched into the lines, and in her eyes often lurked the same fear he used to see in Cecily. Reformers may no longer burn, he thought, but they paid dearly for their faith just the same and often it was hardest on the women.

  ‘What news?’ he asked, finishing his meal. ‘What have I missed?’

  ‘Sir William is recently returned from Court,’ she told him. ‘The gardener’s wife at Gainsborough Hall is a regular source of news, though she could talk less than she does and it would be blessing.’

  Ben smiled. He had met the gardener’s wife. ‘What other news did she have?’

  ‘It seems Sir William is making enemies. He tore down some stalls in Gainsborough Market and allowed outsiders in to undercut the locals. And when the townsfolk protested he brought in his henchmen. Simon Parfitt still bears the bruises.’

  ‘Why would he do such a thing?’ If the blacksmith had bruises the fight must truly have been brutal: he was a giant of a man.

  ‘Who can know? But he remains good to us, Ben. His house is ever open for our meetings.’

  ‘He’d do better to draw less attention to himself.’ To us, he meant, who depend on him.

  ‘My husband says we should have meetings here. There is space enough and for many it would be closer. It’s more isolated too and safer for it.’

  ‘And if sixty people tramp the ten miles from Gainsborough he thinks it won’t be noticed?’

  Mistress Brewster rose and fetched more ale. This time she poured a cup for herself.

  ‘He plans to split the congregation. With so many it gets more dangerous …’

  He nodded his agreement. Brewster had led them well so far, but now the king was stepping up the hunt, his fear of nonconformists spurred on by Bancroft’s zeal. Between them they would rid the world of any man who disagreed. He drained his ale. Scripture placed no king but Christ at the head of the Church, and there were no archbishops in the Bible.

  He had thawed now, sleepiness from the ride and warmth and ale creeping over his limbs. The house was quiet, the children busy, and from somewhere beyond the window he could hear the irregular tap of a hammer.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked.

  ‘The Williams’ – she always referred to her husband and his ward this way – ‘are in the village, sorting out some dispute about a pig that escaped and did some damage. You’d think the people could agree amongst themselves, wouldn’t you, rather than getting the bailiff involved. As if he doesn’t have enough to do.’

  Ben nodded and smiled his agreement as expected, but he thought it was good that Brewster was out doing his job, being seen as upholder of the law. It gained him respect amongst the locals and allayed suspicion, though he suspected that many of the people hereabouts were still practising the old religion anyway. Seventy years ago, Lincolnshire had been the seedbed for the northern rising against the old King Henry, when more than forty thousand men had protested the dissolution of their monasteries. It had ended in deaths, of course, as most rebellions do. Had they really thought King Henry would care about the protests of a rabble from the north? That he would dump his pretty new Protestant bride and reinstate the Papist one? They had been fools: kings are not so easily swayed from their purpose.

  And now there was new rebellion growing here against a different king, but this one was hidden and secret, at least for now. He hoped their revolt might end better than the last one.

  ‘And Reverend Clyfton is outside building a new coop for the hens,’ Mistress Brewster told him. He laughed his surprise. ‘He offered. He likes to work with the hands God gave him, he says, and be out of doors. So I let him get on with it. And if I get more eggs as a result then so much the better.’

  Richard Clyfton, the Puritan rector at Babworth, a seven-mile tramp across the fields come Sunday, enjoyed the company at Scrooby amongst these men he helped to inspire.

  ‘I’ll go and see if I can help.’ He got up from the table, shaking off the tiredness with the movement, restless energy returning, and went out through the passageway and into the yard beyond. The open meadows stretched flat towards the village beyond the manor’s moat, and the sky above glowed a dull, even grey, the sun dying behind it unseen. It was hard to tell how much daylight might be left.

  Clyfton heard the door swing shut and looked up from his work. Standing up straight, he stretched his back. ‘Ben,’ he greeted him. ‘It’s good to see you safely back.’ Then he said, ‘I’ve become unused to hard work. I must be getting old.’ He held up blistered palms to examine.

