Roses in the Tempest (24 page)

“Is that so?”

“What proof do you require, my lord?”

He smiled that warped expression again. “Your word, Madam. And that of your ladies. Now. How are your funds distributed?”

I screwed up my fists. “I have accounting books which you may look through. As I said, our servants are paid first, and then our bishop, and then to Rome.”

“The crown, Madam? What of the crown?”

“The…the bishop sees to that, Dr. Legh.”

He huffed a clouded breath into the cold afternoon and consulted his book. “Where is the plate and good stuffs?”

“Plate, my lord?”

“Yes, yes. The plate. The gold. Surely there are vestry items.”

“Gold? There is no gold. The communion cup that resides back in the chapel is silver. There is no plate.”

“Surely you have stores of the Church’s riches, Madam.”

Was the man incapable of understanding? Or did he think me a liar? “Dr. Legh, I beg you to look around you. We have no riches. These poor gowns are all we have.”

“Do you trifle with me, Madam? Do you expect me to believe—”

“Yes, sir! I do expect you to believe when I say so. This is a house of God, and I respect my position even if you do not.”

His expression laid bare his soul. The Devil showed his hand at last. “I find very little to respect here, Madam. You forget, I have been through most of England, and I have seen deceits and immoralities that would cause a blush to your cheek. Scandal aplenty, Madam. Spare me your sermons. Do not speak to me of respect. Respect is earned.”

“And what have I done to deny it?”

“It must be earned, Madam. And a fool does not earn my respect, for only a fool would chose to live in poverty for an ideal that cannot be met.”

“You are a most ungodly man!”

“Perhaps. I have no stomach for clerics.” He stepped closer, his shade Cavendish glaring at me from behind his wispy brows. “Why do you persist in these useless antiquated rituals? You are a sensible woman.”

“It is precisely because I am a sensible woman that I persist in what you deem ‘useless ritual’. Oh, how I feel for you. Yes, we are under a yoke, but obedience to God and His word is a most pleasant yoke. The world is large, and sometimes frightening. We know what it is to be a child of God. A child obeys or is crushed by such a world. But a child also learns. A child lives within the framework of her family. The Church is my family. No matter how fragmented or how distant its members, I will know them by the covenant they keep. I will always know them.”

“Pleasant speeches, Madam, do not change the subject. The king is displeased with papist practices that traffic in relics and graven images.”

I strode back down the chapel of St. Mary, my feet surely never before making such a cacophony across those sacred stones. I gestured to the statue of Our Lady with a trembling hand. A small candle burned at her feet. She rose out of that glow into the gloom of the chapel, but her face was sedate, serene in the turmoil around her. A little cracked from the years and the damp, paint peeling slightly, she was still regal in her niche, still mild as her lowered lids kindly regarded those at her feet. “Is this a graven image? Is it? Do you think I worship this? This is merely a portrait of our dear Mother. Do you think me a fool? I know it is not she, any more than that image carved by artisans on the cross to be our Lord. Papists are not fools, my lords. We are merely devout. We want the tangible. We want to look into the face of God, peer into Heaven only to know it better. For in that, we hope to find our path there through the narrow gate.” I purposely glared up and down the corpulent Legh. “And it is a very narrow gate, my lords.”

Cavendish coughed into his hand, but Legh did not stray his gaze from mine. “This we will see. Call in your sisters. We would question them as well.”

He turned and made back for the hall. I won nothing. There was nothing to win. I did not know what would happen, but I did know that no matter what was said here, we had lost. The Church had lost, for the decision was made far before these men passed our threshold.

I hurried to the kitchen. Startled by my arrival, my nuns bolted to their feet, faces as white as their wimples. I took a deep breath. “Sisters, you are to come now. These commissioners will ask you questions.”

“What kind of questions?” asked a breathless Alice.

I shook my head, unable to believe it all. “Terrible questions. Insolent and discourteous questions. And you will answer them, because the king demands it and we are his servants.”

“I will go with you,” said Father William, pushing himself to his feet with his cane. I could not object. I could no longer speak. I led my nuns in prayer first, and then I preceded them all to the hall.

We entered and faced our judges. We stood while they sat upon our benches, drinking our beer from our few cups.

“We have asked questions of your prioress,” said Legh, consulting his wretched black book, “and now we will ask you nuns. Who will be first?”

