The Tapestry: A Novel

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “Joanna!”

  I swiveled to look back, for this shout could only be for me. To my astonishment, Geoffrey Scovill ran toward me, waving his arms as if in warning.

  “Come back—come back now,” Geoffrey shouted. “Turn your horse around. That’s not your servant!”

  What was Geoffrey talking about? I glanced back up the lane. Richard had stopped but, strangely, he did not turn to face me or speak. How unlike my eager servant.

  Could it have happened again?

  It hit me with force strong enough to leave me breathless. He wore the exact same doublet as Richard, the Howard gold, but the man now several yards away was not my manservant. He sat taller on the horse. After we stopped to watch the players, he’d been replaced.

  I yanked on the reins with all my strength, to turn the horse around. But not all horses were easy to turn around in a narrow space, and she was one of them. She stiffened and then balked. I kicked her sides, frantically. “Turn, turn, turn,” I begged.

  A figure streaked by—it was not the man impersonating Richard but someone who had sprung from a doorway, a small figure, more like a boy than full-grown man. I felt the force of his hand slamming into the haunches of my horse and then he kept running, up the lane.

  My mare screamed a fearsome whinny and then wheeled around, but too fast for me to control. I grabbed the saddle to keep from falling. Geoffrey had reached my part of the lane on foot, but he was forced back, flattened against the wall, as my horse began bucking. I surged up and down. I’d never been atop a horse bucking this violently.

  “Geoffrey—help!” I shouted.

  My horse twisted and bucked again. I was trying to keep hold of the saddle but I couldn’t hang on. I was flying—flying off the horse. But I was flying slowly. I saw everything in those last few seconds. Geoffrey reached up as if to catch me, and there was bright red blood on his hands.

  He was not quite close enough to catch me. The brick wall came to meet me and the last thought I had before slamming into it was how filthy this lane really was.

  22

  The man who bent over me, frowning, wore a black cap that fit his head as tightly as a second scalp. I wanted very much to speak to him, but a heavy object pressed on my own head, crushing it. I couldn’t make my eyes focus, and a deep ache pulsed through one of my arms.

  “Her eyes are open,” said the man to someone else, though I couldn’t see whom.

  “I can’t be late,” I said. Or I thought I said it. I didn’t hear my own words.

  The black-capped man by my side said, “Late to what?”

  Relieved I’d been understood, I said, “The Great Wardrobe. I must ride there today.” I swallowed and then said, my voice croaking, “His Majesty willed it.”

  He stood up and walked over to the second man, who I now could get a glimpse of. He seemed older. He wore a cap, too, but also long sweeping robes. There was insignia woven into the robes but I couldn’t tell whose, because my eyes weren’t working properly. I blinked and blinked but everything in the room was fuzzy. I did grasp that I was in bed in my room in Whitehall wearing only a shift and suddenly I felt humiliated by the presence of two strange men. What were they doing here while I lay abed?

  The older man approached.

  “Mistress Stafford, I am Doctor William Butts, physician to the king,” he said in a soft but deliberate voice. “The man you just spoke to is Samuel Clocksworth, the principal barber-surgeon of the court. You set out to the Great Wardrobe this morning. It is now the afternoon.” He paused and then continued, “There was an incident in London. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “No, I am sorry. That’s not correct.” I tried to take control of this state of affairs. “Please fetch my man Richard, he must be just out in the passageway. We must prepare to ride.”

  The two of them exchanged a significant look and withdrew a little, as if to enter a private discussion. They made no effort to fetch Richard.

  Everything about this was wrong, and I had had quite enough of the confusion. I pushed myself up—and plunged into a pit of fiery, stabbing pain. Crying out, my head and my left arm and shoulder in agony, I fell back, fighting waves of dizziness and nausea. There was nothing pressing on my head, I knew now: just bandages.

  Master Clocksworth rushed to my side. “You must not move,” he said sternly. “Do not do that again.”

  “My arm,” I said, half groaning and half weeping. “What happened to me? How will I weave tapestries?”

