The Tapestry (31 page)

The taller man said something to Geoffrey and me in German, and then repeated it when we didn’t answer.

“We are English,” Geoffrey said.

He turned to the other man, short and bearded, who said to us in French, “You are English? Do you speak French?”

When Geoffrey nodded, he said, “My name is Arnulf and this man”—he gestured to the tallest man—“is Freiherr von Seckenburg, our lord. Many of your party have been killed and others are wounded. The bandits are desperate men, and if we had not been tracking them on behalf of the prince elector Palatine, you would be dead, too.”

I said, “We are most grateful to you, sir.”

He frowned, disapproving that I had spoken. Turning back to Geoffrey, Arnulf said, “What are you doing in the Palatine—why do English people travel deep into the German lands so late in the year, when there has been hardship? You tempt hungry people with your wealth.”

Geoffrey said, “We are
not
wealthy, and our destination is Salzburg.”

That made an impact. The pair spoke to one another in German and then Arnulf said, “Why do you want to go there?”

“To see the physician called Paracelsus.”

Now the men laughed at us. “You ride in a wagon for weeks and weeks, to see that old fool? It is a ridiculous statement.” He turned to his companions. “We should search their wagon.”

Geoffrey protested that we had done nothing wrong, that there was nothing improper about our traveling, but they ignored us as they searched our belongings. To my amazement, von Seckenburg rummaged harder than anyone else. Geoffrey and I could not say a word to each other because Arnulf stayed close, his face hard with suspicion.

My heart stopped as von Seckenburg emerged, excited, carrying my document of safe conduct from Queen Mary of Hungary and
the bags that contained Geoffrey’s coins, all the money he’d been given by John Cheke. They squatted on the ground and counted it in front of us, as overjoyed as children playing with toys.

“Joanna, this is not good,” Geoffrey said in a low voice.

Arnulf turned on us, his eyes now gleaming. “So you are not wealthy? You expect us to believe you are nothing but an English couple seeking the advice of a physician? We are not stupid. You are spies.”

“That is absurd,” I said. “We are on a journey to find a friend whose last known location was in Salzburg. This man, Geoffrey Scovill, is a constable in the town of Dartford and I am the tapestry mistress of His Majesty King Henry the Eighth. I had an audience with the queen in Brussels and she gave me this safe conduct.”

Arnulf translated my words to all the others gathered and the men laughed harder than ever.

“A woman in charge of a king’s tapestries?” Arnulf scoffed.

“I tell you, it is the truth,” I said, furious. “How could we be spies? Who on earth would we be spying for?”

Geoffrey laid a cautioning hand on my arm. “We have committed no crime in your land. None. Take our money if you must, but allow us to continue on our way.”

Arnulf smiled for the first time, exposing a line of brown teeth.

“You will soon learn we don’t care for spies in the Palatine. The others can go, all those who survived the bandits. But not you two. You’re coming with us.”

33

I
’m surprised they haven’t killed us,” said Geoffrey.

The two of us, now prisoners, rode in the back of a wagon, sitting in damp straw. Our conveyance was a poor farmer’s cart, without a cover. It had rained, briefly, just after we set out, and the chilly gray sky held the threat of more like a giant apron sagging over our heads.

The route we followed was more mountainous than the previous one, and the two horses pulling the cart strained as they trod up the narrow road. The driver kept whipping them to go faster.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said, for the tenth time, eying Arnulf trotting ahead, out of earshot.

“They had to come up with an excuse to steal our money,” Geoffrey said. “In the daylight, you can see their clothes are of wretched quality, even those of their lord. All they possess are those guns. The most intelligent thing would be to shoot us—or stab us, if they don’t want to waste the powder—and bury our bodies in the woods so no one will ever question where the money came from.”

I shuddered. “Please, Geoffrey.”

“Don’t turn into a delicate flower on me now, Joanna. I think that when you spoke up before, when you insisted that you are a tapestry mistress to the king of England, he laughed, but it put a worry into Arnulf’s mind. He doesn’t want to be punished for killing someone who turns out to be of importance. Hold on to that. You must be stronger, and more determined, than you’ve ever been before, if we are to survive this.”

I knew Geoffrey was right.

“What can we do—how will we find someone to listen to us?” I
asked.

“Arnulf has the safe-conduct document and I doubt very much he will return it,” said Geoffrey. “We must wait, and listen, and learn all we can, and when the opportunity presents, speak up. Hans Holbein was right. We don’t understand enough of the German history or the German character. I don’t even know if the Palatine is Catholic or Lutheran. All I can say in my defense is, Jochen was not exactly what one would call a teacher.”

