The Queen's Lady

by Barbara Kyle

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Regency Romance

Synopsis

London, 1527. Marry or serve: for Honor Larke, the choice is clear. Unwilling to perish of boredom as an obedient wife, she leaves the home of her ward to attend Her Majesty, Queen Catherine of Aragon. But life at Henry VIII's court holds more than artifice for an intelligent observer, and Honor knows how to watch--and when to act. . .

Angered by the humiliation heaped upon her mistress as Henry cavorts with Anne Boleyn and presses Rome for a divorce, Honor volunteers to carry letters to the Queen's allies. It's a risky game, but Honor is confident--until she's proven wrong by dashing courtier Richard Thornleigh--a man who awakens her heart, and who also has something to hide. . .. Swept into a tide of intrigue and danger that stretches across Europe, the Queen's lady is about to learn everything: about pride, passion, greed--and the conscience of the King. . .

"Weaves a fast-paced plot through some of the most harrowing years of English history." --Judith Merkle Riley

"Excellent, exciting, compellingly readable." --Ellen Jones

"Riveting, heady, glorious, inspired." --Susan Wiggs

Includes a Reading Group Guide!

Release date: December 1, 2009

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 608

Sample

She would remember this forever after as the night she watched two men die, one at peace and one in terror. But now, seven years old and lost, Honor Larke knew only that she was out alone on a May Day night gone mad. She wedged herself into the shadows of a tavern doorway and prayed that the looters had not seen her. They were ransacking a house across the street, their torches flaring, and it seemed to Honor as though devils in a play had swarmed from the stage and hell blazed right before her.

She was trapped.

She could not go back to Cheapside. The London apprentices were rioting there. Their annual day of carousing had boiled into violence against the rich foreigners, especially the Italians, called Lombards, and Honor’s chest still burned from tearing through a Cheapside mob pitching rocks at a goldsmith’s shop while the women inside screamed in a strange tongue. But she could not go forward either, for thieves exploiting the night’s chaos had joined some apprentices to lay waste this side street.

They were heaving booty out to their accomplices from windows in the three-storied merchant’s house across from her. Bolts of silk billowed down in ribbons of crimson and jade. Wooden chests smashed onto the cobblestones, spilling papers and coins. A dozen thieves were scooping the spoils into sacks. One of them, a toothless old man squatting in the middle of the street, hummed as he picked through a scatter of Venetian silver spoons. A thief with a torch hustled by Honor’s hiding place, and she gagged on the acrid smoke of the blazing tarred rags. She clamped her hand on her mouth to cover the sound.

“Will, catch this,” a man called from a window. He tossed out a garnet-studded casket. “Careful. It’ll fetch enough to buy a bishop’s whore.”

Above him, a voice crowed from the top floor. “I found me one!”

The knots of foraging men looked up. Under a gable, a hefty young apprentice stood at a smashed-out loading door. “Found me a Lombard!” he sang out. “Scribbling at his desk, he was!” He tugged a quill pen from his hair and waved it like a trophy. He darted inside, and for a moment the opening was empty, lit by the garish torchlight from within. Then a man was pushed into view. White-haired, he was dressed in a long, black gown. He stood still and quiet, his hands behind him. The boy took a fistful of the man’s hair and jerked his head back, and the man twisted slightly, revealing a scarlet cord trussing his wrists.

Gaping up, Honor crammed herself against the tavern door until its latch gouged her shoulder.

“Can’t see him,” a man in the street groused.

The boy under the gable shoved the man, forcing him to step up onto the sill where he swayed unsteadily.

“No finery on him,” the man below scoffed. “Where’s his Lombard silks and jewels?”

“Hold on.” The boy began draping necklaces over the head of his hostage and layering brightly coloured scarves around his neck. “There. Now he’s a Turk.”

