The Tapestry

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “Oh, I should very much like that,” the doctor said immediately.

  “Geoffrey, would you mind escorting the doctor?” Cheke asked.

  Frowning, Geoffrey said, “Me?”

  Doctor Butts insisted that he did want to see Holy Trinity Church, and Geoffrey, with a reluctant bow, led him out of the room. There was something strange about it, as if Cheke and Doctor Butts had worked out this plan in advance, but hadn’t told Geoffrey. Once they’d left, Cheke turned to me with a look in his eyes of barely suppressed excitement.

  “I don’t have much time,” he said. “I must ride back to London today.”

  “I am surprised to see you at all, Master Cheke, for I’d thought you back in Cambridge.”

  “I did return to university, yes, but four days ago was summoned to court again. Bishop Gardiner officially offered me the position of chair of Greek at Saint John’s College.”

  I congratulated him, but that agitated look persisted. As much as this must be a pinnacle of his career—a most prestigious post for a man of his humanist learning—I suspected that sharing this personal advancement was not why he came to Dartford.

  “Do you have any idea of what’s happened at court?” he said. “Has the news not spread here yet?”

  I shook my head and braced myself. But nothing could have prepared me for John Cheke’s next words.

  “The king has turned on Cromwell. He is arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and it seems certain he shall die.”

  26

  Impossible,” I cried. “This all occurred since I left court in May?”

  “It took place in the last three weeks!” Cheke exclaimed. “Just before a meeting of the Privy Council on the tenth of June, the captain of the guard stopped Cromwell, and the Duke of Norfolk stripped him of his Order of the Garter insignia—as he stood there, he tore it off his doublet. No one had ever seen such a thing or heard of it before. Norfolk shouted that a traitor could not sit in the council, and the guards dragged Cromwell away, as he shouted to all he passed that he was no traitor. But no one would listen, and the constable himself took Cromwell to the Tower of London. He writes letters begging the king for mercy.”

  Although the last stage of dizziness had receded weeks ago, this report made the room spin, and I fell into a chair. Cromwell had served the king as his right hand, the second most powerful man in England, for more than ten years. What could possibly have made Henry VIII turn against him?

  Cheke wiped the sweat from his brow with a kerchief and said, “Even as I tell you what happened, Mistress Joanna, I can’t believe it myself.”

  I heard the voice of my cousin, the Earl of Surrey: There is another way to put an end to Cromwell, though it be anything but honorable. I can say not a word to you about it. Only that, someday, when all has changed, I hope to redeem myself in your eyes, Joanna.

  “The covenant,” I whispered.

  Cheke said, “What did you say, Joanna?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.” And then: “Who shall replace him?”

  “Bishop Gardiner has finally taken back his seat on the king’s council; whether he can entirely fill the role of Cromwell remains to be seen. He’s also expected to be elected as the next chancellor of Cambridge—that is why a decision was made about my future. Gardiner works in tandem with the Duke of Norfolk, whose son, the Earl of Surrey, celebrated in the palace for days on end the arrest of the ‘foul churl,’ as he calls him.” John Cheke wrinkled his nose in disapproval. “The Howards are ascendant as never before, now that they have disposed of Cromwell and shall have a Howard queen.”

  All of the breath left my body.

  “Mistress Joanna, are you ill again?” said Cheke, alarmed. “You’ve lost all of your color.”

  “What did you say?” I choked. “A Howard queen?”

  “I assumed, since you are such true friends, that you’re aware that Catherine Howard is poised to become the king’s fifth wife. They are said to be secretly engaged. Everyone at court knows it.”

  “He has a wife—Queen Anne of Cleves,” I said.

  “The queen was sent away from court to Richmond House six days ago,” said Cheke. “The king’s counselors visited her and presented the grounds for divorce—a previous engagement of hers to the Duke of Lorraine, a man she never met. I’m told she wept but makes no objections. The divorce should be speedy. The king seeks out Catherine Howard whenever he can, and openly. She shall soon be elevated, the Howards tell everyone at court.”