  As he struggled to calm me, the door burst open and Catherine Howard appeared, shouting, “She is awake, she is awake. Why did no one tell me?”

  The barber-surgeon put out his hand as if to push her back, but Catherine ducked past him and threw herself onto the floor, so that her face was inches from mine. Through my pain, I was glad to see her, though she looked quite unlike herself, with a red nose and tear-ravaged cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” I managed to force out through the nausea.

  At that, Catherine broke down, weeping and laughing at the same time. “What’s wrong? My dearest friend in the world nearly died—that is all. They told me that you were lucky to be alive, that you might never awake from such a blow to the head. It’s been an hour since you came back to court. Yet here you are, speaking to me. I shall give prayers of gratitude to the Virgin morning and night.”

  From a distance, I heard Doctor Butts trying to silence Catherine, to halt her near-babble. But it didn’t matter, because in that instant it all rushed past me, like the pages of a book ruffled quickly. The ride with Richard to London, the players on the street, the near-abduction in the lane, and, last, my being thrown off the horse. I must have lost consciousness when I hit the wall. But what actually happened in that lane?

  “Geoffrey,” I said, “I need Geoffrey.”

  “We must help her to be calm,” said Doctor Butts. “She seems to be remembering now, but if she is lost to wild passions and to sorrows, it could be very damaging.”

  “Geoffrey was hurt,” I said, “There was blood.”

  “Hush,” said Catherine, stroking my arm. “Hush.”

  Master Hans Holbein was the next one to push his way into the room. After a few words to the king’s doctor, he took a stool to sit beside me. He tried to put Catherine onto a stool as well but she insisted on kneeling on the floor.

  “Be assured that Constable Geoffrey Scovill was not hurt,” Holbein said.

  “But then where is he?”

  “Constable Scovill brought you here, Mistress Joanna. It seems he witnessed your injury?”

  I said nothing and Holbein continued. “He dressed your head wound and he persuaded some men to put you in their wagon and bring you back to Whitehall. Catherine was in my studio—we heard the shouting when the guards would not let him past the gatehouse with you.”

  Catherine said, “I was curious and I looked out the window. I heard someone shouting your name—‘Joanna Stafford, this is Joanna Stafford’—and I realized it was you lying there senseless in the back of a wagon . . .” And with that, fresh sobs shook her small frame.

  Holbein said, “With some effort I was able to get him admitted to the verge of the court. Catherine raised the alarm in the king’s household, and these illustrious men of medicine took charge of you.”

  I tried to take it all in through the dizziness and pain and nausea. Frustration welled up inside me. “But I saw blood on Geoffrey,” I repeated.

  “It wasn’t his blood, Mistress Joanna,” Holbein said.

  A horrible truth began its descent, like a falcon coming to ground.

  “Where is Richard?” I asked.

  “That’s enough talking for now,” said Doctor Butts.

  “No,” I cried. “No. Richard is terribly hurt, isn’t he?”

  Catherine said, her voice trembling, “You are a woman of God, you must cleav
e to your faith and be strong, Joanna.”

  “He’s dead?” I choked. “Richard’s dead?”

  Catherine bowed her head.

  The horror of this, that Richard, only twenty years old and my servant for a fortnight, had been murdered, overwhelmed me. The faces of all of the people who crowded around began to run together. A faint roar vibrated in my ears. I was losing consciousness—but I did not want that. I sucked in deep breaths.

  “Tell me,” I croaked.

  “He was killed by the same terrible men who tried to rob you,” said Holbein. “Constable Scovill was in London and saw the two of you on your horses near the actors’ stage. Then Richard dismounted in a way that I gather was suspicious. The constable came forward, found Richard gravely injured, and then rushed to help you.”

  This did not sound the way I remembered it, but there were blank patches in my memory. And now, even though I lay flat on a bed, the room rocked as if I were aboard a ship. I sucked in more deep breaths. Once I was confident that I would not slip into senselessness again, I said, “No one robbed me.”

