‘Who can blame him for that?’ Brewster said. ‘But you are his only son. I don’t doubt he would still do what he can to protect you.’
‘Of course. He loves me still in spite of everything.’ Though even as he said it he wondered if were true. Perhaps even a father’s love can wane if it is tried too often.
‘Do you want to go?’
‘To Aleppo? No.’ He shook his head. He had thought of it, almost tempted by the safety it would offer and the thrill of the voyage. But he was tired of running away, and life in Aleppo held no attraction. England was his home, his country, and his fate would be decided here amongst these godly people who sought to build a true English Church, the new Jerusalem. And if he must be hated then so be it. It was no more than Christ had endured.
‘Are you sure?’ Brewster leaned forward with his elbows on the table, fingers clasped before the neat beard, observing Ben with bright, keen eyes. The scrutiny made him uneasy and he shifted in his chair like a child who has been caught out doing wrong.
The ships would be ready soon, he thought, loaded at the dock with their cargos of wool and tin, waiting for the tide. Mentally he stepped aboard. The salt breeze caressed his face before they even left the harbour, the deck shifting gently under his feet. Sails cracked in the wind overhead, ropes creaking with the strain, and a seagull swooped, cawing raucously. He tensed with the fear and excitement of the voyage. It was tempting, a salve for the restlessness of his nature, the freedom and danger of a journey across God’s ocean. And freedom too, from the harsh oppression of the English law.
‘Are you sure?’ Brewster repeated.
Ben drew his thoughts back from the ship and smiled. ‘I am sure,’ he replied. ‘My place is here with you, amongst this fellowship of the faithful. Aleppo is a godless place.’
‘We are very glad to have you.’ Mistress Brewster smiled, and her husband nodded his agreement.
Ben ate, plainer fare than at the rich merchant’s table at Thieving Lane – brawn with mustard, brown maslin bread, boiled green beans fresh from the garden. But its taste was sweeter because of the company.
‘Also …’ he began.
The others turned their eyes towards him, something in the tone of his voice that alerted them to danger, senses honed from years of secrecy. He hesitated, uncertain how best to explain.
‘Tell us, Ben,’ Brewster said. ‘If it’s bad news we had better hear it.’
‘It’s nothing certain,’ he replied. ‘Nothing sure, and I have no wish to alarm you without good cause.’
‘It’s better that we know,’ Mistress Brewster said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Just in case. Don’t you think?’
He turned to her with a smile, and wished again his mother were more like her.
‘An old friend has resurfaced,’ he said. ‘Richard Clarke. A clergyman and scholar. A man I once loved like a brother. It was Richard that showed me the way to Christ, when I was young and foolish and still searching. And he was good to me when I was in prison. He visited, he brought me food and drink and clothes, and we argued Scripture, as we always had. It cost him dearly: his loyalties were questioned, he was overlooked for preferment. He gave up his ambitions for my sake. Then when I went to the East we lost touch – his choice, I believed, and I didn’t blame him for it, though I regretted it.’ He stopped, reluctant to give his suspicions voice and lend them strength.
‘And now …?’ Brewster prompted.
‘And now he’s regained favour in the Church. He is one of the king’s translators, one of the First Westminster Company, and he is lodging at my father’s house.’
Brewster was silent for a moment, considering. Then, putting words to Ben’s fears, he said, ‘Do you think he means to betray you?’
He hesitated. Even now he was reluctant to believe it for the love they had once borne each other. ‘I cannot say. Many years have passed since we knew each other. He is harder than he used to be, his belief in the English Church more ingrained. And now he moves at the heart of it – he works every day at the Abbey. He dines with the Dean, he preaches at Canterbury. Bancroft can be a persuasive force, and he is ruthless.’
Mistress Brewster shuddered at the name. The Archbishop was feared by them all – his latest vitriol had begun stirring up the people against them, sowing seeds of mistrust. But Ben’s fear of him was personal, memories of cruelties inflicted face-to-face.
