The King James Men

by Samantha Grosser

  He lifted his eyes from the page, aware of Alice beside him, watching him, her Bible still unopened on her lap. He turned towards her. ‘You should read also,’ he said. ‘You will be glad of it.’

  She nodded, her cheeks reddening again, then fumbled with the book, flicking through the pages, unable to find what she wanted, or unable to decide.

  Ben held out his hand. ‘Here, let me.’

  She passed him the Bible with a tentative hand and he took it from her gently. The leather was warm and supple from her touch. He turned the pages, found the place and handed it back to her, his finger marking the passage.

  ‘You might find this helps you.’

  She took it from him with an uncertain smile, her finger touching his as she sought to keep the passage marked. Then she held it close before her face, so that she might read the words more clearly.

  ‘Read it,’ he encouraged.

  ‘Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with those things that ye have,’ she began in a low voice, hesitating, as if unsure if she were doing right. ‘For He hath said, I will not fail thee, neither forsake thee …’

  She stopped and lowered the Bible to her lap. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. But she did not turn again towards him and the blotchy blush across her cheeks remained.

  Chapter 4

  Late October 1604

  Obey them that haue the rule over you, and submit your selues: for they watch for your soules, as they that must giue account, that they may doe it with ioy, and not with griefe: for that is vnprofitable for you.

  (Hebrews 13:17)

  * * *

  Richard dined with Lancelot Andrewes, the head of the Translator’s company, Dean of Westminster, generous, passionate, brilliant. They ate venison and trout in the Dean’s rooms at the Abbey and, looking round him, Richard judged that the Church had served the other man well. There was no Puritan plainness here: Turkey rugs covered the floors, soft underfoot, and Flemish tapestries hung along the walls, the Exodus depicted exquisitely in fine coloured wool and silk. He took his place on a chair upholstered in velvet, and the dark oak arms were smooth against his hands.

  The Dean himself was expansive, the delicate silk of his robes shimmering as it caught in the light of the candles. He spoke often with his hands, sculpting shapes in the air before him as he talked. Before long, Richard thought, those elegant fingers would bear an episcopal ring. It would suit him. Richard sipped his claret. He was at ease with Andrewes: they shared a love of ancient language, the same Old Testament paths treading in Hebrew through their thoughts. He was glad to be in Andrewes’s company for the Translation, and eager to begin.

  ‘I am told that your mastery of Hebrew is second to none, Doctor Clarke,’ the Dean said, finishing the trout and wiping his fingers on a napkin. The candles guttered with the movement of the fabric of his sleeves, and the thin face lengthened and darkened with the changing shadow.

  ‘It suffices,’ Richard answered. ‘One can always improve.’

  ‘In scholarship as in life.’

  Richard smiled. ‘Of course. But Thomson is also brilliant.’

  ‘Indeed, he is. Regrettably, however, he is a drunk and a lecher and consequently somewhat less reliable than he might be. But he is loyal to the Church and rather entertaining company: I pray for him constantly. You are friends?’

  ‘We know each other from Cambridge, though not well.’ He preferred to avoid Thomson’s excesses when he could; such debauchery seemed to him somehow less excusable in a man of intelligence than someone of lesser gifts – it angered him to see such a rare gift from God so dishonoured.

  ‘You do not like him?’ Andrewes read between the lines.

  Richard tilted his head, preferring to give no answer.

  ‘We are all of us sinners, Doctor Clarke. He needs our prayers and not our judgement.’

  ‘I know.’ He smiled in acknowledgement of the gentle rebuke.

  ‘Being a good Christian is no easy matter. But God knows the conflict within us and forgives us.’

  Richard took another mouthful of the excellent claret.

  ‘You are staying with the Kemp family during your time in Westminster, I believe?’ Andrewes said.

