The Tapestry: A Novel

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “The room be right down there,” whispered Tom, pointing down a passageway with his right hand and gleefully shaking my earrings in his left. Roger’s response was yet another grunt.

  “The man is hiding here?” I asked, surprised that he’d choose a second-story room so near a library. A hiding spot closer to the banquet would have made more sense.

  Tom nodded, licking his lips.

  A loud confrontation now seemed inadvisable. Did I want a group of scholars listening?

  “Have ye lost yer spirit for this?” Tom hissed. “Now will ye want me to fetch some of the Howard men?”

  I shook my head.

  My throat was tight, my hands clammy, as I followed Tom the rest of the way, Roger lumbering behind us. I’d pressed for this—I’d paid for this—but now I dreaded looking at the face of the man who tossed me across the storeroom in Whitehall. And did these two servants possess the strength and speed to contain him?

  There were three closed doors on this passageway. Tom strode to the third one. “Hold up the candle, Roger,” he whispered. The light revealed that the door had a number carved on it: 41. Tom nodded, and looked at me, licking his lips again. I so wished he wouldn’t do that.

  I gave the signal with a terse nod.

  Tom rapped on the door, twice. “There’s a matter requiring yer attention, sir,” he said, all unctuous.

  I tensed at the creak of floorboards on the other side of the door. It opened a few inches—and Master John Cheke peered out into the corridor, blinking in the bright light of the candle Roger had thrust close to the door. At the sight of me, his eyes widened.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” I said, furious, rounding on Tom. “This is not the right man.”

  “No, he isn’t the right man—but this be the right room,” insisted Tom.

  “And there’s no mistake,” said a second man from inside the room. My whole body tightened in response to that voice, one I knew so well.

  But he couldn’t be here. It wasn’t possible.

  The floorboard creaked again. The door opened all the way. Directly behind John Cheke stood Geoffrey Scovill, the constable of Dartford, the man who had saved me, and fought with me, and loved me, suffering so much when I chose another. He looked exactly the same, except he’d started a beard. Tall and broad-shouldered—no wonder Tom hadn’t relished confronting him—Geoffrey was scrutinizing me with light blue eyes.

  Cheke said, “Joanna, what are you doing here?” He mopped his face with a cloth, distressed.

  “Joanna never stays where you put her,” said Geoffrey matter-of-factly.

  I finally found my voice through the shock. “Geoffrey, what is happening? Why would you pay someone to spy on me? How could you do such a thing?”

  Geoffrey sighed. “As much as I don’t want to explain, I see I will be required to. But first, let’s put something in order.” He crooked his finger to Tom and Roger, who had been listening gape-mouthed to the whole exchange. In less than a minute, I had my earrings and the menservants had the boot, along with a stern constabulary warning about preying on guests of the bishop.

  In John Cheke’s small room, filled with towering stacks of books and papers, there were but stools, and I planted myself on one. Nothing about this made sense, but I had no intention of leaving until it did.

  Cheke began: “I sent word to Geoffrey to come here tonight, not knowing about the banquet until too late. He saw you when he entered Winchester House along with the other guests and didn’t want you to see him.”

  I felt my cheeks redden. I knew I wasn’t Geoffrey’s favorite person but when had it reached this pass?

  Watching me, Geoffrey said, “It’s not a matter of antipathy, Joanna. Master Cheke had sensitive business to discuss with me, and I didn’t wish to involve you, to upset you. I asked that servant of Gardiner’s to come up here and let me know when you left so I wouldn’t run across you on my departure back to Dartford.”

  “So you are still in Dartford?” I asked. “I’d heard otherwise.”

  Geoffrey glanced at John Cheke. Some sort of silent message hovered between them and then Geoffrey said, “I shall be leaving, but it’s not yet clear when.”

  Growing frustrated, I said, “What could Master Cheke possibly have to do with your departure, your livelihood? And what sort of business would you have to discuss? I don’t remember the two of you even being acquainted, except the day of . . .”

