"The difference, madam, is that I do not lie!"

The eyes of the two women locked in animosity.

Sydenham held up his hands. "Now, now, Bridget. Let's hear what the girl has to say."

"Husband, do not trust her. She has come to harm us."

Sydenham removed his wife's hand from his elbow and held it affectionately. He scrutinized Honor. "What is this warning you bring, girl?"

"Sir," Honor blurted, "the Bishop's men are on their way to raid this place. You must save yourselves."

Sydenham's mouth opened in dismay.

His wife intervened to ask coldly, "And how do you know this?"

"I overheard . . . some talk."

"Whose talk?" Mrs. Sydenham snapped in scorn. "The Bishop's? I suppose you are a frequent visitor at his palace?"

"No."

"Then whom did you overhear?"

"A boatman."

"A servant of the Bishop?"

"No. A Westminster boatman."

Mrs. Sydenham sneered. "Gossip?"

"What difference how or where I heard it? The danger is the same."

"The difference, mistress, is that I do not trust you."

Honor trembled with anger. An attack on her integrity was the last thing she had expected from this coven of criminals-criminals she was risking herself to save!

"But Bridget," Sydenham said gently, "why should she come to warn us if not as a friend?"

"Perhaps to spy us out. Make a list of names and faces. Perhaps only to confound and terrify us. Or perhaps both, and with this tale about a raid she could cause chaos enough and slip away in our confusion."

"But, my dear-"

"I know nothing of why!" Mrs. Sydenham's voice rasped, sharp with exasperation. "But I know that midnight raids are not Bishop Tunstall's method, and-"

"Not the Bishop," Honor broke in. "An evil man on his staff."

Unmoved, Mrs. Sydenham's eyes fell on her, burning with suspicion. "And I know this girl is attached to More."

Sydenham cast an anxious glance over his shoulder at the meeting, and Honor, appalled at the delay, saw that his wife's counsel had cut deeply into his own trusting instincts. When he turned back and reached out both his hands for hers she was not sure if it was in friendship or to take her captive.

"Thank you," he murmured simply. His grip was surprisingly firm. He let her hands go. "My dear," he said, smiling sadly at his wife, "friends of the Brethren are not so thick that we may cast one away when fate draws her to our door. Now, we have little time to move Brother Frish and all these good people out. Mistress," he said to Honor, "my son Edward here will escort you-"

"Wait." Mrs. Sydenham's arm swept toward the warehouse in an exaggerated gesture of invitation, and she asked Honor in a voice unctuous with disdain, "Mistress, will you fly to safety with us? Are you one of us?"

"No!" Honor's answer shot out too fast, an arrow loosed from her heart, and she took a step back, as fearful of contamination as if this were a gathering of lepers.

Mrs. Sydenham's smile was wry. "In this, at least, I believe you speak the truth." Her face hardened. "And if you are not with us, you must be against us."

Sydenham's eyes darted from one woman to the other. Sweat beaded his brow. He wrung his hands, trying to decide.

Honor's face flushed with rage. "This is madness! Madam, I came in good faith to save your husband from the flames of Smithfield. I see, however, that you are eager to embrace widowhood. Very well. I'll not stand between you and your heart's desire." She turned on her heel. Edward, suddenly bold, barred the door with crossed arms. She punched him on the shoulder. The blow was nothing, but he blinked in surprise and unfolded his arms. She stepped around him.

"Stay!" It was Mrs. Sydenham's voice again. Honor turned. The woman's face was stark with worry; her former hardness had vanished. "Please, tell my husband what you know," she said. "I will alert our friends."

Amazed though she was at this about-face, Honor sighed with relief.

Sydenham had already taken a step toward the meeting. "No, Humphrey," Mrs. Sydenham said brusquely, "if you speak you'll cause panic. I'll do it."

She hurried toward the gathering. The excited people, still unaware of any disturbance, were chattering and laughing around the preacher. Mrs. Sydenham pushed through to reach him. She bent to whisper in Frish's ear while the people babbled on. Frish shot a look back at Honor. Under his scrutiny she was uncomfortably conscious of the richness of her clothing in contrast to the drab group he stood with, and she turned her head away. As she did, she noticed, above the huge rear door, an odd movement in the air, as if dust were sifting from the roof, dislodged from the rafters to drift and sparkle down through the torchlight. The people sensed it too and hushed. Mrs. Sydenham looked up. Everyone turned breathlessly toward the wide, closed door.

