The banishment trek to the German frontier region of Cleveland spread over two grueling days. Sometimes by coach, sometimes by boat, Meester Laurens and his vrouw remained chained to their captors. Never free from the soldiers’ loud coarse language and rough mannerisms, Meester Laurens yearned for a solitary spot to hold his Adriana in his arms, to weep with her over their losses, and to ponder their pathway ahead.
At the point where the Waal River merged with its parent, the mighty Rhine, the soldiers ordered their trekkers to pull the boat to shore and lash it to a willow trunk. Here they freed the couple from their chains and sent them on their way with two instructions.
“Walk straight ahead toward the city in the distance.”
“And remember, the moment you cross back over this frontier into the Low Lands, the stake awaits you both.”
The soldiers left their ominous warning hanging in the soggy midday air and returned the way they had come.
Dazed, Laurens pointed to the church spire on the far rim of the world and mumbled, “Somewhere out there lies our new home.”
Where that somewhere might be, he had no idea. Thoughts and plans had been tumbling through his mind ever since he’d heard the shocking word, “Banishment.” He supposed he should find some comfort in remembering that this was the area where he had been born and where he had lived until he was nearly twelve years old. Yet when his family fled here, so did their friends. Secret religious dissenters, they’d fled to Antwerp and learned to read the Bible and be rebaptized.
Today, almost fifty years after that flight, he must forget the dreams of childhood and search out a safe place for his vrouw. Perhaps in Cleve, principal city, home of the fabled Swan Castle sitting atop a row of high cliffs that overlooked the Rhine. The Duke of Cleve had a reputation for being kind to nonpapists, and perhaps they’d find a community of like-minded believers there.
Laurens lifted the woolen bag his wife had brought along and slung it over one shoulder. “We go to Cleve,” he announced, amazed at the assurance in his voice.
With his other hand cupped around her elbow, he directed her steps along the muddy pathway that cut across the wide flat pasture before them. Though the sun was somewhere above their heads, the clouds kept it from warming their way. The damp cold penetrated his clothes and he struggled against the stiffness of too long sitting with knees up under his chin.
“What an abominable way to treat a good wife!” Laurens said. “No roof over your head, no bread for your belly, no money in my purse…” He shook his head from side to side in quick little movements, as if to dislodge from his mind the glowering thunderclouds of the past three days, and the uncertainties of the weeks before them. Then he put his free arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her toward him.
Adriana patted his arm goodnaturedly. “We are alive and alone, and Alva’s men let me gather this one bag of necessities before they dragged me from our house.”
“What sort of necessities?” He thought about the few precious treasures they had gathered over a long full lifetime—now gone. Nay, worse—confiscated, stuffed into the already bulging coffers of unworthy men, or burned to ashes.
“A few pieces of clothing to keep us warm, a cooking pot or two, my moeder’s old damask cloth, what was left of bread and cheese from the pantry,” Adriana was saying.
“My books?” he asked tentatively, afraid to hear the answer.
“Ach! How I wish it could have been,” she said with a sigh. “I begged the soldiers to let me bring just one or two, but they did not allow me to touch a one.”
“I knew it would be so,” he said. Visions of his books illuminated by the flames consuming them caused him to tighten his embrace. He leaned his cheek against her capped head and tried not to think about it.
Adriana snuggled into Laurens’ embrace and they exchanged the sort of smiles that bespoke the quiet contentment of long years together. Slowly, trying as much to reassure himself as his vrouw, Laurens said, “I know that the God whose honor I was protecting when I refused to sign Alva’s oath will not desert us now.”
Adriana pushed suddenly back from his grip and said in a bright jubilant voice, “Look! We draw near to a wooded grove, and just around the bend in the road, methinks there lies a sleepy village.”
“So it does appear.” Laurens smiled and let her coax him forward by the hand. Still, an unsettledness goaded him. A village meant strange people encased in the tight cocoon of their own long-honored traditions and familiar faces. He and Adriana were outsiders—to be stared at, laughed at, examined with suspicion.
“Could it be a good place to rest awhile? There may even be a wayside inn.” Adriana’s voice combined weariness with anticipation.
“The day is yet young,” Laurens answered, having no heart to remind her that they had no coins to pay for an inn. Where they would spend this first night, he had no idea. Silently, he prayed, Great God, King forever, show us the way.
As they came opposite the dense shrubs, a rustling among the branches gave him a start. “Hei! Who goes there?” he blurted.
“’Tis only the wind or a hare,” Adriana suggested.
“Shh!” Laurens was not convinced.
Instinctively, he crept forward, spreading his arms wide as if to shield his vrouw from whatever danger might be intent on pouncing upon them. Except for the slight movement of a few leaves in the breeze, all grew quiet in the wake of his challenge. But he led Adriana on in silence, never taking his eyes or ears off the menacing willow bushes that continued to threaten from the roadside.
The noises did not come again, and by the time they entered the village, he had begun to worry over whatever dangers that passage might incur. They passed through, edging their way around pigs and chickens, dogs and horses. Residents watched them with apparent curiosity, but no one shouted insults.
