The Chalice (35 page)

Brother Oswald eyes squeezed shut and he made the sign of the cross. The others clutched one another, in sorrow and pain.

I felt a hand grab my arm. It was Brother Edmund. “Why didn’t you tell me this—why?” he demanded. “When did
you
learn it, Sister Joanna?”

“At Blackfriars,” I whispered. “From the Duke of Norfolk.”

Brother Edmund said, “Yes, this is why the king has been excommunicated. I knew it had to be some sort of terrible desecration that would force the pope to finally issue the bull. If Norfolk knew, and told you, then others must know at court. This horrific act may have been planned months ago. The word traveled to Rome—and Pope Clement had no choice. A saint cannot be defiled this way.”

A new noise filled the room. It was Brother Oswald, kneeling in the middle of the floor and sobbing. The others were thrown into a panic at the sight of their leader’s distress. Another monk knelt before Brother Oswald and said, “Maybe we can stop this. We could go there now, before the king’s
men, and convince the prior to let us take Saint Thomas to safety.”

Brother Edmund said, “I’m afraid the prior of Canterbury Cathedral would never allow that. He won’t dare defy the king.”

“We will go!”

It was Brother Oswald. The Cistercian had ceased weeping. “We will be there the same night that the king’s men arrive,” he said, rising to his feet. “We will wait for them to emerge with the box—the sacred feretrum—and then we will take it from them.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the others cried. They all agreed at once to a plan that seemed to me highly dangerous. I could understand their wanting to do it. The king’s indomitable hatred caused despair and great pain. This plan removed the pain. Hope was restored. But how could they get the better of king’s soldiers? I looked at Brother Edmund—he must talk them out of this.

“I shall go with you to Canterbury,” Brother Edmund declared.

I rushed to him, saying, “I beg you to listen to me. Haven’t we been taught, ‘Arm yourself with prayer, rather than a sword; wear humility, rather than fine clothes’?”

He turned to me—I saw that his eyes, like Brother Oswald’s, glittered like hard gems. “We have been humble too long, Sister. See what has become of us as a result. I
must
go.”

“But Brother Edmund, they’ll kill you—all of you,” I said. “None of you have seen what the king’s men are capable of. Not as I have.”

“And if I should die in this attempt—an attempt to prevent an act of hate and blasphemy—then my life at last has been infused with meaning, Sister Joanna,” he said passionately. “You of all people know what it cost me to take the Oath of Supremacy to King Henry five years ago. I denied the Holy Father. I haven’t known grace since, not the true grace of God. I was
weak; I feared torture and death; I swore the oath. I cannot live with that any longer.”

“And Sister Winifred?” I asked.

“If we succeed in Canterbury, then she can be proud of me,” he said. “And if I fail, she will take pride in knowing that at last I showed courage when courage was called for. As will you, Sister Joanna.”

“I am proud of you, Brother Edmund,” I said. “Now, tonight, and always.”

He stared at me, wildly, and for an instant I thought I’d won. But then he backed away, to join the others.

Helpless, frightened, I watched them talk together, their faces flushed with purpose. They were in the grip of a destiny now, one they had chosen for themselves.

Destiny.

There is a destiny one creates. And there is a destiny ordained.

I walked slowly, toward the middle of the circle of men. Everyone stopped talking and waited for me to speak.

“I will go with you to Canterbury,” I said.

T
he fire of purpose, once ignited within me, did not falter. When I ran to the doors of Canterbury Cathedral, three nights later, Brother Oswald had already wrested the feretrum from the soldiers.

The oldest soldier, gray-haired, stood between me and Brother Edmund, tall and vengeful, waving his cudgel. I screamed at him. I felt like a Queen Boudicca, driven mad by rage.

The old soldier backed away from the both of us, retreating into the cathedral and past the dazed prior. We frightened him. Within minutes, we’d be able to spirit away the remains of our dead saint to a place of safety.

I felt a powerful excitement coursing in my blood. I was fulfilling my destiny. But it was even more than that. For the first time I, Joanna Stafford, a novice trained in peaceful contemplation, understood why men chased after wars and sought the honor of the field. The unity of purpose with Brother Edmund, Brother Oswald, and the five other monks, our shared devotion to the service of God, no matter the personal cost . . .

