By the time they arrived at the manor house they were sodden and chilled and Ben could barely keep on his feet as he slid from the mare. Brewster took Ben’s arm across his shoulders and half carried him inside, leaving the horses for someone else to tend.
The women of the house came running.
‘Dear God! What have they done to him?’ There was terror in Mistress Clyfton’s voice.
‘Get him dry clothes and blankets,’ Brewster ordered as he set Ben down on a chair at the hearth. ‘And some broth.’
Brewster’s wife fled to the stove but Mistress Clyfton did not move, frozen to the spot with horror.
‘He needs dry clothes,’ Brewster repeated.
She stared for a moment, uncomprehending until he gave the instruction again. Then she turned, and they heard her heavy tread on the stairs as she hurried in search of clean linen.
Ben was only vaguely aware of the activity around him. The hearth blazed hot as Brewster squatted before it, throwing on more wood, but even before its heat Ben was cold, the shivering deep in his bones and uncontrolled. He sank his head gratefully against a cushion that someone placed at his shoulder.
Mistress Brewster bent towards him – he was aware of the closeness of her face but the details of it eluded him. A faint scent of sage lingered round her: she must have been preparing supper when he arrived.
‘We need to get you out of these wet clothes,’ she said, and it felt like being a child again, his mother helping him undress after a long day that had left him half-asleep on his feet; but she was gentler than his mother had been, more patient, and his pride gave way before his weakness. He let her move his body as she needed to, submitting to her care as she sponged the worst of the filth from his skin. Then she rubbed him dry and put a clean shirt over his head.
‘You’ll do,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Not perfect, but for now you’ll do.’ Then she turned to her husband. ‘He should be in bed.’
Brewster nodded his agreement, and sent the younger William to make up a fire in Ben’s chamber. When it was done, together the two Williams shouldered Ben’s weight and half carried, half dragged him to his bed.
Afterward, he would have no memory of any of it.
He woke with the daybreak, the cockerel declaring the morning in the yard outside. For a moment he was startled, unfamiliar sounds and sunlight bright at the window. He thought he must still be in his dreams. Then he remembered: he was no longer in prison. The bed was clean and soft beneath him – he was free.
He turned his head on the pillow and saw Mistress Brewster just waking from her vigil in the chair beside the bed. Seeing him awake, she smiled.
‘Good morning, Ben. How are you feeling?’
He hesitated, uncertain. ‘Weak, I think. And in need of a bath.’ He could smell his own sour scent, see the dirt ingrained in his skin.
‘All in good time,’ she said, placing a hand on his arm. ‘You need to rest for a while and gather your strength.’
‘You know me better than that,’ he replied, and she smiled. They both knew he would be up as soon as his limbs could bear him, that taking rest went against his nature. ‘God gave us the day to use. I plan not to spend it in idleness.’
‘It is not idleness to recover your strength.’
He said nothing but struggled to sit himself up in the bed. She watched him, shaking her head with a sigh, before she gathered the pillows and arranged them behind him so that he was comfortable.
‘I’ll go and fetch you some broth,’ she said. ‘And then we’ll see how you are.’
He nodded, but already he was weary, and when William Brewster returned with the broth he had fallen back into fitful sleep.
The older man woke him gently and set the tray so that Ben could feed himself. Then he sat in the chair where his wife had spent the night and watched Ben eat in silence. The broth was flavourful and nourishing and Ben had to force himself to take it slowly. He felt his strength returning with every mouthful he swallowed, muscles itching towards activity. But after less than half the bowl he could eat no more and all he wanted was to sleep again.
Brewster took the tray and placed it on the dresser. Then he sat back in the chair, hands clasped neatly on his lap before him, his face drawn and serious. Even through his torpor Ben sensed there was unwelcome news to come.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What news do you have for me?’
‘I have had news from your family, Ben,’ he replied gently. ‘Your father is gravely ill.’
Ben forced himself to sit straighter, concern cutting through the weakness. ‘How long?’
‘Since soon after you were taken.’
‘And he is … still alive?’
‘So far as we know.’
‘Then I must go to him.’ He moved to push himself out of bed but was stayed by Brewster’s hand against his arm.
‘You are in no fit state to ride to London.’
‘My father is dying,’ he said. ‘I must go.’ The harsh words of their last parting flickered in his thoughts, barely visited in the weeks of his imprisonment: his disinheritance, his father’s disappointment, his own resentment. But there was still time to put things right, if he could leave right away. There was still a chance to be reconciled. He shrugged off the older man’s touch. ‘I must go.’
Brewster complied, withdrawing his hand, stepping back as Ben struggled to raise himself up and swing his legs to the floor. The movement left him breathless and lightheaded and he was forced to stop, sitting on the edge of the bed, swaying, the room spinning round him. ‘I have to go,’ he whispered. ‘I have to.’
Gathering all his strength, he managed to stand but only for a moment before his legs buckled under him, and Brewster was beside him, breaking his fall, easing him back onto the bed.
‘How far do you think you’d get?’ the older man said. ‘You can barely get yourself out of bed.’
