At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (15 page)

The same nun who had brought Anne her novice’s habit sprang to her feet at the intrusion. Her hair was a pretty gold color and streamed down her back as if it had been freshly washed and combed. She relaxed as soon as she recognized Anne and Meriall.

“I was afraid that you were Dame Katherine,” she said. “If you wish to join us, come in and close the door behind you.”

“The prioress, I assume, would not approve?”

Another nun giggled. She was a fresh-faced girl with long, reddish-brown hair who looked too young to have taken final vows. She might have been a beauty, had it not been for a strawberry birthmark on the left side of her face.

“Dame Katherine approves of very little . . . for us,” the first nun said, “but her lodgings are in the west range, near the guesthouse and the priest’s chamber. She cannot hear what goes on here. I am Juliana Wynter. These are my sisters, Eliza Wynter and Joan Wynter.”

“Your sisters are. . . sisters?”

Dame Juliana nodded and offered wine to Anne and Meriall. Anne accepted the jug and took a swallow. The taste was surprisingly pleasant. She passed the container to her maid.

“There were seven girls in the family,” Eliza explained, “and only money enough for four marriage portions.” Like her siblings, she had been a nun long enough for her hair to have grown long again. It reached nearly to her waist in red-gold waves.

“Who are you, Lady Anne?” Juliana asked, resettling herself on her narrow bed alongside her sisters. “No one has said, you know. Nor told us why you are here.” For lack of other seating, Anne and Meriall sank to the floor to sit tailor-fashion on the bare stone.

“The prioress knows,” Anne said.

Juliana made a noise suspiciously like a snort. “As if she would tell us anything!”

“And Sir Richard does also.”

“Thick as thieves, those two are. And not inclined to share with
anyone else.” All three nuns laughed at that, and Juliana sent Anne what could only be interpreted as a lewd wink.

Anne took another swallow of wine, giving herself time to think. Plainly there was more going on at Littlemore Priory than she had suspected. “I will gladly tell you who I am and why I am here,” she said after a moment, “if you will help me send word to those who can help me leave.”

“Nuns cannot exchange letters or gifts with anyone, not even relatives, nor journey out of the convent without the prioress’s permission,” Joan said primly. She was the one with the birthmark. Then she giggled again.

Juliana grinned. “We are not permitted to talk to outsiders alone, either. Is it not fortunate that the three of us were sent here together?”

“Dame Katherine thinks we spend too much time in each other’s company,” Eliza complained.

“And you do not want to cross her,” Joan warned. “She enjoys meting out punishment.”

“She has told me that I am to be treated like a lay sister while I am here,” Anne said. Then she gave them an abridged version of her story.

They listened in fascination, as if she were recounting a tale of romance and chivalry. Anne supposed it must sound like one to them, but she had lost her own illusions. If some brave knight meant to come to her rescue, he had left it till rather late.

As the wine jug gradually emptied, Anne learned that the other two nuns at Littlemore were older. Anna Willye occupied the cell across from Juliana’s, but she was conveniently deaf. A second Juliana, Juliana Beauchamp, who called herself Dame Julian, was the subprioress. She was also the sacristan, in charge of chalices, books, vestments, reliquaries, and candles and charged with ringing the bells to call the nuns to worship. The Wynter sisters were not worried about being heard by her because on this night Dame Julian was keeping a private vigil in the church.

“She is also the cantrix,” Juliana added, looking aggrieved, “so she is the one who sings all the solos. She complains that the rest of us pause
in all the wrong places, both in singing and in saying the other hours. And she says we sing too fast. Well, who would not? It is excessively dull to perform divine services the same way every day of every week, with only the occasional feast day to enliven the ritual.”

“Surely you must find other ways to alleviate the boredom,” Anne said. The ember of an idea had caught at the back of her mind and now burned fitfully.

“Here and there,” Juliana admitted, but she would say no more on that subject.

When the wine was gone, Eliza played a decidedly secular song on her lute to end the evening. By the time Anne made her way back to her own room, she was barely able to keep her eyes open long enough to pound her pillow into a more comfortable shape and tug the single quilt up to her chin. And yet she still could not sleep. Too many thoughts coursed through her brain, tumbling around like leaves in the wind.

