by Susan Wiggs
“Our work is deadly serious,” she snapped, giving vent to her temper. “The life of an innocent man is in danger. We do not break into prisons, risk our lives, stop executions and defy the law to amuse ourselves, but because it is right.”
“And if you should happen to have a good time doing it?” Mockingly he fanned his face with his cap. “Jesu forfend!”
She brought her fist down on the mooring post. “You’ll probably be caught and named a fugitive.”
His laughter caressed the night air. “A vain hope, sweetheart. It was Oliver Lackey they condemned and hanged. If you did your job well…”
“We did,” Snipes assured him.
“Then no one even remembers the poor sod.” He spread his arms, the magnificent black cloak fanning out around him. “I ask you, what resemblance bear I to that rude, unshaven, unwashed, ill-mannered commoner?”
“He talked just as much,” Snipes observed. His withered arm stirred uselessly at his side. “I wish you would have more respect for the risks you’re taking.”
Oliver swallowed. He seemed discomfited. “You were caught, weren’t you, Phineas? That’s how your arm was injured.”
Snipes turned to face the river. The cold breeze blew his loose breeches. “It was a long time ago. I broke.”
“Dr. Snipes,” Lark said softly.
“I broke,” he said, his voice harsh. “I think about it every day.” He shook his crippled arm. “This is my reminder. Snipes was a coward. Snipes betrayed his friends.”
“As you said, it was a long time ago. We should go,” Oliver said.
Lark allowed him to help her into the wherry. As always, there was more to his touch then simply a handhold. It was a lambent heat that grazed her, subtle as a secret kiss. He made her breath catch and her stomach lift.
That was the problem, she decided, settling on the low-backed bench. She tried not to watch him as he swept off his cloak and pulled on a pair of shiny leather gloves, slashed at the cuffs. He picked up the oars and began rowing with a graceful, concentrated rhythm. She felt too much pleasure being around him. It couldn’t be right.
And Lark had spent all her nineteen years being taught what was right. She had faltered only once, and that memory was as much a part of her as Phineas’s bad arm was to him. But like him, she had to go on.
Turning astern, she glanced at Dr. Snipes, who worked the tiller. A staid and silent man, he rarely revealed his thoughts as he had a few moments earlier. Yet he, too, seemed caught by Oliver de Lacey, watching the younger man as a bettor might eye a champion prior to a wrestling match.
Once they were out in the middle of the river, Oliver’s powerful oar strokes enhancing the strong current, he began to talk.
“Tell me about this man we’re going to rescue, this Richard Speed.”
Lark looked to Dr. Snipes again. How much should they reveal? Snipes lifted his shoulders in bewilderment.
Oliver seemed to sense the unspoken question. “Surely you can tell me those things which are a matter of public record. If the poor cove’s to burn at Smithfield, then he’s gained some fame.”
“He preaches the Reformed faith,” Lark said. “He’s a young man, but very learned, a powerful orator. He has been known to persuade whole towns to renounce the pernicious evils of the Church of Rome.”
Never breaking the rhythm of his oar strokes, Oliver fixed her with a probing stare. She wondered if he could see her in the moonlight, or if her hooded cloak kept her in shadow.
“Are the pernicious evils of the Catholic Church any more odious than those of Reformed nobles who stole church treasures during the Dissolution?”
She clutched the sides of the wherry as it whispered through a burble of rapids. “Richard Speed gained no personal wealth by espousing his beliefs. He preaches that faith—and faith alone—saves. Not paying church indulgences. Not chanting spells or counting beads. Faith. A simple enough concept, don’t you think, my lord?”
“So if I believe in God, I go to heaven? Even a sinner like me?” he asked, reaching forward, drawing back, somehow teasing her with the motion.
“I find it beautifully complex,” Lark aid. “Mysterious. To the queen’s advisers, it must be horrifying.”
His grin flashed like quicksilver. “True. The idea that a soul can be saved without paying the church for the privilege must be unthinkable to Bishop Bonner.”
She was pleased and surprised by his insights. “Precisely.”
