Chapter 29
The joy that overwhelmed them in bed that night was unparallelled. They melted into each other and quenched the longing that had built up over months. Kate had never known such delight.
The morning found her waking with a smile on her face, and there was Francis, pulling her into his arms again, ready for more lovemaking. But they could hear the children laughing and shrieking next door, and a clattering from the kitchen that announced the arrival of the servant.
“I can’t relax with all this going on,” Kate muttered, and got up, leaving Francis protesting.
“Come back!” he moaned, reaching out his arms.
“Later!” She smiled, pulling on her robe. “Although I would far rather not be tearing myself away from you!”
She was glad to see the nurses up and about, seeing to the children, but when she walked into the kitchen, she was horrified to see a squalid mess.
And there, banging about, was a slatternly woman wearing a dirty apron that had once perhaps been white, and smelling of something Kate preferred not to think about. As for her fingernails…
She said something in German, of which Kate had only the rudiments. Kate ignored her. “I am Mistress Knollys. Is there a well? We need fresh water. Wasser!”
“Dort!” replied the slattern, pointing to the door.
“Sie!” Kate hissed, pointing to her, indicating that she should fetch it.
With a surly look, the woman picked up a grimy bucket.
Horrified, Kate mimed a scrubbing motion. The help shrugged and ambled toward the door.
“Get out!” Kate cried, losing her temper.
Francis had come up behind her. “Are you dismissing her?”
“Of course I am. Look at the state of this kitchen!”
He addressed the woman. “Ilse, austeigen! Jetzt! Komm nicht zurück!”
She dropped the bucket with a clang, gave him a filthy look, and stalked out. “I told her not to come back,” Francis said.
“Good. Will there be any cooked food in the market?”
“Yes. I’ll send Thomas out for some.”
“Thank goodness. We can have it for breakfast. Then I’ll set to work in here.”
Replete with roast chicken and pumpernickel bread, Kate put on her oldest dress and tackled the kitchen with Thomasina, bidding the nursemaids help them.
By dinnertime, it was scrubbed clean, and a fire was crackling merrily beneath the cookpot on the hearth.
Thomas had brought back meat and vegetables, and they had a hearty stew for their meal.
In the afternoon, Kate turned her attention to the other rooms, which needed a good clean, and soon the whole apartment was looking like a new pin.
There was fresh linen on the beds and the pewter tableware shone.
Francis observed the transformation with awe. “You’re a marvel, Kate.”
“It’s a good thing I came,” she said, with mock tartness. “You’d have just gone on living in squalor, wouldn’t you?”
“I had other things on my mind,” he protested.
“I’ll wager you didn’t even notice! Anyway, we need a new servant.”
“You might try the marketplace.”
Kate was there first thing the next morning.
There were fewer stalls today, but Francis had been right: there was a booth where people were advertising themselves for hire.
Among them was a plump woman with apple cheeks and plaits tightly coiled around each ear.
Her clothes were clean and she smelled wholesome.
Her name was Eva and she could do cooking and cleaning.
This Kate learned from the man who ran the booth, who spoke a little English.
A quarterly wage was agreed, plus his fee, and Kate took Eva home with her.
Eva was so pleased to have been hired by the gracious English lady, and to find herself working in an orderly house, that she was willing to do whatever was asked of her—and she did it well.
Soon, the household settled into a pleasant routine.
Kate, Francis, and the children took their meals together in the parlor, while the servants ate at the kitchen table.
Kate would sometimes help out with the cooking, and even the shopping; it was so convenient having the market just across the street.
In the mornings, she gave lessons to her children, and Francis would spend an hour teaching Beth, Robert, and Richard.
When the nurses took the little ones out in the afternoon, Kate would embroider or make music, while Francis wrote long letters to Calvin and other reformers.
That April, he enrolled as a student of the University of Basel and made friends with a learned Englishman called John Foxe, who had published Protestant tracts in King Edward’s reign and had to flee when Queen Mary revived the heresy laws.
He and Francis shared the same strong views about religion, and he was a regular dinner guest at Kate’s table.
