The sergeant steadied her as she climbed clumsily onto the palfrey they provided. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, but she didn’t look at her. She kept her gaze on the ermine edging of the archbishop’s cloak. Once white, now a dirty gray, it trailed behind him in the mud.
From the bell tower, Bek saw Anna leave with the men. He knew it was Anna by the color of her dress. But she would be back. Anna would not leave without telling him.
He had not gone to Sister Matilde as Anna had told him. Instead he had dragged his splindly legs up the stairs to the chapel belfry. He didn’t want to sit with the nuns in the scriptorium. Didn’t want to wait for Matilde to help him up the wooden steps. What if the bells started without him? He had his crutch. It was not the first time he’d gone to the belfry alone, though Sister Matilde scolded him for it, said he would get splinters in his legs from the wooden steps. Sister Agatha said he would tear his leggings. But his arms were strong. With the help of his crutch, he didn’t have to crawl.
Anna had first taken him to see the bells. She had shown him how he could make them sing. Or how he could hush them. “To tame the beast,” she’d said. And it had worked—as long as he was there, in the belfry, when the tolling began. But sometimes, the nuns would come to the bell tower without him. He was too slow, some said. But if he was already there, even Sister Agatha would let him pull the cord that made the bell chime.
He huddled in a corner of the belfry to wait, pulling his jerkin around him against the morning chill, watching the sundial in the center. One of the sisters would be here soon, and she would let him ring the bell for terce.
He waited.
A gust of wind stirred the frayed edges of the bell rope. Bek shivered. He sang to himself. Anna would return soon. She would not leave him. An na An na. The shadow crept across the top right hand of the dial. Past terce.
A wren flew into a nest high in the rafters. Still nobody came. They had forgotten about the bells. One of the young ones whose job it was. But she would not likely forget the next one. Someone would come to ring the bells for sext. He would wait.
He took the three stones out of a little leather pouch tied round his jerkin and tapped them on the floor. One-two-three, three-two-one, two-one-three. Tap. Tap.
The wren flew out of her nest, scolding him, showering straw onto the shoulder of the tallest bell.
The shadow crept toward sext. Somebody would come. Somebody would notice the bells were quiet and they’d skipped the “little hours.” They would never forget the bells.
Three bells. Sitting in their squat frames. The big, long one was the hardest to pull. Its hinges were stiff with age and misuse. The nuns never pulled on it. His arms were strong. He could pull it, if they’d let him. The newer bells, the nola for the choir and the squilla for the refectory, were newer, shorter, and easier to pull. Each bell had a different voice so the nuns would know what each bell meant. But Bek did not call them by their names. He gave each a number. The heavy, long bell he called number one. The medium bell, the nola, he called number two. And the third, the squilla with the wide mouth, was number three.
One. Two. Three. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The shadow on the sundial crept toward three marks. Time to ring the number three bell. By the sun. By his stomach too.
But the shadow crept past sext and nobody came to ring the bells.
Bek squinted, studying the peaked roof of the bell tower, in deep shadow now. He counted the black blotches on its girders. Bats, Anna had said. Four bats.
Why did nobody come to get him? Anna was gone. Were the nuns all gone too? Not a soul had stirred for hours in the cloister below. The only movement in the garden below was the shimmering fountain.
They were all asleep, he thought. He would ring the bells. He would ring all the bells. That would wake them. He worked out the pattern in his head. Number one, first. Then the nola, number two. Then the squilla, number three.
He ran the number sequences in his head. Three-two-one, one-two-three, two-three-one, one-three-two, and on and on and on. If he had four bells he could go on forever!
He pulled on the frayed rope for the long, narrow bell. It barely budged on its stiff hinge. He pushed on the bell with both his hands and, lifting his body off the floor, freed the bell in a little half-swing. It creaked on its hinge. Enough to move the clapper. One more time and the bell rang out in a halftone. Then full tone. One. Two. Three … The bell tower reverberated with the sound of it. The glorious, glad sound of it. The bells, bells, bells … And down below the nuns all ran from the chapel, where they’d been keeping vigil at the altar, looked up at the bell tower, shouting and pointing.