  I couldn’t come out and say the words “my wedding.” My union with Edmund Sommerville never took place, because, as I’d tried to explain to Catherine, moments after we arrived at Holy Trinity Church, news came of the Act of Six Articles, forbidding marriage to those who’d ever taken vows of celibacy in a monastery. The painful memory rose of Cheke urging us to marry anyway and then seek official approval, until Geoffrey, acting as the legal representative of the town, forbade the ceremony.

  It was as if Geoffrey read my thoughts, for his face grew mournful, too. The bright, curious light in his eyes dimmed. A new apprehension clawed at me.

  It was Cheke who said, “Yes, Joanna, this concerns Edmund.”

  I covered my mouth with my hands, looking at these two men, for their countenances were so serious, I knew.

  I lowered my trembling hands to whisper, “He’s dead, isn’t he? Edmund’s dead?”

  “No,” said Geoffrey quickly.

  “To be completely honest, we don’t know if he’s dead or alive,” said Cheke. “That’s why I’ve asked Geoffrey to help. Edmund has been gone for almost eight months and no one has heard from him in six months.”

  “But Edmund is in Europe—in Germany,” I said, and regretted it instantly.

  “How do you know that?” Geoffrey asked, all intent again. “Has he written to you? I thought you’d received no letters. That’s what you told Mistress Gwinn.”

  “So you are spying on me,” I said, my voice rising.

  Cheke intervened, his hands outstretched, “Joanna, please do not be offended. I asked Geoffrey to make such inquiries. I’ve hired him to search for Edmund—that was a part of the task. This is a delicate matter. Very delicate. I know that what happened with your wedding and everything afterward was extraordinarily painful. But, Joanna, he is my friend. For years he was a friend—with all due respect to you, for years before you even met him. I must find Edmund, or at least learn if he is dead or alive. I cannot go on without knowing.”

  John Cheke looked so distressed, snatching up the cloth to wipe his face, that I felt wretched for not realizing that Edmund’s well-being mattered to others beyond myself. While both lived at Cambridge, Cheke and Edmund found they shared an interest in ancient Greek texts, and a friendship of humanists had deepened, in spite of their differences in religion.

  His arms folded, Geoffrey said, “You will please tell us how you know Edmund is in Germany if you’ve received no letters from him.” I knew that tone well; there was no possibility of his giving up.

  What an agonizing dilemma. When I’d refused last year to go forward with my part in assassinating the king, I was imprisoned by Jacquard Rolin for months at Het Gravensteen, a stone fortress in Ghent. Persuasive arguments followed by vicious threats didn’t force me to comply, so one day Jacquard revealed their plot to find Edmund and drag him to the same prison.

  It wasn’t Geoffrey’s badgering that weakened me, but John Cheke’s eyes, full of pleading. I said, “In the early autumn, I was told that Edmund had requested permission to leave England, it was granted, and his boat reached a port in some part of the Holy Roman Empire. Then, in November, I learned that Edmund was believed to be in the Black Forest of Germany, but no one knew where. As of early December, that had not changed.”

  “It fits, Geoffrey,” exulted Cheke. “Those dates confirm the letter from Paracelsus.”

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  “A Swiss man whose
birth name is Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim—but he is known as Paracelsus,” Cheke said happily. “Edmund saw him in his home in Salzburg, in Austria. After that, we are not sure where he traveled to, though we think a part of Germany.”

  But Geoffrey was not sharing in the celebration. He said, “I cannot assess the soundness of Joanna’s facts without knowing the source.”

  I stared back at him, resolutely silent.

  Geoffrey said slowly, “I know that you traveled to Flanders for several months, Joanna. At one point you told Agatha that it was to look for Edmund, but that you were unsuccessful. A little later, you denied that was the purpose of the trip and were simply vague. I suspect that you traveled to Flanders to find another priory to enter, to resume your life as a Dominican nun. There are many cases of nuns and friars and monks doing so after our king dissolved the monasteries. Is that how you learned of Edmund’s movements—through friars who knew of him?”