  It was hard for me to take in the impact of all of these changes, some most precipitous. Poor Anne of Cleves. So Norfolk did not lie when he told Catherine she could become queen. He knew what sort of man the king was, after all. I should have been proud of my friend’s dramatic rise, but all I could feel was fear. Through divorce, execution, or childbed fever, the king had gone through four wives. Catherine was the youngest of them all. And by far the least prepared.

  “The gossip at Whitehall is that the king turned against Cromwell because he’d favored the German marriage and lagged in arranging a divorce. Cromwell did not want Anne of Cleves replaced with Catherine Howard, the niece of his enemy,” Cheke said.

  I thought about how King Henry and Cromwell behaved when I saw them last, in the royal privy chamber. The chief minister did everything he could to serve his master and they seemed a close pair; he practically finished the king’s sentences.

  “It is hard for me to believe that if His Majesty commanded Cromwell to procure for him a divorce, he would be refused,” I said.

  “I agree with you, and certainly the divorce was easily obtained once initiated,” Cheke said. He bit his hip and studied me. The nervousness was still there.

  “What is it, Master Cheke?” I asked.

  He said, picking his words with evident care, “I would like to know your plan for Geoffrey Scovill.”

  His question plunged me into a defensive stance.

  “I have no plan for him,” I said. “Why do you think I would?”

  Instead of answering, Cheke scuttled back to the window and peered outside. “Good,” he muttered. “They haven’t left the church yet.”

  “Why was it important you speak to me alone?” I asked. “Everything you’ve said to me could be said to all. I don’t understand this.”

  He turned and said bluntly, “I want you to release Geoffrey.”

  I could feel my face flush red. “Master Cheke, he is worried about my safety for various reason, but Geoffrey is not mine to release. He is not my captive.”

  Cheke said, “Forgive me, Mistress Joanna, but now that I have more serious wages to draw upon, I can finance a trip to Germany. I very much want Geoffrey to find Paracelsus, to pick up the trail of Edmund. I could send someone else, there are men available to be hired, but they don’t know Edmund and there is no portrait to lend. And I do believe Geoffrey to be highly intelligent and resourceful. If Edmund’s alive, Constable Scovill will find him. I fear he’s the only one who can.”

  “I see.”

  Once again, Cheke went to the window. This time, he grimaced. “Ah, they emerge. And I’ve run out of time with you. I didn’t have a chance to—wait, I still wish to—it could make a difference . . .” John Cheke practically danced with indecision before pivoting toward me, his hand once more in his doublet.

  “I have considered giving this to you a hundred times,” he said rapidly, pulling out a set of worn parchments. “Geoffrey wrote to me that you almost died of fever, and I lambasted myself for not sending this to you already. I always felt it would be a betrayal of a sort. But, considering all that has happened, please—take it now.”

  Two pages of parchment dangled open. The ink was faded, but the writing was quite legible. The letters were beautifully formed. That would be expected from someone who spent his youth in the scriptoriums of prestigious monasteries.

&nbs
p; Yes, it was written by Edmund Sommerville.

  I took the pages, my heart pulsing in my head, my ears, my throat. The letter was missing the earlier pages; these two were the last part of the correspondence. I read as quickly as I could.

  It is difficult to end my missive to you, John, for today I feel more alone than ever before in this country far from England. The people have suffered in ways that can hardly be imagined and yet they show a good heart to a stranger. It is not that which makes me wish we could speak to each other tonight. I caught sight of a young woman carrying a bucket of water who had thick black hair, and it put me into a humor of melancholia. I fear that Joanna will never agree with me that her life will be a happier one if I am far away. Her compassion and patience for my manifold weaknesses were always more than I could deserve.

