The Heretic’s Wife (61 page)

He just shrugged and said, “He is a good man, and I don’t like Thomas More and his band of heretic hunters. A man should have a right to believe what a man wants to believe.”

She looked at him as though she were trying to take his measure, asking herself if she could trust him, then she said quietly, “You are a good man too, Captain. I’ve always known it.”

Mine heart’s desire in our Saviour Jesus is that you arm yourself with patience, and be cold, sober, wise, and circumspect; and that you keep a-low by the ground, avoiding high questions that pass the common capacity . . . Of the presence of Christ’s body in the sacrament, meddle as little as you can.

—L
ETTER FROM
T
YNDALE TO
F
RITH
SMUGGLED INTO THE
T
OWER
, J
ANUARY 1533

K
ate had not felt the baby move inside her for days, not since the day she got the news that John had been arrested. At first she had talked to it, reassuring it. Could it be possible the child knew? Did it feel her grief? Or just the fatigue she felt? Sleep was her lover now, her solace, her dearest companion, because in sleep she could forget. The honeyed draught mixed with mead and ground poppy seeds that Mistress Poyntz had given her to calm her had become a friend whose comfort and blissful oblivion she sought frequently. Perhaps the baby slept too.

But even when she did not take the draught but lay sleepless and tormented by her fears so that the child could wake, still it did not stir. She knew then the child was dead. Its heart no longer beat inside her, and her grief was so profound she prayed to die and instantly repented.
John will need to know his wife is waiting for him.

By the time her body expelled the dead child, she had no tears left. Once she called out for John in her pain, and she remembered John was not there, might not ever be there again. When the midwife put her son’s still, small body in her arms, she marveled at the perfection of him and wondered if he had blue eyes, but she would never know. The windows to his soul had never opened. She could not have borne to think his soul lingered in limbo as the priests taught. There was comfort knowing that no such place existed in the Scriptures.

After the midwife had washed the perfect little body, and they had wound it in the cloth that was to have lined his cradle—the cloth with the crooked stitches now cradling him in eternity—after William Tyndale had said a prayer and read the Gospel about Jesus calling the little children to him, Kate took Saint Anne’s medal from around her neck and, touching it to her lips, placed it in his tiny hand like a rosary. John would not have approved. He put no faith in saint’s medals. But John was not here, and William was too kind to scold. She had worn the necklace close to her heart as her son had lain close to her heart. They buried him in the chapel garden. Kate marked his grave with a cairn of stones as round and perfect as his tiny skull. Master Tyndale scratched a deep cross upon the foundation stone and pressed it firmly into the ground. It did not matter that he had not been baptized, William said, his soul was innocent and would return to God.

Kate bled for three weeks, until she thought her blood, like the cistern of her grief, must be endless. Then the bleeding stopped, and she regained enough strength to return to her bookkeeping and editing chores. But the grief stayed. She did not return to the Bible study meetings. She no longer had the heart for it.

They were all kind to her; most of the merchants treated her like the glass their ships brought from Venice, quietly asking news of John, giving falsely cheerful reassurances that she should not give up hope. No one mentioned the child. It was as though he never existed—except to her. Only Master Tyndale spoke to her with understanding.

He knows what they are risking, she thought. He has always known. And yet he goes on as though he’s acting on a bargain he’s already made. He’s counted the cost and calculated the worth, and he is satisfied. But Kate was not so sure she had made such a bargain with God—maybe her ancestors had, but she had not.

She talked with William about that, and he said not all were called to such a bargain.

“Do you think John made such a bargain?”

“I think he has,” he said soberly, “and when I think what that might mean for you, I am glad I never found a wife.”

“I would not want John to recant for my sake,” she said. “I would not want that on my conscience. It must be his decision.”

“Then he will not,” William said, and the certainty with which he said it sent a chill up her spine. In the presence of such a man, it would be easy to catch faith, as one would catch a fever, Kate thought. Maybe that’s what happened to John. She’d had the fever too, once upon a time when the world was fresh with possibility—before she’d lost two babies. Her faith must have been a weaker strain. One did not inherit faith.

“I suppose we must be content with the will of God,” Kate said, but she was thinking of her father who had died, her brother who had lived, and how both had suffered, how William had suffered, a hunted animal for a decade. If God wanted His word in English, why didn’t God just make it happen without so much suffering? But she couldn’t say that to William Tyndale.

By Christmas she had regained enough strength to survive, her days filled with pretense and her nights without the poppy-seed drink. Just after New Year’s she had a letter from Captain Lasser. It ran to two pages and she devoured it hungrily. It said that John was being well treated, had not been formally charged with heresy, only suspicion, and was even being given a furlough to visit the palace of his old tutor at Cambridge, Stephen Gardiner, who was now Bishop of Winchester. Since Bishop Gardiner had also been Tom’s tutor during his own brief and unremarkable stay at Cambridge, he hoped to be able to sway him to even more sympathy on John’s behalf. As Bishop of Winchester he would surely sit on any clerical jury, should John ever have to stand trial, which was doubtful, since there was thought not to be enough evidence to influence the king to hand him over to the “black-robed scavengers.”