  He shifted in his chair, straightening, clearing his mind to be wary. He had not expected to talk of Ben Kemp with Andrewes: he had thought such matters lay solely with Bancroft. A puff of resentment billowed inside him that Ben’s return to England could taint even this.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It is very convenient. Only a few streets away. Originally, I took a room by the river, but it was damp and unwholesome …’

  Whereas his room at Thieving Lane was warm and quiet and comfortable, he thought, its narrow window overlooking orchards and the Tyburn as it flowed on its way to meet the Thames. Dressing this morning, he had seen a pair of swans, graceful and serene against the current.

  ‘And how are the Kemps?’ Andrewes asked. ‘I hear that trade is going nicely. Master Kemp has invested in the Levant Company, has he not?’

  Richard was impressed. No one could accuse the Dean of not being well informed. ‘They are well.’

  ‘And the younger Master Kemp is still working for his father?’

  ‘He has been in the East these last seven years. He is only recently returned.’

  Andrewes lifted his glass and sipped at his wine, observing his guest with shrewd deep-set eyes. Richard shifted again under the scrutiny, a vague and ill-defined sense of guilt threading through him.

  ‘I met Ben Kemp, many years ago,’ the Dean said. ‘Did you know?’

  He knew it well: Ben’s version of the meeting was still clear in his memory, questions in a prison cell. It was hard to match the image with the gentle man before him, but he had never once known Ben to lie. Instinct kept him silent.

  ‘I thought he looked like a Spaniard.’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard agreed. ‘His sister too,’ steering the topic away. ‘Though I don’t know where it comes from. The other sister was as fair as day.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Then, ‘I understand Bishop Bancroft has asked you to keep an eye on the business of the younger Master Kemp.’

  Carefully, he set his expression to neutral. ‘Yes. That is so.’

  ‘I don’t imagine this is easy for you, Doctor Clarke.’

  A moment’s hesitation before he said, ‘We were like brothers once, Mister Dean.’ Ben had always been so full of vigour, so full of passion. Even in the days before he turned to God he possessed such an ardour for life, and his fire had been hard to resist. In the cold austerity of their Cambridge college their bond had given him warmth, a human touch that sustained him when it sometimes seemed the love of God was not enough. He turned his mind from the memory.

  ‘And like most brothers, I assume you had your disagreements?’

  ‘We …’

  ‘Of course you did.’ The Dean cut across him, then paused, wiping his fingers and sitting back in his chair so that his face moved out of the candle’s reach and his voice came out of the shadow.

  ‘You have been a good friend to Kemp in the past and at no small cost to yourself.’

  Tainted by association, his own loyalties questioned, overlooked for preferments: he still wondered at his own persistence, his willingness to pay that cost, the price his love for Ben demanded. But love was the greatest commandment, and he could not have turned his back.

  ‘You must bear him great love,’ Andrewes continued. ‘Kemp is a fortunate man indeed to have such a friend.’

  ‘It was many years ago.’ He doubted he would be so eager now.

  Andrewes moved forward once more into the light. ‘But you must make a decision now where your loyalty lies. If – and notice I use the word if – if Ben Kemp still has Separatist sympathies and if his sojourn in the East has done nothing to cure the errors in his thinking, then he represents a threat to the unity of the realm. It is really very simple. God’s Church in England under the king demands conformity. The Separati
sts refuse to bend to authority, threatening the hierarchy of tradition and custom that has kept our nation ordered and quiet these many years. Separatism is a path that can only lead to schism and controversy.’

  ‘I only ever sought to save Ben from himself. My loyalty to the Church has never wavered.’

  Andrewes observed him for a moment. ‘I had hoped as much, though I’m sure you’re aware others have thought otherwise. I see very little of the Puritan in you, Doctor Clarke.’ He smiled. ‘So, no secret sympathy for Separatists?’

  ‘Only pity for their misguidedness.’

  ‘They choose a hard road,’ Andrewes agreed. ‘And it leads them nowhere. We must continue to pray they will find their way back to the Church’s fold.’

  Richard nodded. ‘I do.’ Constantly, he thought. Ben in his error and his grief and his exile was always in his prayers, though scant hope remained he would ever return to the Church.

