The Heretic’s Wife by Brenda Rickman Vantrease Page B

somebody—you know—and they haven’t burned his clothes, then I might—come to think of it, there’s a corpse at the end of the hall, waiting to be taken out. His clothes were piled in a nice little bundle at the foot of his bed. I could bring them to you if you’d like. He looked a bit bigger than you, but it’d be better than the blanket.”
    Frith could not believe his good fortune. “I don’t have any money to pay you,” he said, “but—”
    “No need. There’ll be others.”
    “You are an angel of mercy,” he said when the man came back and handed him the clothes.
    “Naw.” The porter laughed. “I’m just a pisser like you. Wear ’em in good health.”
    But a few minutes later, before the porter went to the other wing to complete his chores, Frith saw the old man’s shadow float to the end of the ward and heard the unmistakable sound of the click of the lock. His heart sank. The nun had been wrong. The porter had locked the door after all.
    Fool! It’s because he knows you’re awake! If you hadn’t opened your big mouth!
He got out of bed, gingerly, testing the floor with rubbery legs, and put on the shirt and trousers. The old porter was right. They were a bit long, but he rolled the pants up at the waist and tied the yeoman’s shirt with the rope belt. At least he had some clothes, if the opportunity should present itself again. Maybe tomorrow night. He would pretend to be sleeping like a dead man—if he was still here tomorrow night, he thought ruefully.
    A noxious breeze drifted in from the window carrying the smell of urine and feces. Frith wrinkled his nose in disgust. What did a man have to do to get a breath of untainted air in this world?
Idiot!
He slapped his forehead.
The window.
    Minutes later, John Frith with much wriggling and contorting of his body—much leaner now than three months earlier, but it was a narrow window—let himself down carefully until his bare feet encountered the ground below thewindow. So relieved was he to be outside the hospital and a free man that he hardly noticed the muck squishing between his toes.
    Wearing a dead man’s clothes and on legs as unsteady as a newborn colt’s, he headed for the Steelyard. He remembered what Garrett had told them about how the books entered England. Maybe he could bargain his labor for passage out of England—and some shoes. The Brethren at the Hanseatic Merchants League would help him get to the Continent where he would join his friend and mentor William Tyndale. Maybe that’s why God had saved him from the cellar.
    Besides, he knew what fate awaited him if he stayed in England.

    Rain pelted down on the little wherry as it floated up the Thames toward Reading. Kate was grateful for the protection of the heavy cloak John had left hanging on a peg by the door.
    It had been hanging there since the night he was arrested. These many weeks, she’d been loath to take it down, wanting to leave it there, until he would come back to claim it. Well, it could at least help to hide her figure, she had thought when she took it down and shook it out, holding it up for closer scrutiny. She was as tall as John . . . maybe with just a little padding stuffed into the shoulder lining . . .
    It had worked.
    In the pale light of early dawn, the merchant Swinford had not questioned her. To his “Glad to see you’re a free man again, Gough,” Kate had croaked in a raspy whisper, “But not a well man,” and pointed toward her throat.
    An auspicious beginning and a sign, she thought, a sign that she was supposed to follow through on her plan. Indeed, it was too late to turn back now. She’d lain awake the night before fretting over her silly scheme, finally deciding to abandon it and go to sleep. But somewhere a rooster’s herald of the dawn had wakened her again, so at first light, dressed as her brother John, she’d headed toward the docks, thinking she should turn back, thinking that the merchant would probably already be gone