“It’s Little Bek,” the old one shouted. “We’ve forgotten Little Bek. Sister Matilde, go up and get him before he wakes the dead.”
Little Bek heard Sister Matilde climbing the stairs. He looked down at what looked to his fuzzy eyes like a flock of large black birds. There was not a colorful bird among them.
But Anna would not leave him.
“Take the prisoner on to London, but hire a cart and driver for her,” the archbishop had said when they paused in High Street. “Send her horse back to the abbey.”
That’s me they are talking about, Anna thought incredulously. I am the prisoner. But she was grateful for the cart at least. London was a hard day’s ride on horseback. Hard for a woman. Harder still for the child in her womb.
“I’m stopping here at the cathedral to pay the Bishop of Rochester a courtesy call. He needs to know about the suspicion that has fallen on his diocese. Though I doubt it’ll be news to him.”
The sergeant reached up to help her down from her horse. “Drop the prisoner off at Newgate Prison, Excellency?”
The archbishop scowled at Anna. “No. Though Newgate is what the hellcat deserves. Out of respect for the abbess, take her on to the White Tower. Newgate’s no place for a woman of learning. No place for a woman with child either.”
But there was no compassion in his voice. Was the White Tower a better place, then? Was she to be accorded some measure of civility?
The archbishop’s fine white steed snorted impatiently, the bells on its elaborate silver harness tinkling in the morning air. The archbishop steered the horse toward Boley Hill, toward the great cathedral, leaving the sergeant and two other men to make up the little prison party. The back of the cart was heaped with hogsheads. Anna sat on the floor of the wagon on a fur pelt provided by the driver. The driver of the cart whipped the reins and whistled to the pair of horses that pulled the wagon.
“What’s the White Tower?” Anna shouted at the driver above the clop-ping of the horses.
“It’s London’s royal palace,” he threw back over his shoulder.
“A royal palace?”
The sergeant laughed. “It’ll not likely be the royal apartments for the likes of you, mistress. More likely it’ll be the dungeons for you.”
Anna knew all about dungeons. There’d been one at the hrad, the castle on the hill above the river Vltava. She’d heard of people who went in there and were never heard from again. She’d come all this way to end up in a dungeon, charged with heresy—and worse. At least Martin’s death had been swift.
“Don’t worry that pretty red head of yours about being lonely. Ye’ll have plenty of company. His Excellency says they’ll probably have to build a tower at Lambeth to house all the Lollards he’s planning to catch in his net.”
She closed her eyes against the March wind that slapped her face and made her eyes water. The jostling of the wagon along the rutted road caused pain in the small of her back. She leaned back against one of the hogsheads. The metal rim bit into her shoulder. But at least it gave her some support.
The sergeant trotting along beside her was laughing with his men, paying her scant attention. The driver whipped the horses, urging them to speed up. What if she flung herself beneath the horses, beneath the wagon wheels? At least she would deprive the archbishop and his minions of their sport. She was going to
die anyway. She knew how this was going to end.
No, you don’t Anna. Only God knows how it’s going to end. Put your trust in Him. Think of your baby. All will be well.
But those were her grandfather’s words. Not hers. She had not his faith. Or his courage.
They stopped at a roadside inn for food. Anna wasn’t hungry, but her bladder was full to bursting.
“The privy’s out back.” The driver nodded to her unasked question.
The sergeant untied the leather binding on her wrists. “We’ll be watching you from the window, mistress. Don’t even think of running.”
She looked down the road, where late afternoon was already clumping the trees into threatening shadows. Safer here than there. At least the sergeant would protect her from rogues. He would want to deliver his goods unharmed.