Beyond the village, the long straight roadway was lined on both sides with high poplars. The leaves shimmered in the meager sunshine breaking through the clouds, and a tiny bridge crossed over a gently bubbling brook that extended out into the pasture on both sides. To the right, Laurens spotted an oak tree spreading out to the water.
“Vrouw, look,” he said, “a quiet spot invites—a place to sit and nibble on what the soldiers left us of bread and cheese.”
They seated themselves on two large rocks, and Adriana rummaged through the bag for their midday meal. “Strange,” she began, her voice tinged with a sort of unexpected wonder. “Never have bread and cheese looked so inviting.”
Laurens bowed his head and prayed, “Oh, Thou great and powerful King forever, we, your humble servants, bow and give you thanks—for these sumptuous rations, for a day without rain to travel, for very life itself. The simplest of gifts have grown exceedingly bountiful in our eyes. We see not whence comes our next meal or bed, but we anticipate it from Thy hand. Send ahead of us Thy cloud to guide by day and a pillar of fire to warm by night. In the name of Jesus, Lord and Savior, Amen.”
****
Pieter-Lucas and Blesje arrived at the market square in the center of Duisburg just at dusk. No lamplight shone yet from windows, and people, animals, and horse-drawn carts still trudged about.
“Now, if I can just remember the lines and names scrawled across that map Willem showed me,” Pieter-Lucas told his horse. “At least it’s not yet stick-dark, and we’re still in the city. Besides, I have a lantern.”
They’d barely started down the street leading away from the market when a scrawny runt of a dog appeared out of nowhere. He headed straight for Blesje, barking fiercely and snapping at his heels.
“Go away!” Pieter-Lucas ordered.
The dog ignored him until Blesje sent him a short kick and picked up his pace. Then the dog backed off, but only until he was safely out of range of the horse’s hooves. He followed on barking, and added to this annoyance, Pieter-Lucas heard a snicker of sharp girlish giggles from somewhere in the same direction. Turning to look, he saw nothing but the churchyard with its scattered outcropping of burial stones. He patted Blesje on the neck and consoled, “Steady now, just keep moving to the end of this street, out through the gate, and across the heather field!”
Little by little, they pulled away from the dog. But both the barking and the laughter continued. Then abruptly the laughter turned into a three-pitched call in a piercing, sirenlike voice, “Pieter-Lu-u-cas! Son of Hendrick!”
“What? Where? Who?” Pieter-Lucas stammered. Not looking back, he urged Blesje faster forward. The last thing he needed was to be singled out for attention by some demented giggling woman. Whoever could know him in this place, anyway? If only Blesje would keep pace with his racing heart.
But on this narrow city street, crowded with people, animals, coaches, and piles of slippery refuse, the best Pieter-Lucas could get from Blesje was a slow trot across the uneven slickened cobblestones. Always the voice followed, never falling behind, continually repeating its unnerving message. And the dog kept barking.
“How much farther will they pursue us?” Pieter-Lucas mumbled. “Come on, Blesje, keep moving.”
When they passed through the city gates, both the yapping and the mysterious voice stopped. By the time the street ended in a heather field, the darkness had deepened to the point where the pathway to the farmhouse was almost indiscernible. A lighted window not too far ahead gave evidence of a house nearby.
Relieved of the nagging irritation, they soon approached the low door at the back of the house, opposite the horse stable. The thatch on the roof above the door hung nearly to Pieter-Lucas’ eye level, so he had to stoop slightly. Following Willem’s instructions, he gave two short swift knocks, followed by a pause, then two more knocks.
The upper half of the divided door opened the tiniest wedge, and a gruff voice demanded, “Who are you and what brings you here?” Lighted by the unsteady flame of a lantern, an eye peered around the corner of the door.
“I’m a messenger in search of Heidebloem.” Pieter-Lucas whispered the watchword by which Willem had instructed him to identify Dirck Coornhert.
“From whom do you come?”
“From The Desert Flea.” Again using Willem’s watchword name. “I am expected,” he added.
“My stableboy will take you to the man you seek and put up your horse,” said the voice. The door closed in Pieter-Lucas’ face.
Almost instantly a young man appeared at his side and took Blesje’s reins from his hand. He led Pieter-Lucas across a courtyard and around to the far side of another building. Here he unlocked a door and ushered him down a short hallway into a plain little apartment.
Dirck Coornhert looked up from where he sat at a tiny cloth-covered table before a low-burning fire. He rose quickly and came toward Pieter-Lucas. “Greetings!” he said, smiling and reaching out his hand. “It’s the new bridegroom!”
“Good evening, kind friend,” Pieter-Lucas responded, shaking the man’s hand and offering his own smile in return. “Ja, thanks to you, I’m twice wed. Ludwig’s army clergyman put us through one more ceremony.”
“And he wrote it in his book?”
“He wrote it in his book. But I come bearing a message from our prince.”