  “But that is what they were trying to do,” said Catherine.

  “No,” I said. “That wasn’t it.”

  Master Holbein said, “The high sheriff of London has been notified as well as the lord mayor. We understand that every underconstable of the city is searching for the men who tried to rob you.”

  “No, I—I need to speak to Geoffrey. I need to speak to Geoffrey now.”

  A man’s voice said, “Who is Geoffrey?”

  Thomas Culpepper stood in the doorway.

  He moved toward me, past the physician and the barber surgeon. His face was as tired and strained as when he spoke to me last in the tournament tent, but his brown eyes asked a fierce question.

  Catherine touched my arm, protectively. When I winced because that was my injured arm, she didn’t notice, because she was glaring at Culpepper.

  I said, “He is my friend. From Dartford. But he is in London now.” My head swam. “As it was before, Geoffrey is in London. He first saved me in London. At the burning. I met him at Smithfield. He wouldn’t let me run to the flames.” I closed my eyes; why was I telling them this? I took a breath and forced myself to focus. “I don’t know why he isn’t here.”

  Holbein said, “As soon as you were in the hands of the physicians, Constable Scovill said he must go back to where you were injured, to secure some answers.”

  “This Geoffrey is a constable?” Culpepper asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Culpepper began to back out of the room. “I shall find him for you, Mistress Stafford, and tell him you are awake and have asked for him.”

  Catherine said, “Surely a messenger could be sent? Why must you go?”

  Without acknowledging she had spoken, Culpepper was gone. Catherine’s lips tightened and an angry flush stained her cheeks.

  “Richard,” I moaned. “What of his family? They must be told.”

  Catherine said, “My uncle the Duke of Norfolk is seeing to it, and to all the arrangements.”

  “No,” I said. “I must do that.”

  “The duke hired him and paid his wages, Joanna. Richard’s stepfather was an East Anglian man—you know how much that means to my uncle. Come, you may not like him, but, Joanna, this is what he does. The duke always takes care of his men.”

  “As I did not.”

  At that, Master Holbein and Catherine Howard rushed to assure me that it was not my fault. How could I be responsible for the actions of criminals? Or have been able to predict that thieves would prey on us? I did not say anything while they comforted me. Nor did I make a sound as the barber-surgeon examined me while Doctor Butts observed. He raised and lowered my left arm and then probed every inch of bone with his long fingers. After more consultation with the king’s physician, he placed my arm in a tight sling, the bandages soaked in foul-smelling comfrey paste.

  As skilled as he was, everything he did caused searing pain, but I welcomed that, for it helped drive away my disorientation. I must gather all of my wits now. What happened today was no robbers’ assault but a second attempt at my abduction and, considering what happened to poor Richard, my eventual murder. It was an even more terrifying attack than the first, for someone had gone to the trouble of securing a Howard doublet and then followed me, waiting for an opportunity, such as the play actors setting up a stage on the street, to spring their trap. How did my enemies know I would ride through London? The king just gave the order yesterday. If only this sickening dizziness would cease and I could think.

  Everyone in the room perceived my distress, though they did not know the entire cause. To soothe me, Catherine read aloud from a book of psalms. She was far from an accomplished reader, but the sound of her determined young voice—and the warmth of her presence—did keep me from breaking into outright panic. Once I appeared calm, Doctor Butts and Master Clocksworth took their leave, but not before the barber-surgeon asked a question.

  “What could slow your recovery is that you are alarmingly thin, Mistress Stafford, and I must inquire whether you’ve been abstaining from food?”

  “No,” I said.

  “She ate next to nothing when she stayed with me and I fear that turned into nothing after we . . . we parted,” said Catherine. “And then there is her propensity for fasting. But that will all change, do not fear. She will eat the finest meats roasted in the kitchens of Whitehall. I will take care of her.”

  Master Holbein, who had been so sad and quiet, said, “And I, too—I will bring her sweet cake, which I know she does enjoy.”