After lingering in the privy as long as she dared, preferring even the noisome odor to the company of the rough men inside the inn, she entered the smoke-filled common room. The sergeant’s men paid her no notice. She sat down beside the driver and scanned the room for a friendly face. There was no woman, not even a barmaid to whom she might appeal.
“Eat up, mistress,” the driver said as he stripped the flesh from a chicken bone. “I’d take advantage if I was you.”
“I have no money,” Anna said.
He laughed. “What’ll they do if you can’t pay—put you in gaol?”
Anna smiled in spite of herself. “I’m not hungry anyway,” she said. Then she thought of her baby. She’d eaten nothing all day. “Bread and cheese, please.”
“That’ll be twopence,” the tavernkeeper said, putting down her food.
“He’ll pay,” she said, nodding in the direction of the sergeant.
The driver winked at her with approval as she took a bite. But unable to swallow more than a bit of the bread, she tore off a notice posted on a nail above the table and, seeing it was fairly clean, hastily wrapped up the rest of the food and slipped it into her pocket. Who knew when she would eat again?
“Best be going,” the driver said, “if you want to make London by nightfall.”
The sergeant paid the innkeeper and to Anna’s relief did not quibble over the bill. He even offered his hand to her to help her into the wagon, where she settled more comfortably, now that she had at least stretched her legs and relieved herself. But the heavy twilight brought such a feeling of despair that for one brief moment she felt her heart pounding in her ears the way it had the day her grandfather had died. Calm down, Anna. All will be well. Trust Him. She could hear his voice so clearly that she reached out her hand to touch him. But it encountered only the splintered wood of the large beer barrel.
Heavy dusk had already fallen when they entered the city. Lights were twinkling in the windows of the houses high on London Bridge.
“That there be the White Tower, mistress,” the driver said, pointing off to the right. The river lay on their left. She could no longer see it, but she could smell the brine in the brackish water where the sea backed into it. Downstream, she could make out a large boat, illumined against the darkness. Who could afford so many candles? she wondered. And how did they stay warm? She was shivering beneath her woolen mantle, hunkering behind the casks to shelter from the wind. She looked in the direction the driver pointed. A great curtain wall enclosed several towers more gray than white. High in some of the towers she thought she saw a candle or two, mere flickers in the tall shadows. From the barge on the river, laughter drifted in, accompanied by music, the strings of harp and lute.
“That’ll be the new king’s barge coming in. His Majesty likes to take the dandies of the court out on the river. Some say he fancies himself a musician.”
“Go on around to the quayside entrance,” the sergeant said sharply. “We’ll go in through Traitor’s Gate.”
An ominous name. An ominous sight, Anna thought as she looked up at the large iron gates with their steps leading down to the river.
“Hey ho, warder,” the sergeant called. “I’ve a prisoner for ye, sent from His Excellency Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury.”
The gates opened with a groan and a creak.
The driver whipped his reluctant horse to enter. Anna shivered with a foreboding that had nothing to do with the chilly March wind.
From the river drifted the sound of laughter, followed by the high-pitched melody of a pipe.
“Welcome to Tower Prison,” the warder said, as he reached up to help Anna down from the cart.
THIRTY-FOUR
The money was indeed the thing that killed the Jews.
If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not
been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt.
After the wealth was divided … some gave their
share … to the Church on the advice of their confessor.
—FROM THE CREMATION OF THE STRASBOURG
JEWRY, JACOB VON KÖNIGSHOFEN
On the third day, Brother Gabriel came to the abbey at first light, exhausted, almost incoherent, begging to be admitted to the mother superior’s private chamber. The abbess was exhausted too. She had not slept for two nights. Her thoughts were haunted with what might be happening to the young woman she’d sheltered and then embroiled in their dangerous enterprise. But this time, unlike that time so many years gone, it was not her fault. The girl had not only volunteered to do the copying, she had turned herself in.