He rummaged in his doublet and produced the letter Willem had entrusted to his care. “The wax seal was still warm when he thrust it into my hand this morning.”
The man gestured his guest toward a three-legged stool at the table, resumed his place across from him, and began to read the letter eagerly. He leaned back against the wall and sighed. “Great and merciful God, but we do have a real war brewing out there,” he said. “It’s beginning to burst the iron bands that have kept it shut up until now in its fermenting barrels.”
“I know,” Pieter-Lucas said. “We saw unthinkable things at Heiligerlee.”
“War is always unthinkable.”
“So I am learning.” Pieter-Lucas hung his head and tried not to remember.
“You have entered Willem’s service as a messenger, have you?” Coornhert’s blunt question jolted Pieter-Lucas.
“Perhaps,” he stammered, wishing not to think about it.
“But you came bearing his message.”
Pieter-Lucas fingered the rim of his cap. “One thing led to another, and…well, now that my friend Yaap is gone, both Ludwig and Willem expect me to take his place. Ludwig told me as much, and Willem gives me his assignments. And I cannot say them ‘nay’…” His mind trailed off with his voice.
“Why not?” The question came too quickly.
“They need me…and Yaap would have wanted me to do it.” Pieter-Lucas sighed, then looked up at Coornhert and said with more feeling, “But war or no war, there is one thing I have promised myself, my vrouw, her vader—and God.”
“What might that be?”
Pieter-Lucas stretched out his hands. “These hands of mine were created to wield an artist’s brushes and a carving knife. They shall never tote a sword in battle.”
Coornhert raised his eyebrows. “Not even if Count Ludwig or Prince Willem should ask it of you?”
“Never!” Pieter-Lucas felt the blood warming his temples and his hands forming into fists. “I am the son of Kees, the peace-loving artist, not Hendrick, the mad Beggar!” He stared hard at his companion, feeling the anger tighten his whole body.
Coornhert nodded. “I know all about that, jongen.”
“At the first opportunity, I take my bride and go to Leyden,” Pieter-Lucas added, his whole being stirring with a passion. “My opa promised, and someday I will go there to become a master painter.”
Coornhert rested his arms on the table and looked straight into Pieter-Lucas’ eyes, his small mouth half-smiling. “That will not happen until the war is over, jongen. In the meantime, Hans and his ilk will always question your decision to serve Willem, and Willem and Ludwig will never understand your vow of nonviolence.”
“And you?” Pieter-Lucas asked. “What think you of my decision and my vow?”
“I?” Coornhert drummed the table with a single pointer finger, never taking his eyes off Pieter-Lucas’ face. Then methodically, as if he’d had a year to think it through and devise an answer, he said, “I’ll reserve my deepest admiration for you and pray you good fortune in the prudent practice of your decision and your vow, for they are both godly ideals.”
He reached for his paper and writing pen. “Now, I must reply to Willem’s message while you give your tired body a bit of rest so you can return to Dillenburg first thing in the morning.”
He gestured toward a mat and a feather bag rolled up on the floor near the fire, then bent his head over his work, muttering, “It’s not ten of the clock yet.”
Pieter-Lucas spread out the mat and laid his weary body on it. How hard the floor felt, and how empty his arms! His eyes had barely closed when he heard a familiar piercing siren voice coming from the other side of the wall.
“Pieter-Lu-u-cas! Son of Hendrick!”
He sat up with a start. “Not again!” he sputtered, running his fingers through his curls.
Dirck Coornhert looked up. “You’ve heard this voice before?”
“Tormented me all the way through the city.”
“A friend you brought along?” Coornhert asked.
“Friend? Bah!” Pieter-Lucas spewed out his words. “No friend of mine would call me son of Hendrick! Besides, who would know me in this place?”
“Whoever she is, she’s pretty bold.” Coornhert chuckled and went back to his work.
“I’ve no idea who she is or how she found me here! I never did even see her. It was almost dark and she kept to the shadows. A slippery one she is, that’s sure!”
The voice persisted even as the men talked. Soon there was a loud pounding on the outside door. When no one responded, all grew silent. Next, there were scratching noises above them, along with the scrambling of feet across the attic floor.
Then, when all had fallen quiet once more, the door burst open and a wiry little woman charged into the room. She had stringy curls hanging halfway to her waist below a headdress that was fastened askew. In one arm she held a squirming dog. In the other, she cradled a large leather-bound book.
Both men jumped to their feet. “Who are you, and why do you enter where you were not invited?” Coornhert demanded.
He grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to turn her around. But she slipped from his grasp, flashed him a missing-tooth grin, and resumed her possessive stance, this time on the other side of the room.
“Pieter-Lucas, here, he’s a-knowin’ who I be,” she said as sweetly as her raspy voice would allow.
Pieter-Lucas gasped. “Indeed, I do know who you are,” he said, his head reeling. It couldn’t be, and yet…”You’re Lompen Mieke, the street rat, beggar, and thief from Breda! How did you find me here—and why?”
