The Chalice (54 page)

Night came by the time I reached the High Street. There were only a few people left out. As I approached my house, I could see a man standing in front of it, holding a large bundle. He stood very still, as if waiting for me. Was he sent by Señor Hantaras? It was so foolish to think I would be safe from those who wished the king dead, whose plot I had subverted.

I was completely alone in the town now, no friend on the High Street to turn to. Geoffrey Scovill, even if I wished to seek him out, lived far from the center of Dartford.

“Sister Joanna?” came a man’s voice. “Have you returned?”

“Yes?” I took a steadying breath. “Can I be of service, sir?”

The man took a step toward me, and in the moonlight I could see his features. He was familiar to me—and yet not so.

“I am John,” he said softly.

Without the beard, I had not known him until that moment. And he wore clean clothes. Moreover, he had never addressed me in such a fashion, as if he were any other townsman.

“Are you well, John?” I asked cautiously.

He nodded. “I am, Sister. Since just after Christmas, I’ve not heard the voices. I live with my cousin now.” He tightened his grip on his bundle. “I help gather firewood, and I go to Mass every day.”

“John, you are cured?” I asked, awed. “Truly?”

“Yes, Sister. They say it is a miracle.” But his voice sounded subdued—sad. He shifted his bundle in his arms and then said, “Brother Edmund, shall he come back, too?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“He was my friend,” John said.

“Yes,” I said, trembling. “Thomas Aquinas once wrote, ‘There is nothing on this earth to be prized more than true friendship.’ ”

He bowed his head. “Thank you, Sister. I pray I shall see Brother Edmund again.” He stepped back, and then turned to
go. But before he did, he said one thing more: “There is much to be forgiven.”

The night was savagely cold but I stood before my house and watched John lope away, carrying his firewood, until he’d melted into the dark stillness of the High Street.

B
ishop Stephen Gardiner led me over the walkway stretching across the moat of the Tower of London. The senior yeomen warder signaled to him as we approached Byward Tower.

“Bishop Gardiner, Sir William Kingston apologizes that he cannot greet you, but he’s questioning a prisoner at present,” said the man.

“I understand,” said the bishop with a pleasant nod.

All of the guards bowed low to him. Gardiner was more valued than ever. The king had insisted that the Bishop of Winchester preach before him every Friday during Lent, I had heard. When not preaching, Gardiner was busy persecuting those Lutheran followers who crossed the ever-murky boundary between obedience and heresy. Who knew how long the pendulum would swing in his favor? During that time, he’d take full advantage of his ascendance.

Beauchamp was a short distance. I knew the walls of that three-story-high tower so well, for it was a place that lived in my dreams, nearly three years after my imprisonment.

Finally the bishop broke the silence.

“There is news from Ghent,” said Bishop Gardiner.

Keeping my voice calm, I said, “Yes, Bishop?”

“The Emperor Charles entered the city on the fourteenth of February with his army. The leaders of the revolt have been arrested—yet I’m told the emperor will be merciful. Less than thirty will be executed.”

I thought of the citizens who screamed for blood in the square of Ghent. Violence begets violence—and more violence.

“This infamous rebellion had to be quashed utterly,” the bishop said, his voice edged with anger. “If a kingdom’s people throw off their monarchy and believe they can govern themselves—this bizarre idea cannot be tolerated. The fine its citizens must pay will cripple the city for generations to come.”

He paused, as if waiting for me to speak.

“That is most interesting,” I said.

“Yes,” the bishop said. “But then a great many interesting things occur in the Low Countries. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I’d often wondered if Gardiner suspected why the spies he sent after me disappeared from the earth. Was he ever able to confirm that I’d left England with Jacquard Rolin, posing as his wife? Gardiner knew the same story I had told everyone, that I traveled abroad in search of Edmund Sommerville but was unable to find him. No one had probed the details of my journey. I had not seen Señor Hantaras again. And Jacquard had not returned to England—as far as I knew.

We reached Beauchamp. Another yeoman warder greeted the bishop and then offered to escort us.

“There is no need, for I know the way,” said Gardiner.