None of them moved. I could hardly blame them. I trembled, though I could not tell if it were more from fear or outrage. At last, one moved forward and I raised my eyes in surprise to Cristabell.

“And you are?” asked Legh.

She stood stiffly but erect. A woman to reckon with was our Cristabell. “Dame Cristabell Smith,” she answered, voice steady as a rock.

“Very well, Dame,” he said, making note in his book. “How many nuns are you here?”

“We are four, as our bishop charged. He said there are to be no more than four at Blackladies, and no more there are.”

“And so. Do you and your sisters regularly perform your Divine Office as proscribed by your order?”

“We do.”

Legh pursed his lips. “Do you live according to the Rule of your order, following its statutes without straying?”

“We do.”

“The sick, Dame. Are they treated well?”

“Yes.”

“And travelers. Are they given safe haven and hospitality as is mete?”

“Yes.”

Legh tapped his fingers on the table with irritation. “Do you have anything to add to your terse comments, Dame?”

Cristabell blinked once. “No.”

“One thing more. Besides your servants and your priest here, are men allowed within the precincts of the convent?”

Cristabell looked at them steadily, seeming to measure their worth by the gold about their necks and the fur on their gowns. “But men are not allowed in the cloister.”

Legh sat back, fingering the gilt belt buckle at his waist. “I have been told, Dame, that your patron Thomas Giffard often comes to the priory. Is that correct?”

Though my own breath left me, Cristabell’s was steady. I saw her shoulders rise and fall evenly, and the fog spin from her nostrils from the cold. “Yes. He is patron, as you said.”

“Does Lord Giffard come within the precincts of the cloister?”

As steady as I have ever seen her, she even leaned closer to Legh when she said, “That would be forbidden, my lord.”

“Indeed. But you did not answer the question. Does Lord Giffard come within the precincts of this cloister?”

“Lord Giffard is, and always has been, a gentleman of the highest rank. He well knows the rules as do we.”

“And yet you did not answer me straight, Dame.”

“She answered you,” said Father William.

“Indeed, sir, she did not. Answer me, Dame. For I see a conspiracy of the worst kind forming.”

“Lord Giffard would take a horsewhip to you both, my lords,” barked Dame Felicia, “were you to dare utter such in his presence.”

Legh glared at her. “And who are you?”

“I am Dame Felicia Bagshawe. F-e-l-i-c-i-a—”

“I have it, Dame,” he muttered, scratching it down.

“And further, Dr. Legh,” she went on, “that you should plainly ignore all the good we do in order to satisfy your salacious appetites—”

Legh bolted to his feet. “Prioress! Silence your nun!”

“Dame Felicia. Your answer has sufficed.”

“As you will, Lady Prioress.” She bowed her head to me, and stepped back with the others.

Legh’s face blushed red. Stuffed as it was in its furred collar, it resembled a crabapple bursting up from a peat bog. Flustered, he shuffled the many gold chains over his gown and slowly sat, resting his nubbin fingers upon the table. Cavendish leaned toward him and whispered something. Legh nodded, his cheeks returning to their tawny hue.

“I am compelled to tell you that all who wish to leave this convent may do so immediately without censure and without punishment.”

“What of our vows?” cried Felicia.

Legh turned his eye to her, his jowl sagging with a sneer. “What of them, Madam? The king instructed me to inform you that you are not bound by the dictates of foreign princes. You therefore owe no vows to anyone save the king.”

“And God!” said Father William.

“That is so,” said Legh with a curt bow to his head. “All who wish to, may go. Indeed, if any of you are under twenty-four years of age you are compelled to go. The vicar general insists. Dame. You. The young one. What is your name?”

Alice moved forward tentatively, clutching at the hem of her veil. “D-Dame Alice Beche, my lord.”

“Are you under twenty-four?”

“No, my lord. I am two and thirty.”

“It matters not. You may still leave this convent, if you wish. Though I remind you that you are all still bound by your vow of chastity.”

“Lest we breed more papists?”

“My Lady Prioress!” he said, in feigned shock. “Who is being indelicate now?”

“Little good it should do a young nun released from the convent if she cannot find solace in a husband! Come, come. This is absurd.”

“You call the king’s commands absurd?”

“I call you absurd! This interview is over.”

