Ben tilted his head in assent.
‘We are old friends,’ Richard said. ‘And we have been through much hardship together. Have I not proved myself faithful in the past?’ He shifted forward once more, appealing to his friend. ‘Why then do you distrust me now?’
Ben considered, watching his fingers against the dog’s fur. A memory cut across his thoughts: the first time he had held the greyhound as a puppy, Cecily standing close enough to kiss. He raised his head and met Richard’s gaze. The other man was watching him, trying to read his thoughts. Let him try, Ben thought. I will give him nothing. ‘Because too many years have passed since then,’ he said. ‘We are not the men we were.’
‘Have we changed that much?’
‘You have. You move in different circles now. The Abbey. Andrewes. Bancroft. You’re a long way from your precious Cambridge now.’
‘Do you think I like Bancroft?’
‘No one likes Bancroft. Even his allies despise him. But he has the Church in his hand, the ear of the king, and you agree with him on almost everything.’
Richard sighed.
‘See? You don’t even seek to deny it.’
‘My views haven’t changed, Ben. I have always thought the same, always believed in the inclusiveness of the English Church, traditions unbroken from the days of the Apostles, and yet I was still your friend. Remember how we used to argue? Hour upon hour in that stinking cell, the same disagreements, the same words over and over? We could have the same discussion now and not one thing would be different.’
‘One thing would be different,’ Ben said. ‘You are not a humble Cambridge scholar any more. You are a king’s translator at the heart of the English Church—’
‘Go back to Aleppo, Ben,’ Richard interrupted. ‘Or go to Holland. Holland is a Christian place – there are churches already there that follow your way of worship. England is no longer safe for you and your kind …’
‘My kind?’ Richard’s persistence was beginning to wear down his patience, and in spite of his resolve he could not help but rise to the bait.
‘You would rather I spoke plainly?’ Richard’s voice was raised. ‘Should I use the words in this house where your father’s servants can hear everything? I would rather not give them cause to hate you.’
‘The servants are in bed and you should use the words you mean. Aleppo. Holland. My safety. What do these things matter to you anyway? Why do you still concern yourself?’
‘Because I am still your friend. And because …’ He stopped, waiting for Ben to look up again. ‘I see the way the wind is blowing in England.’
‘Blowing for you or for me?’ He leaned forward for the jug of wine that was warming on the hearthstone and refilled his glass. He did not offer it to Richard.
‘My safety is not in doubt.’
‘Just your loyalty.’
‘My loyalty has always been to the Church, though others may have thought different. I only ever sought to bring you back within it.’
‘And now?’ Ben raised his eyes, searching to meet the other man’s gaze. But Richard had turned away, his attention following the flames in the hearth.
‘And now,’ Richard said, ‘I seek to get you gone from here to somewhere you’ll be safe.’ He set down the glass beside the chair. Then he said, ‘Unless you care to recant.’
‘I would rather die.’
It was Richard’s turn for silence: both of them knew it was not an empty threat. Richard watched him, clear blue eyes intent on Ben’s face and in them an expression that Ben could not read. Time was when he could have named every thought in Richard’s mind, so clearly could he read him, so close had they been. But the vicar was a different man now and a stranger; older, harder, more worldly-wise. And he was not so patient with his friend as he once had been, his beliefs less tempered by love. Ben marked the change.
‘You don’t really care what happens to me,’ he said. ‘You just don’t want me on your conscience. I’m your failure and you don’t want to be reminded. You’d prefer me far away and out of mind.’
Richard took another swig of wine before he answered, his cheeks rosy from the drink and the fire and his emotion. ‘It’s nothing to do with my conscience. The law is closing in on you and you know as well as I do what awaits you at the end of that road. God has offered you another path, so why must you be so stubborn?’
‘Because,’ Ben said, ‘I cannot run away all my life. Because there comes a point when you just have to stand firm for your faith and accept whatever God has planned.’
‘You would rather go to prison than be safe? What purpose does that serve? What possible good can come of it?’
