He frowned. ‘I heard the Anabaptists took over a city in Germany and ran it according to their beliefs, and by the end blood was running in the streets.’ He shook his head. ‘Man cannot do without authority, which is why God has ordained princes to rule over him.’
‘In fact, the Anabaptists were besieged in Münster, the Protestant Prince allying with Catholic forces to take the city. That was the real cause of the bloodshed. Though I have heard that yes, the Anabaptists’ rule inside the city had become violent. But afterwards most of them renounced violence. They were run out of Germany and Flanders, too; a few from Flanders came here across the North Sea. The King burned those he could find.’
‘But there could still be others?’
‘So it is said. If they exist they have been forced underground as the Lollards were. Anyone with a Dutch name is looked at askance these days.’
‘Like that friend of Greening’s the constable mentioned? Vandersteyn?’
‘Yes.’
Nicholas’s brow furrowed. ‘So the Anabaptists have renounced violence, but not the belief that rulers must be put down?’
‘So it is said.’
‘Then they remain a great danger,’ he said seriously.
‘They are a useful bogey.’ I looked at Nicholas. ‘Well, now you have seen what a murder enquiry begins to look like. It is seldom an easy thing to investigate, nor safe.’
He smiled. ‘I am not afraid.’
I grunted. ‘Fear keeps you on your toes. Remember that.’
ALL THE SHOPS and printworks in Paternoster Row had little signs outside: an angel, a golden ball, a red cockerel. The sign of the White Lion, crudely painted on a board, hung outside a one-storey wooden building which was made to seem all the poorer by the fine-looking house which stood next to it. That must be the neighbour, Okedene’s. I used the key to open the padlock the constable had fixed to the splintered door, and pushed it open. It was dim within. There was a second door at the side of the shed, with a key in the lock, and I got Nicholas to open it. It gave onto a weed-strewn patch of ground. I looked round the shed. The single room was dominated by a large printing press in the centre, the press itself raised on its screw, the tray of paper empty. Nailed to the walls, cheap shelves held paper, ink and solutions in bottles, and blocks of type in boxes. A harsh smell permeated the place.
In one corner was a pile of printed pages, and others had been hung on lines to dry. I looked at the top page: A Goodly French Primer. I glanced at the pages hanging to dry: Je suis un gentilhomme de l’Angleterre. J’habite à Londres . . . I remembered such stuff from my schooldays. Greening had been printing a schoolbook for children. There was a straw bed in a corner, a blanket and pillow. Beside the bed was a knife and plate with some stale bread and mouldy cheese. Greening’s last meal.
‘Nicholas,’ I said, ‘would you look under the printing press and see if there is any type in the upper tray? I am not sure I could manage it.’ If there was, I would have to get the boy to detach the tray somehow, so that I could see if it was the same type used in printing the French book, or something else; had Greening been planning to print the Lamentation?
Nicholas twisted his long body under the press and looked up with an easy suppleness I envied. ‘No print in the tray, sir. It looks empty.’
‘Good,’ I said, relieved.
He rose and stood looking around. ‘What a poor place. To have to live as well as work here, amidst this smell.’
‘Many live in far worse conditions.’ Yet Nicholas was right, a man who was able to keep a printer’s business going should have been able to afford a home. Unless his business was failing; perhaps he had not been sharp enough for this competitive trade. Lord Parr had said Greening’s parents were poor, so where had he got the capital to buy the press and other equipment to start the business? I saw, by the bed, a dark stain on the floor. Blood, from the injuries Greening had received. Poor fellow, not yet thirty, now rotting in the common graveyard.
There was a plain wooden coffer beside the bed. It was unlocked, and contained only a couple of stained leather aprons, some shirts and doublets of cheap linen, and a well-thumbed New Testament. No forbidden books; he had been careful.
Nicholas was bending over a little pile of half-burned papers on the floor. ‘Here’s where they tried to start the fire,’ he said.
I joined him. ‘Under the shelf of inks. If Okedene hadn’t come the place would have gone up.’ I picked out one of the half-burned pieces of paper ‘. . . le chat est un animal méchant . . .’ ‘Pages from the book he was printing,’ I said.
Nicholas looked around the room. ‘What will happen to all this?’