I followed the bishop up the worn stone steps of the central staircase to the second floor. I remembered how they dipped in the middle from so many years of use.

“The king was at Winchester House again last night,” Gardiner said. “I was honored to be able to host a feast and party. I haven’t seen him so merry in months. Little Catherine Howard danced and danced.”

I stopped short. “Catherine Howard attended your party?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Ah, this is the right passage.”

We walked to the second door from the end. A guard was waiting.

Bishop Gardiner said, “Sister Joanna, I forgot to tell you something. The king wishes to summon you to court for an audience. He desires to commission a tapestry from you. He dislikes everything about his fourth queen, with one exception: the phoenix tapestry she has given him as a wedding present. The one that you wove.”

I stared at him, unable to conceal my dismay.

With a small, satisfied smile, the bishop signaled to the guard to let us in.

Gertrude Courtenay sat in a chair by the fire, a book in her hand. The room contained many comforts. Her friends had contributed all the funds, since the Courtenay money and property had been seized many months ago.

She wore a green dress and dainty slippers but no jewels. That would have been unseemly. Her face was more lined than when I’d last seen her—yet her brown eyes blazed with as much vigor as ever.

“Joanna—you have no idea how I have missed you,” she said. Her sweet, melodic voice had not changed a whit.

“I shall be back within the hour,” said Bishop Gardiner.

“I thank you for this, Bishop,” said Gertrude. “I will never forget your efforts on my behalf.”

“You know I will continue to do all I can—but you must be patient,” he said, and then gestured for me to join her in the cell. The door closed after me.

“You look well, Joanna,” she said. “Come embrace me.”

I hugged her frail, fierce body.

I said, “I hear that you may be released from the Tower.”

She stiffened. “But not my son,” she whispered. “He will not leave this place while the king lives.”

Gertrude took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm. We walked to the fire to sit down together. “I hear that the Cleves marriage was never consummated,” she murmured.

“No,” I said. “Everyone knows the king took a strong dislike to her from the very beginning. They say that his councilors are seeking grounds for a divorce. She will not be mother to a son. He won’t have a second son by her.”

We stared at each other. Then she touched her finger to her lips—we shouldn’t speak any more freely than this. In the Tower, it was always possible that people listened.

“Tell me all the news,” she said lightly. I shared with her what gossip I had. Once I had avoided all news of London, of the world. But now I felt it best to be informed. She passed me some embroidery and we stitched together. We did not talk of loved ones who died—or loved ones who left. It was as if I was spending time with her in her receiving room in the Red Rose.

It seemed like only moments later that the key stirred in the door—it was time for me to go.

Bishop Gardiner loomed in the doorway to Gertrude’s cell.

“Must she leave me?” asked Gertrude. She attempted to make the question light, but her voice trembled.

I hugged her again. This time, she clung to me as if I alone had the strength to redeem her.

“Do you regret it?” I whispered in her ear. This was what haunted me. Seeing all that she had lost—her husband’s life, her own freedom, her son’s future, her homes and fortune—and all that had been done to me, was she sorry she entered into conspiracy?

“Never,”
she said.

With a last nod, I bade Gertrude Courtenay farewell. And within moments, I was on the green once more. The worst of the winter had passed. Lingering patches of snow looked sullen and beaten. A weak spring sun struggled through the clouds.

The Bell Tower was not far. The place where I met Edmund.

Yes, it was Gardiner who brought us together. Was it the bishop who forced us apart? Now Edmund was far, far away, whether still in the Black Forest of Germany, I had no idea. If only it were possible for me to learn where he was, to, as Geoffrey had put it, speak for just a few moments more.

I had found the courage to ask Gertrude what I’d long burned to know. Now I could not restrain myself from confronting Gardiner.

“Bishop,” I said, “did you personally write the article that forbids the religious from marrying with me in mind? Did you know that Edmund Sommerville and I pledged to marry?”

He was silent for a moment, and then said, “I told you in Winchester House, Joanna, that His Majesty does not want those who’ve taken vows in a monastery or priory to ever marry. He is a king of great principle, you know.”

