The Heretic’s Wife

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  Kate Gough, you’re a fool! Here was a man who imported Bibles. Why would he need another? What was it exactly that she was going to say to him, anyway? It would have been better to write him a note asking him to come to the shop. She had decided that she would go back and ask the sergeant at arms if she might leave him a message when he called her name.

  “Mistress Gough,” he said, his calves bulging in their peacock-blue stockings as he hurried toward her, waving. “What news of John?”

  “He is out of prison,” Kate said, and then added, not knowing what else to say, “but he is not himself.”

  “Give him time,” he said, “I myself have some knowledge of what kind of fear that sparks in a man’s soul. The great Thomas More himself searched my house. Fortunately, like John, I got enough warning to burn the damning evidence.” He shook his head, clucking his tongue. “I heard some of Garrett’s clients at Oxford were caught in the sweep and some even died of the sweating sickness while they were shut up like criminals in a stinking cellar. I guess John and I have been spared to continue the fight.”

  Kate felt the heat from the sun intently and longed to be away, not wanting to say that John had no fight left in him. “Yes, I suppose so . . .”

  “Is there anything you need, Mistress Gough? With John in gaol so long you may be pressed for resources. I know he has a wife and child too . . .” He reached into his doublet and withdrew a small leather purse.

  She shook her head at his offer of charity. “We will survive. We still have a few things to sell.” She took a deep breath. Here was her chance. “Indeed, Sir Humphrey, I have something in which you might be interested. It is a family heirloom. An illuminated Bible.” She lowered her voice, even though now the two lone dockworkers appeared to have deserted in search of shade. “A Wycliffe translation. I thought—”

  The expression on his face stopped her cold. “But, of course, how foolish of me,” she said. “If Thomas More came back, that’s the last thing you would want displayed with your prized possessions. I’m sorry to—”

  “It is likewise dangerous for you. I’m surprised that John would allow . . .”

  “He tried to burn it with the rest. I stopped him. It seemed such a shame. It is so beautiful, and it is well hidden.”

  He paused only a moment. “How much?” he said, and she caught a glimpse of the merchant negotiator.

  “Ten pounds.”

  He whistled softly. “You hold it very dear!”

  “I know that you could buy a Tyndale translation for pence on the pound, but this is a Bible for the ages. I am sure if you saw it—”

  He chuckled lightly. “You should be bargaining for Hansa, Mistress Kate.” He smiled at her, a warm, sincere smile above his little pointy gray beard. “I will come by the shop tomorrow and take a look at it.”

  John Frith woke from a drugged sleep to the image of a severe-looking nun of advanced years hovering over him. The broad face held a clucking tongue and a mouth that moved. “Stay still if ye don’t want yer throat cut.”

  He froze, trying to still even the twitching muscle on his eyelid while she ran the razor’s honed edge down his jawbone. As he achieved full consciousness, he realized he no longer lay on the earthen floor of the cellar but on a straw mattress with a reasonably clean woolen blanket over him. He realized, too, with something of a start that underneath that blanket he was naked.

  “Where am I, Sister?” he asked when she paused to flick away his scruffy beard from the blade. He gripped the sheet covering him with all his strength, surprised to find that he could. And not only could he grip the blanket, he could tuck it under his armpits and hold it there with purpose.

  “This be St. Bart’s Hospital. Since ye’ve decided to open yer eyes and have a look around, I’m thinking ye’ll probably survive. It looked unlikely when they brought ye in last week looking more dead than alive. Since I saw some sign of life this morn I thought ye might like a shave. Now I’m thinking it’s some real food ye may be wanting more.”

  “A glass of water?”

  She gave a rueful laugh. “Ye’re a great one for water. Ye’ve drunk enough to drink the Fleet River dry since ye’ve been in here. And peed almost as much.”

  His face grew hot but he hugged his blanket more tightly beneath his armpits. She poured a beaker of water from a pitcher beside his bed and handed it to him. “When we’ve finished here, I’ll send somebody from the kitchen down with some broth and calf’s foot jelly, but best go easy on it.”