Ben shook his head with frustration. So much time had already passed, his father’s days growing short. ‘I have to go.’
‘Give yourself time,’ Brewster said. ‘You will ride quicker for it and you may actually arrive.’
He bit his lips, fists clenching round the sheets as he fought against his weakness. Brewster was right of course. He would be lucky to make it to the gate in his condition; London was an impossible task. He had no choice but to wait. Furious, he turned his face to the window, squinting in the brightness of the low winter sun.
‘Rest now,’ Brewster said gently. ‘Get strong. And I will see about arranging a bath for you this morning.’
Ben nodded, reminded that his skin still carried the taint of prison, his fingernails black, his hair and beard matted and overgrown. But already he was exhausted by the morning’s exertions, and before Brewster had even closed the door he had fallen back into sleep.
Chapter 23
Winter 1606
How are the mightie fallen in the midst of the battell! O Ionathan, thou wast slaine in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Ionathan, very pleasant hast thou beene vnto me: thy loue to mee was wonderfull, passing the loue of women.
(2 Samuel 1:25–26)
* * *
The year had turned to winter with bitter winds and rain, and Richard’s new lodgings were cold. The widow who owned the house did the best she could, but the building was close to the water and no matter how bright the fires blazed in the hearths there was a chill that never shifted. He spent as little time there as he could, working at the Abbey until the hour was late, absorbing himself in Scripture.
The Company met in the Abbey library now, since Andrewes was no longer Dean and no longer resident at the deanery. He had been given the bishopric at Chichester, rich reward for his loyalty to the king. Richard regretted the change: he missed the solemnity of the Jerusalem Chamber with its tapestries of Abraham and Sarah to inspire him.
They took their places and began work at once, the routine familiar from their long months of labour. They were testing the m
erits of the words overthrown and fallen. In Andrewes’s mellifluous voice it was hard to choose between them.
‘How are the mightie fallen against How are the mightie overthrown.’
‘But we are to follow the Bishops’ Bible, as little altered as the truth of the original permits.’ The always-worried John Overall, fretting. His young and gorgeous wife was giving him trouble, Richard had heard, her attention straying to younger, more interesting men – no wonder he was fretful.
‘Yet fallen is closer to the Hebrew.’ Richard looked around the table and there was a general murmur of agreement. ‘I think we are agreed on that.’
‘But fallen is the Geneva’s translation …’
‘Yes,’ he said, testily, ‘and it is truer to the original than overthrown.’
Overall sighed as though he were being hard done by, and Andrewes took up the silence. ‘I think we understand that this particular passage has its own difficulties.’
Dealing as it does, thought Richard, with issues of rightful kingship. The obedience God expects from a king. The rejection of a monarch who took upon himself the role of priest. He should have brought Ben to this meeting, he thought drily, to hear his views on the matter. He could imagine the argument now: Scripture seeming to validate the Puritan claim that the duties of a priest do not belong to a king.
No one spoke, all of them aware of the need to tread gently.
‘The Geneva’s notes here offer nothing to offend,’ Andrewes said then. ‘Even the king could surely find no fault.’
‘And fallen,’ Richard could not resist saying, ‘is more nuanced, less … political, shall we say?’
Thomson laughed. ‘God forbid we should produce a political Bible after all.’
Andrewes smiled indulgently. Then he said, ‘We must aim only for the truth.’
‘So, fallen it is?’
‘Fallen it is.’
Andrewes read over the line once more.
‘How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle!’
The translators listened in silence, still striving to judge the rightness of the words, if their humble efforts had brought light and true meaning. All of them were aware of the weight of their task, God’s Word in their trust.
‘We are content, gentlemen?’ Andrewes enquired. There was the silence of assent. ‘Then we shall continue.’ He dropped his eyes to the papers before him, found his place in the narrow lines of writing with a bony finger and began to read again.
Alice came to find him sometimes on his way from the Abbey. She knew his habits, the hours he kept and when she could find him crossing Broad Sanctuary on his way to his lodgings for dinner. He was grateful for her visits. Each time he passed the end of Thieving Lane he couldn’t help but cast his glance that way, wondering if Thomas Kemp had yet breathed his last, if Ben had been released in time to see him before he died.
This morning he caught sight of her before she saw him. She was standing just inside the doorway of the Abbey, taking shelter from an easterly wind that whipped in from the river, a shawl clasped tight about her shoulders. She was moving in rhythm from side to side, lifting one foot then the other in a bid to keep warm, and the chill had brought a flush to her cheeks. He came quite close before she noticed him, frowning in his direction as his blurred form moved finally into focus.
‘Alice.’
‘Doctor Clarke.’
‘Shall we get out of this infernal wind?’
She nodded and he led her back the way he had come through the Abbey to find a quiet spot close to the quire. Trees of blazing candles lent the place an illusion of warmth and, in the quire, the choristers were practising for Advent. The boys’ young voices carried high and sweet above the hubbub of activity. Both of them stopped for a moment to listen, their souls drawn by the music’s beauty until the choirmaster, hearing some imperfection, brought the singers abruptly to silence with an impatient reprimand.