There was a creaking, like giant wagon wheels beginning to move. For one frozen moment Honor saw the wooden door bulge. Then it burst. Huge splinters flew. Men-at-arms swarmed in. Cries of men and women pierced the rafters and ricocheted off the vats. The ragged ring of torches burst apart and their flames flared in the wind of rushing bodies. Honor turned to flee the way she had come, but an officer stood in the open door beckoning behind him to armed men running along the passage. She whirled around. Beyond the crush of people the splintered rear door lay open. If she could make it there she could escape. She dashed into the melee.

It was madness. Women snatched up children and were in turn snatched by officers. Men dropped under cudgel blows. Honor saw Sydenham running to reach his wife. Mrs. Sydenham stretched out her hand to him. As their fingers touched, a young officer lunged for Sydenham and hauled him sideways. He pinned Sydenham's belly against a vat, and scraped his cheek bloody along the surface. Mrs. Sydenham was engulfed by screeching people herding for the rear door. Honor glimpsed Edward among them, his orange hair flying. She could see that the first people outside were instantly trapped by officers in the alley, but a few who went after broke through and bolted into the night. It was the only way out. She groped her way around a vat, eyes on the door.

From behind, an arm locked around her head, covering her eyes. She was jerked backwards, lost her balance, and fell against her attacker. As he hauled her by the head, she had to clutch his sleeve to keep her neck from being wrenched. His other hand pushed brutally down on the top of her head, forcing her to the ground. She was dragged along the floor on her back, then bumped over a ridge that banged her backbone, then hauled into a narrow passage. Her captor crammed himself behind her and stopped. They lay together on their sides, her back against his chest. She felt his leg kick at something, then heard a sound like a metal door snapping shut.

His arm dropped from her forehead to her waist, pinning her arm. His other hand clamped her mouth. His palm was slippery with sweat. She sucked breaths through her nose. The smell of the place was foul, but she could see nothing in the pitch blackness around them. They lay with knees bent, as tightly packed as spoons, breathing together and sweating together in a grotesque parody of spent lovers. Honor could hear screams and scuffles outside their fetid cage.

The man's hand on her mouth lifted, but hovered as if ready to muzzle her again. "They'll leave soon," he breathed. "Hold on!" Even in a whisper the sterling voice was unmistakable. Frish, the preacher.

"Where . . ."-she coughed-". . . where are we?"

"Under the vat. Sydenham built a false bottom. For the Bibles."

Of course! The hides, the smell . . . it was animal fat, rendered for soap-making. This was the same stench that had drifted over Smithfield from the butchers' yards the day Ralph was burned. The rancid reek of death. Nausea swelled in her and she almost retched.

"Hold on," he urged. "Just hold on!"

Outside, the cool rain tasted delicious. Honor and Frish crouched in a muddy alley against a wall of the emptied warehouse. A lantern in the neighbor's stable yard cast the faintest of beams over them. The downpour had lightened, and Honor lifted her face with closed eyes to let it drizzle her skin and wash her clean.

"'As cold waters to a thirsty soul,' " Frish murmured, watching her.

"Proverbs," Honor said, and found herself smiling, for despite the cramps in her muscles and the residue of nausea and fear, she was aware of a light-headed clarity, an exhilaration that came with the joy of escape. She ran her tongue over salty lips. It was good to be alive!

She looked at Frish. Instantly, he lowered his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him close-up. His frame was very slight, his features small, his face fragile-looking. And every inch of it was cratered with pockmarks. Under her gaze he hunched into himself, and she realized that he was used to people shrinking from his ravaged face. Down from his makeshift pulpit, alone with her, all his sparkle and fire was snuffed out.

"Lady," he stammered, "I thank you. For the warning you brought. Mrs. Sydenham told me only that much. May I . . ."-he plucked at his frayed sleeve-"may I know your name?"