She smiled an impudent smile, obviously believing she was disarming them with her charm. For an answer, she held out the book and said, “I sell. You buy.”
Coornhert moved toward the book. But when he reached out his hand for it, she snatched it back.
“Give me coins, an’ then ye can look at it all ye likes.” She hugged the book tightly to her chest.
“Where did you get it, Mieke?” Pieter-Lucas demanded.
With practiced coyness, she half pranced, half dragged her lithe little body around the room. “B’longs to a friend what’s been in the tower prison fer a dreadful long time. His vrouw done took as good a care o’ him as she could. Then, when the bailiff decided to put Pieter van Keulen an’ Tante Lysbet to the torch…”
“Tante Lysbet to the torch?” Pieter-Lucas grabbed Mieke by both arms and wrestled her into submission. “How dare you tell such monstrous lies?” he snarled at her.
She jerked herself free from his grasp and sprang to the other side of the room. “I not a-lyin’ to ye. I seed it with my own eyes.”
Pieter-Lucas felt a huge lump rise from the pit of his stomach. Tante Lysbet may have been a stern woman, but she surely never did anything deserving of death at the stake! And in Breda? Vaguely aware that Mieke’s shrill voice was rattling on about stakes and torches and decrees of banishment, he held his head in his hands and moaned softly. “Great God, if you’ve got a drop of mercy left for us all, don’t let my vrouw ever hear this story.”
He heard Dirck Coornhert challenging Mieke. “What has all this to do with the book you want me to buy?”
She gave Pieter-Lucas a tilt of the head, then cleared her throat. “My friend what expected he’d be consumed on th’ stake was taked out o’ th’ prison an’ banished from th’ country, along with his vrouw. An’ they didn’t allow ’em to take a single treasure along from their house. So I lifted out th’ book b’fore th’ soldiers could come an’ help their nasty selfs. I followed my friends from a distance. They got a few scraps o’ bread left an’ not a coin to their names. I got to take care o’ these folks, don’t ye see?”
“If all you want is coins for a book, why didn’t you search for a bookseller in Duisburg?” Pieter-Lucas asked. “You had not reason to follow me.”
“I was a-lookin’ fer such a shop when I spotted ye in the market. A face what I seed b’fore. An’ I ’membered how ye was always a frequentin’ that shop o’ books in Breda. I figgered th’ God that Betteke an’ Lysbet both use to talk ’bout when I was in th’ same prison cell with ’em musta sended ye here to buy th’ book to feed my friends.”
“Who is this friend you talk about?” Pieter-Lucas wanted to know.
“Can’t tell!” She turned up her sharp nose and hugged and rocked the dog and the book together as she spoke.
“Anybody I know?” he prodded.
She said nothing but went on hugging her treasures and grinning in triumph.
“Listen to me, you saucy little thief,” Pieter-Lucas snapped. “All your pious talk about God won’t do a thing to make us trust you. You give us no names for your friends, we give you no coins.”
She turned her gaze toward Coornhert.
“You heard it,” Coornhert said as calmly as if the woman were completely sensible. “And that’s not all. If we can’t see the whites of the man’s eyes—and his vrouw’s as well—how can you expect us to believe you? Until you tell us their names and bring them here, you’ll not collect one thin stuiver from either of us.”
For a long moment she stuck to her ground, feet spread wide apart, chin elevated, mouth hard-set. She stared by turns, first at one, then at the other. Then with an air of wounded haughtiness, she gathered both the book and the dog more tightly to her and rustled her skirts in a broad swirling motion toward the door. “So that’s the way ye wants it? That’s the way ye gets it.”
She reached for the door handle. Coornhert blocked her way. “The name?”
Nose still in the air, she mumbled without looking at them, “Meester Laurens.”
Coornhert nodded toward Pieter-Lucas. “You know anyone by that name?”
“A good friend of my vrouw’s vader. But why would they banish him?” He shook his head and tried to bring some order to the wild thoughts swirling through his brain.
Mieke shouted, “I done telled ye what ye asked. Now let me go!”
Coornhert didn’t move but held out his hand. “You’ll have to leave that book here while you go for them.”
Yanking the book as far as her arms would stretch, she looked at him with daggers in her eyes and her lip curled into a pout. “Nay, nay, nay! No coins, no book!”
Calmly, Coornhert said, “That is a dangerous book to be toting around the countryside with you. If you value your life, or the book itself, you will leave it here. I can assure you, it will be far safer with me than in your arms.”
Pieter-Lucas held his breath. He had no idea what she was up to, but he knew it could not be a good thing. Yet how could he stop her?
Mieke stared at Coornhert for a long time before she relaxed her hold on the book and laid it in his outstretched hands. Still holding on with one hand, she sneered, “An’ if’n ye deceives me, God’ll burn yer soul in the lake o’ fiery torments!”
She lifted her dirt-encrusted fingers, then demanded, “Now, let me go!”
“Just one word of warning,” he said, still barring her way. “I have a few unchanging rules in my life, which probably means nothing to you, undisciplined as you obviously are. But I go to sleep at ten of the clock at night and always arise at four in the morning. So if you would see your cause blessed, you will be careful not to bring your friends here between those hours.”
