The Heretic’s Wife (21 page)

They talked at first of serious things: about the mutual threat they shared, of their common enemies, of their faith, of his plans to join Tyndale and translate and write from that safer distance. Once he cried out in his sleep, and when she asked him if he wanted to talk about his nightmare he told her about the fish cellar. She held him while he cried over the death of his comrades, and she cried too.

He told her stories from Virgil and Homer, his animation growing as his strength returned, and there was laughter too—a lot of laughter. Lady Walsh provided a chessboard, and they played for hours—Kate had forgotten how competitive she was. As his appetite returned and she was employed more and more in the subterfuge of feeding him without betraying his presence, they conspired like children, even sneaking out one midnight whilst Gilbert kept watch, to raid the kitchen. She had not felt so merry for a very long time.

“Kate Gough, your husband is a blessed man,” he said one day, after she had finally beaten him at chess, and they had laughed at her exultation in that win. He reached out and touched her hand, a friend’s spontaneous gesture of affection, but he withdrew it quickly, snatching it back as though the contact burned his skin. “I wonder if he knows what a treasure he has in
you,” he said quietly. She longed to tell him the truth, but by then it would have been an embarrassment between them and would serve no purpose.

She could no longer avoid thinking about returning to the empty shop and her lonely room above it. It would seem emptier now. But there would be the books she would take back with her, and she still had the ten pounds she’d gotten for the Wycliffe Bible to buy pens and papers and inks that she could resell. Maybe Winifred and her baby would visit again, and they could become friends.

When she looked up from the chessboard, Frith had lain back on the bed and closed his eyes. He appeared to be sleeping.

She tiptoed quietly from his room.

Another week passed and Kate still lingered, though it was clear her patient no longer needed her. Last night a waxing moon had appeared in her window, reminding her that all too soon the
Siren’s Song
would come and John Frith would pass out of her life. Both Lord and Lady Walsh had pronounced him fit for travel.

She had known him scarcely three weeks, and it was as though they had been together forever. His nimble wit and easy laughter made it increasingly hard to leave. She felt alive when she was with him—more alive than she’d felt in a very long time. When he smiled at her, it was like feeling the sun on her face after a long winter.

But she would not think about leaving today. Today she and John Frith and Lady Walsh were enjoying a picnic in the Walshes’ private garden. It was Lady Walsh’s idea—to take advantage of the last of the late-season sunshine, she said, and cheer Master Frith, who seemed to have grown pensive these last few days. Lady Walsh had packed a basket of cold roast chicken and cherry conserve and fresh bread with soft ripened cheese.

“Cook is getting suspicious, I think,” Kate said as she spread a cloth on the little table Gilbert had set up. “She cocked an eyebrow at me and commented on how my appetite has increased of late.” She laughed, obviously enjoying the fact that they’d been able to keep their secret from leaking into the village. “Tildy has taken to bringing me a double portion without my even having to ask,” Kate said. “I wonder what they must think of me in your kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, my dear. We think you are wonderful, don’t we, Master Frith?”

But Master Frith appeared not to be listening to this chatter. He had his eyes closed and was slumped in a posture of indifference. At the sound of his name he opened his eyes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Master Frith, are you unwell? Is it too cool? Should we go back inside?” Kate asked.

“No. The sunshine feels good. I’m sorry. I was just distracted. Stupid of me when I should be taking advantage of such company as even the gods would envy. What is it you were saying?”

“No need to apologize, John. It is not an easy thing to leave one’s home behind, to go into virtual exile. I was just commenting on how wonderful we think Kate is.”

He smiled weakly. “Yes. Quite wonderful. I’m surprised her husband is content to be so long apart from her.”

His voice was tense, almost curt. Kate wondered if she had done something to offend him, then she suddenly realized that Lady Walsh would not know about Frith’s misperception. The fact of her earlier disguise had been so quickly forgotten in the crisis of caring for him that she and her hostess had never really discussed it again. She tried to catch Lady Walsh’s glance to warn her, but she was bent over fussing with the little brazier that Gilbert had set up against the light chill.

“Husband!” Lady Walsh gave a little laugh. “Wherever did you get such a notion, John? Kate is unmarried,” she said, as she stood up and turned her attention to unpacking the basket. “She is a plum ripe for picking for some fortune-favored man.” She looked up, first at Kate, then at Frith. The hand holding the plate of roast chicken froze in mid-task. “Oh my,” she said, her teasing smile disappearing. “I seem to have spoken out of turn.”

After a moment of excruciating silence, Kate stuttered, “I . . . I think Master Frith . . . may have assumed . . . which of course is understandable given the circumstances that—”

“John Gough is not your husband?” he asked sharply.

“No. He is not. I am unmarried. John Gough is my brother.”

“The man who rode with me in the wagon is your brother?”

Lady Walsh coughed lightly. “My dears, I think this meal needs some hot cider. You two start without me. I’ll be back shortly.”

