C. Sansom - Lamentation

I looked at Myldmore’s face, drawn and pale. A lonely, serious, conflicted young man, probably unpopular because of his job, just the sort who might be recruited to the radical cause. It struck me, too, that all the known members of the group were single, though Vandersteyn might have a wife back in Flanders. Otherwise, no wives or children to distract attention from the cause. ‘And you went?’

‘I attended my first group in April. They always met at Master Greening’s print-shop. Only those invited could come, and we were asked not to tell anyone else about the meetings.’ He broke off suddenly, biting his lip. ‘And everyone I met there is gone now, vanished. Master Greening is dead and all the others have disappeared, I do not know whether of their own will. Elias the apprentice, Master Curdy, McKendrick the Scottish preacher, Vandersteyn the Dutchman, Michael Leeman that served the Queen at Whitehall — ’

I sat up. ‘Leeman was a member of your group?’ I had wondered whether there might be a connection, and here was confirmation.

‘He was.’ Myldmore’s eyes widened. ‘Did you not know? What has happened to him?’

‘I know only that he, too, has disappeared.’ I drew a deep breath. So Leeman had taken the Lamentation and given it to Greening. That was clear now. And Myldmore had mentioned ‘the manuscript’, too. But I must tread carefully.

Myldmore was looking at me anxiously again. ‘Please understand me, sir,’ he said, ‘I was never fully part of their group. They treated me with caution, asking me questions about my beliefs, always glancing at each other when I answered. It was as though — as though they were testing me.’

‘Yes, I think I understand.’ This was beginning to sound less like a group of radicals than a conspiracy.

Myldmore continued. ‘They did not seem to like it that I was still uncertain about the Mass. Though they had strong arguments — about the Mass not being in the Bible — ’ He broke off suddenly; he still did not quite trust me.

‘We need not discuss that at all,’ I said reassuringly. ‘I promise, what anyone believes about the Mass is quite irrelevant to my enquiry.’

He looked relieved, and went on, ‘Other things they said or hinted at I did not understand, or did not agree with. They were strong on the need for people to be baptized as adults, not as children, just as John the Baptist and the disciples had been. And when I said the King was appointed by God to be Head of the Church, that angered them; they said the forbidding of the Bible to poor folk was akin to plucking God’s word from the people, and thanked the Lord that John Bale and others were having works on the gospel sent from the Continent. Though they said Bale had no understanding of the need for the ruling powers to be thrown down.’

‘They said that? Used those very words?’

‘Yes, sir. And said the King’s royal blood mattered not a jot, we were all descended from Adam our common father.’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘Such words are treason. I said it was not right.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Shortly after that, they told me there stood too much between us for me to remain a member of their group. And so I left, having sworn not to reveal their existence to anyone. I confess I was glad. I felt them more and more as a weight on me.’

‘They were leading you into dangerous waters.’

‘Perhaps. I do not know.’ His manner had become evasive again, and he avoided my eye. Myldmore was young and callow but he was not stupid. He must have realized, as I had, that with their belief in adult baptism and their fierce criticism of the social order, he had found himself among a group which at least sympathized with the revolutionary Anabaptists. And if they themselves were Anabaptists, planning some extreme act, for them to gain a recruit in the Tower, having already secured one in the Queen’s household, could be very useful.

‘I am sure you did right,’ I said, weighing my words carefully. I was desperate to get to the matter of the book, but must not push him too hard. And I must give Barak time to deliver the note and for Lord Parr to react. I said, ‘It must have been sad, though, to break with these folk just as you were getting to know them.’

Myldmore sighed. ‘They were not easy people. Curdy was a decent fellow; he would ask how I fared, alone in the world as I am now. And though I think he had succeeded in his business, and had money, he always dressed soberly. I think he supported the Scotchman with money, and Greening’s business, too. From things Master Curdy said I think his people were Lollards from the old days, that used to read bibles secretly written in English. Well, he was generous, he practised what he preached about sharing.’ Myldmore looked at me, and asked suddenly, ‘Are they dead, sir?’

‘I think not. But I need to find them. Not to harm them, but perhaps to prevent them from unwittingly doing something foolish.’

‘They were not men of violence,’ Myldmore said. ‘They renounced it as wrong. Though they often spoke most hotly — ’ He smiled sadly. ‘Elias said that all rich men should be cast down and made to labour in the fields like common folk.’

I remembered Okedene saying that he had heard them arguing loudly with each other in Greening’s shed, especially recently. ‘Did they disagree much between themselves?’

Myldmore nodded. ‘Often, though usually on points I found obscure, like whether someone baptized as a child needs a complete immersion when they are rebaptized as an adult.’

‘What about matters concerning the social order? Did anyone disagree with Elias’s remarks about throwing down the rich, for example?’

‘No. No, they all agreed on that.’

I smiled back. ‘People fierce in their righteousness?’

‘Ay. Though Greening was a gentle and amiable man until you got him on to religion. The Dutchman was the worst; sometimes his accent was hard to understand, but that did not stop him calling you names like “blind simpleton” and “foolish sinner destined for Hell” if you disagreed with him. He was the one who spoke most often of John Bale.’ I wondered, did Vandersteyn know the English exile? As a Dutchman involved in the cross-Channel trade it was not impossible.

Myldmore went on. ‘The Scotchman, too, was an angry man, bitter, I think, at being thrown out of his own land. He could be frightening, big glowering man that he was. I think they treated him badly in his own country. I know he had a wife left behind there.’

‘And Leeman?’

‘The gentleman from Whitehall? I felt a brotherly spirit with him, for he was much worried, as I am, over the question of whether God had elected him for salvation. Like them all, Leeman was always talking about the coming of the End Time, as foretold in the Book of Revelation; how the Antichrist was about to come and we must be ready for judgement. I did not understand it all.’

The coming of the Antichrist prophesied in the Book of Revelation. It was another belief characteristic of the Anabaptists and other radical Protestants. Okedene had mentioned Bertano in that connection, and his name had been on the lips of Greening’s killers at the inn yesterday. I asked, as casually as I could, ‘Many have identified the Antichrist with a particular individual. Did the group ever mention a name?’

He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘No, sir.’

‘An Italian one, perhaps?’

‘The Pope, you mean? They mentioned the Pope only to curse him.’

I realized that if the group had decided this Bertano was the Antichrist they would not mention his name to someone they did not fully trust. I said quietly, ‘And this whole group has disappeared now. Why do you think that may be?’

A muscle in Myldmore’s cheek twitched for a moment. Then he said, ‘I think perhaps they have fled because of the book.’