  ‘But the Church,’ the Dean continued, ‘and the king are asking something more from you now. It is one thing to offer comfort to a friend in extremity but it is altogether something different to—’

  ‘I understand, Mister Dean,’ Richard interrupted. ‘And I will do my duty to the Church. I will do what needs to be done.’

  But all the same, he thought, he did not want to hear the word.

  It was late when he left the deanery. There was a new chill in the air, the beginnings of winter, that made him draw his cloak tighter round him and quicken his step. But inside him there was a deeper chill that came from the cold of his decision. He had wondered many times when his faith would be tested as Ben’s had been, and now it seemed the time approached.

  In his presence, the Dean’s thinking was hard to resist: Ben’s way of worship was wrong, against the Church, against the king, against God. Like a wayward child, Ben Kemp must be stopped and brought to see the error of his ways, punished for his disobedience. The Separatists would rend the fabric of the English Church – how many souls would be lost without it? All the Dean had said, he agreed with. But now, walking back across Broad Sanctuary beneath a clear sky and the panoply of God’s stars, Richard recalled the stench of the cell at the Fleet and the chains that had scarred Ben’s wrists, and a small voice inside cried out against bringing his friend again to that. Friendship was a gift from Heaven, sacred and precious. Could it truly be God’s will to lift a hand against his fellow?

  A memory of Ben at Cambridge cut across his thoughts – the wiry young boy he had met on his first day there, the two of them thrown together as bedmates in the tiny cell of their room, neither knowing what to make of the other, both suspicious and eager and wary. Farm boy and rich city merchant’s son: it was an odd combination. But for all Ben’s knowing London ways and the easily accepted privilege of wealth, he had never once looked down on Richard’s poverty or social awkwardness, nor the naiveté of his country boyhood. He had accepted him as fellow without question, respected his intellect, and threatened violence to those other boys who showed less courtesy. It was a union Richard had never known could exist between two people – there had been no pretence between them, no artifice borne of fear of the other man’s rejection. They had been truly themselves with each other, and it was the only time in his life he had not felt as though everything that mattered were taking place on the other side of a window he could only look through. With Ben, all the life that counted was right there between them in the fierceness of the friendship that they shared. Even before Ben found God, when he was wild and still searching, their bond had been true.

  He strode hurriedly now to shake off the memory, wary of the Westminster night. The hanging lanterns he passed seemed barely to disturb the moonless dark, and other men hurried on their way through the darkness bearing torches. A pair of prostitutes huddled in a doorway called out to him and he lowered his head, kept walking. At the end of Broad Sanctuary he came to the archway that led to King Street and walked through. Despite the cold, the street was busy – torches bobbed along its length and he could hear men’s voices drifting from the taverns, the shrill shriek of a woman’s laugh. On the other side of the arch he turned immediately left into Thieving Lane, where the houses closed in on either side of him, looming dark, and the sky narrowed overhead to a thin strip between them. He shivered: he had felt safer in the open space of the Sanctuary. Something in a doorway stirred at his feet. He jumped, startled, and strained to make out the shape for a moment until he saw the form of a beggar, sleeping huddled in the cold. Surely, he thought, there must be a more sheltered spot somewhere, a better place to spend the night. His conscience troubled, he took a coin from his purse and squatted down.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take this. Find somewhere warmer to rest yourself.’

  There was no reply but a cold and bony hand reached out and snatched the coin. Richard stood up and backed away, then turned his footsteps towards the Kemp house.

  There was still light behind the curtains when he arrived; he guessed the men must still be up. Eager for the warmth of the fire, he went straight to the hall, but his arrival stopped the conversation dead. His first thought was to wonder if he had been its subject.

  ‘Richard.’ Thomas Kemp recovered his composure in an instant. ‘Come join us at the hearth.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He smiled and looked to Ben to greet him, but the other man simply turned his head away. Richard took the cup of wine the older Kemp offered him and drew a stool in closer to the fire.

