We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (45 page)

Robin is thawed, and sleeps, with but a little quivering, in a casket on my sill. His feathers are soft, his face warm and bright.

I will have
him
for my lover.

A letter from Katherine! My Katherine, how I miss you. That little bill, with its sprawling capitals, brought it right home. It is dated from Sheriff Hutton, ‘a windy place’ she calls it. She and Brackenbury’s daughter will soon be moving—she is not sure where, but it will be farther north. Middleham, perchance? She says his Grace her father called to see her, on the way to London, before Christmas. Merciful God, she says ‘he was not in good heart.’

I wish she would not tell me this. Now I worry and wonder, wishing beyond this world to comfort him. Are my prayers enough? The prayers of a sinful woman are less effective than those of a nun. I was ever his true beadswoman, as well as his fleshly leman. If he came to me sad, he left me smiling. Always. Even the night when Warwick, and George, laughed at him.

George will laugh no more. This day we heard that he was dead. A strange mystery. They say that he drowned himself in wine, but in the Tower; The Mother had this news, privately, from London. She seemed at pains to discuss it with me. Always she harks back to the night at Grafton Regis. I try to give her pleasant answer, but it is something which I would forget. Whichever way I reply, she frowns.

She is pleased with my Shrove-cakes, though. You need new cheese, ground fine in a mortar, with eggs beaten to thistledown, and coloured rich with saffron, baked in coffins of pastry, not too long; I sprinkled nutmeg. They broke in the fingers.

Robin takes food from my lips. Faithful unto death—he has proved it. The first day I let him fly I thought never to see him again, but he came back calling at my window in the morning, and has remained ever since. Now spring is coming, he’s a lusty lover. His little beak is like a tiny sword at my mouth. Shameless, singing Robin!

Yesterday I went to nurse a lad with rotten lungs. Rose-petal jelly. Only the red rose will do. Therefore I have no faith in it, so surely am I wedded to the House of York! Giles came with me. He is strong as a bull. He picked up the youth, and a tall fellow he was, in his arms for me to make his bed. Coming through Swine Market a man tried to fondle me and Giles knocked him down. I hate the hands of men.

So he was not in good heart. Lord Jesu give him joy again. Whatever the reason, let him not be sad.

Written on St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, the seventeenth year of Edward’s reign.

Could I pray better for you, love, were I a nun?

‘It can’t be vanity!’ said the Mother.

She had known my heart; the moment had come. Our bench by the dovecote was the only cool place. Beyond the circle of dark shadow where we sat, Robin strutted with the plump grey doves, jostling fearlessly for their grain. Now and then one would peck at him, angered by his lewd courage, but he merely tripped his fluttering dance to safety. Across the glaring, sun-white yard, a brindled cat was watching, a strange, meagre beast.

‘Is that Willowkin?’ asked the Mother, shading her eyes. ‘Nay, it’s too scrawny.’ Willow, our own cat, was lazy and too old to menace Robin, who often sat impertinently upon his head. I threw a pebble. The strange cat rose noiselessly in a pouring leap over the high wall and disappeared. For a shameful moment I wished I were that cat. The Mother had a dispensation to talk with me outside the Hour, and here was I, wasting time. She stretched her fingers out to Robin. He put his head on one side and watched her, motionless.

‘Play no games with that one, Robin,’ she said.

I looked down at my hands. Burnt almost black by the summer’s fieldwork, there were callouses on the palms, the nails were short and ragged.

‘Mother, it’s not vanity.’

‘Do not fear accidia, either,’ she murmured. ‘You would find only deepest joy. I warrant it. I would give my life to see your peace. Your soul at anchor.’

And I wanted it too. Sweet Jesu in my heart, my mind, my wit, my will, for ever. Yet I knew in this there could be no compromise; while my spirit still roved the moors, or was sad with him in London—there could be no division. For he had come to me once, and he might come to me again. Would he? Ever? Never? Robin hopped on my thumb. I rubbed my cheek against his fluffy poll.

The Mother, watching, knew my every thought.

‘He will not come again,’ she said softly. ‘He dotes upon his wife. That broken reed, that sweet, ailing woman, Anne.’