The sound came from behind me, from the top of the wide street. It was a roar, not unlike the one inside my head when
I fought for consciousness outside the monks’ graveyard, but a hundred times louder.

“No, no, no, no,” said Brother Edmund, in a chant of anguish.

At least twenty soldiers in royal livery galloped toward us. As the first line reached us, the men flew off their horses and swarmed up the steps. Silver flashed in the torchlight—they carried swords. These were not frightened boys or old men. Two of them wrested the feretrum from the monks. But my attention was not on the remains of England’s revered saint.

Our leader, the poor, pious Cistercian Brother Oswald, lay still, his ivory head smashed open on the street, just below the bottom step.

Snowflakes touched down in the dark red blood curling around the stones.

A helmeted man on a huge black horse, its mouth foaming, blocked our escape. He called out orders to his men to seize us all. The orders were instantly obeyed. Rough hands grabbed my friends, pulling their arms around their backs to restrain them.

I could not take it in, could not believe this was happening. To succeed and live—that was always a possibility. To succeed and die was more likely, and I had accepted that and prepared for it. But to fail at our mission
and
to live? This was impossible. Dread rose in me as I realized I was once more made a prisoner.

“Get them out of sight as quickly as possible,” cried the helmeted commander on the black horse. Two burly soldiers picked up the limp body of Brother Oswald, as callously as slinging a bag of meal to market.

The man in charge removed his helmet—Lord John Dudley. Not two months earlier, I’d watched him order a far different group of people gathered for imprisonment.

One of the soldiers grabbed Brother Edmund and spun him around, tying his wrists together behind his back. He winced with pain, crouched over. His eyes searched for me and found
me. The friar apothecary straightened as best he could, struggling to hide his pain.

I stepped out of the shadows of the door. I could not bear to be separated from Brother Edmund now.

Dudley nodded at the sight of me. There was absolutely no surprise. He knew I would be here.

In that moment, I understood. We were betrayed. And I knew who it was who had betrayed us.

And so our pilgrimage ended. It began in hope, faith, and courage. It concluded in death and in failure. We did not even possess the unquestioned dignity of a holy mission. Lord John Dudley tried to take that from us, too.

“Did you do this because you thought the king’s men came here to defile Becket’s bones?” Dudley demanded of me as he walked us through the dark streets, away from the cathedral. It had stopped snowing. A thin white layer clung to the street—I walked in the sharp hoofprints of Dudley’s horse.

He continued: “That is a baseless rumor, spread by Papists who would blacken the king’s good name throughout Christendom. The king stripped and closed the shrine, yes, but only to prevent superstitious practices. The bones were to be moved somewhere safe, to prevent just such criminal actions as you took tonight.”

I said nothing. It was impossible to know if any part of that were true.

But of one thing I could be sure—it was nothing but hubris to think that I could change anything in the kingdom. Christmas night in Dartford, I’d thought that perhaps this action was the one I was meant to take—I did not need to wait for instructions from a third seer. But either the prophecies were false or I had grievously misinterpreted them.

“When the raven climbs the rope, the dog must soar like the hawk . . . Look to the bear to welcome the bull.” I was further from understanding these words than ever before.

A frustration raged in me as never before. Why had I been cursed with this? It had brought me nothing but pain and confusion. If by some miracle of God’s grace I evaded trial and prison—if not execution—I wanted nothing but a quiet life filled with prayer.

I wished I could speak to Brother Edmund. We walked side by side, our wrists bound behind our backs. Dudley rode just ahead of us, half turned to taunt. A dozen soldiers separated us from the followers of Brother Oswald. All I could remember was the Cistercian’s dashed head on the steps of the cathedral, the snow touching his blood. I prayed that someone would take his poor body away, for Christian burial.

Dudley nudged his horse to the side of the road and signaled to a young soldier to receive orders. The soldier nodded, turned, and grabbed Brother Edmund and me, to push us off the road, closer to Dudley.

The others marched on, led by a boy carrying a torch, the soldiers surrounding the five followers of Brother Oswald. As they passed us, one monk called out, “God protect and keep you.”