‘You would not understand it if I told you,’ Ben replied.
‘Try me. I may surprise you.’
Ben lowered his eyes, watching his fingers caress the greyhound’s ears. How could he begin to explain to Richard, who had never had to fight for anything? Who had never lost his faith? He thought of the others who had suffered, who had died: his wife, his son, Henry Barrow. Why should he alone be exempt?
‘I cannot go,’ he said, looking up. Richard was watching him, waiting, still hopeful. Ben shrugged. ‘That is all. I cannot go.’
The other man stifled a sigh and turned his eyes towards the hearth. The silence between them deepened above the hollow roar of the fire and, despite the warmth, Ben shivered, disturbed by Richard’s fears for him.
They sat a while longer in the quiet until at last Richard got up from his chair, a little unsteady from the wine – it had always been a weakness. He made his way to the door, then turned back to look at Ben.
‘I’ve prayed and prayed you would make a different choice,’ he said. ‘You will always be in my prayers.’
‘Goodnight, Richard,’ Ben answered, without looking round. But he heard the sorrow in the other man’s voice, and understood the grief that lay behind it. They had lost each other as brothers. In the end their differences were too vast and too political to coexist.
Then he stared into the dying embers of the hearth and made himself remember once again.
He had visited Henry Barrow at the Fleet, unknowing then what lay in his future, that one day he too would be chained and starving. His skin had crawled with the nerves of what he might see, and just in sight of the walls he stopped, gathering his courage and swallowing down the bile. The putrid stench from the river alongside the prison hung heavily over the day and he had wondered if it would be worse inside. He had been so young, so innocent; it was hard to remember that such a time existed. Before Cecily. Before her death.
A group of women hovered outside the gates as they always did, desperation written in their faces. He turned his head away from them as they moved to let him pass. One of them, of a poorer sort, ragged with sickly child in her arms, tugged at his sleeve. ‘Alms, sir? For the babe?’ He had given her a coin and hurried on to the gatehouse, where the warden took his money and let him through to a bare and wretched parlour that had never seen the sun, with a low ceiling that dripped with damp. Instinctively he shivered, although he knew he had been spared the worst of what the prison held. His imagination filled the gaps. An acrid smell of all the detritus of human misery oozed amongst the stones, blood and shit and piss and vomit, sweat and sickness, fear and death. Instinctively he breathed through his mouth and the taste of it turned his stomach worse than the stench. The wail of a man in pain on another floor drifted on the breeze through the window bars. He shuttered his mind against the thought of it, not daring to imagine the cruelty behind the cry. He was unsure how he would face such a trial.
It seemed ages until Barrow was brought to him, shuffling in through the door, the grime-streaked face lighting up at the sight of his visitor. Evidently he had been expecting someone different.
‘Master Johnson sent me,’ Ben said.
They embraced uneasily: the prisoner was thin and frail in Ben’s arms, barely more than skin across bone. Ben was afraid he would hurt him, and it was hard to ov
ercome a natural aversion to the filth. After a moment they moved apart.
‘May God be praised for sending you,’ Henry Barrow said. ‘I see precious few people these days. The Archbishop pays the wardens well – you must have been generous.’
Ben tilted his head but gave no answer. What did it matter how much he had paid? The sight of Barrow appalled him. He was not an old man, but he was shrunken and gaunt, his teeth black and rotting, his hair turning grey. It was far worse than Ben had prepared himself to see.
‘How is the weather?’ Barrow asked, moving to one of two stools set either side of a small table, lowering himself stiffly to sit on it.
‘The weather?’ Ben was surprised by the question, and it took a few seconds to recall the day outside. ‘It’s an April day,’ he said. ‘The sun was warm this morning but now there is drizzle in the air. Likely it will rain before the day’s end.’
‘It is cloudy, then?’
‘Yes. Rainclouds. Low and heavy.’