“No, my Lady Prioress. It is not over. Further, we have more demands to make. One, that there be no displaying of relics for gain, and that you, Lady Prioress, are confined to the precincts of the priory. If stay you will, there shall be no wandering about.”

“Is that all, Dr. Legh?”

“All, Lady?” He smiled, nodding toward Cavendish. “Yes, Lady. That is all. For now.”

I closed my eyes, summoning the peace of Christ. By obfuscation—may God forgive us—we saved ourselves. But for how long? I raised my lids and calmly gazed at our guests, for guests—no matter how despicable—they were. “Then, may I offer you the hospitality of our house? The supper is almost ready and we can accommodate you in our lodgings. We sisters will set up hay on the floor in here while you may take our room.”

Legh’s expression of triumph faltered as he scanned the hall, its chipped paint and draughty windows. He must have smelt the faint aroma of our poor vegetable pottage as its steam arose from the kitchen fires, planting not hunger in his belly, but revulsion. I was reminded of his liveried men as he smoothed out his gown with bejeweled fingers. “No, thank you, Lady Prioress. We will find accommodations in the village.” He rose. “We will return again tomorrow to inspect the premises.”

Dame Felicia offered to escort them to the door, and Dr. Legh warily acknowledged her. Never was there a time we were more pleased to lock the gates behind a soul who visited us.

When Felicia returned, we glanced worriedly at one another. “And that is what comes from having King Hal as our pope!” she trumpeted.

NOVEMBER, 1537

Hampton Court

XXVI

“ …I have never read in any doctor approved by the Church that a secular prince can or ought to be the head over things spiritual.”

–Thomas More, 1 July 1535

At the wedding of King Henry and Anne Boleyn, it was remarked how apt were their initials carved onto the new doors of the palace, and embroidered on banners and robes. “HA” it read. “HA, HA” all over London. What a grand jest, indeed, it was to be perpetrated upon the English people. They refused to laud her as queen because she unlawfully supplanted our good Queen Catherine, and there were many who would have thrown more than garlands. It was said that townsfolk were paid to cheer her on the streets, but even those were sparse.

They laughed in earnest, when years later, her head rolled off her neck under the facility of a French swordsman.

Though she was no more guilty of a conspiracy of adultery than our good Queen Catherine was of not being the king’s legal consort, Anne Bullen helped instigate this calamity which struck down the Church as we knew it. No tears were shed for Mistress Anne Bullen, dead now over a year.

It was not long after that the king’s bastard son, Henry Fitzroy, a lad of seventeen years, died. The king consoled himself with yet another bride, indisputably lawful as both former wives were dead. Mistress Seymour became the king’s consort, and in time delivered a legitimate and much-longed-for son, Edward. The child lived where so many before him died, but Queen Jane was not as fortunate. A kind and meek woman—such a stark contrast to that of Anne—died not long after her son was christened.

So much had happened in so little time. I sat with Philip Draycot and George Throckmorton in my apartments at Hampton Court, and we, like three old men, purged our morose thoughts at the bottom of a goblet.

“Prince Edward thrives, praise God,” Draycot said, perhaps thinking of his own son Richard, ill with a fever.

“Praise God?” I echoed. “But where should I praise Him? I do not recognize this Protestant service nor these supposed priests.”

Draycot cast a wine-soaked glance at me. “Do you still rankle at the surrender of the smaller monasteries, Thomas? The report stated how these were dwellings of corruption, where abuses of the worst sort were discharged with regularity.”

“A report made by Cromwell. Do you take his word over that of a monk?”

Throckmorton snorted into the bowl of his goblet, slurping the last of it. “How pious you have become over time, Thomas. For years you have disdained these very houses as evil places, succoring the ignorant and irreligious.”

I glared at him, my own fingers strangling the goblet’s stem. “Can a man not change his mind on these matters, George? That these poor houses—so small they cannot possibly do the harm for which they are accused—should be shut down, their doors closed, their occupants turned out. What is to become of them? The nuns and their servants must shift for themselves, eh?”

“Some will go into the larger houses, I imagine,” said Draycot. He rose and poured himself more wine from the flagon the servant left for us. He picked over a plate of sliced chicken, congealing under its glaze of honey and nuts.

