England, 1558

Footsteps echo through the cavernous halls, quick and staccato, like drumming fingernails. The noise ricochets off the walls, snaking its way under the heavy door of my cell. Reflexively, I clutch the crucifix tighter in my hand. The smooth silver digs into the tender flesh of my palm and as I wince at the trickles of pain that branch across my skin, I can't help but realise what I have to do.

My small epiphany is not a comforting one. But I would die one hundred times; endure any kind of torture they could inflict on me; sit in this cell for all eternity, before I utter a single word against the version of Christ that I know to be true. By God, by England, by Queen Mary herself – the beautiful wrath who envisioned all of this – by my church I swear, never shall I convert to the Queen's heretical way of life.

The footsteps stop.

Right outside my door, I can practically taste his presence: the noise of his steps is replaced by an agonising silence, a prolonged nothingness that stretches out, flat and eternal, like the surface of the sea. My breath sits uncomfortably in my throat. My stiff fingers scramble to hide the illegal symbol that hangs around my neck, gently placing my lips to the cross one last time before hurriedly concealing it in my robes. Somewhere, in the centre of the silence, a key turns.

Everything in my consciousness, in that moment, feels as though it is suspended by a thread. For days, begging screams have convulsed these halls, leaking into my room to touch me with their stinging agony. Today, could be my turn.

I close my eyes. The walls hold their breath. Broken prayers, earnest pleas and a thousand painful questions tease at my cracked lips. They rattle my teeth and scratch at my throat because they know how desperately I want to spit them out. I want to throw my head back and scream at the heavens, pierce God himself with my cries and let him know the betrayal and doubt that burns, and churns, inside of me. I want to ask him: Why?

Be it God, be it reality, be it sound of a cell door opening, something snaps me back to my surroundings. But I do not open my eyes.

Because for at least a few precious seconds more, I don't have to know. I don't have to know whether it is my door he opens, or if he is standing over me right now, or if he is in the cell next to mine, where another innocent man's eyes spill over with blind, bitter faith.

I sit, not knowing.

Whether I am in the presence of God, or the guard, or neither, it suddenly occurs to me that the art of not knowing is faith itself. So if my faith is shaken, broken like the delicate skin of the ripest fruit, it is because faith goes hand in hand with irresistible doubt. Within my personal oblivion, I no longer feel betrayed.

This simple moment, my acceptance of the unanswerable, my love, my committent, the tragedy of it all, wraps me up like a tender arm about my waist. I lay my head on its shoulder, floating weightlessly above the ground as if I could fly through the bars of the cell window and soar upwards to be with my God. I smile, in that knowledge that if there is any peace He can offer me in my final moments, it is this feeling, and I let my head lean back in satisfaction to touch the cold stone of the wall.

The smile is slapped from my face by the iron tip of a whip.