‘Thank you.’ Barrow’s mouth twisted into a smile. ‘It’s a long time since I saw the sky. It is the greatest torture to be denied sight of God’s creation. That, and the company of the congregation. You must forgive me.’
‘Of course.’ Ben took the other stool and they sat either side of the table. He waited, uncertain what to say. Barrow observed him with eyes that were still clear in the ravaged face, desire for the truth still burning keenly.
‘Everyone is well?’
‘We are all well. We meet early now, before the dawn. Master Johnson is our leader, and Greenwood is our teacher.’
Barrow smiled. ‘It gives me great comfort to know the true Church still thrives, that a faithful people are still gathered by the Word unto Christ.’
‘We pray for you.’
‘Cast down, but we perish not.’ Then, ‘I have writings for you to take.’
Ben nodded, a rush of fear through his veins. He stifled the impulse to look behind him, to check no one was watching at the door.
‘You are aware of the risks, I hope?’
‘Of course.’ He could end up here like Barrow, his own hair greying and thin, and welts across his wrists from the irons. Or worse. An image of Cecily crossed his thoughts, the auburn hair against her cheek, and he shook it away.
‘You’ve been chained?’
‘Often. They hope to break my spirit but I am strong in the Lord.’ He gave a small smile to his visitor and Ben could not tell the thought behind it. How hard would it be to keep faith in here, alone and in chains, in filth? He hoped his own faith would be as strong.
Barrow said, ‘Wherefore come out from among them and separate yourselves, saith the Lord. Ours is the true way, Ben: it is in the Scriptures. They can imprison us, every one, but they do so on their own behalf and not by the will of God.’
‘Have you seen Bancroft?’
‘Aye. And Andrewes with his false piety.’
Ben tensed with revulsion: the image of self-satisfied clergy on the way up, multiple livings, complacency personified. A poor spokesman for the holiness of the English Church.
‘Put away your anger, Master Kemp.’
He breathed deeply to calm himself and the noisome air of the cell filled his lungs. By force of will he held down the urge to retch, and to distract himself he bent to the bundle he had brought and handed it across the table to Barrow.
‘There is money and food and blankets. We all of us gave what we could. And paper and ink. I was uncertain what else I should bring.’
‘Thank the others for their kindness,’ Barrow said, taking the gift in his hands as something infinitely precious. ‘I will open it in my cell – it will give me the greatest pleasure.’ He looked up, his hands still resting on the bundle, protective. Then, flicking a glance to the door, he passed a slim package behind the bundle’s bulk across the table. Ben slid it deftly into his lap. Casually adjusting his shirt, he slipped it inside against his skin.
‘To Holland,’ Barrow said. ‘The same place.’
‘I will take it myself.’
‘May God protect you. Now go, and don’t come here again. You will be watched from here, your movements noted. Take care to arouse no suspicion.’
Too late for that, Ben thought. Just by being here he had put himself at risk, endangering the whole congregation. They would be watching him now, Bancroft’s men, following him, biding their time. But the writings must be published and the teachings must be heard no matter who was taken and imprisoned, no matter who was hanged. The two men stood and this time Ben embraced Barrow warmly, holding him close and gently.
‘May God keep you,’ he said. Then he had walked across to the door and banged on the ageing wood for the guard to let him out.
Chapter 12
Spring 1605
Iudge not, and ye shall not bee iudged: condemne not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgiue, and ye shall be forgiuen.
(Luke 6:37)
* * *
At supper in the deanery they ate larks roasted with sage and bacon, and the aroma lingered pleasurably as Richard sipped his claret and pondered the choice of dessert, tossing up between an almond pudding or oranges in jelly. The conversation was in Latin. Like Cambridge, he thought, and immediately he missed it, a simpler, quieter life where study was everything, away from the uncertainties of politics and women. He had loved it from the moment he arrived there as a boy, the promise of his intellect realised by the study, his soul yearning for the knowledge of his masters. Even the austerity and the cold, the rigours of a twelve-hour day that began before the dawn, did not dampen his commitment. He had found his spiritual home, and when Ben arrived to share his room he had known his life would never be so complete again.