Clyfton spoke for the first time. ‘What does this Richard Clarke know of you now? What information could he give to Bancroft?’
‘No more than my father knows. Nothing of import. But he was very eager to persuade me to go to the East again.’
‘He would see you safe abroad, then,’ Clyfton suggested. ‘Which means at least he is reluctant to betray you.’
‘Perhaps.’ He remembered their last conversation at the bonfire, a steel in Richard’s expression he had not seen before. He was uncertain he could trust to the love between them any more: too many years had passed, and Richard had grown weary of the cold.
‘Then we must pray for God’s protection,’ Brewster said.
‘And,’ his wife added, ‘that the translator will remain a true friend to you.’
He was silent. The conversation moved on to some business in the village, two tenant farmers in dispute about grazing rights. With rents on the rise and land in demand, such quarrels were becoming more commonplace. But he was only half listening: his mind was elsewhere, recounting memories of Cambridge, when Richard had been the first among his friends, the two of them thrown together in the tiny room they had to share. Looking back, it occurred to him he had not at first been the kind of friend Richard might have wanted: his reckless sinfulness must have been a trial for Richard to bear. But he had befriended him still, with love and patience and faith that Ben would find his way in the end to know the same joy in God.
They had been so young, boys on the cusp of manhood, but Richard’s faith had intrigued him, such inviolable belief wrapped in the core of his being, inseparable from the boy. And even Ben, ensnared in the depths of his own unbelief, could see the joy it brought him.
He had questioned Richard unceasingly, unable to comprehend where such faith could spring from, half-scornful, half-envious of his friend’s unswerving conviction, his future path as a man of the cloth already chosen. Unwilling to accept his own life as sinful, and reluctant to ascribe such power to an unknowable God, he hadn’t wanted to believe as Richard believed. And though a part of him despised himself for his debauchery, the ecstasy of sex was like a drug he was loath to renounce.
Chapel at college he hated. Rising in the freezing darkness each morning to kneel on cold stone while one old man or another droned some pointless sermon seemed hard discipline to a rich merchant’s son who had grown up used to a fireplace in his chamber. Yet Richard went willingly every day, and rose from his knees refreshed and smiling. Ben had watched in wonder, perplexed and curious. For Ben was still searching for he knew not what – something to give his life meaning, and something to define him as a man who was different from his father. But he could not yet believe in Richard’s God, so he sought answers instead in the arms of women, and in the dregs of ale amongst boys and men who even then he knew deep down would give him nothing.
‘What is it you seek?’ Richard had asked him one night when Ben returned to their room from the brothel, having climbed the college walls, sneaking past the provost. It was a feat he had grown quite skilled in. ‘What is it you hope to find?’
‘Love,’ Ben replied, without thinking. He sat down on the narrow bed they shared in the cold, barren room and dragged off his boots.
‘And you hope to find love with women such as those?’
Ben hesitated. It was not a question he ever allowed himself to ask. Driven by his instinct and the reckless impulse of his youth, he had refused to consider beyond the satiation of his lust, the temporary fulfilment of desire.
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not love,’ he conceded. ‘But acceptanc
e, perhaps? Fulfilment?’ He stopped. The next word on his lips had been pleasure, but he swallowed it down with a sudden awareness of the truth of its meaning, the void inherent within it. He looked up at Richard, who sat down beside him, blue eyes bright with concern and with love, the pale, chubby face cherubic with innocence. It was a face Ben had come to know better than any other – every dimple, every furrow, the way his eyebrows came together when he was thinking. But now for the first time Ben saw a knowledge behind the innocence. Not knowledge such as he, Ben, possessed, of women and ale, not even the scholarly learning he knew his friend to be master of, but something deeper, something more eternal. Unnamed and undefinable, it was a knowledge that he wanted for himself.
‘Ben,’ Richard said gently, ‘you will not find love by seeking pleasure. It can only distract you from what you search for, and offer you a fleeting respite from your restlessness. Only in God’s love can you find all you need, all that you search for.’