“Why did you wait until now to rescue this paragon?”
“We didn’t know he’d been taken. When we discovered he had, we could not determine where he was being held. That’s usual, you know. The most dangerous prisoners are held in secret places so the populace won’t rise to free them.”
He continued to question her about Speed. Long after ordinary oarsmen would complain of burning shoulders and blistered hands, Oliver continued to row, covering the distance with a velocity even Piers could not have matched.
The slightest hint of the new day tinged the horizon. The creak of fishing gear joined the sound of lapping oars, and the watery smells of the river grew dank with the hint of sewage, for they were nearing the City. The spires of London rose, ghostly shadows in the distance: St. Paul’s like a hatless gent, its dome destroyed by lightning two years before. The rambling turrets and lance-sharp weather vanes of the famous Strand residences, including St. James’s Palace, the queen’s favorite London lodging.
From deep within a pink fog of smoke and morning mist thrust the four turrets of the White Tower in the middle of the Tower of London.
“I had a brother named Richard,” Oliver said abruptly.
Lark felt a pang of curiosity. In truth she knew little of his background save that Spencer admired and trusted the de Lacey family.
“He was called Dickon,” Oliver went on.
There it was again, Lark realized. That low, vibrant quality of his voice. The tone that made her want to sit forward, enraptured, and listen to him for hours.
“Dickon,” Oliver repeated. His voice grew soft and heartbreakingly wistful. “I never knew him. He died before I was born.”
“My lord, I am so sorry,” Lark whispered, and without planning to, she reached out and touched his knee. She wondered what it was like to have brothers and sisters—a true family, for that matter. She would never know, for she had grown up isolated and shut away from other children. “I’m certain the two of you would have been very close.”
“Aye.” A mysterious, pained expression crossed his face. “I wish to God I had known him.”
For a moment his sorrow was so devastating and real that she yearned to take him in her arms, to press his head against her breast and weep for him.
Then, on a sudden, the sun broke through the clouds behind him. It had an almost eerily propitious timing, like the midsummer sunrise over the giant stones of Salisbury Plain.
Just for the blink of an eye, the red fire of the rising sun gave him a glowing halo. More than ever he looked like an angel, pious and pure, too perfect to be mortal, his pain raw yet somehow otherworldly. Yearning and wonder rushed through Lark, and a thickness came to her throat.
“Oliver,” she whispered helplessly.
He glanced down at her hand upon his knee. A devilish gleam sparked in his eyes, and the moment was gone. It had passed so quickly that Lark decided she had imagined it.
“I say, Dr. Snipes,” Oliver declared, “I think the lady’s beginning to like me.”
She snatched her hand away. “Your insolence is boundless, sir.”
“So is my patience, where you are concerned.”
She hugged her knees to her chest and studied the looming shadows of the city. “Almost there.” She twisted around to look at Dr. Snipes. “We have never risked Smithfield before.”
“No.” He ran a finger round his high collar. “It won’t be the same as a hanging. Even bigger crowd. The queen has mandated that a member of her council be present. Besides that, there will be church
men, wardens, aldermen, hangers-on.”
“Relic collectors,” Oliver added. “Abraham men, cutpurses—”
“There’s usually one executioner and his assistant,” Snipes said.
“Does he take bribes?”
“Of course. They all do. But he can only do so much.” Wet the kindling. Start the blaze downwind. Those techniques are hardly merciful. They merely prolong the agony.”
“Or prolong a man’s life until we intervene.” Oliver seemed none the worse for having rowed all night. “What is your plan, then?”
Lark twisted to look at Dr. Snipes once again. He huffed out his cheeks, adjusted his hat, and seemed to concentrate intently on the tiller.
She turned back to Oliver. “I’m afraid we don’t exactly have one.”
Rather than voicing disgust, Oliver winked at her. “Leave it to me, then. You’ll not regret it.”
As he explained his intentions, Lark found herself both caught by his enthusiasm and distrustful of it. He seemed driven to seek out excitement. He spoke and acted like the most committed of Samaritans. Yet she had no doubt that once the work became tedious, he would abandon it. He was capricious and easily bored.