  ‘Mistress Brewster will have a salve for that,’ Ben said. ‘Here, let me.’ He took the hammer from Clyfton and squatted down to examine the half-built coop. He could turn his hand to most things if he had a mind to: the voyage to the East had taught him much. He lifted up pieces of wood in turn, trying to place them until Clyfton bent to help him, to explain. Once Ben had understood, the two men worked side by side, not talking but easy in each other’s company, content in their work, breaking sweat in the chill afternoon.

  The child Love brought ale for them and they stopped to rest, sitting down on the cold earth, observing their handiwork. It was bigger than the coop his mother kept at Thieving Lane, more solid, and he thought they’d made a good job of it. Love stood beside him and regarded it too. With him sitting on the ground her head was a little above him and he had to squint to look up at her, outlined against the clouds. She was very like her mother with her flaxen hair and her eyebrows drawn down as though she had the worries of the world to think about. But she laughed a lot less than her mother: he had never met a more serious child.

  He said, ‘So, Love. Do you think the hens will like their new home?’

  She turned grave grey eyes towards him. ‘I think so. I think I would like to live there if I were a hen. It looks like it would be cosy.’

  ‘You think you could lay a lot of eggs there?’

  Her look turned contemptuous: her childish imagination would only go so far, and Ben had to fight to hide his smile. There was a brief silence while she ignored his question. Then she said, ‘Excuse me, Master Kemp. Mother has asked me to gather some herbs for supper.’

  He nodded his assent and she stepped away from him across the yard, skirts flapping against the short and serious stride until she disappeared behind the wall that kept the kitchen garden sheltered.

  ‘Well, that’s you told.’ Clyfton laughed.

  He smiled and shook his head, drained his mug of ale. ‘Shall we?’

  The other man nodded and placed his mug close by Ben’s, out of the way of their work, and they went back to their hammering, fitting the last slats easily in place. By the time it was finished the last light was leaving the sky: the fields beyond the yard had been swallowed by the encroaching gloom, and they could see the flicker of candles through the windows to the hall. The warmth was inviting, and with a smile to each other of a job well done they packed up their tools, took up their jackets from the ground where they had left them and wen
t inside to meet the rich aroma of roasting chicken.

  William Brewster sat at the table with a sigh. He was a slight man, neat and particular, a sense of order about him that was reassuring. His greying beard was tidily trimmed, his hands well kept and clean. Ben observed his own hands in comparison. They were large and red now from the cold and manual work, and they had never been the hands of a scholar, like Richard’s, soft and pale.

  Silence sat at the table with the master’s arrival, all of them waiting on him.

  ‘Say grace for us, Ben,’ Brewster invited.

  They bent their heads.

  ‘Dear Lord, we thank Thee for the gifts Thou hast given us, for food and warmth, for health and safety, for friends. Protect us, Lord, from Thine enemies and increase our love through time and eternity. Amen.’

  Peace filled the room, a sense of rightness and belonging. He had missed this joy in London: the evasions and the arguments had worn at his thoughts, and his father’s constant disappointment left a weight in his breast. Here was freedom to be who he was. Here he could meet whatever fate God had planned in good heart and with friends. Why could they not be left alone for this?

  ‘How was Westminster?’ Brewster asked.

  Ben hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of meat: Brewster’s fastidiousness always made him feel uncouth. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and ran his tongue across his teeth before he spoke.

  ‘My father wants to me to go back to the East, to work for him and be part of the Company again. He’s afraid for me here.’

  ‘What does he know?’ Brewster’s question was casual but Ben could sense Mistress Brewster’s sudden attention, intent and waiting.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ben answered. ‘Except enough about me to know I haven’t changed.’

  ‘And he knows where you are?’

  ‘Aye. But no more than that I am tutor to a family here. He didn’t ask more. He would prefer not to know.’ But his father’s shrewdness would have told him everything: Ben’s choice of living, his refusal to go East.