This brought laughter from below. The boy giggled and piled on more trinkets. His sleeve snagged on one of the chains around the man’s neck. Annoyed, the boy yanked free his sleeve, and the man scuffled forward to balance himself. His foot stubbed against an iron latch, and he fell. He plunged down, his gown rippling through the air. His body thudded onto the cobbles. He lay motionless. Silence, like a shroud cast out after him, settled over the watchers.

The toothless old man whined, “That’s done it.” He began raking in his bright spoons. “That boy’ll hang, and the mayor’s men’ll be after us all.”

“Shut your face,” the boy snapped. “He’s just a God-rotting Lombard.” But within moments he and the others inside had sifted out into the street, joining the men who stood around the body. “Stupid old fart,” the boy said. “If he’d just stood still…” He gave the body a savage kick.

Honor gasped. The boy caught the sound and wheeled. He squinted across at the murky tavern entrance. Honor wormed down the door, the back of her dress snagging on the rough wood. She squatted in the corner, heart pounding.

The boy motioned to a man with a torch. Together, they stalked to the tavern doorway. “Well, lookit here,” the boy brayed over his shoulder. “A little spy.” His grip burned Honor’s wrist as he yanked her out. “Where’d you spring from, goblin?”

Though trembling, she dug in her heels. The boy grabbed her under the armpits, lifted her in the air and shook her roughly. “Speak up!” he said. She flinched at the blast of breath that stank of sour ale. He shook her again. “Be you English or a God-cursed foreigner?”

She didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t sure what a foreigner was. Under the vise of his hands, her ribs felt on fire.

“Please, sir, I’ve only come to fetch home Ralph.”

“And who the devil be Ralph?”

“My father’s servant.”

“A foreigner?”

“Aw, leave it,” a man by the body called, preparing to leave.

Another said, “Gilbey’s right. Mayor’s men’ll be coming. I’m off, too.”

The boy set Honor down so harshly she staggered for balance. Wordlessly, men and boys gathered up their booty, leaving behind small piles of litter, and scuttled into the alleys. Their torchlight evaporated. Under the hiding moon the street went dark and cold. Papers fluttered. The faint, far-away bursts of shouts and shattering glass rolled over the rooftops then died in the air above Honor and the body. She looked across the street at it. It lay sprawled amongst the refuse, a black mound.

There was a moan. Honor’s heart tightened. The sound had come from the body.

“Per favoré…qualcuno…O! Per pietà!”

Honor stood still, afraid, unsure. She heard a scrabbling on the cobbles. A dog was snuffling through the litter. It moved to the body and circled it.

The man did not move. “Va! Va via!” he gasped.

The dog seemed to sense his helplessness. It thrust its muzzle into the open neck of his gown.

“Per pietà-à-à!”

Without thinking, Honor sprang from the doorway. She snatched up a pewter goblet and hurled it. It struck the dog’s hind leg. The dog yelped. She seized a pot and pitched it as well. The dog turned and bolted up the street.

“Who is there?” the man cried.

Honor came closer, cautiously, and stood over him. The moon sailed out from the cover of clouds, washing him with a cold, white light. Now she could see him clearly. He lay on his back on top of his bound arms. At his throat the scarves and necklaces were twined in a bright tangle. He did not move. His eyes were closed. His moans had stopped. Had he died? she wondered.

His eyelids sprang open. For a moment, man and child stared at one another.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “The dog…” He stopped to cough.

“Do you hurt?” Honor asked.

A small smile tugged at his lips. “No hurt. Back is broken. Feel nothing…” His voice trailed. “Muoro. I am dying…”

If he’s dying, she thought, how can he smile? But she realized what she must do. “Sir, I’ll fetch a priest.”

“No! No need!”

The sudden fierceness of his voice surprised her. She did not want to disobey him, but everyone knew that God would not allow a soul into heaven if it was filthy with unconfessed sin. “Sir,” she said, marveling at his ignorance, “you must be shriven.” She did not want him to burn in hell’s fires forever.

