The Tapestry: A Novel

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Surrey stuffed shiny chunks of duck meat into his mouth.

  I said carefully, “Many take pleasure in Cromwell’s downfall and perhaps many conspired at it, but the principal effort was made by your friend, Sir Walter Hungerford, as well as the principal sacrifice.”

  Surrey’s hand dropped onto the table and the duck tumbled out, smearing his palm. “What do you mean?” he demanded, his voice belligerent.

  Despite his height and sportsman’s prowess, and his fame across the kingdom, I had never been intimidated by my cousin the earl, five years younger than myself. I leaned across the table and said, “I mean that some might say today’s execution was the work of a covenant, three men who pledged to destroy Thomas Cromwell and made their way to the man Orobas, just after midnight on May Day, to accomplish it.”

  I half expected Surrey to explode, to flip over the table and bellow threats. He had more than his share of the Plantagenet temper. But instead he slunk back in his chair and clasped his hands in his lap like a frightened child.

  “I must know who told you,” he finally said. “Culpepper? I could see he had a sweetness for you.”

  “No,” I said. “Thomas Culpepper did everything he could to drive me away. He told me nothing. I put it together myself, as others might be able to, Cousin. That is why you must tell me everything, and quickly. I want to help you. I am close to both of you—and I just prayed for Sir Walter Hungerford, as he said the name Agrippa over and over.”

  Surrey flinched as if I struck him.

  “You didn’t hear him say the name?” I asked.

  My cousin buried his head in his hands. “No—no—no,” he said.

  My tone softening, I reached over to pat his head, those waves of auburn hair. “Quiet,” I said. “You can’t make a scene here. Just tell me what happened with Orobas—please.”

  “I can’t,” Surrey said, his voice still muffled.

  “Oh, why can’t you?” I asked, longing to shake him.

  My cousin dropped his hands to scrutinize me and, after making some final calculation of my trustworthiness, said, “Because, Joanna, I wasn’t there.”

  “But the three of you formed a covenant, and you went to Orobas. Do you deny it?”

  Surrey drank deep from his goblet. “I was there—but only up to a point.” He set down his wine and then, at last, he told me what happened.

  “Yes, we swore that we would go to whatever lengths were necessary, even if the journey were to imperil our souls, to break the bond between the king and Cromwell. Hungerford knew of these men in the German lands who were familiar enough with the magical world—who had completed enough research of the ancient Greek texts, along with knowledge of the Jewish Cabbalah and Arabic practices—that they could summon certain powers strong enough to deliver us our result. Agrippa was the most knowledgeable of them all, but he died in 1534. Still, he wrote a series of books, three books that contained everything that he learned about the natural world, the celestial and the divine. The Antwerp publisher feared being burned for heresy, so he would only print twenty of the series and only for a great deal of money. Hungerford had the three—only God knows how he raised the gold to pay for it. But he was obsessed with finding them. It was known, here in London, how much he wanted those books.”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I gleaned that Sir Walter was obsessed with a dark world. But what about you? As long as I’ve known you, it’s been poetry and revels and sporting and swords. Those are your pastimes. Why did you follow him down this path—why did you put belief in this man Agrippa?”

  Surrey’s long face grew even longer. True fear quivered there—something I never thought I’d see.

  “I’ve seen the man Agrippa myself, Joanna,” he said, glancing at the door, though it was too thick for anyone to hear through. “I know better than anyone in England what he can do.”

  I swallowed. “But I thought Agrippa was dead.”

  Surrey ran his hand through his hair. “I was traveling through France and Italy, just before the marriage to Frances that our parents arranged. I’d heard Erasmus was in the court of John George, elector of Saxony, and I was desperate to make his acquaintance. So I persuaded the men my father appointed to my service to take me to Saxony in the German lands. There I met the great Erasmus, yes, but there was another scholar in attendance. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. I should have turned away from him, for he was an arrogant man and did not hide his proclivities, but . . . I didn’t.”

  “He is truly a scholar?” I asked, quite skeptical.

  “They all are—there’s a circle of learned Germans touched by magic. One, Paracelsus, is a physician trained at universities. The other, Faustus, a doctor of divinity.”

  I shuddered at the name of the man that Edmund went to see, the man whom Geoffrey would soon journey to see, in search of answers. Why did Edmund seek him out to begin with? He was no callow, restless youth seeking the excitement of forbidden knowledge.

  “What happened in Saxony, Cousin?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Even to speak of it is dangerous—but all you need know, Joanna, is that Agrippa made someone . . . appear.”

  Chills raced up and down my arms in that stifling hot tavern room.

  “Who?” I managed to ask.

  “No, I truly can say no more. Only Sir Walter knows everything I saw that night, and he’s dead. I was drunk and he got it out of me. So now it is only myself, and I shall keep it that way until I am in my grave.”

  “I cannot believe that you associated yourself with Sir Walter Hungerford, that you trusted such a man as him.”

  Surrey shook his head. “Don’t believe all the charges, Joanna. He harbored a priest he saved from the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion—that is true. And he was the kingdom’s worst husband. But the claims of forced buggery? That’s invented. It’s a trick Cromwell played with Anne and George Boleyn, saying that they committed incest. It causes such revulsion that no one hesitates to believe the lesser charges. Cromwell’s enemies played the trick back at him, to heap nefarious claims on Hungerford and then send him to the ax the same day. It lowered Cromwell.”

  And yet it was Thomas Cromwell who comforted Hungerford, when there was no possible other reason than humanity. How would I ever understand the king’s men?

  I pointed Surrey back to the conspiracy.

  “What happened on May Day?” I asked.

