The Queen's Lady. Barbara Kyle

was the book for which Ralph had been burned.

      “Not the word of Christ’s desecrated Church,” Frish cried, “where the priests would have us grovel dumbly at their mystical Latin prayers, then shuffle home more ignorant than when we came. No! I have read Christ’s message for myself.” He clasped the book against his chest like a lover. His eyes gleamed with tears, and his voice was gentle as a song. “And scripture did so exhilarate my heart, being before almost in despair, that immediately I felt a marvelous comfort and quietness, and my weary bones leaped for joy. This is salvation, my friends. The shining, unadulterated word of God. Come! See!” He gestured to a large crate on the warehouse floor. “I have brought enough for all of you.” He stood and climbed down the ladder from the loft, and people moved in around him with excited questions and comments.

      Honor could restrain herself no longer. She wanted only to finish what she had come to do and then get out of this dangerous place. She glanced down at the knife at her rib. She sensed that the young man was more nervous than dangerous. “You’re not going to use the knife,” she said steadily. “Let me go.”

      He appeared startled by her sudden steeliness, and Honor seized his moment of indecision to wrench free of his grip. “I tell you,” she said, “everyone here is in danger. Now, one last time, take me to Sydenham, or I’ll leave you all to your miserable fate!”

      He looked anxious but he said nothing. She took a few steps forward. He followed on her heels and grabbed her elbow. She was shaking him off when she saw a figure hurrying toward them: a portly, apple-cheeked man dressed in the rich, flowing clothing of a merchant. Behind him, the people carried on with their meeting. “What is it, Edward?” the man said in a menacing whisper. Under tufted gray eyebrows he was squinting at Honor in the way of the shortsighted. When he reached her his menacing look widened into surprise. “Who’s this?”

      “Wants to see you. I left her above, but she’s come snooping.”

      Honor almost pounced, so great was her relief. “Master Sydenham?”

      “Let her go, son,” the merchant said. “Aye, I’m Sydenham. What be your business with me?” His voice was wary, but so gentle that it betrayed him; clearly he felt more curiosity than wrath at her presence.

      “Sir, I bring a warning—” She stopped, surprised by the approach of a woman.

      “Humphrey, what’s the matter?” the woman asked. As she came to Sydenham’s side her hand groped for his, and their fingers wove together in an unconscious gesture of comfort that told Honor the two were man and wife.

      Mrs. Sydenham was a formidable-looking person, several inches taller than her husband and a startling contrast to him, for she was as gaunt as he was stout, and as pale as he was florid. Only their common gray hair unified them, but while his lay in short, springy curls, hers was stretched tightly back from a center part under a starched white cap. Her face was almost as sallow and bony as a cadaver, but the eye sockets blazed with life at their hazel cores. She was staring at Honor with a frown. Suddenly, she gasped and grabbed her husband’s sleeve.

      “What is it, Bridget?” he asked gently.

      “I know this girl.”

      Honor was amazed at her effect on the woman. “Indeed, madam, I am surprised to hear it, for I know you not.”

      “You are Sir Thomas More’s daughter.”

      “You are mistaken,” Honor said.

      “You lie! I’ve seen you with him at Paul’s Cross. Sir Thomas More and all his family.”

      Honor bit back the anger rising within her. “If I had not known since childhood that lying is a sin, madam, my guardian would surely have instructed me, for Sir Thomas is known to all the world as the most upright, Christian teacher.”

      “Your guardian?” Sydenham blurted. “You are Sir Thomas More’s ward?”

      “Ward or daughter,” his wife spat, “where’s the difference?”

      “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