But none of that mattered. Whenever she closed her eyes, Kathryn saw only Anna’s face as they had led her away.
Anna’s face and yet not Anna’s face at all.
Now Friar Gabriel was pacing back and forth in her chamber. In the emerging light of a gray dawn seeping through the windows, she could see his robes were disheveled and marked with the stains of the road. Dark smudges outlined his eyes.
“It is not my place to judge you, Father. That is for one much higher than I.” The abbess felt great compassion for him, she could not help it. “How did you hear?” she asked.
“There was a notice posted on the door of a church in Appledore. Her name was on the list of people arrested for questioning. In connection with the search for Sir John.”
She exhaled heavily. “Lambeth Palace wasted no time,” she said. “The copyists have been busy, the messengers swift.”
“The archbishop is dedicated to bringing down Lord Cobham. He considers it his legacy to stamp out the Lollards, to free the Church from heresy. I fear he will deal harshly with Anna to make her implicate the abbey.”
Deal harshly? Was he so oblivious to the abuses committed in the name of God by his own Church?
“If they can prove the abbey has been providing Sir John with contraband texts, then they have a tight case against him.” He whirled around, his tone almost confrontational. “I warned you. Why did you not destroy the writings?”
Her compassion counseled patience for the accusation in his voice.
“I did. She brought the documents with her. I fear you have not heard the worst. Not only did she have a Wycliffe Bible hidden in her linen chest, but she also had some kind of book of Jewish spells.” She paused. “The word ‘witchcraft’ was mentioned.”
“Holy Mother of God!” He beat his fist on the oaken surface of her clean, uncluttered desk, punctuating his words. “She is a stupid, willful girl. I warned her when we were together in France.”
He did know. And therein lay his anger. A charge of witchcraft gave greater license for torture. When the devil was the enemy, what did it matter how much pain the body felt if the soul could be saved?
“You are a man of influence, Father. You have the archbishop’s ear. Can you not intercede on her behalf?”
He laughed. It was a sad, bitter laugh. “You are naive, Abbess. This is Arundel’s mission in life. He has the power, and he has the will to destroy any and all who threaten his Church. And he will do it.”
“Then there is one other thing you should know. And the knowing of it may buy her a little time.
It may also make a difference to you as you decide where your loyalties lie.”
He straightened up, rubbing the heel of his hand where it would probably bear a bruise.
“Anna is with child,” she said.
His skin took on the gray hue of the creeping dawn. It was hard to watch a man’s face dissolve. Better to do it all at once. Just rip away what was left of the mask and see if there was a man behind it.
“It is your child, Father. Five months gone. She has already felt it move in her womb.”
He did not deny it. Nor did he confirm it. He just stood there like a man who had been slapped, his eyes stunned, his expression melting into disbelief.
How can this be a surprise to you? she thought. How could this not have occurred to you? Did you not notice the fullness of her figure when you saw her here? Did your lust consume you so when you spilled your seed inside her that you did not think of this? Or did you just not care? And you dare to call me naive. She wanted to say it out loud, but what good would it do now to heap such guilt upon him? The world had enough of guilt.
She turned her back on him. To look at him now would be wrong, like intruding on his most basic private moment. The room bore the chill of early morning. She could smell the damp in the ashes, mingled with the mossy, moist smell of the earth in early spring. Outside, the bulbs in the cloister garden would be swelling, quickening in the ground, forming into life, like the child in Anna’s womb.
“I will go to the king,” he said. “Bolingbroke lies a corpse at Westminster. The new king is a friend of Sir John’s. That is the only way.” His voice sounded small, unsure, propped up by the sheer resolve of his will.
But at least, she thought, he has a plan. That gave her hope.
She turned to face him and lifted her veil, wanting him to see her eyes when she said what she was going to say. He appeared not to even notice the scarred left side of her face. “Do you realize, Brother Gabriel, what it means for a son of the Holy Roman Church to align himself with the king against the archbishop?”
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