I thought, with a twist, of our leader, bleeding to death on the ground.

“It turned out I
was
bad luck for Jochen,” I murmured.

Geoffrey said nothing, and I could not stop myself from saying, “As I am bad luck for you.”

“Don’t say that—never say that.” Geoffrey slapped the side of the cart, which made the driver turn around, scowling. He raised his whip at us, muttering something foul.

Neither of us made a sound for a good while, until Geoffrey spoke, in a low voice, haltingly. “Joanna, I need to say something to you about what happened last night, what happened between us.”

Even in this miserable, cold cart, my cheeks flamed hot.

“It’s not necessary,” I said.

“Yes, it is. Please hear me out. We know that we’re drawn to each other, but still, we don’t get on well, Joanna. Too stubborn, the two of us, perhaps. And I know that those feelings you have for me, they are not the same sort you have for Edmund. It isn’t love in your heart. I have known that for a while, and accepted it. I am sorry about what happened in the woods. I think it was the relief of being alive, it can make people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. But I failed to show you respect. Forgive me.”

I turned away from him, looking at the gray-and-brown cheerless countryside but not seeing it. At the front of our convoy, one of the men said something that ended in a questioning tone and another shouted back,
“
Ja, natürlich
.
”
I snatched up a handful of straw and tried to snap it in two, but it wasn’t dry enough.

“How can you tell me what is in
my
heart?” I said.

Geoffrey stammered, “I didn’t. I meant that—” He broke off. “Wait. Wait. What do you mean? What are you trying to tell me?”

“You always think you know everything, and perhaps this time you don’t,” I said. “That’s all.”

He sat up straighter against the side of the cart.

“When we extricate ourselves from this situation, are you saying that there are things we can plan for ourselves?” he said, still wary.

I could not believe while it happened that I was doing this, but I reached through the straw for Geoffrey’s hand. When I touched his warm skin, I intertwined my fingers with his. In response, he pulled me up, to press against him and kissed me, not as he did in the woods, but tenderly, again and again.

“When did you know?” he murmured.

“Always,” I said. “Or perhaps three days ago? I can’t say.”

Geoffrey laughed.

For hours, we said not a word but gripped each other’s hands, tight. And the next day, and the one after that, as we spoke of many things, I rarely let go of Geoffrey’s hand. Often I rested my head on his broad shoulder, and he would run his finger along the lines of my cap, twirling strands of hair.

Geoffrey said, “When I was fighting in the forest—all those men coming at me with knives and swords—a thought went through my mind, ‘I’m going to die trying to take the woman I love to another man.’”

I took that in. “So you’ve believed all this time that I wish to be with Edmund again? Geoffrey, I have told you, and I meant it, that I fear for Edmund and I care about him, deeply. But we will never be married.”

Geoffrey nodded. “I still must find him, Joanna. That hasn’t changed. I accepted a commission from John Cheke. When we are able to win our freedom from these men, my search continues.”

“
Our
search,” I corrected him. And then I put into words a thought that I’d had for some time. “What shall we do if we find Ed
mund but he doesn’t want to return to England, if he is lost on this strange path of his?”

“That possibility exists,” he said. “I will do whatever is most just and fair—to everyone, I hope. But first, we need to break free of our captors.”

“Yes, you are right.” I said.

This bittersweet interlude ended the fourth morning, when Geoffrey and I reunited after spending the night separately, under guard, in a large farmhouse that von Seckenburg commandeered in the name of the prince elector of the Palatine. “I just heard Arnulf talking to someone in French,” Geoffrey said. “They’re taking us to a place called Castle Heidelberg, to be imprisoned.”

“Without trial? Without any opportunity to speak for ourselves?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

The next day, we emerged from the road through the forest and I looked down upon a town nestled in a valley, on the side of a dark blue river. A castle loomed on a ridge high above the town, surrounded on three sides by a dense forest of leafless trees, low mountains rising behind.

Heidelberg Castle seemed handsome, its long redbrick wings stretching into the woods. But when we drew close, Geoffrey nudged me, pointing to a blackened section of the castle, with one of its walls collapsed.

Arnulf said, “The castle was struck by lightning a few years ago.”

Was it God’s punishment?

