‘Unquestionably. The other friend of Greening’s, the Dutchman Vandersteyn, is in the cloth trade, an intermediary for the Flanders wool buyers. He had a neat little house of his own, but when I got there his steward told me the same story; his master gone suddenly, taking only a few possessions.’

‘Could they have been afraid of sharing Greening’s fate?’

‘Perhaps. Or if they were sacramentarians they might have feared the attentions of Bishop Gardiner’s men. If that is the case, the Lord alone knows where they are.’

I remembered young Hugh’s letter, the story of the refugees arriving in the Low Countries, fearing persecution. And Vandersteyn hailed from Flanders.

Cecil continued, ‘Then I decided to call on the apprentice Elias’s mother, to see what news she had, or whether perhaps he had come home. I found her outside, on her knees, frantically washing blood off the wall of the alleyway.’

‘Dear God.’

‘She has two little daughters. Her husband died of quinsy last year.’

‘Perhaps that was why Elias took another job rather than leaving the district as the others seem to have done.’

‘Mayhap.’ Cecil took a deep breath. ‘Elias’s mother told me that in the small hours of last night, she heard her son shouting for help outside. She rushed out, like a good mother.’ He sighed again and shook his head. ‘She saw him killed. Let her tell you the story herself. She has taken the body into the house. Jesu, the sight of it turned my stomach.’

‘Has she told the authorities?’

‘No. Because of what Elias said to her before he died.’

‘The name Anne Askew?’

‘Yes.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Quiet now, look there.’

We were passing along Paternoster Row. All the shops were shut for the Sabbath. However, a man in a black doublet was walking slowly along the sunlit street, peering into the shop windows. Cecil smiled sardonically. ‘I know him. One of Bishop Gardiner’s spies, trying to spot forbidden titles no doubt, or dubious-looking visitors to the printers.’

We walked past him. Looking back at him from a safe distance, I asked Cecil, ‘Have you worked for the Queen’s Learned Council for long?’

‘Two years only. Lord Parr has been good enough to favour me.’

For Cecil’s abilities, I thought; there was no doubting those. And for his reformist sympathies too, most likely. ‘Where are you from?’ I asked. ‘I thought I caught a trace of Lincolnshire. My pupil is from there.’

‘Well divined. My first wife came from there, too, like me, but sadly God took her to Him in childbirth, though He left me our son.’