Rescuing a famous man from Smithfield was a challenge he could not resist. To him, it was a whim. A means to feed his masculine pride.
“Ever seen a burning?” Dr. Snipes asked Oliver.
Oliver never broke his rhythm. “’Tis not a favored entertainment of mine. But I understand they draw quite a crowd.”
“Aye. Everyone from piemen to aldermen to Gypsies.”
“Gypsies?” Oliver looked up, hot energy dancing in his eyes.
“Of course,” said Snipes. “A crowd is a Gypsy’s livelihood.”
“All those purses to cut,” Oliver said.
Lark heard a curious sharpness in his tone. She had never met anyone even remotely like him. He gave her a crooked smile filled with humor and joy, yet at the same time the murky shadows still haunted his eyes.
Neither his mind, nor his tongue, nor his rowing arms rested during the voyage down the Thames. When the travelers disembarked, he insisted on stopping at Bridewell Bridge over the river Fleet. There he made an odd sign with grass and sticks, refusing to explain his actions except to say they would aid his scheme.
Half running in their haste, the three wended their way northward, to Smithfield. The crowd thickened around St. Bartholomew’s. People’s faces were hard, their eyes bright with morbid anticipation. An air of barely suppressed violence hung like a fog over the masses as they moved and shifted across the broad field.
Lark stared with her mouth open and her heart thudding almost painfully. Oliver removed his hat, furrowed his hand through his hair, and said, “God’s teeth.”
“I’ve never seen so many people in one place before,” Lark whispered.
“My father used to come here to trade horses,” Oliver said with a shudder.
“This is impossible,” Dr. Snipes conceded wearily. “They have defeated us this time. We shall never get him free with this crowd all around us.”
“No!” A sense of dread and loss pounded inside Lark. She knew Richard Speed only through his writings, but those had convinced her that the man was touched by grace. His ideas were so simple. So pure. Faith brought a soul to God. Faith alone.
For that, the Catholics would put a man to death.
“We cannot let them murder him.” By standing on tiptoe, she could see the tops of the stakes, black with soot from the many fires before this day. She shuddered. “And in such a fashion.”
Oliver’s hand closed around hers. She would never get used to that jolt of sensation she felt when he touched her. In fact, it was getting worse. Sometimes she felt it when he merely looked at her.
“I said I would help you do this.” The certainty in his tone was that of a man who did not know the meaning of the word failure.
Snipes wiped his brow. “We can’t even get near the pits. He’ll be gone by the time we fight our way through this crowd.”
In her stomach, Lark felt the echo of an ominous drumbeat. A cluster of chanting clerics surrounded a mule dragging a hurdle. The prisoner was being brought to the execution pits.
Oliver tossed his cloak back over one shoulder, cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Reprieve!”
“Oh, that’s wise,” Lark snapped. “We’re supposed to be inconspic—”
“Reprieve! Reprieve!” Others took up the call. “Save him! Reprieve!”
Oliver made a bow, flourishing his cloak. “You see, the crowd is our ally, not the enemy.”
“You heard only a few voices out of thousands,” Lark said. “The rest would riot if they were deprived of the spectacle.”
“Oh, they shall riot.” As they passed through the thick of the mob, Oliver seemed more and more agitated. Almost pleasurably excited. “You must move in close to the pits so you can help the good reverend to safety when I give the signal.”
“Safety?” Snipes peered about skeptically.
“What signal?” Lark asked. She heard the droning monotone of a chanted prayer.
“I suppose the signal isn’t necessary. Simply wait for the hue and cry to begin, and then run.”
“What makes you so certain there will be a hue and cry?”
“I assure you, there will. Ah. I knew they would come.” Oliver pointed at a brightly painted wagon lumbering down the field. It creaked to a halt, blocking the narrow way at Pie Corner and St. Sepulchre’s Alley. A canvas flap gaped open, and a group of rag-clad Gypsies swarmed out, sinking into the crowd. “There,” said Oliver. “Take him there and keep low.”