  I cannot stop thinking about the first weeks that I knew Joanna and I find I want to describe them to you. Our circumstance of meeting was very strange. We were brought together by Bishop Stephen Gardiner on a mission. I doubt you would believe the mission’s purpose. I will pass over it. But we served in the same priory in Dartford after my Dominican order in Cambridge was dissolved. I soon perceived her quickness of mind and her warm heart for her friends. Some of my fellow friars take the position that women are so inferior that we should not converse. I never accepted this disdain of women. We took vows to go out among the people, we are not monks. But the danger in speaking to women is of succumbing to temptation to commit mortal sin. I have learned to recognize the signs of a female becoming too avid for my company and how to handle these dilemmas with tact and compassion. Why do I picture you smiling, my old friend?

  I began to see these signs in Joanna and prepared the words I would say to her and the actions that must be taken. But to my consternation I found that I did not want Joanna to cease feeling the way that she did. It was the first time I experienced such a desire. I will not describe what ensued, for those experiences belong to me and to Joanna, and are not mine to share solely. These memories, I will carry with me for the rest of my life. They are painful to me but quite precious, too. I shall soon put the parchment away and prepare myself for sleep, always with the prayers for forgiveness for all whom I have wronged, and the principal person is Joanna.

  The door to my house opened and Geoffrey and Doctor Butts came back in. I can only imagine the expression on my face, for both of them expressed concern.

  “Master Cheke brings shocking news from Whitehall,” I said in explanation, bending to pick up an imaginary speck, so that Geoffrey would not perceive just how distraught I was. “I need a little time to absorb it.”

  “It’s shocking, yes,” said Geoffrey, but he sounded intrigued, as most men are by tales of power lost and claimed.

  The three of them resolved to share dinner at the town’s best tavern, and then Cheke and Doctor Butts would set off back to London, avoiding the worst heat of the day. I bade them farewell, attempting to answer the question in Cheke’s eyes with as much reassurance as I could summon. Turning from him, I said, “Geoffrey, would you come to see me before day’s end, for I need to speak to you.”

  “Certainly,” he said, smiling, and the three of them disappeared up the street.

  I could not let go of the letter. I held it in my lap as I sat by the window, the chatter of the folk on the High Street humming beneath my thoughts. Ever since I’d recovered from my virulent fever, I’d felt a growing restlessness. What purpose could I serve with this life God spared? I exercised all caution here in Dartford to evade those who wished me harm and it was effective. Following Geoffrey’s advice kept me alive. And I’d been grappling with the idea of taking on the tapestries of the king as commanded. But to what higher purpose? Merely to exist was not enough—it could not be enough.

  I assumed that John Cheke showed me this letter of Edmund’s to reawaken the love in my heart, so that I would “release” Geoffrey Scovill to search for Edmund. What occurred was more complicated than that, and more unexpected. In reading his words, I heard Edmund speak as if he were in the room with me, a sensation I’d been deprived of for many months, and to my own astonishment, I found my way back to caring for him without the grief and anger. Edmund was right: the memories were painful but they were precious, too. There was one in particular that enveloped me.

  • • •

  It was the first summer we all spent in Dartford after being forced from the priory. Such a difficult matter, reentering the world we’d each of us withdrawn from with such conviction. The cloister was gone, and the refectory, the dorter, the library, the tapestry workshop, all the places we knew and loved. Even worse, the hours of worship and service had vanished: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, all were gone. We were like sailors taught to navigate by the stars staring at a black sky. I was more fortunate than most, because the demands of Arthur filled my days. Yet I still found moments here and there to go to the infirmary that Edmund opened in Dartford. The truth was, I seized any excuse I could to go to the infirmary. My feet would as good as fly along the High Street when I was on my way there. Because I would be with Edmund.

  “Look what I found this morning,” he said as I slipped in the door. He waved fistfuls of spiky yellow flowers at me, a smile warming his pale features.

  “Is it blessed thistle?”

  “Joanna, you remember—how wondrous,” he said. “Yes, the flower is uncommon as far north as England. We are most fortunate.”