I did not know that she ailed. But she would have the best physicians, second only to the King. Whatever her malady, they would set it right. Or would they? If the sickness were deep-rooted, the bad humours firmly in the ascendancy... Oh God! what thoughts!

The Mother seized my changing face between her hands.

‘Fight it,’ she said sternly. ‘This is not you, but the Devil himself. He will not come.’

But the dreams said otherwise, the dreams in which I never saw his face, heard only his whispering voice in the dark, felt his hands among the lustrous toils of my hair. If he should come, and find a shaven head, a habit...

‘How say you this, Mother?’ I asked, rough with longing. ‘Have you read it in the stars? Are you a prophet?’

For a long space she was quiet. ‘I am not of the Wise, nor would I wish to be,’ she answered finally. ‘Neither do I intend to embark upon a disputation. Yet, you wag your hypotheses before me, and for your good, I’ll answer them. If he should come, yea,
if
, and seek your comfort...’

‘All that he ever sought!’ I cried.

‘There are better balms than kisses,’ she said. ‘Services that only a woman of God can perform. Sweet charity, a Mass, devotions. Have I not said that this life is a transient thing?’

The sheen on the white pavement hurt my eyes. There was the smell of thunder inside my head. Even as I looked, a cloud blotted the sun, and to the west an artery of light hung twitching on the air.

‘Do I speak the truth?’ asked the Mother.

I could not deny her, or what was right. Robin was eating the crumbs from the doves’ table. The Duchess of Bedford had said it. All is written, long ago. Crumbs would be my portion. I stood up.

‘Forgive me, Mother,’ I whispered, bending for her embrace. The only time she kissed me in the future would be in church, the unfleshly salutation of the
Pax
.

‘At least,’ I said, ‘I shall be able to sign my name on the letter of profession. Not a great untidy X. I’ll serve you well, Mother...’

‘Pride!’ She held up a finger, but she laughed, and I also. I could laugh, for now the dreams were surely ended, and I needed a jest against that fact.

But that night of all nights, he came to me. I ran towards him, across the green lawns of Eltham, through the little stone archway, where God knows how many lovers had breathed one breath. He had his back to me. He wore a sky-coloured doublet, long boots of light doeskin. My feet made no sound—I fancied that I flew, caught up in the longing to join with him in love, to live and die with him, to rise one spirit... his in heart and thought, in the heat of the sun with the crying birds lifting in dreadful joy.

He turned. I saw his eyes, his mouth. He smiled, held out both hands. This time, I would never let him go. I flung myself, wanton, holy, wanton, upon his breast. I called his name, and my voice became a bell.

I woke, and there was only the voice of Prime, and the hurrying nuns in the stone passage without, and the selfless kiss of Peace.

Written on the Beheading of St John Baptist. I took my Vigil yesterday. A long night. Now I find my wrists and elbows swollen, shiny red, as if they had been tied. I must embrace the pain. Today is a Fast, but later I will infuse the White Bryony, peerless against jointgripings. Last night the church seemed very large. Midnight dwarfed the candles, and in all four corners there seemed to be wraiths, rising whitely. Between the prayers and chanting the silence was immense.

I am learning. All I can about being a nun. My own ignorance haunts me. Only lately did I learn that Dame Johanna tricked me—she could not have taken Kate! Under this land’s law a maiden is not recognized as professed until she is twelve. What a fool I was! The
Mirror of Our Lady
holds some sad tales. One little nun, yet a child, died and came again to her sisters, to be purged of the sin of whispering in church. If this be so, those at the Yorkshire House will spend half eternity before the altar! I must not judge, I shall learn my fill. I could now apply myself to the duty of any of these: Treasuress, Precentrix, Sacrist, Fratress, Almoness, Chambress, Cellaress. I could lighten Ursula’s load. For in truth we are so small that the above are but courtesies; jills-of-all-trades, each of us helps the other.

I have this book. Old Ursula has a secret too. ‘One lock,’ she said guiltily, and tucked it in her purse. After her busy clipping my head felt like a puffball in the wind, light and cool and fragile. She stared down at the brightness that lapped her ankles. I thought she looked sad. I did not look at all.