  He took a swallow of water and let it linger on his tongue. He finished off the glass and set it down. She resumed shaving him.

  “It be yer great good fortune that ye were too sick to take to the Lollard Tower with the others.”

  “What possible difference could that make to the pap—to my tormentors?” he asked.

  “They want ye alive—to abjure. Like the others.”

  Frith made no retort—just closed his eyes. The twitch had died on its own—probably from fatigue.

  Abjure, he thought, knowing full well what instruments of torture were used on his friends to solicit such repentance, knowing, too, that one misstep after a public abjuration was an automatic sentence of burning without trial. If others had abjured, he was sure to be no better than they, no braver than they. His only chance was to escape.

  The nun had finished shaving him. She arched her neck back and turned her full scrutiny on him. “There now! Well. That’s better. Ye look almost like a man again. And, once those hollows fill out under those cheekbones, a man not ill-favored, I’d say. Not ill-favored at all.”

  She cleaned the blade and put it back into the little leather case hanging at her belt beside her rosary. “ ’Twould be a shame to lose such a handsome head in the cause of heresy.” She stood and picked up the basin with the remnants of his foul beard floating in the soapy water. “A real shame. They say ye are a brilliant young scholar.” That clucking tongue went back into action. “I don’t see how a brilliant man can poke his finger in the eye of Almighty God.”

  “But it’s not Almighty God,” he said with more vigor than he thought his body could summon, more vigor, too, than he should probably use to this woman who had been ministering to him so carefully and who still served that Church. “It’s not Almighty God. It’s the almighty Church—and therein lies a great difference. It has been taken over by corrupt men. If the people can read the Bible for themselves, they will see that some of the doctrines these men teach are false and self-serving.”

  “Well, even if I should grant that some of what you say is true, which I do not, a wise man ought to know who to pick a fight with. Especially a brilliant man with a bright future.”

  “Sometimes we don’t get to choose our fights, Sister,” he said wearily. “Sometimes they are chosen for us. But I thank you for the well-meaning advice. I thank you, too, for the shave.” He smiled. “And most of all I thank you for the water. All of it.”

  “Well, you might get the chance to choose. At least this time.” She leaned forward as if straightening the blanket. She lowered her voice to a near whisper at his ear. “I’m thinking they’ll be coming for ye tomorrow. The chamberlain empties the slops at midnight. He’s usually too lazy to lock the door until he’s finished all the wards.”

  What she was telling him registered too late.

  “My trousers?” he said to her retreating back. But she’d already moved on down the ward, past the last two sleeping patients. If she heard him she gave no sign.

  When Humphrey Monmouth came to pick up the Bible, he said nothing about the empty shelves of the bookshop. Tears stung the back of Kate’s eyes as she handed it to him. She wanted to hold the Bible to her and not let it go, even as she wondered at this sudden and overwhelming sentimental attachment. It was just that everything dear and familiar was slipping away.

  He opened it carefully, his expression almost glowing as he turned the pages, commenting on how the language had changed and the rich pigments of the illuminations.


  At least it would be with someone who appreciated it, she thought.

  “I shall treasure it,” he said.

  “I hope it does not bring you trouble.”

  “It is the Word of God. It should be worth whatever it costs,” he said, handing her the money. Then, wrapping it back up, he said, “I’m sorry John is not here. Tell him that a shipment is due to arrive in Bristol Channel September third. It should be safe for him to meet it.”

  She had not the inclination to say, I cannot tell him because he isn’t coming back, and he wouldn’t meet your shipment if he could. Instead she said, “His memory is bad since he came home. Just in case, give me exact details so I can answer if he asks.”

  “Lord and Lady Walsh, in Little Sodbury. They will know where the goods will land as always. I will not be going. I fear my presence might put everyone in danger. My house is closely watched. But one of the other merchants, a man named Swinford, will be going. He went with us once before. Tell John that Swinford will leave from dockside at dawn on September first.”