  Outraged, I said, “My life is not a domain for inquiry, Geoffrey. Why are you doing this—helping John Cheke locate Edmund? He cares about him, but you? I don’t follow this. What does it have to do with your leaving Dartford? If he is in Germany or Austria, that’s the end of it. You can’t travel there.”

  “I can’t?” Geoffrey said.

  I began to laugh, but it died in my throat as I saw both men were serious.

  “You plan to wander a vast land of duchies and kingdoms and impenetrable forests, not knowing the language or a single person who lives there?” I asked.

  Cheke protested, “It’s not as mad a plan as that, Joanna.”

  I took a step toward Geoffrey. “Tell me the true reason you are doing this. We both know you never liked Edmund—not since the beginning, when he was still a friar at Dartford. You were the one who prevented our wedding. Now you’re going to abandon England, in order to search for him?”

  Geoffrey slumped onto a stool, running his hand through his hair. For the first time I saw his exhaustion; his cheeks were hollow, and I’d never seen him so thin. Something was causing him considerable anguish—perhaps his grief over Beatrice’s death prevented him from sleeping or eating. I regretted my harsh words, but before I could soften them, Geoffrey spoke.

  “My reasons are my own, Joanna,” he said in a flat, dull manner. “Your life is no domain for inquiry, and neither is mine.”

  “Then I believe our conversation is at an end,” I said.

  It was such a small room that a few short steps led me out of it. I could bear no more of this painful encounter. I’d almost reached the scholars’ study when footsteps thundered behind me. I braced myself for another bout with Geoffrey, but the man who caught up to me was John Cheke.

  “Joanna, I am so sorry,” he said, miserable. “That must have been terrible for you. I beg you to allow me to escort you to the banquet. We won’t speak of Edmund again if you don’t wish it.”

  I returned to the hall of the king and his court by a different way than I came. John Cheke steered me down the main corridor to a wide set of marble stairs. Halfway down, the sound of music and laughter wafted up, and I hesitated on the steps.

  “You don’t wish to return?” Cheke asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I must admit, I was surprised to see you in such company,” said Cheke. “But then I never foresaw myself in a bishop’s residence, begging for approval for the chair in Greek. We both tread quite different paths than we did last May, when we met.” He hesitated, and then said, “So does Geoffrey Scovill, I think.”

  I could not stop myself from asking, “Why did you commission Geoffrey, of all people, to locate Edmund?”

  “Joanna, you don’t understand. Geoffrey came to me.”

  “But why?”

  “To that point, I cannot speak. It’s up to Constable Scovill to explain himself, should he wish to. If you two ever speak to each other again.”

  For the last fortnight, I had been melancholy over Geoffrey leaving Dartford, but after spending just a few minutes together, we’d quarreled. The usual painful jumble of emotions seized me. When he questioned me so unrelentingly, so suspiciously, it made me furious. But a part of me wished I could lay down my defenses and tell Geoffrey all. I knew of no one shrewder.

  When Cheke opened the door leading from Winchester House to the courtyard, we stepped into a night as warm as July. It was well after midnight. He insisted on escorting me through the garden park, his arm protectively around me as we left the bustling torchlit courtyard for the dark and silent park. Looking up, I saw a sky hung bright with hundreds of stars.

  We’d almost reached the river when we heard voices. One man said, “It’s too soon.” Another man said, his voice familiar, “But it must be May Day, I tell you. That is what Lady Rochford specified.”

  I paused, signaling to Cheke. We were partly obscured by a large hedge. Several yards away was a statue of an angel. A trio of men huddled on the other side of it. My eyes straining in the night, I recognized first the tall, lanky form of my cousin the Earl of Surrey; then the slender figure of Master Thomas Culpepper; and finally, the outline of the oldest of the three, Lord Hungerford. It was he who had spoken of Lady Rochford.

  “We pledged ourselves to a covenant,” said Thomas Culpepper. “We must do what is required, no matter what.”

  In the unearthly warmth of this spring night, a chill raced up my arms and I shuddered. With a nod to John Cheke, we hurried forward.