Pieter-Lucas took his place next to his cohort, and to the backdrop of a rapid heart-pounding, he added, “And if you come after the clock strikes six times, I shall not be here to attest that Meester Laurens is who you say he is—and you’ll get no coins.”
They both stepped aside and Coornhert let the girl go free. She darted out into the darkness. When he’d closed the door, Coornhert leaned against it wearily and held out the book. “Did you see what she is trying to sell?”
“Nay.” Pieter-Lucas stared at the large volume with thick brown leather covers, carved in intricate pattern. “It’s a Bible!”
“Ja! Can you imagine what would happen if she took it to a bookshop?”
Pieter-Lucas felt a shiver run the length of his back. Then pointing at the man, he challenged, “And can you imagine what will happen when she brings back her friends, and they turn out to be Spanish soldiers and they arrest you for possession of the first book on King Philip’s list of verboden boecken? I can’t believe you walked into her trap—and with your eyes wide open.”
Coornhert fingered the carvings on the cover of the big book. “Jongen,” he said, “I cannot always explain the things I feel in my heart. I only know that when I looked into that girl’s eyes, I saw goodness bubbling up from the deepest places of her being.”
“‘Goodness,’ nothing! If you’d ever lived in Breda—if you’d reason as I do to believe she had tried to kill your grandfather—you’d know there’s nothing good about Lompen Mieke!” He paused, stunned, and stared at the older man. Coornhert appeared calm as ever. Every hair of his perfectly white beard, mustache, and hair lay unruffled—nothing bespoke anxiety. In Pieter-Lucas’ heart, though, everything was churning or pounding or shrieking. “We have to flee this place now while there’s time!”
The man shook his white head slowly. “If she’s as devious as you say, our doom is already sealed.”
“What do you mean, already sealed?”
Coornhert shrugged. “It’s simple. The soldiers, if there are any, would never have trusted her enough to let her come this far without following her themselves. They’d be lying out in the pastures awaiting the perfect time to descend. So let me creep out of my safe den, and they’ll fall on me before I can take my first breath of countryside air.”
Pieter-Lucas listened with his mouth gaping. The old man’s reason was irrefutable. “Then you’re telling me it’s too late to save ourselves?”
“If indeed she is betraying us.”
“If? Lompen Mieke never tells the truth!” Either Coornhert was right about Mieke’s goodness or he had to be right about the soldiers out in the fields. In either case, Pieter-Lucas had nothing to trust and everything to fear. Yet way down deep inside, he felt the tentacles of fear begin to loosen their grip.
“At least,” he said lamely, “we could hide out someplace in this building.”
“Hide from this Mieke?” Coornhert laughed. “Now, I’ve a few minutes left before my bedtime hour, and I must finish my letter to Willem before I retire.”
He seated himself at the table and picked up his pen. “If you want to find your way into the attic or cellar, go ahead. Or you may sit in the corner and pile all my blankets on your head. My suggestion is that you lie down on the mat and sleep. Sunrise comes early, and with it, our extraordinary little visitor. ’Twill be much more pleasant if you’ve had some sleep the night before. Rest well.”
Long after Coornhert had finished his letter, blown out the light, and begun to snore, Pieter-Lucas was still tossing on his mat in the corner, listening to each scratch and creak and the whistling of the wind around the corner above his head. “Great God,” he prayed at last, “keep us safe and send both devious Mieke and her evil soldiers sprawling on their faces in the mud.”
****
Meester Laurens and his vrouw found shelter for the night in a deserted animal shed in the middle of a field somewhere between the frontier and Cleve. With decaying straw for a bed and their own capes for covers, they slept fitfully. Laurens’ dreams combined a senseless profusion of cramped riverboats, burning stakes, and books being torn from his shelves in Breda. When a pair of hands began shaking him into an untimely wakefulness, he thought he was dreaming still.
“Run fer yer lifes!” The high-pitched words jarred him.
Where was he? Laurens pushed at the haze that shrouded him from his surroundings. What sort of messenger—demonic or angelic—was attacking? He sat up and reached for Adriana, who was also sitting up and staring at their intruder.
Partially lightened by the rays of a half moon, Laurens made out the shadow of a small elfin form standing over them and heard nearby the sharp yapping of a little dog.
“Go away!” he ordered, above the pounding of his heart.
“Nay, nay, NAY!” the woman’s voice rose in pitch and intensity, and the dog yapped on. “We got to run now!”
“Who is it?” Laurens stammered.
“It’s Mieke!” Adriana said.
“Who?”
“Lompen Mieke!”
He stared in disbelief. “From Breda? We’re both dreaming!” That crude little street thief was as sly as a demon and just as unpredictable. Yet how in the name of believable reasoning would she end up out here?
“Nay! I be Mieke in th’ flesh,” the shrill voice that had awakened them piped. “An’ I tells ye, ye gots to run fer yer lifes!”