The Wynter sisters had been careful not to give too much away. Anne understood that she was, after all, a stranger to them. She might report them to the prioress. But she had begun to suspect that they were not entirely cut off from the outside world. After all, they had procured that jug of wine from somewhere. If she could win their confidence, they might be able to help her escape from Littlemore. . . once she had solved the problem of her lack of funds.

Anger and disappointment still weighed heavily upon her, as they had since she’d been forced to leave Greenwich Palace. She had been betrayed by all those who claimed to care for her and her brother was the worst of the lot. She pictured the mighty Duke of Buckingham imprisoned in a small, bare cell, his hair shorn and his expensive garments replaced by a black monk’s habit with a hair shirt beneath.

Without warning, her thoughts turned to Will Compton. He’d disappointed her, too. She’d been flattered by his desire for her in her early days at court and had grown fond of his company after her marriage. She had been upset when he’d been hurt and relieved when he recovered. She’d thought of him as a friend when they devised a way to dissuade the king from pursuing her, but it was clear to her now that he
lacked any true affection for her, else he’d never have tried to persuade her into the king’s bed.

She did not think much of King Henry, either, and George had abandoned her. Anne rolled over and thumped the pillow again. If she had the sense God gave a goose, she’d never trust any man again!

D
ame Katherine’s private parlor looked much like any well-born lady’s chamber. It was furnished with a table, a chair, two stools, and several cushions with embroidered covers. A tapestry showing a scene from the Bible graced one wall and the windows had brocade curtains. The floor was covered with rushes that had been recently changed and smelled of rosemary.

Anne had written two letters, sealing them with wax and her signet ring. The first solicited the support of Bess Boleyn, asking her to work toward Anne’s return to court. The second was a humble plea for assistance to George’s mother. Anne had met Lady Hungerford on only a few occasions, but she had sensed in her a strength of purpose and a ready wit that she could not help but admire. She knew that Lady Hungerford had not approved of George’s decision to marry a Stafford, but if there was to be an heir to both the Hastings and the Hungerford titles, Anne and George must, despite the current enmity between them, be reconciled.

She had not mentioned the possibility, which grew more certain with each passing day, that she might already be with child. If she was, it would be December before the baby was born. Conception would have occurred some time in March. That was early enough that no
suspicion of bastardy would be attached to the child, despite the uproar Edward’s accusations must have caused at court.

Anne’s hands were hidden by the sleeves of her novice’s clothing. Surreptitiously, she touched her still-flat belly. Dame Katherine could not see the movement, but she regarded Anne with suspicion. “What do you want, Lady Anne? You shirk your duties to come here without an invitation.”

“I would ask your permission to send two letters to friends, Mother. I left court in such haste that no one knows where I am. There are people who will be concerned for me.”

“You are here as punishment for your sins, my lady. You are not permitted luxuries.”

“It is no luxury to ease the fears of others,” Anne objected.

“Letters from you are unnecessary. Your noble brother and your husband will inform your friends of anything they wish them to know. Return to your assigned tasks at once.”

Juliana had warned her that the prioress would not grant her any favors, but Anne wished to test the waters for herself. “I am not a novice,” she said. “Nor am I a slave.”

“But you are a prisoner in my charge,” Dame Katherine said coldly. “If you wish to eat, you will work.”

“Perhaps I prefer to starve myself to death,” Anne shot back. “That would not please my
noble
brother.” At least, she hoped it would not. She was no longer certain how Edward felt about her. Perhaps he would be relieved if she died here, alone and forgotten.

“I have other means of enforcing my will,” the prioress said smoothly. Anne did not trust the ghost of a smile that appeared on her pale, perfect face. “Come and see.”

The window to which Dame Katherine led her looked out over the cloister. Anne frowned. A large wooden structure occupied a secluded corner she had not noticed before. Set atop a sturdy post was a heavy piece of wood with three holes cut into it, one for the head and two for the hands.