At the side of the castle, we were pulled out of the back of the cart. They parted me from Geoffrey, of course. Men and women prisoners could have no contact. I didn’t want to give our captors the satisfaction of seeing me weep, but the truth was that I choked with fear for both of us.

“Be strong, Joanna, and remember what I said about looking for opportunity,” said Geoffrey.

We embraced, quickly, frantically, while the men talked of something. Too soon, they pulled us apart. Arnulf led me away first,
without permitting us to say a final good-bye, without my being able to look into Geoffrey’s face. I saw only the back of his head, his light brown hair tousled from my desperate grip.

The room Arnulf took me to was not a dungeon. I had spent months in cells within the Tower of London and Het Gravensteen in Ghent. This was of a better sort. I had a few pieces of furniture, a bed with a clean blanket, and a window yielding a view of the city and the valley. But there was a lock on the door from the outside. I was in a cell, no matter what one wanted to call it.

I started out strong—Geoffrey could not have expected any more of me. An old man came to bring me meals, and I attempted to ask him questions. But my jailer knew only German, and I’d picked up perhaps fifty words and phrases of the language since leaving Brussels. Certainly not enough to ask if I could speak to someone in authority.

A woman was kept in the room next to mine. I could not see her but I could hear her. She laughed, she wept, she sang—all in German. My attempts to communicate with her in French were met with silence, and then she shouted a string of angry-sounding German words. She was as frustrated with our inability to communicate as I was.

I could only hope that Geoffrey was having more luck.

After a cold night under the blanket, I saw snowflakes drift past the window come dawn. By midday, snow dusted the valley—to anyone else, it would seem a beautiful sight. But I was horrified. Would I be trapped in the castle all winter? Or even longer?

Suddenly I could bear this no longer. I had nothing, I was forgotten, imprisoned, and lost to all I loved.

“I am Joanna Stafford and I’ve done nothing wrong,” I screamed out the window. I waited for something to happen, for someone in the castle to crash into my room and exercise punishment, but no response came. It was as if I no longer existed in this world.

Just before nightfall, as I crouched before the window, a large black bird soared past my window, banked, and dove to the ground
to seize a small creature—a mouse, I saw, when the bird wheeled back up with its prey—and the creature was borne off, limp and dying, to some place to be devoured.

34

A
nother week or so went by before I realized the woman confined next to me had uttered no sounds—it occurred to me she’d either died or was freed. One afternoon I heard something else, something unusual: two men talking in the passageway. I stood on my tiptoes to get the best view out of the barred upper half of my door.

What I saw made me grip those bars, my heart racing.

My jailer was bringing a monk down the passageway. By the brown color of his habit—universal throughout Christendom—I knew him to be Benedictine.

They stepped into the room next to mine, and I heard the murmur of male questions and the very faint sound of a woman responding. While it went on, I tried to plan what to do.

As soon as I heard the door slam in the passageway and footsteps approach, I was ready.

In Latin, I called out into the passageway, “Brother, I need to speak to you. I am a former novice of the Dominican Order. I am English. As a fellow member of a religious house, I entreat you for assistance.”

The monk slowly came into view. He was of middle years, and thin, with large gray eyes bridged by a pair of thick eyebrows under his neatly trimmed tonsure. Those eyes slid sideways, fixing on my face in the door. Then his eyes slid back and he hurried to reach the far end of the passageway.

Desperate, I called after him, still in Latin, one of the only rules of the Benedictine Order I could remember: “Not only is the boon of obedience to be shown by all to the abbot, but the brethren are also
to obey one another, knowing that by this road of obedience they are going to God.”

A door opened and clanged shut. I sat on the edge of my bed for hours, tears easing down my cheeks. He didn’t understand me; the gamble was lost.

But the next morning, my door suddenly swung open. The monk took three measured steps inside my room and then stopped. A belt of frayed rope clinched his waist and he wore plain clogs on his feet.

“How do you know the Benedictine Rule?” the monk asked in perfect Latin, studying me with gray eyes.

So he
had
understood me. I clapped, and then forced my hands into a clasp of prayer.

“As I told you, I was for a time a novice of a Dominican Order,” I responded.

“And you are English?”

“Yes,” I said, and then in a rush: “I am unjustly held here, myself and my friend, Geoffrey Scovill. We have committed no crime and I wanted to—”

He held up his hands, palms out, as if pushing me back, although I was not by any means that close to him.

“I know nothing of you or why you are here,” he said. “But I cannot intervene in a matter of law, my abbot was clear on that.”