“What’s this about?” Laurens asked.
Adriana laid a hand on his. “Shh. Leave it to me.”
Turning to their visitor, she said with calm firmness, “Mieke, before we move from this place, you will tell us why we’re moving, what we’re running from, and why this cannot wait until the light of morning.”
Finally the young woman fell silent. Against the door-framed splotch of faint moonlight, Meester Laurens watched her gather her dog into her arms and tremble slightly as if hesitating to answer.
“There’s two men a-sleepin’ in a room in the inn back in that village ye done passed through what’re layin’ fer ye both.”
“How do you know such a thing?” Adriana asked.
“I heared ’em talkin’. They was so full o’ beer they had no idea their waggin’ tongues was a-reachin’ ears what might care what they was up to.”
“Mieke, it is very good that you are so eager to watch out for us,” Adriana said, “but how did you know where we were?”
“I got two good feet an’ a brain what turns with th’ wind like th’ wheels o’ th’ farmer’s mill.”
“But we’re so far from Breda,” Laurens said.
“Ain’t no place too far from home when ye got friends what need ye.”
Friends? The thought was too ridiculous even for laughter.
Mieke was offering her hand to tug them to their feet and out the door. She snatched up their cloaks and ordered, “Now, grab yer bags an’ follow after me. If’n I don’t watch out fer ye two, who’s a-goin’ to keep ye safe from Alva’s nasty long arm?”
“Alva’s men can’t reach us here,” Laurens argued. “We’ve been banished beyond the spot where he has control.”
Mieke grew agitated. “No time to prattle on ’bout it. Ye got to come now. Them evil men’s plannin’ to rise b’fore sunrise so’s they can catch up to ye an’ fall on ye nice an’ quiet and friendly like while ye walk through the wood. I ain’t a-goin’ to let ye dally here under the thumb o’ deadly trouble.”
Laurens stumbled out into the damp predawn air, and Adriana followed. What if, after all, Mieke was speaking truth? Had God perhaps sent her here to rescue them? On the other hand, if they refused to follow her instructions and she turned against them…Besides, which was more to be feared—Alva’s fury or Lompen Mieke’s shiftiness?
“And where are you taking us that we will be safe from danger?” Laurens asked.
“I’se finded a hidin’ place with a white-bearded man, friend o’ a friend o’ yours.”
“Friend of a friend of mine?” Laurens stared at her. “In this country?”
“Ye heared me! An’ fer right now, there’s no time fer talk. Jus’ get to movin,’ b’cause yer friend’s leavin’ the place b’fore six bells, an’ we gots to catch him first.”
A friend out here, leaving at six bells, hiding them from Alva’s soldiers? It simply didn’t hang together. Nay, Alva’s men were not following them. This strange creature had something else on her mind. Laurens felt it in his bones. Whether for good or for bad, he had no idea. But what else could they do but go along?
With sure-footed stealth, Mieke led them across the field and onto the trek path that ran along the riverbank. At her heels scampered her little nondescript dog that seemed to be mostly wagging tail. A light mist filled their nostrils and lungs, and a chorus of unknown insects and frogs filled their ears.
Meester Laurens held to his vrouw with one hand and to their bag of possessions with the other. His mind raced with questions—What if? Where? How? What next?
He slipped an arm around his vrouw’s waist and spoke softly into her ear. “What do you know about this Lompen Mieke to make you trust her so?”
“As soon as they let her out of prison, she began coming to see me every day.”
“You?”
Adriana shrugged. “I never knew why. Some days she’d knock on my door and give me wilted flowers. Other times she’d accost me at the market or jump out of the bushes beside me. Often she gave me herbs to take to Betteke.”
“How many things did she steal from you?”
“She never stole anything.”
“Impossible!” Laurens insisted. “Like my vader always said, ‘You can take the pig out of the mud, but you can’t take the mud out of the pig.’”
“I know, and I agree. Still, I swear I never missed a thing.”
Laurens bristled. “Ach, she’s a sly one. I suppose you believe her story about Alva’s men chasing us out here, too.”
Adriana shook her head slowly. “Probably not. But I do believe that in her strange way, she is trying to take care of us.”
“Adriana,” he moaned. “Think, vrouw. Mieke’s sort never takes care of anybody but herself. She’s got a trick tied to the end of her string. Mind my word!”
Adriana began slowly, “I know you speak great wisdom. But…”
“But what?”
She slipped her arm into his and spoke with quiet persuasiveness. “It’s just that the Mieke who went into that prison tower with Betteke and Tante Lysbet is not altogether the same Mieke that came out.”
“Adriana, will you never learn? Evil people don’t bait traps with rotten food.”
“I know all that,” she protested. “I’ve watched this creature closely for years. Never before have I known her to help anybody—not even when she was getting ready to steal from them. She even asks me questions about right and wrong. I can’t explain it, and you can think what you like, but I know something in this woman has changed.”
Still shaking his head, Laurens said, “We’ll see.”
