Betrayal in the Tudor Court (26 page)

Sister Agnes tossed Mirabella and Sister Julia a fleeting glance of wild fear mingled with apology before hurrying out of the chapel, the heavy oaken doors slamming with the resounding crack of finality behind her. Mirabella’s throat went dry.

“Men! These ladies prefer to watch us do our bidding! Let us commence as we have been commanded!” he ordered then.

At once, with the practised efficiency of seasoned soldiers, the men took to loading up trunks and chests with all manner of décor. The carts were already heavy with loot: paintings, books from the library, tapestries, plate, altarpieces for the treasury. Mirabella swallowed an onset of tears. In weeks prior, all rents and lands owned by the abbey had been reverted to the Crown without incident. But this … this was tantamount to rape.

Sister Julia clasped Mirabella’s hand. “We best leave while we have the chance,” she whispered. “Before we are in real danger.”

Mirabella shook her head. She swallowed hard. “Lord Morton will protect us.”

“Lord Morton is with
them
, don’t you see?” Sister Julia said in a frantic whisper. “He doesn’t care what happens to us. If we are seen to be working against the king’s will he’ll just as soon help them be rid of us. Do not be a fool to expect his protection—”

“Then go if you are afraid!” Mirabella snapped. She did not want to hear arguments, logical or not. Nothing could be allowed to mar her victorious fantasy.

Sister Julia remained rooted in place, her breathing shallow.

When the lieutenant began to chisel away at a golden statue of the Holy Mother from its marble base, Mirabella could stand it no more. She hurled herself upon him.

“Blasphemer! How dare you? No!” she cried, pummelling him with her fists. Tears of fury streamed down her cheeks. Was nothing sacred? How could this man go about these evil deeds so carelessly?

“Look at this!” he cried, delighted with the spectacle. He wrapped his arms about her, pinning her to his body. “Gentlemen, perhaps we have been too hasty in our efforts to dismiss these lovely ladies,” he muttered as he removed her hood, revealing her cropped dark curls. He stroked her jawline. Mirabella averted her head, bile rising in her throat as she at last began to realise the enormity of the danger she had placed herself in.

“Come now, lass, I told you I would be reasonable!” he teased as he backed her against the wall. He pressed himself against her groin; she attempted to wriggle away. “If you’re a good girl, I’ll even give the other lads a turn with you. … I’ve never had a woman of God before. I expect the experience to be … divine?”

He began to chuckle as he ran his hand under her gown, along her bare leg to her secret parts. Mirabella squeezed her legs together, yelping in pain as he inserted his fingers. This seemed to excite him further, for his breathing quickened as he forced her legs apart with his own and attempted to hike up her gown. Mirabella squeezed her eyes shut, emitting an involuntary sob.

In all her life she had never been as afraid as she was at that moment. She began to scream. It had all been for nothing. She had failed God and now He was punishing her.

“You will stop this!” a voice thunderous with authority cried. Sister Julia! Her mother … Yes, her mother would save her. …

Time seemed to stop. There was no sound, not that Mirabella could make out, and everyone’s movements seemed too slow to be real, as though they were exaggerating them in a masque mocking movement itself. Maybe that’s what this was: a horrible, evil masque. Yes, that had to be it. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t have all gone this wrong. People couldn’t be this wicked.

Mirabella turned panicked eyes to Sister Julia, who was charging toward the lieutenant with the very chisel he had been using on the statue. She raised it above her head. Mirabella drew in a sharp breath as she watched Sister Julia’s green eyes widen. Slow, fluid as a dancer, the soldier turned from Mirabella toward her mother and manipulated the chisel from her hand by a twist of her delicate wrist while with his other hand he brought the hilt of his sword crashing against the side of her temple.

As slow as time seemed to be moving before, now it lurched forward with dizzying speed. Sister Julia was flung—or was she flinging herself?—into Mirabella’s arms and the two collapsed to the floor.

“Sister!” Mirabella cried, cradling her mother’s bloodied head. “Oh … please …”

In a movement almost spasmodic, Sister Julia seized Mirabella’s face between her hands, fixing her with a hard, uncompromising gaze. “Forgive,” she whispered, her voice audible only to Mirabella.
“Let go.”
With that, the eyes glazed over and the surge of life that gave Sister Julia the strength to utter this last command receded. Her hands slipped from her daughter’s face, her head lolled to the side.