‘It sounded good enough to me.’ Richard smiled.
‘To me too,’ she agreed.
There was a silence. The boys of the choir began again their ‘Veni, Emmanuel.’ This time their master seemed better pleased and let them continue.
‘How are your new lodgings now the weather has turned?’ she asked.
‘They suffice,’ he replied. ‘Though I must confess I miss the comforts of Thieving Lane. And the company of course.’
She smiled. ‘Of course. We miss your company too. It’s a very quiet house now.’
There was a pause and he realised his words had given her pleasure, the smile still playing round her lips. Apparently she had got over her liking for Ben and transferred her affections. The awareness brought an unexpected heat across his skin and he swallowed, surprised by his reaction.
‘How is your uncle?’ he said, automatically, his emotions still confused.
‘He is the same. Sometimes his mind is with us, sometimes he is elsewhere. But still he asks for his son.’ She shook her head in pity. ‘And he is in great pain. God would be merciful to take him soon.’
‘There is nothing the physicians can do?’
‘They have done plenty,’ she said. ‘Purges, bleeding, draughts of this or that. But nothing has helped. Nothing at all.’
‘Then we can only pray that God will be merciful.’
‘Yes.’ She turned her head away, listening to the voices, and the light from the candles behind her caught tendrils of the mousy hair and made them golden. The smile still touched her lips and there was a dreaminess in her gaze. Heat passed across his skin a second time, and flared inside his loins. He wrenched his eyes away and stared towards the choir, self-conscious of his sin.
She said, ‘Your work here must be nearly done.’
‘Almost.’
‘And then the new Bible will be printed?’
‘Not for a while. The work of each company will go before a committee for a final check.’
‘It is a long process.’
‘It is indeed.’
‘And you? What will you do then?’ She turned to him again.
‘I shall return to my parish in Kent. I have been away too long.’ He pictured it, the pretty garden, the quiet lanes, simple folk, their worlds turning with the seasons, lives unchanged through generations. It was a long way from the worldliness he inhabited now.
The music ended. ‘I shall miss you when you’re gone,’ she said. Then, quickly, ‘I should get back before my aunt wonders where I am.’
‘It was good of you to come.’
They walked together along the aisle towards the door where she had waited. As he reached out his hand towards it, the wind snatched it away from him, slamming it open. A gust of chill air rushed in and both of them shivered. Then, with a brace of their shoulders, they left the Abbey’s shelter and set out side by side across the Sanctuary. It was too cold to talk but the silence was friendly, and when they reached the end of Thieving Lane they parted with a smile to go their separate ways through the winter afternoon.
Only later, listening to the widow’s prattle over supper at his lodgings, did it cross his mind to realise that he would miss her too.
Chapter 24
Winter 1606
Blessed are they that mourne: for they shall be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)
* * *
Thomas Kemp lingered into winter, the light of his life dimming slowly with the year, his body wracked with pain no medicine could alleviate. As the child within Ellyn grew and quickened, so Thomas Kemp shrank towards his death. He was never alone, the vigil shared by his wife, his daughter and his niece. But he kept on asking for his son and they would nod and look away and say nothing.
Ben finally arrived almost too weak to stand, frozen to the bone and trembling. His mother met him at the door and her hands flew to her face at the sight of him. ‘God in Heaven! We shall be burying you both. Come to the hearth. Get warm.’ She reached uncertain hands towards him, seeking to guide him into the hall, towards heat and rest, but he waved
her attentions away.
‘How is he?’ he said.
‘He’s dying,’ she replied. ‘Slowly. Day by day.’
‘Then I am not too late.’ Relief surged through him. ‘I’ll go to him.’
‘He would like that. He keeps asking for you.’
Ben nodded and put a foot on the bottom stair, pausing a moment to find the strength to climb the rest. He heard his mother call for spiced wine to be brought as he set his will forward and started upwards, resting often against the banister and finally sliding with relief into the chair that was set at his father’s bedside. It was many years since he had been inside this room; memories of secret games here as a child glimmered at the corners of his thoughts. The bed had seemed vast to him then. He had been caught just the once, using the bedcovers to make some kind of den, and he remembered the sting of his father’s belt.
Now the old man lay motionless, his breathing ragged and uneven, skin stretched tight and grey across the angular bones of his face. There was no sign of the plump and prosperous merchant he had been, and Ben took the claw-like hand in his own cold fingers. He was appalled at the change so short a time had wrought, and the recollection of their last exchange remained a bitter memory. He was here to ask forgiveness.
‘Father?’
The old man made no sign that he had heard. Ben looked up at Alice, sitting across the bed, watching with her habitual frown.
‘Does he know I’m here?’
‘It’s hard to say,’ she replied. ‘He seems to go in and out. Sometimes he’s quite lucid, others he is as you see him. But he is more peaceful like this – his illness gives him great pain.’
‘Father?’ Ben bent closer to the old man. ‘It’s Ben. I’ve come back to see you.’
His father’s fingers tightened on Ben’s. Ben glanced up again at Alice with a small smile of relief. His father knew he was there at least, and he had not tried to take his hand away.
The King James Men Page 27