  “Swinford, Little Sodbury, dawn,” she repeated, as if she would really pass on the information.

  He picked up the Bible and prepared to leave then turned back briefly. “Tell John to call on me when he feels inclined. I would talk with him. And don’t worry about the Wycliffe Bible. You know where it is should you want it back at any time.” He inclined his head toward the little leather pouch she held in her hand. “That is but a rental fee. Perhaps you can use some of it to buy more inventory. I will merely hold the Bible for you until such a time as it is safe in England to have such a magnificent thing in your possession.”

  When he had closed the door and left with the Bible, Kate felt an uncontrollable urge to cry and break something. But, alas, there was nothing left to break except her heart, and she was determined that should not happen. One broken heart in the family was quite enough. Besides, the ghost of an idea was forming in her mind.

  September first. Little Sodbury. Swinford. Dawn.

  New inventory.

  But she had promised John. Was that promise binding now that he had abandoned the business? Abandoned her? What if she didn’t sell from the shop? She knew the customers who bought from them. She could call on them directly. Or she could change the name to Gough’s Stationer’s Shop—this would keep the letter of her promise, if not the spirit—and operate under the same license, and sell paper and quills and sealing wax and such, and Lutheran books with a wink and a nod to her old customers.

  She was still scheming when she opened the door to the backroom print shop. The smashed press had been pushed to one corner of the room, where it hulked like some great squat beast, taunting her to action. Littering the floor in crumpled balls lay the reminders of her most recent endeavor. Kicking them aside with more force than necessary, she began to rummage in the storage closet until she found what she was looking for. Hanging on a peg behind a couple of old dried, cracked ink pads was a pair of men’s trousers, an old shirt, and one of John’s caps.

  She had a week until September first, a week in which to contemplate the silly notion. It was a foolish fantasy, but at least the idea of such an adventure gave her something to think about besides the bleakness of her future. She wadded her hair into a ball and put the cap on her head. It felt like a perfect fit.

  SEVEN

  I was by good honest men informed that in Bristol there were of these pestilent books some thrown into the streets and left at men’s doors by night, that where they durst not offer their poison to sell, they would of their charity poison men for naught.

  —SIR THOMAS MORE

  ON THE SMUGGLING OF BIBLES

  John Frith lay in the dark, fighting the fatigue that threatened to sink him into blissful sleep, listening for the sound of a key turning in the lock. He recited Homer in his head as he’d done in the fish cellar to keep his mind working and alert, trying not to think of Clerke and Sumner dying in his arms, as they begged for water in the fetid cellar, trying not to think of the despair at the end. God had saved him from the fish cellar and that could only mean one thing. He had more work to do.

  He’d forced himself to stay awake ever since the old nun left, trying to work out a plan. When none was forthcoming—he’d gone over in his head all the ways Ulysses had escaped his peril and none seemed adaptable to this situation—finally, he’d decided to just wrap the woolen blanket under his armpits and flee barefoot into the fresh, sweet-smelling air of the night. He’d worry about clothes once he was outside. Of course if the beadle were about, and he would almost surely be, he would be picked up soon enough as a lunatic, in which case he could plead robbery, but that would land him in a magistrate’s residence giving witness and that was the last thing he needed. My mind is going in circles, he thought, longing for sleep.

  For hours now, he’d heard only the snores and groans of his ward mates, punctuated by the creak of a wooden bed frame as some tormented soul thrashed about. When he was sure he could stay awake no longer, the chimes at midnight startled him to wakefulness. Shortly after, just as the old nun had said, the sound of keys jangling in the door made his heart race.

  By the time the last chime had sounded, the porter had already lit two rush lights at each end of the ward and was collecting the first of the chamber pots; the clink of his bucket echoed down the ward. In the flickering light, the man was a bent shadow flitting between the beds.

  The porter approached his cot and bent to retrieve the pot at the foot.

  “Thank you,” Frith whispered to his back.