I stared at him, turning my incredulous expression to encompass Throckmorton as well. “Are you both fools? Do you think the king will stop with a few houses worth less than £200? Why do you think inventory was taken and accounting books gone through? Was it to make certain the money was spent on the poor, or was it to see what value the king could demand once he sold these properties—these properties belonging to the pope!”

“God’s blood, Thomas!” Throckmorton shot toward the archway, pressing his ear to the door. He cast me a glare of reproof. “Keep your voice down, if you must speak this way!”

“The plot is large, my friends,” I said to them. “If you think he will stop with the smaller houses, then you are fools. The tools of the pope must be annihilated, consumed back into the populace as if they never occurred.”

Draycot peeled himself from his chair and stood above the fire, raising his curled knuckles to the warming blaze. He stared into the flames as he spoke. “The uprising in Lincolnshire last year did not last a month, Thomas. Many were killed. Mostly the poor, naturally, those who were dependent on monastery lands for sustenance. Their ‘pilgrimage of grace’ did not stir His Majesty, and they were all put down. There has been no whimper from the rest of the country.”

“Are you saying that we welcome this dissolution, that these abbeys and convents are just as well destroyed?”

Draycot leaned his arm against the mantle, his fist opening and closing. “I mean that men have new feelings about their faith they never dared have before. And that we wish to see what may come of this.”

“Have they no love for their religion?”

“Like you, Thomas?” spat Throckmorton. “You, who have always remonstrated these very houses you now canonize! You, to whom religion was an inconvenience! What is it, Thomas? What is it that has changed your heart?”

I drew my finger under my mustache, toying with the bristly ends. “Are you not afraid?” I whispered. “Do you not fear this? Is this reform? Or is it greed? Is it Hal’s revenge at a pope who would not lie for him, would not give him a divorce?” I shook my head at the enormity of it. “This reformation of monasteries. Did monks and nuns spring forth from our heads only yesterday? Or was this an institution long held, long honored, since before even Saint Benet? Where is the precedence for such an acquittal?”

I shut my lips. I could say no more, and no more could they think to say to that. I knew Draycot and Throckmorton celebrated private masses in their homes as did the Giffards, as we would continue to do.

Blackladies—so small and of so little consequence—was one of the many slated for suppression. Not by any ill they found there, but precisely because it was of no consequence. I bought an exemption for them, but I soon found such an exemption to be of even less significance. Last month I was informed by Dr. Legh that this exemption was now forfeit and the doors would be closed forthwith. He seemed particularly pleased in the telling of it, but I could do nothing in retaliation to the king’s commissioner, though there was much I would have been pleased to do.

“What will you do?” asked Draycot. The both of them knew my outward struggle with Blackladies, though not the inner struggle that kept my interest so piqued.

“The priory will go on the block,” I said. “There is little to be done…but to buy it myself.”

“Buy it? I see at last!” Throckmorton moved toward me. “Such protestations! And in the end you will do them the service of buying their precious priory. How many will your father buy?”

“George!” warned Draycot.

“No doubt he has chosen a few to covet,” I admitted. “I only want the one.”

“But why, Thomas? Why such singular interest in that little nothing of a priory in Brewood, for God’s sake?”

“I have my reasons,” I muttered.

“It could not be that the rumors are true, could it?”

“George…” Draycot seized Throckmorton by the arm, but George shook him off. “This is not the time, George…”

“Of course it is. My brother-in-law intends to purchase this priory. To live in the place it is rumored he has a mistress. Is it true, Thomas? Do you forsake my good sister for some nun?”

I should have shrugged it off, but I was incapable. I lunged from my seat, gripping George’s throat and stilling his words with the strength of my fingers.

He stumbled backwards and we rolled along the floor as Draycot shouted at the both of us to stop. George managed to place his boot against my thigh and push himself away from me. Panting in a corner, he raised an accusatory finger. “It is true!”

“She is not my mistress! How dare you! You know her not! You know me not! You cannot know what I have endured—”

And then, I unmanned myself with weeping. Throckmorton stormed from my rooms, but Draycot knelt beside me and lifted me to my feet.

“I did not believe this rumor…before now,” he said softly. “He is naturally outraged. His own sister is your wife. But a nun, Thomas!”