“You told the abbot that I spoke those words of Latin and asked for instruction?”

“Of course. In obedience we find truth. He said it was my duty to learn more because of the nature of your appeal, but not to agree to any sort of intervention.”

I was once exactly like this Benedictine monk. Eager to follow the rules, to obey the will of the head of the house. But what happens when the house is shattered and there is no leader any longer?

I said, “So you visit the prisoners held in Heidelberg Castle?”

“Only when we are sent for. My abbot was informed that the woman also kept here, charged with counterfeiting, had not much
more time left to her. She has the lung rot. I was providing her with Christian comfort.”

I said, “I am most happy to find the Palatine a Catholic land.”

The monk gnawed on his lip. “The truth is that most of the people who live in the Palatine follow Luther, but Prince Elector Louis is faithful to the True Church. He asks our abbot to sup with him, often. He protects our monastery. We pray for a long life for the prince, because afterward . . . nothing is certain.”

This was the opportunity I needed.

“That is regrettable. But I am sure the prince elector has many years of life remaining.”

The monk shifted from one foot to another. “He is advanced in years, and to be truthful, his health has not been good. We pray for him continually, all of us at the monastery. His young nephews, they follow Luther. When one of them inherits . . .”

I hated what I was about to do to him, but this was the way out of Heidelberg Castle.

“I know what that is like, to fear that sort of change,” I said. “In my priory, we feared it, and when it came, it was even more sorrowful than our worst imaginings. We were exiled from our house with small pensions, and our priory was torn down.”

Fear rippled across his face. “The abbot says that our house, the Monastery of Saint Michael, is too revered to be in danger.”

How often I heard the sisters say that same thing to one another at Dartford, in the months leading up to the end.

“I’m sure there is no reason for alarm,” I said. “But still, it will be very important for your abbot—and for you—to have important and influential friends, should a change come.”

“Yes, my abbot says that.”

“Do you not think that Queen Mary, the regent of the Netherlands, and her older brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, would be the best friends to have?”

The monk smiled. “Of course. But every Catholic in Christendom would beseech the Hapsburgs for help. They cannot reach down
to us all.”

I spread my hands, as if making an offering. “What do you think your abbot would say if I could introduce him by letter to the queen regent, if she were to be grateful to him? I was presented to her in Brussels, and she gave me a passage of safe conduct. My friend is her cousin, Princess Mary of England. Should they hear of my case, both of those women would want to help me. If the abbot were to write to the queen regent in Brussels . . .”

The monk edged toward the door. “That sounds very much like intervention.”

“Talk to the abbot,” I said. “He sounds like such a wise and far-seeing man. Seek his counsel.”

“I will do that,” said the monk, knocking on the door, signaling for the jailor to come and let him out.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Brother Theodoric.”

“My name is Joanna Stafford, and I was once called Sister Joanna. God was good to me when he sent you down this passageway, Brother Theodoric,” I said. And meant it.

There is a difference between hope with nothing to support it but prayer and longing, and hope with specific cause. The latter is more powerful but also more torturous. I paced the room; I slept in patches; my heart jumped at every sound in the passageway. Each day crawled by, endless. Would my gambit lead to anything?

I had rarely in my life felt such relief as when Brother Theodoric’s bushy eyebrows appeared on the other side of the door

“The abbot will help you,” said Brother Theodoric. “He has written a letter to Queen Mary, Regent of the Netherlands, stating your case.”

In this moment, I loved the abbot of Saint Michael’s.

My elation dimmed when Brother Theodoric told me that a letter from the abbot might not reach Brussels until the spring, making it possible that we wouldn’t hear anything from the queen until summer. Geoffrey and I looked at six months spent in Heidelberg Castle.
But there was no alternative but to wait.

I pressed Brother Theodoric to take a message to Geoffrey. He refused. “No one but you shall know of the letter to Brussels, that is the abbot’s wish,” the monk said. “Once we have received word from the queen regent, your friend shall also be informed.” The way he said “your friend” hinted at disapproval, that a former Dominican novice should have formed any sort of association with a man. He did, when I pleaded, confirm that Geoffrey was still in Heidelberg Castle, held with a handful of male prisoners in another wing.

The days grew shorter, and darker, and colder, as full winter came to the Palatine. The unnatural heat and drought was over; this seemed the usual pattern of the season. I spent my days in prayer and reading, for Brother Theodoric brought me some devotional books. I tried my best to stay hopeful.