John is allowed the occasional visitor in the Tower, some of them even known Bible men. I actually got in to see him once. You would have laughed at my sober cleric’s garb, as he did when he recognized me. He looked well, only a little pale from being shut inside, but he was in good enough spirits and spoke with great longing of his dear Kate. I assured him that when last I saw you, you were more beautiful than ever and full to the brim, and that you missed him beyond all reason and had to be persuaded not to come to him. He agreed that you should stay where you are. He said to tell you he would have no peace otherwise.

Shortly after, two letters, both dated before the captain’s, came from John himself, one for Tyndale and one for her assuring them that he was well and that though he had secretly been given pen and ink and paper, writing was a nerve-racking business, because the minute he heard keys at the door, all had to be spirited away. He closed by begging Kate not to think he had broken faith even if he would not make it home by Christmas to welcome their child.

Her grief came back in a wash of pain. Of course he would not know. How could he know? And then the thought came that if he . . . if the worst happened . . . he might not ever have to know. He would be spared this one grief at least. If he came home, he could better deal with it then. The child had never been as real to him as it was to her. He had not carried it next to his heart.

“Shall I tell him about his son?” she asked William, knowing what he would say.

“You have to tell him the truth. But tell him only that you lost the child, not how long you carried him or the circumstances surrounding his death. John was not here to see how beautiful his son was. He will not feel that loss as keenly as you.” She thought she detected a note of wistfulness in his voice. “He will be thinking only of you. Assure him you are well.”

William always gave good advice.

John was grateful for his visitors. They were his only break in the dismal monotony of his days. The winter light from the lone window was scant, and the cell was always cold. He’d developed a cough that racked him until his chest was sore. He sat in the dark most of the time, saving the few tallow dips Cromwell allowed him for his intervals of writing. He had almost finished his discourse to John Rastell, Thomas More’s brother-in-law and printer. He knew enough of Rastell to know that he was at least listening to the arguments from the other side. If he should be converted, it would be a great thing; not only was he well placed as a licensed printer in England to help the cause, but John liked him.

He worked on his argument to Rastell for hours in his head before lighting his precious candle from the flint Cromwell had sent him. He was still writing in his head when he heard the keys jingle at the door.

His body jerked reflexively, but there was no pen and paper to hide. All the evidence was in his brain. It was too early for supper, so he was to be
allowed a visitor then. Perhaps Captain Lasser. He’d promised he’d be back. But when the door opened he knew immediately from the man’s stature it was not the captain. John felt a spur of disappointment, for he knew Tom would have news of Kate and home. But he liked the little tailor.

“Master Holt, how good of you to come. It’s a long ride from Chelmsford on such a day.”

“I came to London to buy cloth. We don’t get much fine silk in Chelmsford.”

His eyes darted about the cell as he moved in front of the still open door, blocking the view. He said loudly enough for the guard outside to hear, “My wife sent you some of her apple cake. You enjoyed it so last time. I’ve cleared it with the chamberlain of the Tower.”

Then he winked at John and handed him the bundle wrapped in beeswax cloth. The smell of the cinnamon and apples made John’s mouth water, but he did not open it. He would wait until his visitor left, and the door was closed, because he knew contained within the core of the cake would be a candle rolled in parchment.

“There’s some of that black pudding you’re partial to in the bottle.”

“I especially love black pudding,” John said, thanking the little tailor with a smile and a nod for the ink. “Thank your wife for me. Will you sit with me a while? Tell me what news you hear in your travels around Essex.”

Outside the guard shuffled off to join his fellows at the end of the hall. Soon sounds of men swearing as they played dice carried through the open door, masking their own conversation.

The tailor lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Everyone sends you greetings. They worry for your health.”

“Tell them to continue in prayer for me, but I am well—” A burst of coughing caused the tailor to raise his eyebrows in alarm. “Well enough under the circumstances.”

“We spoke of you at our last Bible reading. The subject was the Lord’s Last Supper. I tried to tell them based on the few notes you gave me what you had said, but alas my words lack eloquence.”

“That is a subject of much contention even among the brethren. Perhaps it is best that you save—”

“But it was so clear, the way you preached it. I wish they could hear you.” And then a light seemed to go on in his head. “If you could write down your sermon—not just the points, but the phrasing in your own words, and I
could read it to them, it would be almost as though you were there. They would be much advantaged in their discernment.”

When John did not answer immediately, he continued, “Of course, I would not want to do anything to put you in further danger. It’s just that we are so hungry for a true understanding of the Word—the Church has turned what should be sacred into some ancient superstitious rite.”

How could John deny such a kindred spirit? “How long are you going to be in London?”

“Just through tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure I can do it so soon—I have to be so careful lest—”

William Holt shrugged. “If it is too much . . . maybe another time. Either way, I’ll call on you again before I leave, if they will let me. There’s an inn close by Tower Bridge that makes good meat pies. I’ll bring you one.”