“She was not a nun when I met her.” I wiped the tears from my face, but my relief was in the saying of something so long suppressed. “It seems I have known her all my life. And when I married Dorothy, she went to the convent. I did not realize that I loved her until I discovered where she went. By then, it was too late.”

“But after Dorothy died—”

“I went to her. I begged her to marry me, though she was completely unfit. She is the daughter of a yeoman farmer, after all. Unschooled, unlearned. Completely unfit. But I wanted her, Philip. I want her now. But I cannot have her.”

“And…what of her?”

“She loves me. I know it. But she is stronger in her vows than I am in mine. But now, what’s to become of her?”

“You have kept this secret dear, Thomas, but I do not envy you your dilemma. What will you do?”

“I will buy Blackladies and keep it for her and her sisters until this foolishness is over.”

“What if the king will not grant it to you?”

“He must!”

“You must talk to him of it at once, then. For I fear this Dr. Legh has a grudge against you, and may turn the king’s course.”

I patted his arm. “You are right, Philip. I thank you for this advice and for…for not judging me.”

“You need to seek out George. Explain it to him as best you can. He is a man. Perhaps a man first and a brother second.”

I agreed with Draycot, and I moved to the door to do as he suggested without pause. Outside my rooms, Throckmorton paced the gallery. I approached him cautiously and waited for him to acknowledge me.

“Well,” he said. “I apologize for making such a fool of myself.”

“There is no need,” I said with relief. “George.” My hand fell gently upon his shoulder. “I have been faithful to your sister, my wife. In body, if not in my heart. But these matters conspired long before I met her. I am only sorry they continue. I am a weak man with a romantic heart. I cannot seem to change that which is embedded in me. But I assure you, I have done no wrong, and I shall not shame my family. You see, I love Ursula, too, for her understanding that there can be layers to a man which she cannot be privy to. Where no one can be. No one but his maker. I would give anything not to feel this cold fear, but it is not only for this chaste nun, George. You celebrate the mass, as do I. Would you ever give it up on the word of a secular prince?”

George studied me an excruciatingly long time, before he slowly shook his head. “By God, I would not!”

“I do it to protect more than a woman, but an ideal. I will not see it perish from this land.”

He clutched my arm, frowning. “Would that we could do more, Thomas.”

“We will all do what we can…within the law.”

I left him, feeling better that we mended the fences between us. I held him in no ill will, for he was a man of much honor and tenderness. What would I do if my sisters Dorothy or Cassandra came to me weeping of similar misdeeds from their spouses, I wondered?

I waited outside the king’s apartments until a servant came with wine. I took the tray from him and sent him off, taking it in myself. The king was in the company of Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer. His majesty was glowering at a paper and booming to the ceiling, “These are not enough! You promised me more, Cromwell!”

“The houses so far suppressed, sire, only bring in so much. Soon there will be—” He noticed me, and turned pointedly in my direction whilst drawing silent.

The king turned as well, and waved his hand. “It’s only Giffard.”

“Your grace,” said Cromwell, leaning toward the king to speak privately. But Henry would have none of it. He got to his feet as fast as his bulk would allow.

“Out! Out with you, Cromwell. I’ll talk no more of this today.”

Cranmer moved forward. “But your grace must discuss—”

“My Lord Cranmer, do not speak for my chancellor, for he knows more words than a serpent to beguile me. Off! Both of you. I would be alone with my usher, here.”

Cromwell hesitated, and for a brief moment, I thought he would argue with the king. Eyeing me, he thought better of it, and signaled to Cranmer. The both of them left with a bow, while I stood mutely in the shadows, a flagon in my hand. What did I come here for? To mete out the same to the king?

I had played a safe game for too long. It was time to make an unexpected move.

“Your grace, if I may beg your indulgence…”

“Oh, not you too, Thomas. You were my excuse to rid myself of them and their damnable prattling.” His expression softened. “Very well. What is it?”

I set the flagon down. “Your grace, I have just been made aware of a priory in the vicinity of my lands that is to be suppressed…”

“And you want it excused.”

“I have already paid for its exemption, your grace, but now it is to be suppressed anyway. My desire is to be able to purchase it.”

He took a long moment to study me sidelong.

“It is only a small convent, your grace. A little property outside of Chillington Hall in Brewood.”

The edge of a smile formed on his face. “Why do you want this poor little priory so badly, Thomas? Hmm?”