When signs of spring arrived, I found it harder to control my impatience. The snow melting, the calling of birds, those first flashes of green below. They were welcome, but they taunted me as well. Life was going on everywhere, but here, in this castle, time stood still for me and, somewhere else within these walls, for Geoffrey.

One day was particularly difficult for me, because I learned that April had come and thus it was a full year since I traveled from Dartford to Whitehall and set so many things in motion.

Shortly after, Brother Theodoric returned with news.

“The abbot received a letter from the queen regent,” he said. “She confirms who you are, and your family’s standing in England, and your appointment as tapestry mistress to your king. She wrote that suspicions of spying could only be baseless.”

I couldn’t speak for a moment, I was so convulsed with relief and with gratitude.

I finally said, “Shall your abbot inform the prince elector?”

“Yes, as soon as the prince elector returns from the Diet in the free Imperial City of Regensburg.”

Brother Theodoric explained that the Emperor Charles had urged the princes of the German lands to come together with the
leaders of the Catholic Church and representatives of other kingdoms to try, once more, to find a compromise, to heal the religious divisions that many feared would lead to war and bloodshed.

“It does seem a worthy cause,” I sighed.

Brother Theodoric did not leave but neither did he do anything else; he stood, clogged feet planted in the middle of my room, and gnawed on his lip.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“There is sickness in the castle,” he said. “Most of the men held prisoner have the disease.”

The fear hit me as powerfully as a slap. “Geoffrey Scovill, the Englishman, is he sick?”

He nodded.

Jesus, in Your Mercy, I entreat you to preserve the life of Geoffrey. Let him not be stricken.

“You must help him,” I said. “Go to him, Brother, as soon as you can.”

The monk looked miserable. “I am not an apothecary or a healer of any sort, but I will try.” He paused. “I have learned something that may help you and your friend. Among the distinguished people invited to the Diet of Regensburg is an English churchman who traveled here to represent his king.”

That was not what I expected.

“My abbot says this churchman is most impressive, both in his own knowledge of theology and that of the secretary who assists him. His name is Bishop Stephen Gardiner. I don’t know the name of the secretary.”

I lost the power of speech for a moment and then asked, choking, “He is here? Bishop Gardiner?”

“Regensburg is two or three days’ journey, but yes, your bishop is close by. The abbot will send him a letter apprising him of the situation, and it could speed your release, and your friend’s, too.”

No matter our differences, I knew Bishop Stephen Gardiner would help us, even impoverished and dangerously ill.

I said, “I am sorry, but we need to leave this castle at once. I will take Geoffrey with me to Regensburg.”

“How will you reach it?” he asked.

“You will take us,” I said. “In a wagon or coach.”

Brother Theodoric edged toward the door.

I did not know what would persuade this monk to do something so reckless, I only knew that he was my way out of the castle. There was no other. If I waited for letters and princes and bishops to decide, Geoffrey could die.

“Brother, I know full well what you do not,” I blurted. “My priory in England was destroyed. I pray that does not happen to you, but I must be truthful. It is possible, very possible. And when that time comes, one of the things you will discover is that we who serve God have only each other.”

He stared at me, frightened.

Too desperate to control myself, I seized his arm and shook it. “We need each other. Don’t you understand?”

Brother Theodoric shook me off and hurried from my room, his clogs banging on the floor.

I wept for hours, lost to despair. When, at sunset, the jailer opened the door and slid the tray of food inside, I turned away. I almost missed the note, sealed and placed between plate and mug.

“Be ready to leave Heidelberg Castle before dawn,” said the note in perfect script.

I did not know whose decision it was to help me escape from the castle, Brother Theodoric’s or his abbot’s. He did not explain. The monk helped me out of the castle, leading the way by candlelight. An open coach awaited us outside, with Geoffrey in the back, unconscious, under blankets. I jumped into the coach, next to him, and Brother Theodoric took the reins. It was a four-horse coach, so we would have greater speed.

It wasn’t until the sun rose on the road to Regensburg that I grasped how ill Geoffrey was. His beard was long, but underneath I saw a face so gaunt I would not have recognized him. He did not
open his eyes until several hours after we’d set out, the horses speeding east, for the road was dry and well maintained. Spring was well under way.

“Joanna?” he whispered. And then: “I’m sorry I could not manage . . . a way out.”

“Oh, Geoffrey, we’re out now.”

“I knew you could do it,” he said, and swallowed. The swallowing pained him, and he shivered.