The Queen's Lady. Barbara Kyle

      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