Mirabella cast helpless eyes at the lieutenant, whose sword was already in his scabbard as though that unpleasant episode had just been in a day’s work. She swallowed an onset of bile, reverting her gaze to Sister Julia once more. In awe, she watched a pool of deep crimson surround her mother’s head, some nightmarish perversion of a halo.

“You.” The lieutenant’s voice. Mirabella raised her eyes, dazed. He towered over her, the darkest shadow in her world. “Now I’ve had enough from high-minded bitches. Let me to my business.”

There was naught but to obey. He had won, he and the king, Cromwell and Cranmer. She had lost. How much she had lost! Mirabella clasped her mother to her breast. She lowered her head, forcing herself to look upon the face of the woman who had loved her completely, without condition, the woman for whom she had shown nothing but disrespect. Even in the end she had accused her of being a coward, of running away from life, from her. … Yet when Mirabella’s life was in jeopardy Sister Julia did not hesitate once. She would have killed for her. This sister in Christ would have killed to spare her daughter’s virtue. In that brave, selfless attempt she lost her life.

And Mirabella was to blame. Mirabella had killed her the same as if she had been wielding the sword.

Mirabella began to rock the body back and forth. In vain she felt for the pulse of life in Sister Julia’s neck. Nothing. What had she done? Surely she could have found a better way. … She could have appealed to her father. He would have raised an army for her. … No. Not Hal Pierce. He was too passive, too obedient. He would never risk the king’s displeasure.

Oh Mother, forgive me … forgive me. …

“My lady …”

A warm hand stroked Mirabella’s forehead. She grimaced, her eyelids fluttering as a strangled whimper stuck in her throat. Images came swirling back to her, merciless, terrible.

“Oh, my dear lady …”The soft male voice once more.

Mirabella’s eyes opened at last, allowing her to draw into focus the face of the abbey’s new steward, James Reaves, stooping over what she assumed to be her bedside, though how and when she arrived in a bed she never knew. She had the presence of mind to recognise the infirmary, however, and fresh tears stung her eyes at the thought of the many hours she had spent there nursing the sick. She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory.

“I didn’t know,” Master Reaves was telling her. “The soldiers … everything was happening so fast and I was detained. I found you in the chapel unconscious and Sister Julia … oh, the poor, dear lady …” He bowed his head, stray locks of blond hair sweeping across his forehead.

“Where is she now?” Mirabella demanded in tones sharper than she intended.

“She has been laid to rest, Sister Mirabella,” Master Reaves assured her. Then softly, “Do you know … who did it, my lady?”

“It matters not,” Mirabella replied in hoarse tones. “Justice will not find them in the England of Henry VIII.” She rolled on her side, back to the young steward.

“Sister, you cannot mean to keep this quiet!” he cried, resting a hand on her shoulder. She jerked it away, drawing the covers to her neck. He withdrew his hand, backing away. “I am sorry … I meant no disrespect. It is just that I want to help you. Please.”

Mirabella remained silent.

“Your family,” he said. “They should be informed.”

“I will go to them when I am ready and not before,” Mirabella said in sharp tones, rolling over to face him. “Until then, we will not speak of it to anyone. Please.”

Master Reaves shook his head. “But, dear mistress, why?”

“I am not your dear mistress,” Mirabella hissed. “I am Sister Mirabella, do you hear?”

The bewildered steward nodded. “Yes, of course. But—but you do recall what has come to pass?”

“I do,” Mirabella said. “That changes nothing.” With this she laughed a shrill, joyless sound that caused the steward to shiver. “Do you honestly think I remained to be a mere servant to Lord Morton? No. I stayed to fight for my home, for my calling, for everything holy that King Henry and his—his
minions
are stripping the land of.” Tears rolled down her cheeks in smooth, slick trails. “But I lost … I lost.”

He shook his head, this time in sadness. “No, Sister. Any fight for God is won in Heaven, even if we still suffer here.” He leaned closer to her, threading his fingers through hers. She was too exhausted to withdraw. “I will tell you,” he whispered. “I am a convinced Catholic of the old tradition. I abhor the king’s ‘reforms’ and so do a great many others. Even now an army is being raised against His Majesty. It is an army of which I am part. We challenge His Majesty’s authority over the Church and more—so much more!—and we are to march on Lincoln.” A storm of fervour gathered in his grey eyes. They were clenching each other’s hands. Mirabella was sitting up, everything, all the pain, all the turmoil of the last days, swallowed up in the enthusiasm of a man she hadn’t paid a scant of attention to before.