Ben was silent with reluctant recognition: it was true that the brothels and the alehouse had begun to lose their allure, the excitement of the pleasure waning with familiarity and the growing realisation it was as Richard said: the pleasure was ephemeral, the fulfilment fleeting, and afterward the emptiness within him still remained.
‘Take my Bible,’ Richard offered. ‘Read it. It will guide you and give you comfort.’
Ben shook his head. ‘It is yours and you’d be lost without it. I could never take such a precious thing from you.’
‘Most of it I know by heart. And it would be a far more precious thing indeed if it could bring you close to God. I would gladly give it up to save you.’
So Ben had taken it, holding it gently, reverently, slightly afraid. The leather cover had been worn and soft with use, and the pages seemed fragile when he flicked through them lightly with his fingers. He had known then – he still knew all these years later – how much the book had meant to Richard, the immensity of the gift. And for a long while, both of them thought it had been wasted, Ben still passing his life in sin, without faith. But in time it became the Bible he carried with him always, Richard’s name still inscribed across the first page. It was the Bible that had sustained him in prison and nurtured his soul in Aleppo. He pictured it now, lying by his bed, his rock and his comfort, the most precious thing he owned. It had been the greatest gift one man could give another, and for that he would love Richard always.
The next day, crossing the yard at the mediaeval hall at Gainsborough, Ben met Sir William on his way out. Bowing a brief greeting, Ben tried to keep moving, seeking the warmth of indoors after his ride, but Sir William stopped at the door, barring the way, so he had no choice but to halt in the bitter cold of the courtyard. He stamped his feet, numbed by the miles from Scrooby, and slapped his hands together to try and coax back the feeling. It made little difference: what he needed was the heat of the hearth that burned inside.
Sir William occupied the threshold step, looking down on Ben a good foot below him, looming large in his riding cloak and furs. Expensive clothes, Ben judged; Sir William had recently been at Court. His father would have known their provenance: though his trade was silk he knew the value of most things that could be bought, and the Kemps were rich because of it.
‘Good evening, Master Kemp,’ Sir William greeted him. ‘In a hurry?’
Ben drew his chilled lips painfully into a smile. ‘It’s a cold ride from Scrooby.’
‘Perhaps you’d have been better to stay home in the warm.’
‘Not I.’
‘No.’ Sir William observed him with shrewd and unfriendly eyes. ‘Not you. You’ve suffered worse than the cold for your faith so I’m told.’
Ben tilted his head and said nothing.
‘You prefer not to speak of it?’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. But the wound still bled, the image of Cecily big with child in the doorway of their house, the fear in her eyes as she begged him not to go. He had smiled and told her to hush, then left her standing there with tears in her eyes. He had not even turned back once to see her as he walked away. He had wondered many times since then how long she had stood and watched him. Her last sight of him, striding away to a separate fate. He should have stayed with her then as she asked, and if he had she might yet be alive. Cecily had suffered more for his faith than he had – he wanted no credit for his suffering.
‘Ah, who can blame you?’ Sir William shrugged. ‘I met Bancroft at Court.’
He kept his silence and betrayed no feeling.
‘You don’t like our new Archbishop?’
‘If I liked him I would have stayed at Scrooby in the warm,’ Ben answered. Instead of traipsing ten miles across country on a freezing night, he thought, to worship secretly against the law.
Sir William laughed. ‘Quite so. And between you and me, I didn’t much care for him either.’ He moved his bulk off the step and their eyelines drew level. ‘Be watchful, Master Kemp,’ he said. ‘The new Bishop of Lincoln has begun asking questions, setting traps, and my hall may not always be so safe.’
‘You take a great risk for us,’ Ben replied. ‘We are grateful.’