They walked on in silence, their steps growing slower and their sprightly guide running on far ahead. The moon sank in the sky. The mist lifted, and the open fields around them turned to woods, then to open fields again.
Finally the little elfin figure and her dog stood like a silhouette against the lightening sky, beckoning vigorously.
“Think we’re almost there?” Adriana asked.
“Only God and Mieke know,” he answered. “I see a city up ahead, not far.”
“And I think I hear five bells. Sounds like a clock.”
“Judging from the sky, I’d say that could be so.”
By the time they’d caught up with Mieke, Adriana was leaning heavily on her husband for strength to keep up. They followed their guide onto a narrow weed-fringed lane that led to a farm settlement. Dodging in and out between buildings, they stopped at last before a small one in the far corner. Mieke pounded on the door, demanding entrance.
The man who opened to her did indeed have a white beard and mustache as well as a full head of white hair, presided over by a black wide-brimmed hat.
“I’se returned,” Mieke said, grinning, “jus’ like I telled ye—with my friends.”
“I see.” The man’s eyes were both kind and piercing.
Mieke rattled on. “Now, let us in to see yer young Pieter-Lucas, so he can tell ye fer certain that they’re true upright citizens o’ Breda what he knows, an’ ye kin give ’em coins fer th’ book.”
Laurens and his vrouw exchanged glances of unbelieving awe. They’d walked all this way to help her sell a book? Who had she stolen it from? What did they have to do with it? And this Pieter-Lucas—van den Garde, was he?
The white-bearded host had not yet invited them in. Rather, he called back over his shoulder, “Your guests have arrived, jongen.”
Meester Laurens stared in disbelief at the young man moving toward the door, throwing his arms around his shoulders, and crying out, “Meester Laurens! She told me it was you, and I almost didn’t believe her. This is our host, Dirck….”
The white-bearded man pulled them quickly across the threshold and shut the door. Pieter-Lucas seated Adriana in his own place at the table, and Mieke planted herself firmly by her side.
Laurens stared at his host’s face. “Dirck…Coornhert, could it be?” Laurens asked.
The man of the house eyed him for a moment. “What makes you think that?”
“My good friend Barthelemeus de Koopman has spoken of you often. With white beard and dark eyes, I can’t imagine there’s another. From Haarlem, is that not so?”
Coornhert nodded.
Laurens rattled on. “You’ve been chased into exile too?”
He shrugged. “When Prince Willem has to go, what more can we expect?”
Laurens shook his head and sighed. “I’ve lost a lot of friends fleeing for their lives—good friends, my best friends, like Dirck Engelshofen. Not still in Emden, is he?” He looked at Pieter-Lucas.
“He left the same time I did. Sailed to Engeland with Barthelemeus.”
Laurens nodded. “None too soon, believe me. It’s awful what’s happened to our safe city. Just days ago, I stood in the market square of Breda and watched two innocent friends turned into torches.”
“Who?” Pieter-Lucas asked.
“The goldsmith, Pieter van Keulen, and his housekeeper, Betteke.”
“Whatever for?”
“Image-breaking, they said.”
“Nay! It couldn’t be!” The young man showed an animated indignity that startled Laurens. He was, after all, no longer a boy.
Laurens shook his head. “So said we all….” He let his voice trail off while he swallowed a lump of painful memories. “And they banished Tante Lysbet on false charges!”
“Mieke here told me they executed Tante Lysbet,” Pieter-Lucas said, a question mark coloring his voice.
Laurens remembered how he’d prayed God to spare Betteke. “Why did you say it was Tante Lysbet, Mieke?” he asked. He searched her face for a cloud of uneasiness, a flinching expression. Instead she held her head high and answered forthrightly.
“The bailiff telled th’ whole world ’twas Betteke. But on th’ night b’fore th’ stakin’, I watched ’em take th’ body o’ Betteke out o’ th’ prison and dump it in a hole in th’ field outside th’ Guest House Gate. She died o’ th’ consumption. All of us in th’ prison knowed she had that sorely awful. Ye heared her coughin’ day an’ night when ye was there.” She nodded toward Laurens.
“No question about that.” So maybe it was Tante Lysbet, after all.
“I can prove it to ye.” Mieke reached inside her bodice and pulled out a long chain with an object dangling from it.
“What’s that?” Laurens asked.
“A key what Tante Lysbet always hung round her neck—”
“Where did you get it?” Pieter-Lucas interrupted, frowning.
“Digged it out o’ th’ ashes of Lysbet’s burnin’, along with this.” She held up a second metal object that Laurens couldn’t identify in the dim morning light.
“And that?”
“Th’ screw what they fastened to her tongue to keep her from talkin’ so nobody’d guess who she really was.”
A round of gasps filled the room. Mieke said, “What else ye think they throwed that cloth over her head fer, if’n they didn’t want to hide somethin’?”
For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were the scratching of the birds in the thatch above and a muffled sniffle from Mieke.
