The Accusation Read online

  In a mumble, she said, "My mother did nothing. She was neither heretic nor traitor. Why did the queen hate her? Did someone lay false information against her?"

  Returning to the chair, Charles once against stretched his feet to the flames. "It was treachery, not heresy, that the countess was accused of practising, and yes indeed, I believe false evidence laid. I have no idea who claimed such witness. It is an age since I attended court. I remember the queen, since she is memorable. I remember few others. For several years I have come to London only for the trial and execution of those I loved. I know nothing."

  Katherine looked up. He sat close enough to see the moist sparkle return to her eyes. "But you call the queen memorable?"

  "She is bitter by nature and has been lonely since childhood when her mother was wrenched from her. She adores a man who treats her with contempt and dislike. She is ageing, barren, plain, and has no understanding of love. She knows only loyalty and obsession, and believes in a God who also knows nothing of love, only of pain."

  "Not barren. They say she now carries a child."

  "That was announced once before, but after many months it was concluded that no child existed."

  "You make me feel sorry for her." Katherine once again gazed at the dance and spit of the flames.

  "I do not pity her," Charles said, "since she is neither fool nor child. An intelligent woman should not believe in torture." Into the following silence, he continued, "An unexpected event has delayed my departure and unfortunately I am forced to stay here some days longer than I planned." He smiled, but she was not looking at him. "I trust this will not feel like torture to you, my lady. This is now your home."

  "The property still belongs to you, my lord."

  "I have no use for it," Charles said. "And will leave once I am free to do so. I trust your nurse will be both comfort and company."

  Katherine murmured, "Poor Anna is too old and too tired."

  Charles did not hear her. He met with the sheriff that afternoon, and relayed the discussion to no one else.

  Chapter Three

  The frogs were calling from the marsh puddles. Darkness first. Stone. Shrubs, scrubby with spikes. Bleeding fingers, searching for berries amongst the thorns. The whistle of wind through the reeds and a dog howled. Another answered, much closer. Stars and the flooded milky ooze of a huge night sky. Acknowledging the wonder of beauty and trying to grasp the concept of enormity. Acknowledging the monotony of dull pain, bitter hunger and wordless persistence.

  The young woman wrapped her skirt around her legs, covering the unravelling holes in her stockings and the blue frozen flesh. Her feet had once been well shod in serviceable leather but the soles leaked, and squelched between her toes.

  The gown she wore had originally been a pleasant blue but the creased linen was now too dishevelled and soiled to show its colour. The pins that had held her hair tightly coiled now dangled around her head, having fallen now hung loose and the small neat cap was lost. She was obviously alone, tired, and half starved.

  Fortune Mereworth was terrified but she also angry. Around her there was nothing to see and nothing welcoming or pleasant. Even the marshy pools and the bleak damp darkness had grown familiar. She walked through the moonlight, peering towards a flat horizon. The marshes continued endlessly and so did the cold. Each pool and puddle she waded, swam with silver so that moonlight arched over her head but also rippled around her ankles.

  Nearly home, she saw the cottages. Three were clustered on the distant banks, hugging higher ground. Thatched, small, tumbledown, with no candlelight shining through the mists and no smoke from the chimneys. Fortune trudged forwards, deviating, sidestepping, following where the marsh permitted. As mud sucked she stumbled and swerved, for solid steps were hard to find, there was no permanent path to follow and her feet sank with the weight of mud pulling her down. Then she could see the glimmer of a paling dawn behind the rooftops.

  The first cottage was the larger. Its thatch rotting in the insidious damp, mouldy wisps hanging. She knocked on the door. It rattled and the thin wood trembled. A tiny flame, a lit candle, held high, and behind it the looming shape of a figure. A voice said, "By God's grace, it is you. Safe returned." And a large hand grabbed her arm and hauled her inside. It was barely warmer within the cottage, but simple shelter from the wind and escape from the mud brought immediate comfort. She looked around, and at the man holding the candle but he wasn't smiling. There were other faces, two men, two women, standing behind and peering through the shadows. The older woman whispered, "Where is he? Did he not come with you?"