“No,” he insisted, faintly now. “Confession…priests…prayers to God…no good…”

She drew back. He was speaking blasphemy. Even a child knew that. But she noticed blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the cobbles like ink. Maybe dying is making him mad, she thought. Otherwise, how can he smile so? “Sir,” she asked softly, “are you not afraid to die? And all alone?”

“You came to help me,” he whispered. “When there was no one else, you came. What should I fear when I have uno àngelo—an angel—beside me?”

Honor stiffened at the sound of footsteps. The moon was masked again by clouds and she could not see far, but she could hear the low voices of men, their words indistinct.

The dying man heard them too. His body jerked once in a spasm. “Inside…my gown,” he rasped. “Piccolo àngelo…take it.” He was spitting blood. “Take it! Now!”

Honor kneeled and reached into his gown. She withdrew a slim book slightly larger than a man’s hand.

“I wrote it,” he said, his eyes glinting as if with joy, “for you.”

“For me?” she asked, beguiled, though his comment made no sense, strangers as they were. She could not even read.

“But never…never show it to a priest!” He coughed. Honor winced as the warm mist of blood sprayed her hands. “You understand? Never…to a priest!”

“A secret?” she whispered.

Again, his lips formed a serene smile. “Si, piccolo àngelo. A secret…”

Blood bubbled out of his mouth. His head lolled. His dead eyes stared at her, wide open. But Honor felt no horror. Despite the violence done to him, his life had closed so peacefully.

“Somewhere ’round here…” It was a man’s voice. Two dark forms were turning the corner of the ransacked house. Honor stuffed the book deep inside her wide sleeve and crouched. Looking across the body, she watched the men approach. They were kicking at the litter.

“You sure there was a purse on him?” one man muttered.

“I saw it at his belt,” the other insisted. “When he fell.”

“Well, find him and cut it. And let’s be off.”

“And his rings? Cut his rings, too?”

“Cut off his poxy balls, if you want, but get the purse.”

The second man finally saw the body and shot out a finger. “There!”

They both hurried forward. A few paces from the body the second man stopped abruptly and held out his arm to stop the other. “Jesus, it’s that sneaking girl.”

Both men whipped out knives. They stepped toward her.

Honor jumped up, ready to bolt.

From behind her a thick arm swept around her waist and snatched her. Her body was jackknifed, facedown, and she could see only the heels of her abductor’s boots. He bounded up the street, and she gasped for air, pinned against his thigh. She was joggled half a block before the man carrying her swung into an alley and halted. He hoisted her up roughly, his hands encircling her rib cage. Fierce with fear, she swung her fists at him with eyes closed, but he held her away easily.

“What do you think you’re up to?” he cried.

Her eyes popped open. “Ralph!”

She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face against the stubble of his cheek. “Oh, Ralph,” she gulped, “they were smashing the houses! And they pushed the foreigner man out the window, and he fell, all broken! And those robbers were going to kill me, and—”

“Hush, little mistress, I’ve got you now.” He cupped one beefy hand around the back of her head and hugged her with the other. “You be safe now. Hush.” He began walking quickly.

She held tight, drinking in the familiar smell of his battered leather jerkin and feeling safe, indeed, in his embrace. Ralph Pepperton, at nineteen, was over six feet tall and built like a tree trunk. Honor had been told by her nurse, Margaret—with no little pride—that Ralph had never lost a fight. On Lady Day, when he had vaulted the neighbor’s garden wall to visit the pretty scullery maid there, a brawl with two of that household’s retainers had ensued, and the servants on both sides had bet money on Ralph. “An ox on two feet,” Honor’s father had called Ralph that day, and beamed as he pocketed his own winnings.

Ralph was heading up the dark alley, making for the glow of torches on the broad thoroughfare of Cheapside. “What a night,” he growled, kicking through the garbage of dung and bones. “May Day’s for fun, right enough, but this time the ’prentices have gone too far. They’ve burst Newgate jail and loosed the prisoners. And now they’re off to fire the houses on Lombard Street. I watched some hound a Frenchman up the belfry of St. Mary’s like a rat before they dragged him down and set on him.”