After Ben had left he stayed to become first a Master then a Doctor of Divinity, being ordained along the way, never doubting once the calling of the Church. Not then. Not for a long time. And now, amongst these learned men he was for once at home again, his own knowledge equal to or better than theirs, his voice heard and respected, in English and in Latin, his conscience untroubled by doubt. They were talking of the English Papists: another Jesuit priest had just lost his life before the clamorous crowds at Smithfield.
‘The king is most irritated by them,’ Andrewes said. ‘He cannot understand their refusal to be grateful to him. He’s left them more or less alone since his accession, but they continue to inflame the situation, smuggling in their priests from Europe, building houses with holes for them to hide in.’
‘They had high hopes of James,’ Richard said. ‘Because of his mother. And because of his wife. They say the queen writes to Rome to beg for help for the community here.’
‘Who is saying this?’
‘It’s the talk on the street,’ he replied. The kitchen at Thieving Lane was a fount of information. The cook had a wife, the wife had a sister, the sister had a friend whose boy slaved in the kitchens at Hampton Court. One of the others had a cousin in service at Lambeth Palace. If you wanted to know anything going on in London, you should spend an evening in Thomas Kemp’s kitchen and the information would come to you.
‘If he can’t control even his own wife’s religious life then may God help us all.’
‘Let’s hope she’s under better control in other matters,’ Thomson slurred, bringing the tone to a baser level. He was already in his cups, but his Latin never faltered. ‘Although,’ Thomson went on, ‘I’ve heard his interests lie differently these days.’
The table fell silent, shocked: the king’s predilections, his penchant for boy favourites, was not something to be openly discussed. Pleased by the reaction he had provoked, Thomson turned to Doctor Overall. ‘Speaking of wives under control,’ he said, ‘how goes your new marriage, sir?’
Relieved by the turn of subject, all eyes shifted to the Dean of St Paul’s, who blushed scarlet under the sweep of grey hair. His new marriage was the talk of London. The beautiful Ann Orwell could have married anyone she chose but to everyone’s surprise she had picked
an elderly scholar and clergyman. Suggestions for her reasons ranged from money to more basic questions of anatomy. Richard found himself trying to imagine it and almost laughed.
‘How is your pretty young wife?’ Thomson leered in English, a fitter tongue for lewdness. ‘And when are you going to bring her to meet us?’
‘I wouldn’t bring her near you,’ Overall flashed back, also in English, a more combative tongue, ‘if you were the last man on God’s earth.’
Thomson laughed. ‘Do you not trust her?’
‘It is you I do not trust, sir. Your reputation is of the basest kind. You disgrace us all.’
Thomson shrugged, indifferent to the insult. Andrewes took the conversation back in hand. He said, in Latin, ‘Come, let us not argue. I believe we were discussing the question of the Papists.’
‘Wives are more interesting …’
‘Only to their husbands,’ Andrewes replied gently.
The others chuckled as Thomson regarded the Dean with interest, as though he were deciding whether or not to argue. In the pause Richard said, ‘Enough, Thomson. Let us proceed.’
Thomson turned his head from Andrewes to Richard. ‘If you say so, Doctor Clarke, I will indeed desist.’
‘Good.’ Andrewes gave him an indulgent smile. ‘Thank you.’
There was a moment of silence, the flow of conversation interrupted by Thomson’s baiting.
‘They will never give up,’ Saravia said. ‘A man who is prepared to die in such a way for his faith will never be turned from his path.’
‘But why?’ Layfield wondered. ‘Why do they cling to the old ways with such tenacity? What is the hold the Pope exerts?’
‘Tradition?’ Richard suggested. ‘People like to worship in the faith of their fathers – a sense of continuity, a link back through time and history.’
‘There must be more to it than that. Have you seen the way they die? Unmanned, disembowelled, the scaffold slippery with blood and guts …’ Thomson was enjoying the description, the lips of his audience curling in distaste.
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