“To a Gypsy wagon?”
“Trust me.” Oliver gave her that look. The one that was filled with lust and tenderness. The one that caused her to feel as if her feet had left the ground.
“Trust you,” she repeated, her tone heavy with irony.
“I knew you would.” He gave her a swift kiss that made her head swim and Dr. Snipes’s jaw slacken, and then he was gone, shouting and waving at the Gypsies as if they were old friends.
“We’d best do as he says.” Lark took Dr. Snipes by the sleeve. “It’s better than no chance at all.”
“He’ll land us all in prison.” Snipes shuddered, and the color dropped from his cheeks.
“Perhaps.” She refused to dwell on the possibility.
“They’ll torture us.” His arm trembled beneath her hand. “I could not stand torture. I consider myself a man of deep, abiding and unshakable faith, but I am also a coward.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “You’re no more a coward than the next man.” Her gaze caught Oliver’s receding form. He was taller by a handspan than anyone else in the crowd, his blond hair spilling from beneath his dark velvet cap. “Less so than some others,” she added, speaking too low for Dr. Snipes to hear.
It seemed to take an eternity to wend their way through the noisy throng. Lark recoiled from the avid stares trained on the stake. Normally they executed people in groups, but Speed was special. Richard Speed was to die alone. The queen’s ministers meant to make an example of him.
She and Snipes passed St. Bartholomew’s, an Augustinian priory church that fronted the square. Beside the church stood a reviewing platform with plank seating for the dignitaries. She glanced up, saw an impression of dark velvet robes, gleaming chains of office and loathsome self-righteousness. The lord mayor and aldermen would be there, along with the bishop of London’s chancellor, a member of the queen’s council and attendant clerics. The officials were as ugly as the stone deities carved into the walls of the church.
The hunger in the eyes of the spectators sickened Lark. It was the same hunger she’d seen in bettors at a bearbaiting or a cockfight. True, she did notice tears streaming from the eyes of some. But not many. Not enough.
The arrogant officials inadvertently aided Lark and Snipes. They prolonged the spectacle with prayers and repeated readings of the charges. A gray-robed cleric was s
houting threats of fire and brimstone when Lark reached the front of the crowd.
Here, men-at-arms leaned indolently on a stout wooden rail surrounding the pit. The chanting monks, mindlessly and brutally pious, lifted their faces to the February sky.
The railing groaned as the busy, babbling mob pressed against it. Lark felt panicky as she imagined herself squeezed to death against the rail.
Then her gaze found Richard Speed, and she forgot her own discomfort. Barefoot, dressed in a tattered shirt, he stood in the circular pit, anchored to the stake by a thick chain around his chest.
A chancery official read a list of Speed’s heresies and proclaimed the sentence—death by burning.
Speed held his head proudly aloft and listened. He was a young man, but his gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes made him look ancient. His legs had been stretched, the joints grossly swollen. His ripped shirt flapped against the skeletal frame, and his chin jutted forth in a final gesture of defiance.
Lark placed one foot on the lower bar of the fence and boosted herself up. Twisting around, she spied Oliver, his head bent as he laughed and flirted with a Gypsy girl.
Her heart sank. She had been right about Oliver de Lacey. He was true only as long as the work was amusing. Once the challenge became too great, he fell back into his old ways.
The Gypsy girl spoke to others nearby, who in turn whispered to their neighbors. And so it went, no doubt bawdy talk and gossip. Lark turned away in disgust and stepped up another rung.
Richard Speed raised his bound hands. “Good people of London, today I preach my last.”
Lark’s mouth dropped open. Near her, the jostling ceased and people shushed each other. Never had Lark heard such a voice. This broken man, half-dead already, snared the attention of thousands. It was like hearing a lion’s roar come from the mouth of a kitten.
“I have been told that I am a heretic,” Speed shouted.
“No!” people called. “Never that!”
“I have been told that I have no reverence for the sacraments. And that is true.”
Horrified gasps seemed to suck the air from the field.