He talked on as if to soothe her, though his voice was tight with indignation. “I grant the ’prentices have some cause to hate the strangers, but Sweet Jesu, there be some mighty sins committed this night. And they’ll pay for it, sure as there’s eel pie at Lent. But never fear, little mistress,” he murmured, “you be safe with me.”

She hugged him with all her might, but when he squeezed her in return she flinched, still tender from the apprentice’s rough handling. Ralph stopped. Beneath a window where a candle flickered he pried her away from his neck and quickly examined her muddy face and arms. His voice was harsh with an anger she had never heard from him. “Whatever in God’s good creation lured you out?” he said. “On this cursed night of all nights.”

She pouted in silence and he hoisted her up as if to shake an answer from her.

“Stop that, Ralph Pepperton! I won’t be shaken anymore!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Let me go!”

Tenderly, he set her again in the crook of his arm. But his scowl remained firm. “Well?”

She glared at him, her arms folded over her chest. “I came out for you! And I don’t see why you should be angry when I only came to save you.”

“Save me?” he blustered.

“Yes. Master Ellsworth said he’d skin you alive if he found you’d left the house.” Ellsworth was her father’s chamberlain. After curfew, she had seen him prowling the house for absent servants, thwacking his stick ominously against his shin. “He was in a terrible fume. And I knew you’d left. I heard you at the kitchen door this afternoon, telling the baker’s ’prentice you’d meet him later at the sign of the Ploughman’s Rest.”

“Do you mean you wriggled out of your bed, away from old Margaret, and came out to the Ploughman’s…for me?”

“Yes. But I got lost.” She bit her lip, remembering the fearful hours of wandering, then the mob, the flames, and the white-haired man falling to his death. “Oh, Ralph…” she said, fighting back tears, “it was only because of Master Ellsworth with his stick…”

Ralph’s scowl had already softened, although he kept his voice stern. “Master Ellsworth and his stick be my lookout, mistress.” He took her chin in his calloused hand and grinned. “But it be a kind little heart—and a brave one—that prompted you to do it.”

She smiled back, loving him.

“Now,” he said, stepping away from the wall, “we’ve got to get you back a-bed before Margaret wakes herself with her own snoring and finds you gone.” He shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Maybe dunk you in a bucket first, for I swear you’re more mud than maid.”

She followed his gaze toward Cheapside where bright torchlight was now spilling partway down the alley. She could hear shouting there, too.

Ralph looked back over his shoulder, then frowned as if rejecting that route. “The alleys will be crawling with lousels,” he muttered. He looked forward again at Cheapside and set his jaw. Hugging Honor in one arm, he unsheathed his dagger and strode up toward the light. Just before they reached the wide street he ducked into the shadows and halted. Honor twisted in his arms to look.

Two bands were squared off like small armies on a battlefield. One, a mob of twenty-odd apprentices—young men from about fourteen to twenty—was jeering at the other, a city delegation. Above the street, half-open shutters revealed candles, and nightcaps, and frightened faces.

The delegation was made up of three mounted aldermen—ineffectual-looking despite their fine velvets—who lurked behind a dozen foot-soldiers with pikes. In front of the soldiers, two more officials sat on horseback: a grizzled Sergeant of the Guard who wore half-armor, and a dark-haired man of middle age, unarmed and plainly dressed. The Sergeant’s sword and steel breastplate glinted above the mob’s torches.

“I warn you again,” the Sergeant barked to the mob, “you are breaking the law.”

“Pissing curfew,” an apprentice yelled. “That’s no real law.”

Fuming, the Sergeant jerked a thumb at the simply dressed man beside him. “I’ll take my instruction on the law from the Undersheriff here, Master Thomas More, not from rabble. Now, quit this place! Or end your days as gallows fruit.”