“How many amass?” she asked, afraid to hope.

“A good forty thousand brave souls,” answered the steward.

“Forty thousand!” Mirabella cried. “That is a sizable force! Then perhaps something can be done. Perhaps it won’t have been in vain. …” Her voice broke. She cast her eyes at their joined hands, then slowly disengaged. She could not bring herself to meet his eyes.

He nodded. “All of the vile crimes that have been committed in the name of the king and his perversion of the Church will be avenged.”

“May God bless and keep you, Master Reaves,” Mirabella whispered, sinking back onto the pillows.

The steward’s tone was tender. “But what of you? Do you truly intend to remain here, after everything?”

Mirabella pursed her quivering lips. “I don’t know,” she confessed brokenly. “I don’t know what is to become of me now. I have a family and a home and yet to return to them, to that world, is to return to a world where I am of no use—”

“No use! But you are of noble blood,” Master Reaves observed. “You
do
have power. A voice at court! You could seek audience with Queen Jane. She is said to be of gentle nature and sympathetic to our cause. …”

Mirabella regarded him with wide eyes. “It is … our cause, isn’t it?”

Master Reaves offered a slow nod. “More than ever, good Sister.”

Almost against her will, a new purpose began to surge through Mirabella’s veins.

As soon as Mirabella recovered herself enough to keep her composure, she set off to Sumerton. She sent no word, no message bespeaking her ordeal. Her father and Cecily were well aware of the abbey’s closing and that she had chosen to remain with Sister Julia as a servant. Though they had pleaded with her in letters to return home rather than suffer such indignity, she had made it clear that her place was beside her mother.

Now Mirabella bore the painful responsibility of disclosing Sister Julia’s death. She did not want to lie, but neither could she bear to tell the complete truth. If her father knew what really happened, that Mirabella was to blame … She could not abide it. He must not know. There had to be a way to hide the truth while not offending God. By the time she arrived at Castle Sumerton, Mirabella believed she had contrived a proper account, vague enough so as not to seem too deceitful, detailed enough to satisfy.

So it was with squared shoulders and a high head that she quit her coach and entered the home of her childhood. The castle was a hum of activity. Servants bustled here and there, the guests who always managed to find a warm welcome with the Pierces cavorted with one another at dice and cards, while a new sight, something Mirabella had not expected at all, made its presence known above all others. Children.

A small boy was leading a pack of little ones, waving about a wooden sword. “Enemies afoot!” he cried, charging toward Mirabella. “Who goes there?”

His demand, in an exaggerated brogue, disarmed Mirabella despite everything.

“I am Mistress Mirabella Pierce,” she said in haughty tones of equal exaggeration. “And who, might I ask, are you?”

The child’s face screwed up in confusion as he regarded her, his blue eyes bright and intent under their fringe of thick blond lashes.
Brey’s eyes
, Mirabella thought, her heart constricting in a moment of anguish.

“Mirabella Pierce?” he returned, his shrill voice a thrill of enthusiasm. “Then you are my sister! I’m Harry!” He dropped the sword with a clatter and rushed toward her, throwing his arms about her waist.

Shocked at the show of unexpected affection, Mirabella wrapped her arms around the child, a lump swelling her throat. She bit her lip. So this was the little brother of whom she had been written. She had never once come to see him, nor did she allow Cecily to bring him to the abbey. Guilt coursed through her. It must have pained her father and Cecily a great deal to think she had wanted nothing to do with their much-anticipated heir.

“Where are you, you little imps?” A musical voice interrupted Mirabella’s reverie.

She beheld the owner of the voice—a very radiant, very pregnant Cecily.

The two women stood before each other in a moment of shock. The emotion between them was tangible; even Harry’s lip began to tremble under its power. At last, Mirabella offered a curtsy.

“Lady Cecily,” she said in low, formal tones.

The tears that were welling in Cecily’s eyes spilled over as she rushed toward Mirabella, seizing her hands in her own. “I have never been ‘Lady Cecily’ to you,” she told her, gathering her in her arms.