  And Fortune said, "No. He - he was not able to come."

  "You're alone? And the money? The funds we raised?"

  Fortune shook her head. "All taken. I lost everything."

  "You lost Jon too? But is there still hope? Or is he altogether - lost?"

  "Sit, girl," said the man still holding the candle. "Start from the beginning. Tell us exactly what happened."

  A month back, armed guards had come to the cottage, and the arresting constable announced the accusations. Both John and Fortune were taken away, locked first in the bishop's gaol in Canterbury before eventually being carted, manacled like felons, to the city.

  The villagers, twenty two of them, had raised every penny they could spare to help, for Jon was their preacher and they loved him. They had gone hungry to try and save his life. The small bag of coins had been brought to the gaol, sufficient not only for food but to pay for council, a lawyer, or for bribes. Jon had tucked the purse inside his vest, hidden from sight. They were together for a week or two in that cell, comforted by each other and able to buy ale and hot meals. But the archbishop's guards were not to be bribed. They feared the sort of punishments only the ecclesiastical mind could devise.

  Someone, Catholic zealot or embittered villager, had gone to the bishop, proclaimed heresy and demanded justice. Certainly, Jon's preaching was fervent, and presumably offended as often as it appealed. Within the village he was popular, indeed, loved, but there was the young woman who once hoped to marry him before he married Fortune, and she had an angry father. Or the old man who had been caught trying to pilfer the charity coins and who Jon lectured for an hour, humiliating him in front of the congregation.

  Whoever incriminated Pastor Mereworth and his wife, had made their case well, for some accused heretics were given time to prepare for their examinations, and permitted to appear at their allotted appointments while keeping their freedom in the meantime. But that option was not given.

  The eventual journey to London had only taken two days. Jon half expected the Lord God's thunder to echo His disapproval, and perhaps even lightening to strike the horses dead and burst the cart asunder. But the sun sneaked from the clouds, the birds sang, and God was clearly attending to some other matter elsewhere. John sighed. Short, solid, stocky, with a ginger frizz lightening his brown curls and trusting, determined brown eyes, a nice man, prim, pompous and endlessly kind. Fortune had known his kindness. Orphaned at sixteen, facing poverty and hunger, she married the pastor. Earnestly protestant, fervent, faithful, and in love with her. Now being protestant was a crime. Even God must have been confused.

  When they reached the village of Fulham just outside London, they dragged both in different directions, hands clutching and reaching out to each other. And that was the last time she saw him. She cried so much, the guards told her what would happen, just to keep her quiet. "You'll be held here in the Bishop's Palace until examination. Your husband goes to Newgate. His examination will be more thorough. But if condemned, you'll burn together."

  Twice she woke screaming, with the smell of burning flesh in her nostrils.

  He was condemned as a heretic.

  She looked into the colourless cruelty of the bishop's face leaning over me, and thought she was facing death.

  Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, pursed his lips, sitting grand and high, lustrously clothed and throne, as his priests questioned her. Fortune knew Jon
would never recant. His faith was his soul and he was prepared to die for it. She, on the other hand, was quite prepared to lie her head off.

  Her trial was brief. "Do you follow your husband's teachings, and deny the absolute power of His Holiness, the Pope?"

  She whispered, modestly lowering her head, "During the reign of the late king, his majesty Edward VI, and the laws of the land which we were all required to obey at that time, I did as I was told. My husband and I believed as we were ordered to believe."

  The bishop interrupted, "You are not being asked about the past, but about the present. Answer the question. What do you believe now?"

  "I am only a poor woman," she said. "I believe what I am told."

  "What your husband tells you, or what her grace the queen tells you?"

  Which lie to tell? "The Bible teaches us to obey our husbands. Her majesty has never personally spoken to me."

  "Stupid girl." The deacon, with an eye to his bishop, stood and paced the hall. "We speak not of teachings by those who have been led astray. We speak of the holy truth. You take Mass as proscribed?"