A young man hefting a bloodied cudgel at the front of the mob strode up to the Sergeant’s stallion. “And what about our grievance, then? What about the foreigners? There be hundreds of the buggers, snatching the crusts from our mouths.”

“Aye,” another bleated from the ranks. “And a God-cursed lender from Mantua bled my master with interest of fifteen percent.”

“They infect the city with plague and palsy,” the young man beside the stallion cried back to his mates. “Burn their kennels down, I say!”

The apprentices stamped. Torches bobbed.

The Sergeant swung up his sword above the young man’s head. The air sighed with the sudden movement. “Sodden bastards,” he shouted. “Quit this place!”

Thomas More’s voice broke through. “Whoa, there!” His brown mare was dancing sideways. He jigged awkwardly at the reins, but the animal, apparently ignoring him, cut between the young man and the Sergeant, forcing them apart.

“Pardon me, Sergeant,” More cried helplessly over his shoulder. “My horse is but green-broke.”

The mare capered forward through the no-man’s-land between the two camps, seemingly out of More’s control. It veered into the front rank of apprentices, and several had to stagger backwards out of its way.

“You there. Jamie Oates,” cried More. “Grab a-hold, boy.”

A yellow-haired fifteen-year-old dashed out of the mob and grappled the bridle near the horse’s bit. It settled instantly and stood still.

“I’m obliged to you, Jamie,” More said, displaying relief. The boy beamed up and respectfully touched his cap.

More dismounted, turned, and shrugged a final apology. Then, before the bewildered eyes of both groups, he led his suddenly calm horse to a water trough at the mouth of the alley and allowed it to drink.

Honor craned her neck to see as she and Ralph watched from the shadows.

Above the horse’s slurping Jamie let go a jittery giggle with a nod at the aldermen. “Master More, you’ll have that mare pissing in their lordships’ path.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the mob. The Sergeant, the soldiers, and the aldermen kept a stony silence. Thomas More smiled indulgently at the boy. Then he eased himself up to stand on the rim of the trough. From this narrow platform he could be seen by all. “Young Jamie Oates here knows you can’t keep a horse from pissing when it must,” he called out with wry good humour. “Jamie, you’re a quick, smart lad,” he went on, still loud enough for all to hear. “You’re apprenticed to Addison, are you not?”

“Aye, sir. Master Addison. Finest smith in Thames Street,” the boy answered proudly.

More smiled. “Jamie’s a credit to his master. He’ll make a fine ironsmith himself one day.” He paused for a moment while Jamie preened beside his friends.

“And when that day comes, Jamie,” More continued courteously, “when you have apprentices of your own, what will you ask of them in return for the care you’ve given them? For their bed and board and instruction in a good trade, what’s a fair return? Will you expect loyalty and diligence? Or faithlessness and insurrection?”

The boy’s grin vanished.

A voice from the back of the mob shouted, “What good be his trade if foreigners take all the work?”

“Aye,” cried another. “And you lawmen let them fleece us.” Complaints rumbled.

More listened patiently, then held up his hands to ask for silence. “Jamie knows what kind of law I dispense. His master came before my court last month when a Flemish smelter claimed Addison had not paid him for a wagonload of iron. Jamie came to my court and gave testimony. Jamie, tell the men here what verdict I gave.”

All eyes went to Jamie who was looking intently at the ground as if in search of a lost penny. More waited, his arms folded across his chest, his gray eyes gently fixed on the boy.

Jamie answered petulantly like an unwilling pupil. “Master More gave the victory to my master.”

“And…?” More coaxed.

“And he ordered the Fleming to pay my barge fare back to the workshop.”

“And…?”

Jamie’s face reddened. “And ordered him to…to stand me and my master a pot of ale at the Golden Dog.”

Waves of laughter broke out at the confession.

