‘I think it is time to tell me, Master Myldmore.’
He looked down at his hands, then raised his head again. ‘On the day I spoke with Mistress Askew, I was sent again, late in the evening, to take her supper, and to report on how she fared. When I went into the cell I found she was still on the floor, but had managed to drag herself half across the room. Jesu knows what that cost her. A candle had been brought in and she was sprawled next to her chest, which was open. She had managed to take out a bundle of papers, which lay on her lap, with an inkwell and a quill. She was writing, sweating and wincing with the effort. She looked up at me. There was silence for a moment, and then she said, in a strange tone of determined merriment, “Goodman gaoler! You have found me at my letters.”
‘I laid the bowl of pottage close beside her, and in so doing saw what she had written: “. . . then the lieutenant caused me to be loosed from the rack. Incontinently I swooned, and then they recovered me again . . .”
‘I said, “That letter will not be allowed out, madam, it says too much.”
‘“A shame,” she said. “It contains the whole truth.”
‘I asked her if she would like me to feed her again, and she said she would. She leaned back against the chest, like a helpless child, while I fed her and wiped her chin. She told me I was a good man, and a Christian. I said I wished I could be. She said then, “Will you report what I have been writing to Sir Anthony Knevet?” I did not reply and she stared at me, her eyes full of pain but somehow – unrelenting. Then she said, “This is a record, an account, of my examinations since my first arrest last year. I wrote that last piece this afternoon, though my arms sore pain me. It is strange, they have never searched among my clothes, where this testament has been hidden.” She smiled again. “The King’s councillors will tear the strings and joints of a gentlewoman’s body, yet common gaolers hesitate to search her underclothes.”
‘“It is rare for a woman to be imprisoned there,” I said.
‘Then she touched my hand and said, “They will search the chest soon, without doubt, and will find this. You are the first to have seen it, I had not the strength to put it away quickly when your key turned in the door. My fate is in your hands, sir, and if you feel you must take my journal to Sir Anthony Knevet, then you must.” Those blue eyes, glinting in the candlelight, were fixed on mine. “But I ask you, as you seek salvation, to take my writings, now, and somehow get them published. That would make a mighty storm here. Do you think you can do that?”
‘I thought at once of Greening. But I drew back. I said, “Madam, you ask me to risk my life. If I were caught – ”
‘“Your life, sir?” She gave a little smile and with an effort laid her hand on mine. “Life is fleeting, and beyond lies God’s judgement and eternity.” Then she asked my name. “To have the world know what is done in the King’s name would be a mark of grace, Thomas, a great step to your salvation.”’
I felt a sudden anger with Anne Askew. She had used the promise of salvation as a weapon against Myldmore, I thought, a sort of blackmail.
His eyes looked inward for a moment, then he gave me a fierce look. ‘I said I would take the writings, her “Examinations”, as she called them. The document was not long. I hid it under my jerkin and took it from the cell that night. After speaking to my landlady I went straight to Master Greening’s print-shop. He was alone there. He greeted me cautiously at first, but when I told him about the manuscript, and showed it to him, he was almost overcome with joy. “I can have this sent to Bale,” he told me. “And five hundred copies smuggled back into England in a few months.” I remember him saying, “This will make a mighty uproar.”’
I did a quick calculation. ‘That would have been – what – the twenty-ninth of June?’
He looked at me, surprised. ‘Yes. I knew I must do it that night; already I could feel my courage beginning to fail. But I think the Lord gave me strength, he moved me to do it.’