Honor hesitated. "Brother, it is I who must thank you," was all she could muster. But her gratitude was heartfelt, for she could imagine the consequences if she had been caught: at the very least, expulsion in disgrace from the Queen's employ and shame brought on Sir Thomas, and at the worst . . . she shuddered, thinking of the worst. "What happened to Master Sydenham?" she asked. "And his wife and son?"

"I saw Edward run out the back. Then I looked for you. In those clothes, you were not difficult to spot. I only hope the Sydenhams escaped, too, after Edward."

Honor watched him, wondering . . .

"Brother," she blurted, "did you know Ralph Pepperton?"

"Pepperton? No."

That was all.

"I must go," she declared suddenly. "I have been away too long. If Her Grace finds me gone-"

"Her Grace? Do you mean . . ? Have you a place at court?"

"Yes," she said, drawn by his stare. Despite his ugliness, his pale blue eyes shone with a power both mesmerizing and disturbing. "I wait on the Queen."

"I knew you were worth a risk!" Enthusiasm lit up his face, sweeping away all his shyness. "Lady, hear me. I have come from exile with Tyndale in Antwerp-"

"Exile?" she interrupted cautiously.

He shrugged as if to say that his personal situation was of no importance. "Arrested for preaching in Lincoln. I slipped the Bishop's bonds. But," he resumed in earnest, "I've returned to rouse support for the English Brethren. So many of us are poor-scholars, bookbinders, glaziers, bricklayers. Oh, we've attracted a sprinkling of well-to-do merchants like good Master Sydenham-God help him, now. But we need more friends, powerful friends. And with your ear at court you could do much to help us find them. No, do not draw back!" His small hands grabbed her shoulders. "I am not mad, I promise you. I know that there are men at court who would support us. You could sound them out. I have heard whispers that an influential gentleman sympathizes with us-a man on Cardinal Wolsey's staff, no less. A Master Cromwell. Alas, I cannot reach such men. But you can. And there are others. Even the Lady Anne Boleyn, so I have heard-"

"What?" She pulled out of his grasp. "You'd have me plot with my mistress's enemy? Brother," she said severely, "I was glad to bring a warning tonight for I would not see any of you burn. But I assure you I am not one of you. For God's sake, you are a heretic!"

Frish smiled as he would at a child, and murmured, "For God's sake, indeed." He cocked his head at her and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, "Mistress, did you never catch your father in a lie?"

Warily, she asked, "Your meaning, Brother?"

"I'll tell you a story," said Frish. "My father was a tenant farmer. I labored in his field from the day I could lift a load. When I was nine, the landlord stopped by our cottage to see my father, and when he left, my father told me the landlord had accused me of stealing some of his pears. I was desolate, not only because I was innocent, but also because the landlord had always been a friend to me, always told me I had promise. My father beat me for the theft. Years later I found out that the landlord, who had no son, had not come that day with any such accusation, but rather with an offer to pay for an education for me. My father, you see, preferred to retain my labor." He looked Honor in the eye. "The Church keeps us from God, mistress. It frightens us and punishes us in order to keep us enslaved. But I have caught the Church in its lie."

Again, she saw Bastwick standing over her own father, punishing him with the terror of hell, all for a mortuary.

"Are you so sure you are not one of us?" Frish asked gently.

She could find no words. Objections and denials withered under those fiercely pure eyes.

He lowered his head, disappointed by her silence. His body slumped again into meek self-consciousness. "Forgive me," he mumbled, "I've made a mistake. I'll go." He stood. "You will not want me to escort you. I would only endanger you further."

He flipped the hood of his tunic over his fair head. Instantly, it cut off the beam from his eyes. Without another word he left her side, his footsteps falling noiselessly. As he passed beyond the lantern's feeble halo, clouds blotted the moon, as if some massive hand in heaven covered it to shield him, allowing him to go in darkness.

But Honor heard his clear voice as he called back softly from the end of the alley, "God be with you!"

10.

Chelsea in Autumn "Is the litter for the Cardinal, Master DeVille?" Honor asked, looking down at the activity in the courtyard.