In the alley Ralph let out a snort of amusement. Honor had by this time wriggled out of his arms and clambered up onto his shoulder to get a better view, and she laughed as well, uncertain about what exactly had happened, but aware that, with nothing but his calm voice and words, Master More had made the rioters laugh and the soldiers smile. Even the fierce-looking Sergeant had lowered his sword.

“That lawyer’s wind has cooled them,” Ralph chuckled. He winced as Honor steadied herself with a handful of his hair, then he clasped her dangling ankles and whispered with a grin, “And if that mare of his be only green-broke, as he claims, then I’m the Duchess of Buckingham.”

“My friends,” More called out, suddenly earnest. “The Apostle urges obedience to authority. And I would not be in error if I told you that by raising arms tonight against the foreigners you have raised arms against God, and so endangered your immortal souls.”

Several apprentices crossed themselves.

“God has lent His office here on earth to the King,” More explained. “The foreigners dwell here with the King’s goodwill. So when you rise against the foreigners, you rise against the King. And when you rise against the King,”—he pointed heavenward—“what are you doing but rising against God?”

He let this heavy question hang in the air. Honor had a sudden vision of the young King Henry, the eighth of that name, kneeling before a jeweled altar and forlornly praying for his erring subjects, his head bowed under the weight of his jeweled crown.

When More spoke again his voice was gentle, reasonable. “Now, let us suppose that the King is merciful with all of you tonight. Let us say he does no more than banish you from the realm.”

Again he paused to let the full horror of such a sentence take hold.

“I ask you this: what country, after the disrespect for law that you have shown, would give you safe harbor? France? Flanders? Spain?” His eyebrows lifted in rhetorical expectation of an answer. “Say that some place will take you. Think now. In any land but England, it is you who would be called foreigners.”

Several faces frowned at the dismaying paradox.

“Would you then want to find yourselves in a nation of such barbarity that the people would not allow you even a roof over your heads?” His voice rose to a crescendo of indignation. “A land where they whetted their knives against your throats, and spurned you like dogs?”

Honor looked over the top of Ralph’s head at the subdued apprentices. They scratched their chins and glanced at one another, some ashamed, some bewildered. Again, she marveled at how Master More had worked such an astonishing change on them.

But the young man with the bloodied cudgel was unmoved. “Enough words,” he shouted. He snatched up a large stone, and with a cry of, “God curse all poxy foreigners!” he pitched it. It struck the Sergeant’s forehead. The Sergeant reeled back in his saddle, groping at the reins, blood trickling from the gash.

Both sides froze.

From a window a woman’s voice shrilled, “You’ll not murder the King’s men!” She and her neighbors began pelting down a shower of boots and bones upon the apprentices. The Sergeant bellowed, “Down with them!” and led his men in a charge. Cudgels flew, splitting lips and noses. Thomas More, dismayed, stepped down and backed away.

Ralph’s arm swung around Honor again. He toppled her over his shoulder like a bundle of cloth, edged around the fracas, and ran off down Cheapside.

 

By the time Ralph pushed through the gate of Christopher Larke’s townhouse Honor was half asleep in his arms. Ralph hurried across the courtyard, and Honor stirred as he hushed the yapping dogs and headed for the kitchen door. There, under a hanging lantern, Ralph stopped to catch his breath. He lifted his face to let the breeze cool his sweat-dampened hair and shirt.

Honor winced at a pain in her side. She found its source, a hard corner of the little book inside her sleeve. She pulled the book out. Under the lamplight its blue leather cover swirled with gilt-tooled leaves and petals. The leather was spattered with dried droplets of blood. She looked up at Ralph. “The foreigner man gave me this,” she whispered.

The book was fastened with two small brass clasps. She pried them up. Leaves of creamy, thick vellum fluttered, then settled open at the title page. Honor’s eyes drifted below the incomprehensible letters to a drawing. It was a single, startlingly beautiful painting of a flower—a winding stem with toothed, oval leaves of spring green, and a blossom of four, joined petals. The petals burst out in glorious blue, a gay sky blue, bright and bold.