  ‘The nights grow cold,’ he said, clasping the cup in his palms. There was still just enough heat in the wine to warm his hands.

  Ben got up abruptly and squatted to tend the fire, throwing on new wood and forcing more heat from the smouldering embers.

  Richard addressed Thomas Kemp. ‘How was the day?’

  Kemp settled back in the high-backed chair and replied with the even-tempered courtesy that was habitual. ‘Not bad, thank you, Richard. One of our ships came in from the East today so there is much to be done.’

  ‘Business is good, then?’

  ‘God be praised.’

  Ben was still silent, squatting at the hearth, poking at the fire with savage thrusts.

  ‘We were just discussing it,’ Kemp continued. ‘I’m thinking of sending Ben back to the Levant. It’s good to have him there – I sleep easier at nights.’

  Richard realised what he had interrupted and took a mouthful of wine. The fire was roaring now, new wood catching with a snap of sparks, and his limbs began to lose their chill. The warm wine and the heat threatened him with drowsiness and he sat up straighter, blinking the sleepiness away. Then he looked across at Ben, who still crouched by the fire.

  ‘When would you sail?’ It seemed a gift from God that Ben could leave again so soon, and that he, Richard, might be spared his awful task.

  Ben said nothing and Thomas Kemp answered. ‘Early in the new year. There’s much to prepare.’ He paused. ‘And of course, I have yet to persuade him to go.’ He regarded his guest above Ben’s head, and in the changing light of the fire Richard noticed for the first time the lines in the older man’s face, tiredness etched into the skin. He wore the mask of equanimity well, but underneath it the cares of his family were wearing him down.

  ‘I see.’

  Ben stood up, quick and loose-limbed. Richard had always envied him his physical grace, the ease with which his body moved. Even now, though he was close to forty, his movements still were effortless, and Richard found it hard to tear his gaze away. The other man bent to drop the poker back in its place, then squatted again, this time to fondle the ears of the greyhound that was stretched out across the hearth. He spoke without lifting his eyes from his hands. ‘What of my post in the Midlands?’ he said. ‘What of the children I teach?’

  ‘They can find another tutor. There is time enough.’

  ‘I do not wish to go.’ He stood up – the boyish restlessness he had never outgrown. Only at prayer was he still.

  ‘I need you to go. You are my son.’ />
  ‘I was there seven years. It is enough.’

  ‘You have nothing to keep you here, Benjamin. No wife, no children. There is no reason for you not to go but bloody-mindedness.’

  Scowling, Ben leaned his palms against the chimney breast, kicking at the hearthstones with his boot, staring down into the flames.

  ‘You would be doing me a great service.’

  ‘That is not why you want me to go.’

  ‘Hush, Ben.’ The warning in his father’s voice was gentle, but still it was enough to swing Ben round to face their guest. There was neither love nor friendship in his glance. Richard looked away.

  The older man spoke softly. ‘You are my only son. Who will take over the Company if not you?’

  ‘I am no merchant,’ Ben replied. ‘Three years in Amsterdam, seven in Aleppo. We both know I’m not cut from merchant’s cloth.’

  ‘Yet you have done me faithful service and I trust you.’

  ‘I do not want to go.’

  ‘You are afraid of the dangers?’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’ The response was quick and hurt and angry.

  Richard wondered if it would provoke the change of mind it had aimed for. He had never known Ben to be afraid of anything. He said, ‘It’s late. I think I’ll go to my bed. You’ve matters to discuss that are not my business to hear.’

  Their silence confirmed the thought. He moved to the door, opened it, hesitated, turned back. Ben watched him, waiting.

  ‘For what it’s worth, Ben,’ he said, ‘I think you should do as your father bids you. I think you should return to the East.’ It was as much of a warning as he dared to give, a last chance to turn them both to a different path.

  Ben lifted his chin, wary, but all he said was ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ his friend replied, and as soon as he had closed the door behind him he heard the argument resume, their voices low and rumbling through the walls as he slowly climbed the narrow stairs to bed.