  A covenant? Sir Walter Hungerford had used the same word in the small chapel. I strained to remember his exact words: The covenant is made. The guide secured and the others are chosen. Were Surrey and Culpepper the others?

  With the churning waters of the Thames coming into view, John Cheke said, “I hate to think of you in the company of men such as Sir Walter Hungerford, and so would Edmund, if he were here.”

  I stopped short on the pathway. “You know Sir Walter?”

  “I do,” said Cheke. “I hear many things at Winchester House, and I’ve been privy to stories of Sir Walter Hungerford long before I came to Southwark. I would tell them to you, but they are too sordid for a young lady’s ears.”

  “Master Cheke, I laid down my novice habit long ago,” I said. “I was forced to come to court, and for certain reasons am finding it impossible to leave. If I am to protect myself, I need to know as much as possible about the people who surround me. Please, tell me what you know of Sir Walter.”

  Even with nothing but moonlight to illuminate him, I read disgust on John Cheke’s face. “It concerns his wives,” he said.

  “He has more than one?”

  “Sir Walter’s present wife is his second. The first one was . . . executed.”

  Thinking of my cousin Margaret Bulmer and other blameless female victims of the king, I said, “You must not condemn her.”

  “I don’t,” Cheke said. “I condemn him. For his first wife was arrested, tried, and convicted for attempting to murder Sir Walter. And the whispers are that his depravities drove her to such a terrible act, the details of such I would never share with you no matter how much you pleaded.”

  My mouth dry, I said, “Christ deliver us.”

  Cheke said, “He didn’t deliver the first Lady Hungerford.”

  I was too horrified to chastise Cheke for his blasphemy. My mind again ran back to what I’d overheard. What sort of covenant had Hungerford made with Culpepper and my cousin Surrey? If Lady Rochford were involved, its purpose was most certainly a dark one.

  A single man, slumped with exhaustion, waited on the river landing for a boat inching toward shore. John Cheke insisted on accompanying me across the river and to my rooms. When I pointed out that Geoffrey Scovill had come to see him this same night, Cheke said firmly, “He will wait, since it is your safety that is of concern.”

  The riverboat reached the landing, and we three boarded. The bo
atmen were an odd pair: a thin man, stooped of shoulders, with snowy white hair, and a hale lad no older than fourteen.

  In no time our fellow passenger fell asleep, his chin bobbing with snores on his jeweled doublet. I was bone tired, no question of that, but my mind twisted and turned with uneasy thoughts.

  John Cheke said to the old man steering the boat up front, “It is very late to be on the river.”

  “Aye, ’tis late,” said the boatman. “But we must earn all we can now, for the time lying ahead.”

  “Isn’t summer the most prosperous time for the riverboats?” asked Cheke.

  The boatman chuckled. “Not this summer. It will be a time of want and pestilence. The lady of the river told me.”

  “Which lady?” Cheke asked.

  “Grandfather, don’t,” pleaded the young man pulling oars behind us. “’Tis nonsense. Forget it, sir.”

  The older man laughed again. “He’s too young to know about the lady. But she speaks to a-many of us grown men. We know how to listen to the river.”

  Cheke leaned forward. “If I tried, could I hear her?”

  The boatman turned around, painfully, and scrutinized John Cheke. Perhaps he thought he was being mocked. Satisfied at last, he said, “Of course ye could. The truth is plain enough. The air like a fever. The weeds withering. The smell of death when ye put yer head within an inch of water.”

  I shook my head, dismayed. Why was Cheke encouraging such unpleasantness?

  “Just one question to ask yerself,” the old boatman said, grinning at us both in the moonlight. “When did it last rain?”

  With that he turned and resumed his steering of the boat, humming a tuneless ditty.

  I said in a low voice, “His grandson is right—that was nonsense.”

  Cheke was silent for a moment, and then said, “I will tell you who would disagree that it’s nonsense, and that is Paracelsus. The man whom Edmund traveled to see in Austria.”