Then abruptly Mieke edged her way up next to Coornhert. “Now that ye see I been a-tellin’ ye th’ truth,” she said, “be ye ready to buy this man’s book what I left b’hind, so’s he an’ his vrouw kin buy what to eat an’ a place to lay their heads?”
Coornhert reached into a cupboard behind the table, pulled out a large leather-bound book, and placed it in Laurens’ hands.
“My Bible!” Laurens gasped.
“That’s th’ one,” Mieke shouted.
“Mieke, where did you get this?” he demanded.
She crossed her arms and said saucily, “From yer house where ye leaved it.”
“When did you take it?” Laurens cast a swift sidewise glance at his vrouw.
“Th’ evenin’ o’ the burnin’. While they was a-packin’ ye both into th’ coach, I sneaked in an’ lifted it out b’fore they’d have a chance to find an’ steal it.”
“But why, Mieke?” Adriana asked.
“Couldn’t let the soldiers take what could bring ye so much good coins fer eatin’. I knows what it feels like to have a hungry hole in yer belly. Your vrouw’s been so kind to me, an’ I simply cannot let ye die from hunger.” She paused and swallowed before going on. “Ye know, this is th’ first time I ever stealed anything fer th’ intent to give th’ money what it brings to its rightful owner, an’ it gives me a warm feelin’ down here somewhere.” She was rubbing her chest over her heart and smiling.
“Your kindness warms my heart too,” Laurens stammered. “But I cannot sell this book.”
Mieke stared at him with a puzzled expression. “Why not? It’s big an’ fancy.” Then nodding toward Coornhert, she added, “You’d buy it, wouldn’t ye?”
“You don’t understand,” Laurens said. How could he make it clear to her simple mind? “I must keep this book. I need it.”
She held her head to one side and challenged, “But what good’s a book a-goin’ to do ye when yer stomach’s got the growls?”
“The God who delivered us from the stake will also feed us—with His ravens, if need be—but not with coins from this book.”
She frowned. “I dunno ’bout ravens, an’ I’se not one o’ ye schoolish folks what reads books. I only know that when yer belly’s empty, ye needs coins.”
Laurens nodded slowly. “Some of my books I might sell someday if I was hungry—and if I had them anymore. But this one? Never!”
Mieke looked at Coornhert, then around the room to the others—Pieter-Lucas, Adriana, and back at him. She stared proudly into his eyes, and he stared back, waiting.
“Then where ye goin’ to lay yer heads in the night?” She spoke in pleading tones. “Ye can’t sleep under the stars and in the mists like I do. One night in that rotten straw was more’n enough fer folks like ye.”
Coornhert spoke up. “I have friends in these environs that will give them a home for now. God brought you to the right place.”
She looked up, then slowly picked up her dog and held him tightly in her arms.
“You’ve done me a greater kindness than you could imagine by rescuing my Book,” Laurens said. “I shall always be grateful. Nothing of all my possessions will ever be so precious to me as this book.”
Mieke squirmed as though she didn’t know how to express some thought that troubled her. Then looking at the floor and raising her eyes gradually, she began, “Must be somethin’ pretty special!”
“More than all my possessions put together.” Laurens held the book close to his breast and curled his fingers around its smooth leather edges. With his lips, he caressed it lightly and let its rich aroma fill his nostrils.
“I figgered it musta been good fer bringin’ a lot o’ coins, b’cause I found it in th’ secret hidin’ place in th’ wall, where most rich folks hide their bags o’ coins.”
The young woman was looking up at him with a wistful expression—almost of innocence. Impossible! Yet the look he saw in her eyes pierced through the heavy accumulation of great wisdom with which he faced all of life. It released something he could no more explain than Adriana had been able to do out there on the roadway in the middle of the night.
Suddenly he realized she was no longer talking, but waiting. How could he make her understand?
“Mieke,” he said tentatively, “this book is just like the one that Betteke used to read and talk to you about in the prison cell.”
“God’s Book?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face alight with an almost holy reverence.
“One thing you need to know about it,” Laurens went on, “that could save your life—and ours along with it.”
“What’s that?”
“You must never try to sell God’s Book. Never!”
“Why not? Any book that kin help ye get ready to die like it helped Betteke ought to bring a lot o’ coins. Doesn’t th’ whole world want that sort o’ book?”
“What you say should be true, Mieke. But the men that run this world are afraid that if people like us read God’s Book, we’ll know more about God than they do. So when they see you with one of these books, they’ll not only put you back into the prison, they’ll probably tie you to a stake and torch you and the book along with you.”
A light went on in the dirty face with the stringy curls framing it. “No matter how important a man is, if’n he kin put th’ screws to Tante Lysbet’s tongue an’ th’ torch to her body, then he’s never read this book. ’Cause Betteke read to me from it ’bout love an’ kindness what would never let ’em torch another body.”
Maybe it wasn’t so complicated after all. Laurens looked at Adriana. She was resting her elbows on the table, cradling her chin in her hands and smiling as if she’d just seen a bright fresh rainbow spread across a bank of angry gray clouds. Maybe that’s what they’d all just seen, Laurens decided.