The Heretic’s Wife Read Online Free

guild rules for printing after dark. She gathered what was left in her arms, hugging them to her as she spoke. “Why can’t we just hide them until this passes?”
    “It’s not going to pass this time. They’ll not stop until they’ve made examples of some of us—lit a few fires of their own.” His voice was firm, determined. He held out his hands for the books she held.
    She thought of the translators in self-imposed exile on the Continent and the smugglers who had risked so much to bring these books to England. She thought of their own expenses tied up in the books. “You’re just going to give in to them, then? John, it’s wrong to burn the books. It is a sacrilege and an insult to those who’ve suffered so much in this cause. Cardinal Wolsey and his crowd burn books. We do not burn books.” She could hear her voice grow strident.
    John answered her in measured tones. “Burning the books is exactly what Humphrey Monmouth did two years ago when they raided the Steelyard and dragged him in. When they searched his home, they found no evidence. He was let go. I’ve Mary and the boy to think about. And you,” he said evenly, no temper in his voice, but his step was hurried, and the vein tracing the center of his forehead stood out like a blue cord. “If you are right and Wolsey and Cuthbert Tunstall find something else to chase, and forget about us, then we can print more.”
    And what will we sell in the meantime? How will we make a living without inventory?
But she said nothing. He was the one they’d come after, not her, so she supposed it should be his decision.
    He gave a bitter little laugh. “A lot of the books Bishop Tunstall burned at St. Paul’s Cross he’d bought and paid for out of Church funds to make a greater show. Tyndale used that money to fund another and better edition. One with even stronger glosses against popery.” He reached to the top shelf where the Wycliffe Bible lay, the Bible that had belonged to their great-grandmother.
    She stayed his hand with a tight grip on his wrist. This time it was her tone that was firm. “Not that one, John. You shall not burn that one. It cannot be replaced.”
    For once, he gave in. Frowning, he handed it down to her. “Take it away from here, then. When they search this place, they need to find it clean of all contraband books—all, Kate, do you understand?”
    As she took the heavy Bible, she dusted the cover with her hand, encountering the roughened edge where the rats had chewed the edge of the leather binding. Nothing was sacred from the vermin.
    “That’s the last of it, I’m sure,” John said, looking around.
    “What about the Bristol shipment?” Kate asked.
    He shrugged. “I’ll not meet it, of course. Too dangerous. If I should be caught with this suspicion already against me . . .”
    All those Bibles dumped into the sea, she thought, all that labor wasted, all those dear-bought words turning into sea foam to feed the fish.
    The fire was already dying. Kate put down the Bible and picked up the broom to sweep up a few fragments of broken glass that she had missed in last night’s lamplight.
    “What did you break?” he asked as he put on his cloak in preparation to leave.
    “It was a jar I baited to catch a rat,” she said.
    He stood in the doorway with his hand on the latch, a little smile tweaking the corners of his mouth for the first time since he’d returned.
    “Did the rat get away?”
    “Damn vermin.”
    “You swear too much. You’ll never find a husband.”
    “Then I’ll spin at your hearth until I’m a gray crone.”
    It was an old joke between them. But lately she did not find it so funny.
    “Humph,” he grunted, as always. The smile stayed, as always.
    “Give Mary my love and kiss little Pipkin for me,” she said.
    They were both startled by the sound of a blunt object pounding on the door. “Open in the name of the king!”
    A glance and a nod and Kate grabbed the old Wycliffe Bible and fled up the