One day, he told her, he was going to write a book about the sufferings of the Englishmen who were being martyred for their faith.
Francis had been greatly saddened to hear of the confiscation of Caversham, but there had, as yet, been no news of Greys Court.
His attorney, Master Thomas Stafford, was keeping an eye on the house, but any day, Francis and Kate expected to be informed that the Crown had seized it.
They were both delighted to hear, however, that the Countess of Warwick had given Caversham to Master Stafford to hold for his master.
Kate was deeply touched by such a generous gesture, but then the Countess was the daughter of the late Protector Somerset, and daughter-in-law to the ill-fated Northumberland, so must secretly be harboring Protestant sympathies.
The news from England, though, was not good.
The fires of Smithfield were blazing as hotly as ever.
Following the bad weather that had ruined last year’s harvest, the land had been visited by an epidemic of influenza.
In one of her infrequent, coded letters, Elizabeth wrote that many regarded these tribulations as the judgment of God upon Mary.
Kate dared not write to Elizabeth too often, in case her letters were intercepted, which might draw attention to the fact that her daughters were living under Elizabeth’s roof.
At their age, they would be considered old enough to be examined on their beliefs, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen to them, especially—as Elizabeth had assured her, more than once—now that they had settled happily into their new lives.
She missed them so much and was poignantly aware that they were of an age when girls growing to womanhood needed their mothers.
She missed the boys, too, but had heard from Anne, her sister-in-law, that they were well and attending diligently to their studies and the military exercises in which Harry was drilling them.
And then, one morning in late April, Francis called her in from the kitchen and bade her sit on the settle. His face was grave.
“Kate, we are not as safe as we thought. I heard at church that Queen Mary is sending agents to hunt down Protestant exiles.”
Kate’s hand flew to her mouth. “Why?”
“Because doubtless she wants to make an example of them. There have been rumors, but no certain report until now. Today, I learned of the death of the late King Edward’s tutor, Sir John Cheke, and what happened to him after he went into exile.
Last year, he traveled from Strasbourg to Brussels to receive his wife, lately come to join him.
He had also been promised a safe-conduct to meet with Lord Paget and Sir John Mason, his wife’s stepfather.
All went well, but when he traveled on to Antwerp, he was seized on the orders of King Philip, and taken, as it were, in a whirlwind over the sea, not knowing where he was going until he found himself in the Tower of London.
It’s almost certain that Paget and Mason plotted his arrest. The poor man was pulled from his horse and clapped into a cart with his legs, arms, and body tied to it. ”
“But that’s awful!” Kate cried, feeling as if the earth were giving way beneath her.
“In the Tower, Sir John was visited by priests who tried to convert him and told him that nothing less than a full recantation would satisfy the Queen. If he failed to make one, he would be sent to the stake. In the end, he submitted, and was made to read out his recantation in public. After that, he was required to be present when Protestants were condemned to be burned, and this so affected his heart that he died. Kate, this could happen to us.”
Kate was striving to be sensible. “Could it? It has happened to one man, and he was abducted nowhere near here.”
“Yes, but there has been talk among the exiles here. Some have disappeared, and no one knows what has become of them. Others think they are being watched. I think we should be vigilant.”
Reluctantly, Kate agreed. She could have wept, because it had been so wonderful and liberating to feel safe in Basel, and now she did not feel safe any longer. She told herself that they were probably worrying unnecessarily, yet she could not convince herself of it.
She kept looking about her every time she left the house. She insisted that the nursemaids accompany the children wherever they went and keep their eyes open for anyone suspicious. She set Thomas to keep watch over the house. Francis took to taking a pistol with him when he went abroad.
One day, when Kate was in the market, she noticed a man lounging by a fish stall.
It was his attire that drew her attention, because he was swathed in a heavy black cloak and had a felt hat pulled down low over his face.
He looked odd, because it was a warm day and no one else was wrapped up like that.
She thought he was looking her way but couldn’t be sure.
Surreptitiously keeping him in sight, she walked past several stalls to see if he followed, but he did not.
Harmless, then. She really should not be seeing abductors around every corner!