  The man, a smallish, old man with a bent back, rose up and looked at him with a mixture of alarm and curiosity.

  “You talking to me?”

  “Yes, I just wanted to say thank you. It’s a very valuable service you perform.”

  “Sorry to wake you,” the old man grunted.

  “It’s good to be awake. That way I know I’m alive.”

  The man stood up, holding the chamber pot in his arms, apparently unperturbed by its foul contents. He favored Frith with a toothless grin. “Never thought about it like that,” he said, and took a step toward Frith’s cot.

  “Don’t come too close. I’ve had the sweating sickness,” Frith whispered.

  “I beint worried about that. I’ve seen it all. Never caught anything yet. A man’s got to piss and a man’s got to eat. I carry out your piss, I get to eat.”

  Frith smiled. “I never thought about it like that.”

  Frith watched him as he collected the pot of his nearest neighbor. This time he did not go to the outside door but went to the center window, opened it and flung the contents out. He came back and bent to put the pot back in its place.

  “I’ll leave the window open, so you can get a night breeze,” he said.

  And the smell it carries with it, Frith thought, but he supposed the porter no longer noticed the smell.

  “It’s hot enough to roast a chicken in here, and you’ve got that blanket pulled up like it was January. You feverish? I might could wake one of the nuns.”

  “They took my clothes away.”

  “Aye.” He nodded knowingly. “Not much chance for a man to keep his private parts private in here. I probably burned yer clothes. If you’re contagious they burn your clothes. Some porters give them to the ragpickers. But not me. Everybody might not be as hardy as me. It’d hurt my conscience like a scourge if some innocent person caught the pestilence on account of a farthing I might get.” He lowered his voice to an even lower whisper, as if the mention of death might bring distress to some of the occupants who overheard their conversation. “If somebody—you know—and they haven’t burned his clothes, then I might—come to think of it, there’s a corpse at the end of the hall, waiting to be taken out. His clothes were piled in a nice little bundle at the foot of his bed. I could bring them to you if you’d like. He looked a bit bigger than you, but it’d be better than the blanket.”

  Frith could not believe his good fortune. �
��I don’t have any money to pay you,” he said, “but—”

  “No need. There’ll be others.”

  “You are an angel of mercy,” he said when the man came back and handed him the clothes.

  “Naw.” The porter laughed. “I’m just a pisser like you. Wear ’em in good health.”

  But a few minutes later, before the porter went to the other wing to complete his chores, Frith saw the old man’s shadow float to the end of the ward and heard the unmistakable sound of the click of the lock. His heart sank. The nun had been wrong. The porter had locked the door after all.

  Fool! It’s because he knows you’re awake! If you hadn’t opened your big mouth! He got out of bed, gingerly, testing the floor with rubbery legs, and put on the shirt and trousers. The old porter was right. They were a bit long, but he rolled the pants up at the waist and tied the yeoman’s shirt with the rope belt. At least he had some clothes, if the opportunity should present itself again. Maybe tomorrow night. He would pretend to be sleeping like a dead man—if he was still here tomorrow night, he thought ruefully.

  A noxious breeze drifted in from the window carrying the smell of urine and feces. Frith wrinkled his nose in disgust. What did a man have to do to get a breath of untainted air in this world? Idiot! He slapped his forehead. The window.

  Minutes later, John Frith with much wriggling and contorting of his body—much leaner now than three months earlier, but it was a narrow window—let himself down carefully until his bare feet encountered the ground below the window. So relieved was he to be outside the hospital and a free man that he hardly noticed the muck squishing between his toes.

  Wearing a dead man’s clothes and on legs as unsteady as a newborn colt’s, he headed for the Steelyard. He remembered what Garrett had told them about how the books entered England. Maybe he could bargain his labor for passage out of England—and some shoes. The Brethren at the Hanseatic Merchants League would help him get to the Continent where he would join his friend and mentor William Tyndale. Maybe that’s why God had saved him from the cellar.