  The barber-surgeon insisted they wait some time before feeding me meat and cake. After my dizziness and nausea passed entirely, I was to have a bowl of plain gruel and some sweet wine. And with that, the two medical men finally left, to give report to the king.

  “His Majesty is most distressed,” Catherine informed us. “He’s commanded the mayor of London to attend him tomorrow morning to discuss the question of safety in the city. In the last few years, it has become so dangerous that people are robbed and killed when they ride through the city in daylight!”

  Even with everything that had happened, it saddened me to hear Catherine speak with such knowledge of the king’s temperament, knowledge that came from her being his mistress. But that was nothing compared to the impact of what came next.

  “As soon as you have recovered enough to cross the river, we will take you to Howard House,” Catherine said.

  “No,” I said, my voice louder than at any other point.

  “But you can’t be alone in the palace now, without even a single maid and unable to move, and we have everything there to take care of you, Joanna,” she said. “My uncle and grandmother employ a personal physician. Lots and lots of servants. As soon as you are able, you can oversee the tapestries perfectly well from Howard House.”

  Hans Holbein said, “This makes good sense.”

  “I am sorry, but I refuse to consider it,” I said.

  At that tense moment, the door opened and, finally, I looked at the face of Geoffrey Scovill. It was a weary face, reddened by the sun; his dark blond hair, dampened with sweat, clung to his forehead. His clothes were dirtier than any commonly seen in the rooms of Whitehall—but a glance at his hands revealed that he’d washed Richard’s blood away. I shivered.

  “How are you, Joanna?” Geoffrey asked, as if no one else were present.

  You saved my life again, I wanted to cry. Everything in this room was pain and fear and confusion until you walked into it.

  “I am well,” I whispered.

  Catherine exclaimed, “She is not well, she is weak and in pain, with an injured head and a broken arm.” She stood up from the stool, smoothing her skirts. The diamond pendant at her throat sparkled. “Constable Scovill, we were just discussing where she should be moved to. I see that you
are Mistress Stafford’s friend, and I would very much appreciate it if you helped me persuade her to join the household of the Duke of Norfolk during her recovery.”

  I didn’t care for the imperious tone that had crept into her voice, as if she were addressing someone of inferior rank. Which he unquestionably was, but still—after everything Geoffrey Scovill had been through, it seemed most unfair.

  Geoffrey gave Catherine a long, somber look and then said, “I am afraid that plan won’t do. It’s imperative that Mistress Stafford return to her home in Dartford as soon as possible.”

  Both Catherine and Holbein offered with vigor all of the reasons why I should not leave the orbit of the court. The best medical men in the kingdom were here, at the king’s command. As soon as I was able to pick up my tapestry work again, I could do so at Howard House. Dartford was simply too far away from London. Were there physicians, barber-surgeons, and apothecaries to attend me? No, it was a small town, inadequate to my needs.

  Geoffrey did not give way—he simply kept insisting that I must go. No one even looked at me and realized what was happening, until Geoffrey saw me weeping.

  “We should stop this,” he said. “Joanna is upset.”

  Catherine flew to my side once more, dabbing the tears from my cheeks. “It will be all right, hush,” she said. But I couldn’t stop weeping; the sobs were so strong, I couldn’t even speak at first. I had to fight for calm, to say what must be said.

  “I want to go home,” I choked. My simple house, my old friends, the honest daily customs of the town, I longed for it all.

  “Of course you are homesick, Mistress Joanna,” said Holbein. “But we must wait—”

  “No—I beg you, no,” I said, my voice rising. “Take me home, Geoffrey. I want to go. Please take me home.”

  He said quietly, “I will do it.”

  And so, reluctantly, Catherine Howard gave way to my determination to leave Westminster. As soon as I was strong enough, I’d be conveyed to Dartford for my convalescence. Until that time, Geoffrey said, I must be guarded every moment, by either himself or John Cheke. Master Holbein immediately offered to serve as a third guardian.