  Half of the flowers were set aside for drying; working in companionable silence, we chopped the petals and stems of the rest for immediate remedies. As I cleaned up, Edmund toted buckets of water into the infirmary. Although it was a hot day for lighting a fire, Edmund didn’t want to miss the opportunity to brew fresh teas with blessed thistle. He knew a few townspeople with ruined digestion who would benefit.

  “Brother, it hurts—can ye help me?” sounded a man’s voice. It was Peter, a young man who worked in his father’s shop. He held up a burned right forearm, clumsily bandaged. He’d hurt himself the night before at Saint Margaret’s Fair, held every July a short distance from Dartford.

  While he struggled not to scream, Peter had his wound properly cleaned. Edmund then prepared his favored burn remedy of a paste of chopped onions, to ease the pain.

  “I know what I did was stupid—trying to juggle the fire sticks,” Peter muttered. “But Madge was watching and I couldn’t look a coward in front of those louts from Rochester.”

  Edmund said, applying his paste on Peter’s arm at the table, “I am certain Madge could have no such opinion of you.”

  “She used to look at me like I was ten feet high, but of late I fear she tires of me.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be bringing this sort of trouble to a friar, it’s not fit. And . . . ye wouldn’t understand.”

  Edmund said, “I understand how when another person looks up to you, thinks well of you, it can be as important as food or drink. More so, because . . .”

  His words trailed off. Edmund leaned down even lower over Peter’s arm.

  I could barely breathe. What Edmund described—that was how I felt about him. I strove to better myself not only because it was proper and Godly but because Edmund would take note of it. But who was he talking about? Was it possible that I was that person, that he sought to impress me? It seemed incredible.

  The water in the pot hanging over the fire popped and bubbled as I waited for Edmund to say something more. His hair had grown in where once it was shaved to create the tonsure. These wayward fine blond curls hung far enough down that I couldn’t see his eyes or read his expression as he worked.

  Peter shifted at the table, and Edmund looked up, meeting my gaze for a few seconds, nothing more. Then we both turned away—ecstatic and terrified, in equal measure. Nothing more was done or said that day, but I carried the details of it with me for months afterward, reliving each word and glance.
/>   • • •

  Edmund must be found; he must be helped.

  A plan eased into my mind, a bold one, but as I turned it over, it grew in practicality. When, some time later, I heard Geoffrey whistling outside, I took a deep breath.

  “You are better?” he asked once in the room with me, his eyes bright with the ale downed with Cheke and Doctor Butts.

  “Geoffrey, did John Cheke come here to ask you to go to Germany?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Geoffrey’s buoyant mood sagged, and I regretted that I’d sprung my question on him straight away. I should have eased into it. But it was too late to change my tack now, and so I plunged on with “What is your answer?”

  “Regrettably, my duties here make it impossible for me to leave for such an extended time.”

  “But you were set to leave before. You and Cheke agreed. It was only lack of funds that stopped you.”

  Geoffrey folded his arms. “Your point?”

  “What’s changed is my crisis, my being attacked at Whitehall and retreating to Dartford. You don’t want to leave me unprotected. But I have Pierre and Aimée—and you concede that no one has come to threaten me here. You need not stay on my behalf.”

  “As if you would remain in Dartford! The boat wouldn’t have left Gravesend before you’d be on your way back to Whitehall. You have a dangerous tendency to overestimate your ability to deal with a situation.”

  “I’m glad to hear you have so little faith in me,” I said.

  “Oh, Joanna, you know I did not mean it to be taken that way. But can’t you see that the enemies you’ve made will go to great lengths to capture you?”

  “Capture? Don’t you mean murder?”

  He regarded me cautiously. “Well, that could be your eventual fate, but no, I am convinced that these people want you alive for a time. The first man, the false page, it sounds to me as if he tried to subdue you. If he wanted you dead, why not kill you the moment he had you alone? And even more so with the confrontation on that lane—they murdered your servant Richard without hesitation, and could have stabbed you, too. But they were leading you up that lane for a reason, and I think it was to snatch you and take you somewhere else.”