And suddenly they were alone in the garden, surrounded by the smell of wood smoke and the slant of autumn light—and Kate’s deception. She could feel his gaze on her, but she did not look up to meet it as she said quietly, “There was no man in the wagon with you.”

“No man in the wagon! But I was not so ill as to be that delusional. There was a man in the wagon. We even talked of our shared trials. I remember his voice was hoarse from—”

“I was the man in the wagon. I dressed in my brother’s clothes and impersonated him.”

He looked at her incredulously. She looked down at her fingers pleating the edge of her shawl, willing them to be calm.

“Just a bit of road grit in my eye,” she said in the hoarse whisper she had used when she said those words to him before. She tried to say it lightly, like a joke.

When he did not laugh, she raised her head to gauge his reaction. Would he be shocked, even angry at her deception? His face was inscrutable. He was not looking at her but was gazing into the middle distance, distracted by some vision in his own head. But of course he was, she thought with relief. He had more important things on his mind than the silly misunderstanding between them. It was as Lady Walsh had said. It must be so very hard to leave behind everything that was familiar, harder still to know that he was being hunted by his enemies. She envied him his travel to the Continent, but she did not envy him his exile.

“Lady Walsh said to start without her,” he said, breaking off a sliver of bread. He slathered it with cherry conserve and took a bite, then held it out to Kate. A gesture of forgiveness?

She took a bite. It tasted like wet wool.

“I am sorry that I did not correct you when you assumed . . . but it just seemed easier . . . and what difference—”

He looked at her intently, his eyes studying her face as though he were trying to memorize every feature. She grew uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

“You have a bit of cherry conserve right there,” he said, reaching out his hand and wiping it away from the corner of her mouth with one finger. He put the finger to his lips and tasted it.

“It is sweeter now,” he said.

It was such an intimate gesture, so laden with implication, that she felt almost faint from the pounding of her heart.
He is leaving on the full-moon tide,
she told herself.
There is only heartbreak here.
It was so unfair. She felt the stinging of tears at the back of her eyelids.
Silly girl,
she chided;
he’ll forget you in a week and you him.

He leaned forward and gently touched his lips to hers.
He is leaving on the tide . . . he is leaving on the tide.
“Marry me,” he whispered.

Her breath refused to come. “I beg your pardon,” she finally stammered.

“Marry me. I am asking you to marry me, Kate Gough,” he said. “I am asking you to marry me. Come with me to the Continent.”

Hey nonny no!
Men are fools that wish to die!
Is’t fine to dance and sing
When the bells of death do ring?

—S
IXTEENTH-CENTURY SONG
FROM
C
HRIST
C
HURCH MANUSCRIPT

M
aster Frith has asked me to marry him,” Kate said, struggling to keep her composure, “and of course it is impossible.”

They were in Lady Walsh’s chamber. When the lady had tactfully not returned to the garden and the wind had picked up, Kate had urged her patient to retire to his little room in the attic to rest. “You have been very ill,” she’d said, trying to summon reason, which seemed to have abandoned the field. “You are anxious. This is no time in your life to be proposing marriage to women you hardly know.”

“
Uno.
One woman,” he’d said, holding up one finger. “One very beautiful and very desirable woman. My angel.”

She merely shook her head in chagrin and with trembling hands gathered up the remains of their uneaten feast. Over his protests, she thrust the picnic basket at him with instructions to enjoy it in the warmth of his chamber.

She had fled in search of Lady Walsh, who seemed delighted with her news.

“I knew it!” she said, clapping her hands. “I told Lord Walsh the two of you would be perfect together! Just perfect. But why is it impossible? Oh.” She looked crestfallen. “You are already betrothed.”

“No. No, I’m not. It’s just that . . .”

“Well, then, my dear, any other obstacle can surely be overcome. I know a priest in Reading who will marry you without the publishing of the banns—when he hears the circumstances.”

“But . . . but, Lady Walsh, John Frith is a fugitive! Leaving on the next full moon. In a week! I would have to leave my home, leave England. And he doesn’t even know me—not really. He knows nothing about me, about my life. He doesn’t know I have no dowry. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he really feels. It’s probably as much out of gratitude as anything. He thinks I saved his life. He called me his ‘angel of grace.’ ”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Lady Walsh laughed and cupped both hands around Kate’s face and drew her close. “What about you, my dear? What do you feel?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. I am very fond of him. Very fond, I’ll confess it. He is gentle and charming and so smart. Do you know he reads Greek and Latin and German and Hebrew? I will not be like to ever meet his equal again. But I have only known him three weeks. Three weeks!”

“A woman never really knows any man until she marries him and bears his children. You are fortunate. Most girls never have a choice. My daughters married men their father chose for them. Fortune, or God—we can’t always know the difference—has chosen for you. What did you tell Master Frith?”

“I told him he needed to think about the fact that he’s been very ill, that he is understandably feeling uncertain and afraid, and that I would not hold him to such a rash proposal.”

“Very sensible of you. And what did he say?”

“He said he’s not leaving unless I go with him.”

Lady Walsh laughed. “Well, there you have it, my dear. His life is in your hands.”