  "I do, sir."

  "And what is it you believe, in the acceptance of the holy bread and the consecrated wine? What is it you are given? Why is this taking of holy Mass an act of cleansing and purification?"

  "The bread is Christ's body. The consecrated wine is His blood. This is what I have been taught." John had not preached this, but she knew what was required.

  "Taught, yes," hissed the bishop from his dais. "But do you believe it?"

  "I believe it, my lord." He never blinked. His eyes seemed glazed.

  "Mistress Mereworth recants," cried one of the monks suddenly. He stood forward from the row of close sitting priests, and turned to the bishop. "Praise the Lord. This woman has seen the light. So the straying sheep are reclaimed." Bishop Bonner swivelled his head on its long wrinkled neck and stared coldly at the monk, who sat down again in a hurry.

  Bonner turned back again to Fortune. "You will state without subterfuge, what it is you truly believe. Do you accept that the bread and wine of the holy sacrament turn to the body and blood of the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you follow our holy Mother the Catholic Church of Rome? Do you accept the absolute supremacy of his holiness the Pope? And do you consider yourself a faithful parishioner of the great Cathedral of Canterbury, the teachings of Cardinal Pole the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Holy Bible as proclaimed by her majesty the queen?"

  Quickly, she answered, "My lord bishop, I do."

  He persisted. "In your own words, woman. Explain your beliefs as I have directed."

  She looked into the unemotional flat gaze, and spoke loudly. "I prayed to God, glorifying His mercy and asking that He accept me as a good Christian woman and faithful follower of the Holy Roman Church."

  Bishop Bonner looked thoroughly disappointed. He said, "Take the woman away. Return her to her cell to ponder on what she has said. I will examine her again in a few days, and see if she has reconsidered. I believe her to be cunning and dishonest. If her recantation is sincere, I shall know it."

  Back again to cold stone and darkness. But after only moments, the door was unlocked. A young monk held a candle in one hand and a bowl in the other. Fortune could see steam rising in the candlelight. In relief, she reached for the wooden bowl and spoon. The young man said, "Mistress Mereworth, please sit down and eat. I have something to say, and it will not take long. I shall talk as you eat." Brother Benedict brought her a pallid pottage without meat or fish, but anything at all tastes wonderful when you're starving. She mumbled her thankyous as she ate. "I hold no authority at your trial, mistress," he continued. "But I have spoken to my abbot, and if you repeat your recantation in front of Bishop Bonner, Father Perceval has agreed to plead for the acknowledgement of your redemption. I will not see you excommunicated while you hold true to Holy Mother Church."

  "And freedom? I'll be released?" The monk nodded, his tonsure shining like marble in the light of the flame. "Thank you. I'm - pleased to follow the true faith. I'll tell the Bishop of London that when he calls me again." She blinked and softened the smile but what she was thinking was more practical than religious. She knew exactly what Brother Benedict was dreaming, and how monks might swear chastity but they didn't cut off their pricks. She whispered, "I'll pray for you, brother. You're a kind, good man." Resisting the temptation to tell him he was handsome, or offer what she was fairly sure would frighten him witless and send him running to denounce her after all, she only murmured "But I am dreadfully hungry still. And thirsty. And I can't sleep for the cold."

  "The cold you must accept," said her saviour. "We are all sinners in the eyes of our Lord, and must accept the hardships He sends us. But I will have more food and ale brought to you tomorrow. Have faith, my child, and you will be saved."

  He kept his word. After a few days Fortune was called to the bishop's presence again. Bonner asked sharply, "Do you still honour your husband, Mistress Mereworth?"

  She nodded briskly. "I do indeed, my lord bishop."

  Bonner sneered. "Yet Jon Mereworth, claiming to be an ordained cleric within the Canterbury diocese, was a married man. This is the ultimate sin. You were the wife of a man who should have been sworn to chastity. Your husband was a heretic. And yet you admit to honouring him. I hold your recantation false, madam."