Dudley made a hissing noise of disgust.

After they’d disappeared from view, Dudley kicked his horse to start again, but down a different street. His one soldier walked behind us, prodding Brother Edmund with his halberd periodically. We had nothing but the weak moonlight to guide us.

What did it mean, that we had separated from the others and went with only Dudley and one other man to a different destination?

We walked for at least an hour, perhaps two. All the buildings we passed were dark. The citizens of Canterbury obeyed their curfew. No one watched us go by—there would be no witnesses to our fate.

We walked through an opening in an ancient, low stone
wall. I ached with weariness, with grief and dread. But my mind stirred. I was on the brink of memory.

Fewer buildings stood on the other side of the wall. There was a barren forest, the snow clinging to naked branches like bandage strips on withered limbs. My gaze shifted to the left side of the road, where a group of buildings loomed, a church spire stretching to the frozen sky.

Dudley is taking us to Saint Sepulchre.

A young bearded man ran from the gatehouse of Saint Sepulchre. It was not the porter I remembered from when I was seventeen, that was for certain. The bearded man took Dudley’s horse.

Saint Sepulchre was only half standing. The new owner of the convent, whether it be Reformer bishop or favored courtier, had ordered the beginning of the destruction. The church had been torn down as well as that first room, where I’d seen the painting of Saint Benedict. But the work had halted, no doubt because of winter’s arrival. The wing containing the prioress’s chambers and the dormitory still stood.

The bearded man who took Dudley’s horse reappeared with a lit torch. He and the soldier led us down the sole passageway; Dudley did not follow. He hadn’t seemed to grasp the significance of this place, of my having been brought here before. But if Dudley knew nothing of my history, why bring me here?

The two men stopped at the dormitory where I remembered the nuns of Saint Sepulchre slept. Keys rustled, a door opened. Brother Edmund was shoved into the room without benefit of candle.

Before I could say a word to him, the door slammed shut again.

“Over here,” grunted the bearded man, and pointed. I was to be imprisoned in the next room, the very same room where I’d received prophecy from Sister Elizabeth Barton.

I recoiled. I leaped in the other direction. “Not there!” I cried. The soldier seized me at once.

“Open it,” he commanded, his hands tightening around my wrists. I yelped in pain.

The other man opened the door. The soldier flung me in. I fell flat on my stomach, my bound hands flailing behind me. A mound of old straw broke the fall or else my face would have been bloodied.

The door slammed shut. The room was black. As I well knew, there was no window.

“Help me, Mother Mary—help me, Lord God,” I pleaded, wriggling in the straw.

But there was no help for me. I pulled my knees up to my belly and wept, like a terrified child. This was the room where I watched a young nun writhe on the floor; now I did the same. “You are the one who will come after,” she’d moaned. Was it true what Gertrude Courtenay told me—did she falsely recant in order to protect me? She must have faced torture terrible indeed to make her take that step to keep safe the secret. How would I stand up to the pain when it was my turn?

“Sister Joanna, Sister Joanna!”

Had I gone mad? Whose voice was this—Sister Barton’s perhaps. My entire body convulsed with terror. But then I realized it was a man calling out to me. Brother Edmund.

“Can you hear me?” he shouted.

“Yes!” I shouted back.

“Follow my voice—follow it,” he said. “I will keep talking until you reach the wall.”

I got to my knees and inched forward to him. I could not feel my way forward with my hands. As Brother Edmund spoke, I made my way to him, until I hit the brick wall. The pain in my head was so sharp, I thought I would faint. I sucked in breath after breath, until the pain subdued enough for me to sit. His voice emanated from a hole in the bottom of the wall.

I thanked God and the Virgin for it. I huddled above that hole, my cheek pressed against the rough, cold brick.

“This is Saint Sepulchre, isn’t it?” he asked. Now that Brother Edmund was so close, he no longer needed to shout.

“Yes,” I said.

“Sister Joanna, listen to me,” he said, his voice urgent. “I don’t know how much time we have. You must stay calm. Tell them nothing about the prophecies. We may yet find a way to freedom. The important thing is—do not panic.”