He stopped walking and looked at me. A faint smile stretched across his face. “Did you really think that religious policy for the entire kingdom was written just to strike out at
you
? Revenge, perhaps, on my part, for your failure to secure the Athelstan crown—or perhaps for more recent flouting of my will?”

I stared without flinching at the Bishop of Winchester, not answering. Finally, he gestured for me to resume walking. Jacquard Rolin, the Duke of Norfolk, even Ambassador Chapuys—they had threatened me, used me, and hounded me, never caring for my happiness or even my life. Yet Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was still the most formidable man I had ever faced.

“You have never been a consideration of such import,” the bishop said.

When we reached the narrow walkway that bridged the moat, he continued, “Not everyone is meant to play a significant part in the affairs of the world, Joanna.”

“I will remember that, Bishop,” I said.

And as the late-winter sun burnished the river Thames, I followed Stephen Gardiner out of the Tower of London.

I wrote much of
The Chalice
in the Wertheim Study of the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. I would have been lost without a place at the table and my own Shelf 92. Thank you, Jay Barksdale, for admitting me to the study. I watched autumn of 2010 turn to winter outside the study’s windows and then slowly warm to spring and finally to summer as I worked on my manuscript. When 2011 ended and I completed the first draft, those first snowflakes of the season fell in Bryant Park.

There are some amazing people I turned to while researching the tense and troubled late 1530s of England. I am deeply grateful, once again, to Mike Still, assistant museum manager at Dartford Borough Museum in Kent; historian Hans van Felius, who helped me in particular in my research of the Low Countries; Emily Fildes, curatorial intern at the Tower of London; and, most profoundly, to Sister Mary Catharine Perry, OP, Dominican nuns, of the Monastery
of Our Lady of the Rosary. Close to home, the Cloisters Museum and Gardens of the Metropolitan Museum of Art provided me with inspiration. The Cloisters is truly the gem of the city.

I am grateful to my writing teachers, to Russell Rowland, for once again steering me in the right directions in his workshop; to Rosemarie Santini, Max Adams, and Greg Fallis, for the lessons in craft that are never far from my thoughts. These readers of the first draft were my vanguard: Harriet Sharrard, Rachel Andrews, Emilya Naymark, and Elena Fraboschi.

This book would not have been possible without friends, employers, and colleagues. I thank Ellen Levine, editorial director of Hearst Magazines. Without her generous support, my books would not have been launched so well. I’m also grateful to Gary Marmorstein, Lorraine Glennon, Donna Bulseco, Megan Deem, Isabel Gonzalez-Whitaker, Nikki Ogunnaike, Daryl Chen, Tish Hamilton, Anthony DeCurtis, Evelyn Nunlee, Elaine Devlin Beigelman, Brec and Sandy Morgan, David and Ilissa Sternlicht, Bret Watson, Sean O’Neill, Bruce Fretts, Michele Koop, Kitty Bell Sibille, Dave Diamond, Doug Solter, David and Nikki Gardner, Olga Cheselka, and Maggie Murphy. A special thanks to Jason Binn’s fantastic team at
DuJour
magazine, led by Keith Pollock and Nicole Vecchiarelli.

I must thank the online community that has been so essential from the beginning: the Yahoo Tudor group led by Lara Eakins; English Historical Fiction Authors, led by Debra Brown; On the Tudor Trail, led by Natalie Grueninger; the wonderful comrades in arms at Book Pregnant; and the incomparable bloggers who supported
The Crown
and
The Chalice
. Amy Bruno and MJ Rose, I hope you know how much I appreciate you. I delight in the new friends I discovered through the Historical Novel Society, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. And shout-outs to writer and filmmaker Christie LeBlance, who created the book trailers, and writer and producer Thelma Adams, who believed enough to option my first book.

I was fortunate to work with a very talented and insightful team
of editors on
The Chalice
. I am grateful to Heather Lazare, senior editor at Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster; Genevieve Pegg, editorial director of Orion Publishing Group, and Eleanor Dryden, editor at Orion. I’m also grateful to Jessica Roth, senior publicist at Touchstone; Meredith Vilarello, marketing manager at Touchstone; Cherlynne Li, Touchstone’s art director; and Marie Florio, associate director of subsidiary rights at Simon & Schuster.