  Brother Benedict and his abbot began muttering to the deacon, and the three men stood together in front of their bishop and pleaded for the woman's life. Bonner's voice echoed. "I do not trust her. The wife of a man who preached the heresies of Protestantism, who denied the sacraments and abandoned chastity for a sinful marriage."

  "But my lord, the woman accepted marriage under the previous reign. That was not her sin. And now she has recanted, and claims to accept the sacred truth of the sacrament and Holy Mass."

  "Claims to, yes." Bonner snorted and suddenly addressed Fortune again. "You, do you accept purgatory? Do you fear hellfire?"

  "Yes indeed, my lord bishop. I truly and earnestly recant all past false beliefs. I know the truth of purgatory. I greatly fear the fires of hell. I love God with all my heart and pray for His mercy."

  She recanted, she confessed, she accepted the penance accorded to her, received absolution and thanked the abbot for his blessing. So they released her. They did not inform her whether or not she was now a widow. John, she knew, had been taken to Newgate.

  Coming from Fulham and the bishop's palace by the river, Fortune Mereworth found the way easy enough, shivering as she passed through the shadows of Westminster and the queen's royal home, entering the city through the Ludgate. London's walls were high, stone, and stinking. Crossing the tiny bridge over what was left of the Fleet, she had to hold her nose. A river of sewerage. But there was as much again in the ditch surrounding the city walls. Back home decent folk said London was a mire of sin, but the stench was from a mire more practical. The stench rose from one place or another without chance to escape, as though permanently trapped in a spring-time field of maggoty fly ridden manure.

  It was six in the evening and time for Vespers as Fortune finally entered the city's cobbled streets, and it seemed a thousand church bells were ringing. So many bells, all echoing in her ears, the high peals and the low, the melodic and the flat, loud from close by, and those eerily distant as if ringing from the heavens above. Many of the shops closing, pulling in their counters and raising the shutters, their little dark doors swinging shut as she passed. With the bells' glorious music still deafening out all voices, she asked a woman for directions and then headed north past St. Paul's. The cathedral's bells rang so loudly they vibrated through her toes as she hurried up Paternoster Row and headed for Newgate.

  She hadn't expected a palace. This, the most infamous gaol in the country, everyone knew its reputation. She smelled the rank horror of it before she saw it. The ugly misery that surrounded it like clouds. She could taste it. It clung like cold damp fingers.

  Fortune asked the gatekee
per for her husband. The man hobbled away and when he eventually returned, he brought a priest with him. The news they brought her was a stone in her gut, yet she expected it. Jon was dead.

  He had been condemned and burned at the stake near Tyburn two days back. Fortune sat down in the filth of the gutter and wept.

  The old priest attempted to explain why such punishments were carried out, and how the flames would purify the heretic soul. Jon Mereworth would be saved, he assured her, and after the atonement of purgatory, Jon would be accepted into the heavenly peace of God's mercy. Thinking of her husband's agony, she recoiled at the word mercy, and wandered off into the back streets alone where the darkness lay grey both in the streets and in her heart.

  It was many days before Fortune found her path back home to the church and the village where John's beloved pulpit would now stand empty. She faced Jon's mother, father, sister and two brothers. His distraught relatives, horrified that their beloved Jon had been killed. "You can't stay," Edmund shouted. "They'll come looking for you here. You'll bring the same wrath of God down on all of us."

  She blinked away the tears and whispered, "I was - absolved. No one will look for me. But I won't stay here. I'll go back to my own cottage."

  "You won't." Jon's mother shook her head. "It belongs to St. Michael's. The new preacher will live there. We expect him any day. Father James. Not - a protestant man of course. So he'll have no truck with a heretic's wife." But she was crying too.

  Jon's sister said, "The house has been emptied. We've been given Jon's possessions. Your clothes are amongst them." She looked down at her toes. "I - took your best Sunday gown. I wore it because it's so much nicer than mine. Now it's a little soiled from when baby Wilfred was unwell after church. But you may have it back. I will try and brush it clean and wash the shoulder stain. I did not mean to - steal it."