She was standing at a window of the library in the Bishop of London's palace. Cardinal Campeggio, the Pope's special envoy, had been a guest here since his arrival in London the week before. Now, his retinue was assembling for a move to quarters across the city. The palace was attached to St. Paul's, and in the shadow of the cathedral's spire servants and clerks jostled and shouted among horses, mules, and baggage carts, while at the center of the commotion the Cardinal's horse litter sat motionless. Honor glanced over her shoulder at the young cleric writing at a book-strewn table. "Is the Cardinal ill?"

"He suffers from gout," Percy DeVille answered without glancing up from his ledger. He was cataloging a shipment of books just arrived from Florence. DeVille was an assistant to the Bishop's librarian, and Honor had dealt with him on several occasions, borrowing rare books for the Queen. "It took him weeks to get here from Dover in that litter," he added.

Honor looked out again and caught a glimpse of the pale, balding man frowning out from the brocaded interior of the curtained couch. "Perhaps delay is his strategy," she said.

"Strategy?" DeVille asked, finally looking up.

"His best hope is that, given time, the King will change his mind about the divorce. Then the Pope would not have to act at all."

"Change his mind?" DeVille smirked over the rim of his eyeglasses. "Don't let affection for the Queen cloud your reason, Mistress Larke."

Honor turned from the window. "While your own affection bends toward the King?"

"Only toward the Church, mistress," he murmured, "only toward the Church." His pen scratched another entry.

Honor glanced at a far corner where a couple of priests, the only other people in the library, stood chatting. She was waiting for them to leave. A week ago she had paid DeVille to check the Bishop's records for information about Ralph's death, and she had come this afternoon to hear what he had discovered. But the priests were laughing softly, making no haste to go. She moved to DeVille's table and restlessly fingered the cover of a large, beautifully embossed volume of Cicero. "And in the King's 'great matter,' which way does the Church's affection bend?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Fishing, Mistress Larke?"

"Only for what will rise to the bait, Master DeVille."

He chuckled. "I'm afraid you'll take no great catch from these waters. Though I will say this much-under normal circumstances the King's case would be strong, based as it is on the scriptural injunction in Leviticus."

"But the Queen's case is surely stronger," Honor argued. "The former Pope dispensed with Leviticus in a papal bull that allowed the marriage. It's there in black and white."

"But the question is, can a Pope legally dispense with a scriptural injunction?"

"Come now, Master DeVille. Historically Popes have issued hundreds of such dispensations, and all sorts of royal marriages have been contracted on the strength of them. How can a papal dispensation be called illegal?"

"That," he murmured cryptically, "is the heart of the matter." He frowned at his dulled pen, took up a knife, and began to whittle the quill tip. "I understand from what one of the lawyers let drop that even the King is shrewdly skirting this issue. I hear he is planning to keep Leviticus in the background, and will argue to Cardinal Campeggio simply that the wording of the Pope's bull of dispensation was faulty, and therefore void."

Honor flipped through the Cicero to mask her excitement at the news of this legal twist; it would greatly interest the Queen. "You mean, then," she said, "that the King dares not attack the fundamental principle of papal authority."

"Not if he hopes to win."

"As you think he shall?"

DeVille smiled and examined the sharpened quill. "If I possessed the art of divination, Mistress Larke, I would not be a poor assistant librarian." He shrugged. "Who knows how Campeggio will rule in the name of Rome? As I suggested, normal arguments apply under normal circumstances, not the crisis we face today, what with the Emperor breathing down the Pope's neck. And look at it from the Pope's point of view. The King's demand for a divorce has led his Holiness into the jaws of a trap. He is being asked to declare that the judgment of a former Pope was wrong. If he admits that, he will be admitting to all Europe that a Pope has erred, and that is precisely what the arch-heretic Luther has been raving about, saying Popes have always subverted the eternal law of God and substituted their own corrupt judgments."

"How does Luther come into this?"

"Great heaven, mistress, look about you. The Emperor's German lands are awash with Lutheran heresy. That outlaw monk has brought the German people to the brink of anarchy. Luther and his followers threaten to tear Christendom apart. A false move now by Pope Clement could lead to a fatal rift."