Sir William nodded, assessing Ben up and down before he bid him goodnight. Then he turned on his heel towards the stables, his riding cloak billowing out behind him as his form dissolved rapidly into the darkness, his boots silent on the frozen grass. Ben wondered where he was going, if he had business in the town or if he just preferred to place himself elsewhere during their meetings.
‘Be watchful,’ he had said.
How much longer did they have, Ben asked himself, until the Bishop’s traps were sprung? How long could they survive? Rubbing his gloves together and stamping his boots a final time, he stepped through the open door and into the warmth of the dining chamber, where the others were already waiting.
Chapter 7
November 1604
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheepes clothing, but inwardly they are rauening wolves. Yee shall knowe them by their fruits: Doe men gather grapes of thornes, or figges of thistles? Euen so, euery good tree bringeth forth good fruit: but a corrupt tree bringeth forth euill fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth euil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Euery tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewen downe, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
(Matthew 7:15–20)
* * *
Early morning and the weak winter sun had not yet risen high enough to disperse a morning mist that curled catlike through the city. Crossing the open expanse of Broad Sanctuary on his way back to Thieving Lane for breakfast after matins, Richard shivered and pulled the fur-lined collar of his cloak closer to his throat.
Broad Sanctuary was bustling. Traders’ voices sang out as they hawked their wares: fishwives bawled from behind their panniers, butchers’ boys held strings of sausages aloft, calling out their quality, and a sweet scent of baked apples pervaded the air. A group of beggar children was fighting over a loaf of bread, a small dog barking as it watched, anxious, and everywhere people loitered, watching, laughing, arguing. It seemed all the city was abroad and lively before the Abbey doors, and Richard strode amongst them, eager for food and the warmth of a hearth, chilled from the early hours of stillness at study and at prayer. The cold seemed to bury itself deeper inside him these days, he reflected, and lingered for longer in his bones. He could feel the stiffness in his joints and closed his mind against the knowledge of the cold winter months ahead.
He had almost reached the corner of King Street when a woman’s voice, harsh and jarring, startled him back to the day. Automatically he turned towards her though he had not heard the actual words. A group of wretched-looking women sat round a brazier, a single tattered basket of oranges placed at their feet. The one who had called out looked up when he turned but there was no hope in her eyes.
‘Oranges?’ she said. ‘Fine Spanish oranges?’
; ‘No,’ he replied, already regretting he had stopped. ‘No.’
He had begun to back away when a male voice at his shoulder spun him round. ‘Why not, Doctor Clarke?’ the voice said. ‘I’ll have two.’
Richard watched as the man slipped coins into the woman’s hand with a murmured pleasantry that made her laugh, then picked out two oranges from the basket, taking his time, choosing carefully. When he had made his decision, the two men moved a few steps away from the sellers, whose interest in them had died with the purchase.
‘Doctor Thomson,’ Richard said. ‘It’s a little early for you, isn’t it?’
Thomson laughed, exuding the sour stench of wine on his breath, and Richard realised the other man had not yet been to bed. ‘I’ve been sampling the local hospitality,’ he said, laying a pudgy hand on the vicar’s arm to steady himself. ‘Westminster has more to offer than you might think.’ He gestured to the oranges, held in the splayed fingers of his free hand. ‘Want one?’
‘No, thank you.’ Richard was cold and the warmth of the dining chamber at Thieving Lane was beckoning. ‘You’re heading to the Abbey?’
Thomson nodded, swaying slightly with the movement. ‘I must speak with Dean Andrewes. I’m afraid I’m a little behind with my verses.’
He said nothing, his silence judgemental enough. But inwardly he seethed that a drunkard such as Thomson had been chosen for their task. His inclusion could only fuel the fire of contempt for the Church that burned in men like Ben: his debauchery was a disgrace to the cloth.
Thomson stole his gaze away from Richard’s disdain and turned his attention to the orange he was peeling. Aware of the other man’s gaze, he began to make a deal of it, dangling the segments above the tilted face before he dropped them one at time into the red wet maw, juice dribbling down his chin and onto his vicar’s robes.
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