I wonder if she will weave it in with her embroidery. Not on the frontal, of course, but in some little personal thing. Anyhow she has one lock of my hair.

Martinmas. A terrible screaming from the byre, where Giles is slaughtering. For all his baby’s mind, he can turn his hand to anything. He tells me he has awful dreams, but I cannot define their sense. Strange he should come to
me
with dreams. He is killing the great hog we had sent us lately. It was a heriot—the dead man owed tithes, and the Bishop thought kindly of us. We shall be set up for the winter—it must be salted down immediately. Giles has been promised the pig’s bladder to play with. He loves football, for all King Edward has forbidden it.

The King is not here to see him play.

No news of the other.

And K. writes infrequently, from a place called Barnard Castle. All her letters to the Mother now, and I can only answer her under the common seal.

Robin is still cross with me. He pecks at my wimple, sits on my shoulder with most lewd looks into my face. He does not understand the wimple—at first he tried to pull it off. The band is tight above my eyes, and the barbe presses at my throat.

Blessed be God.

The Sixth after Trinity, and a day in truth.

K. came, unheralded. Barnard Castle is being cleansed and they have stayed in London. Sir Rbt Brackenbury’s daughter was with her, but I had eyes only for K. She was so gorgeous, blue and silver; she even had a sparrowhawk on her wrist. I noticed her purse worked with the device and a belt of the same. Though she gave me a good devotion I fancied there was something imperious about her—captivating, but dangerous. She is ten years old now; no husband yet, I asked, and she laughed.

She tells me she has seen King Edward. She was most unflattering about his looks—what she said I dare not write, but he cannot surely have put on all that royal flesh! Though it
is
nineteen years since he first wore the crown. Long may he reign.

She spoke of the other. He remains north. The sparrowhawk was from him. I had to shut Robin in a cupboard while I caressed it.

We heard Mass together. In the dusk, her face was like a flower.

Jesu preserve the King, and all those of the blood.

I thought I should not have time to write it. All day we have been besought. There was a courier at the North Gate before sun-up, beating with the flat of his sword. The bells go on and on. Some town folk have bought candles to place on our altar. A ceaseless Requiem tolls, backed by those thin voices, rising higher and higher, like a spool of silk drawn up to the sky.

For King Edward is dead.

The Mother swooned during the Gradual. I think she is not very well. She said some strange things this day. According to her it will be a bad day for England. She says if the Woodvilles gain power there will be many wives widowed. Like the old days, the bad times. I must cosset her. And it will be a Fast tomorrow, for Edward’s soul. It is not like her to have this melancholy.

Written April, in the first year of King Edward Fifth’s reign.

St Dunstan of Canterbury. The sun shines through a fine rain spray. The old pear tree has bloomed early and hangs over the garden wall like a tired man longing to sit down. Robin sings from a cluster of blossom; the garden is fair. In this light rain the gillies and scented stocks shimmer like some beautifully illuminated page, red and yellow and gold. A growth of speedwell is pushing through the moss right under my window, and a lilac bush comes into flower.

Some of these flourishing herbs spread everywhere. Even unto the cloister where our long-dead sisters lie. Some of those stones are very old, too old, I think, to be bothered by the rude ground-ivy. Gill-go-over-the-ground, they sell it in Swine Market. Gill tea is very good. Bind-weed and periwinkle tangle up the garden. I do not seem to have the time to dig them out; anyway they have a prettiness all their own, so let them multiply, all the more for our simple-store.

I have been thinking of him riding down from Middleham for the funeral, the coronation. Someone said that King Edward was chested already, but this I cannot believe. They would not be so hasty. I wonder how the child king will be. It’s an ordeal for so young a knave. But he will be beside him, so what shall he fear? He will be there to escort Edward at his coronation, being the nearest of the blood. I hear there is quarrelling among the monks our neighbours. Sister Lucy even believes they draw lots for who shall attend the Abbey at Westminster. Foolish. It all depends on which has the Bishop’s ear.