“Speedwell,” Ralph whispered, smiling at the wildflower.

Honor’s fingers traced over the elegant characters of the title as if she might absorb their meaning by touch. What mysteries did such a beautiful book have to tell? she wondered. “Never show it to a priest!” the foreign man had warned, and then he had smiled, though he knew he was dying. Did his book hold some secret that had made him smile like that? Her eyes were drawn back to the flower, so fresh and lifelike beneath her stare. “Speedwell,” she repeated softly, and the blossom seemed almost to nod, as if trembling under her breath.

“Peppers,” Honor declared suddenly, looking Ralph in the eye, “I’m going to learn to read.”

He frowned. “Reading be for priests and clerks, not for ladies, mistress.” He clamped her nose between his knuckles and whispered with mock anger, “And what’s this ‘Peppers,’ if you please? That name was only for your lady mother to use, God rest her soul. Not wild little wenches like you.” Honor squirmed, trying to pry her nose out from his grip, and she giggled when he finally pretended that she had beaten him and won free.

The kitchen door burst open. Honor’s stout nurse, Margaret, gasped. “You’re here!” She was disheveled and bleary-eyed. “Oh, little mistress, we’ve been looking everywhere. It’s your father. Struck with the Sweat, he is.”

Her voice came high and frightened as she crossed herself. “Blessed Jesu, Ralph, the master lies a-dying!”

 

Honor’s father was writhing on his bed.

She stood near the doorway of the darkened chamber, Margaret on one side of her, Ralph on the other. Ralph tightly held her hand. Servants huddled along the walls. Some held apron corners or cloths to their noses to block the reek of putrid sweat.

Honor knew about the sweating sickness. It had killed her only other close relatives, two uncles. It frequently struck London in spring, and everyone dreaded it for the appalling swiftness of the death it usually brought. “Merry at dinner, dead at supper,” she’d often heard the servants murmur. But they had meant the sweating sickness in other people’s houses. Now, it was here, in hers.

On the pillow, her father’s face was a stranger’s face. His fair hair was dark with sweat. Red blotches mottled his cheeks. His eyes, which she had seen shed tears only when he laughed too hard, were seeping a milky discharge. He was moaning softly.

A priest she had never seen before stood by the bed. It was clear he was a muscular young man, but his broad back was to her and she could not see his face. On the table beside him a single candle guttered, and its light glinted in a crescent along the top of his bald crown, shaved to create his priest’s tonsure. Below it, a fringe of black hair hung raggedly over his ears. The hem of his threadbare black cassock was crusted with mud. His scuffed boots had dropped clumps of horse dung onto the floor rushes.

“Who is he?” Ralph whispered to Margaret.

“Name’s Father Bastwick,” she whispered back. “The priest’s new curate at Nettlecombe. Dog-poor, as you can see. He just rode in, out of the night,” she said, wringing her hands. “He’s been badgering the master for the corpse present.”

Honor understood the fear in Margaret’s voice. When Honor’s mother had died ten months before at their manor of Nettlecombe in Somerset, the old parish priest had requested the embroidered coffin cloth for his mortuary fee—the “corpse present”—as was his right. Unreasonable in grief, her father had refused. The priest denounced him from the pulpit. Her father had remained stubborn, and the feud had festered all these months.

The young priest at the bedside suddenly said angrily, “By all the laws of custom and decree, you owe this debt to Holy Church.”

Honor’s fingers tightened into a ball inside Ralph’s hand.

Larke’s gaze wandered, unfocused. “Father,” he said through labored breaths, “never mind…all that. I ask you only…hear my confession. Prepare me…to meet my God.”

“I marvel at your blasphemous intransigence, man,” the priest replied. “The amount is a trifle to you. The sapphire ring you wear would more than suffice.