“Stocks? You have
stocks
in your cloister?”

“Those who defy me are punished.” Dame Katherine’s smile broadened. “Just as every village has a pillory to exhibit those who break the law, so we have this for sisters who break the Rule of St. Benedict. Go back to your duties, Lady Anne. Scrubbing floors is good for the soul, and much less trying than a day spent out there in the sun without food or water.”

Dismissed, Anne fled. She told herself she was not afraid of Dame Katherine, but neither was she prepared to openly defy the prioress’s authority.

That night, after Compline, she confided the prioress’s threat to Meriall.

“The stocks are indeed used to discipline the nuns,” her maid confirmed. “The cook told me that Dame Joan had to stand in them for an entire day because she laughed aloud during church service.”

“This is most strange,” Anne murmured. Such punishment was usually reserved for the baker who sold bread that was underweight or the vintner who added colored water to the wine. Or, sometimes, for a woman charged with being a scold. With head and hands locked in place, the malefactor was obliged to stand in the center of the village, an easy target for rotten vegetables as well as taunts. But to Anne’s knowledge, the stocks were never used to punish a gentlewoman, let alone a member of the nobility.

“The prioress is very strict, my lady,” Meriall said, “in
some
ways.”

In the darkness of her cell, Anne heard an odd note in her tiring maid’s voice. “What do you mean?”

“Only that I heard a baby crying when I was in the kitchen this morning. There is something strange about that.”

“Perhaps the nuns run a school for local children,” Anne suggested. The long day and the restless nights that had come before had caught up with her. She yawned and closed her eyes, only half listening to what Meriall was saying.

“Oh, they do. Several young boys come daily for their lessons. But it was not a child from the village that I heard. It was too early in the morning and it was an infant, not a boy of an age to learn letters.”

“Perhaps someone is staying in the guesthouse,” Anne murmured, beginning to doze off.

“Perhaps.” Meriall did not sound convinced, but she failed to offer any other explanation before her mistress gave in to exhaustion and slept.

T
he nine days of Ascensiontide leading up to Whitsunday, the nineteenth day of May, had commenced on the very day that Lady Anne arrived at Littlemore Priory. On Whitsunday itself—fifty days after Easter—the residents of the nearby village and all the priory’s servants, as well as those who lived in seclusion within Littlemore’s walls, went to church to receive communion. Flowers had been strewn in the choir. Sir Richard Hewes wore the priest’s traditional red vestments. And there was a baptism. A little girl, dressed all in white, was brought in by no less a personage than the prioress herself. Perhaps the child had been abandoned at Littlemore, Anne thought, and had been taken in by the nuns.

After the choir sang the hymn that began “Veni, Sancte Spiritus, / Et emitte caelitus / Lucis tuae radium,” which even those who did not understand Latin knew meant “Come, Holy Spirit / and from thy celestial home / Shed a ray of light divine,” a dove was released through the “Holy Ghost hole” near the east end of the church. The sound of a rushing wind was achieved by the nuns shuffling their feet. Next came a shower of rose petals, to imitate the “tongues of fire” also described in the Acts of the Apostles. Anne was glad they did not use pieces of burning straw, as some churches did. In this rickety old building, that would surely have led to a conflagration.

In common with many other villages, Littlemore held a Whitsun ale, a celebration that featured Morris dancers, jugglers, and other simple amusements. The cloistered nuns were not permitted to attend these festivities, but even from inside the convent walls they could hear the music.

The celebrations continued well into the evening. Right after Vespers, Dame Juliana Wynter tapped on Anne’s door. In her arms she carried two of Anne’s gowns, liberated from her traveling trunk. Without a word, she removed her wimple and veil and put one of the gowns on over her habit.

Anne exchanged a glance with Meriall. Was this the chance they’d been waiting for? The opportunity to escape? She removed her own headdress and took the second gown, grateful that she’d not been forced to cut off all her hair. Meriall, who had been allowed to keep her own clothing, did not have to alter her appearance at all before the three of them crept out of the dormitory and through the church.