  With a deep sigh, Surrey continued. “The three books Agrippa wrote are about his ideas, his philosophies about natural magic, but they don’t contain his deepest secrets. They don’t tell you how to communicate with the other side, how to channel the forces that are beyond man’s reach. Agrippa was not a man who always lived in the shadows. He taught at universities, he mastered six languages, he served the Emperor Charles’s father as a soldier and, they say, as a master spy. Agrippa’s secrets of ceremony—how to do such things as I saw in Saxony—are in a fourth book that the same printer produced. Well, not a book, but a grimoire.”

  “What is that?” I asked, not even wanting to repeat the strange word.

  “A grimoire is a book of instruction,” Surrey said. “It names the spirits, it explains how to do the necessary incantations and conjurations, to create the ancient formulas. It is”—Surrey swallowed—“the key. Some say that Agrippa himself did not write it, that others gathered the darkest secrets of all and turned them over to a printer in his name. Sir Walter was not able to purchase it along with the series of three books. The grimoires have gone underground. None of his inquiries led to anything. But Sir Walter learned several months ago that there are two Agrippa grimoires in England. It was quite a shock. One was in the possession of a necromancer who knew how to use it. He made a connection to someone who led him to the necromancer and—”

  I held up my hand. “The connection is Lady Rochford and the necromancer is Orobas.”

  Surrey flinche
d. “How could you possibly know?”

  “We each have our secrets, Cousin. Leave it at that. So you went to see him in his chamber near the Guildhall? The one deep below the earth, fashioned in an ancient Roman tomb?”

  Wide-eyed, Surrey nodded.

  “But why bring Thomas Culpepper into it? Surely Hungerford and you were enough for the task.”

  Surrey looked away from me, reddening with some emotion it took me a moment to identify. Then I had it: my cousin felt ashamed. He muttered, “We needed something of the king’s, an article of clothing that had touched his body.”

  “And only a gentleman of the privy chamber could obtain it.” Now it was my turn to bury my face in my hands. “Poor Culpepper. You made callous use of him.”

  “He wanted to be part of our covenant,” said Surrey, defensive. “Thomas truly believes King Henry to be a good man, if only the influence of Cromwell could be removed.”

  I heard men calling out to one another in the tavern. Geoffrey must be growing impatient. I feared I was running out of time with Surrey—but I must learn all. Who knew when I would be able to coax so much from him again?

  “What happened on May Day?” I asked again.

  “We arrived at the appointed time; we paid Orobas. But he seemed different—a little fearful. Before he had been so sure of himself. Not now. The grimoire required much study, and diligent interpretation and translation. It isn’t written in English, of course. But he swore he had mastered it and said that the ceremony to be performed was dangerous to all who witnessed it. That there would be lingering . . . effects.”

  The word hung in the air.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “He was not specific. And while I was in the midst of conversation, I lost consciousness.”

  “You fainted?”

  “No, Culpepper hit me! He knocked me unconscious so that I would be spared the dangers of the ceremony’s effects. There was no need for three men, Orobas even said two were enough. Culpepper was determined to take the threat himself and spare me from it.”

  So that was why Surrey’s head showed a bruise before the tournament began.

  “Culpepper and Sir Walter Hungerford went forward,” Surrey continued. “They roused me afterward. I was angry with them, but what was done was done. I don’t know what occurred, whether there was a conjuring. Whether they wrote on the floor and made sacrifices. Nothing. All they would tell me was that a curse—a sort of hex—and been enacted. If it worked, the king would break with Cromwell finally and irrevocably.”

  My hand groped for the second goblet of wine. “I think I shall need this now,” I whispered.

  We each of us drank wine, but I felt no comfort from it, only a spreading fear. I fought back with reason.

  “The king is a volatile man—that he should spurn Thomas Cromwell, is it really explainable only through magic and necromancy?”

  “Come now, you know that the king relied on Cromwell for years, and commanded the arrest of anyone who Cromwell bid him to. And what more proof do you need that Hungerford lost his wits within hours of the ceremony?”

  “Sir Walter was never a stable man,” I argued. “And Thomas Culpepper? Do you see any sign of madness?”

  “Not madness, but . . .” His voice trailed away.

  “What? Please tell me.”

  “Culpepper has changed, Joanna.”

  I had to admit that Thomas Culpepper showed a coldness and a rudeness after May Day that I’d not seen before. Still, he had been distressed over my attack in London and told Geoffrey of the earlier attack. I remembered the lonely sight of him atop the gatehouse, watching me leave Whitehall. His altered temperament could be caused by the evils of the court—and the strain of Sir Walter Hungerford’s arrest—rather than the forces of magic.

  “Can you detail these changes?” I said.

  Surrey said, “Thomas Culpepper was once a man of chivalry, gracious to all and especially honorable to women. Now he is swaggering and lewd. I’ve spoken to him of it, and he laughs at me. He’s never done that before. Then, just a few weeks ago, he committed a crime that defies belief. I cannot even speak of it to you, no decent woman should hear the details.”

  Gripping the table with both hands, I said, “You must. He is my friend, he helped me in Whitehall. I can never thank him enough for it. No matter what the crime is, I can bear the hearing of it.”

  “Very well. One night Culpepper attacked a gamekeeper’s wife. He ordered some ruffians he now travels with to hold her down. Afterward, her husband sought him out for justice, and Culpepper killed him.”

  I was torn between repulsion and disbelief.

  “Don’t say it could not have happened, for it did, Joanna. Everybody knows about it. He didn’t even deny the crime. And the king forgave him. What does a gamekeeper’s life matter—or his wife’s virtue? The rape and murder didn’t occur in the vicinity of the court, so the steward brought no formal charges.”

  Tears smarting in my eyes, I said, “And this is the man who is married to Catherine. Why did you let that marriage go forward? Your father used Catherine to dislodge Cromwell. But once he was arrested, why keep pushing her?”

  “It was too late for anything else! King Henry is more besotted with Catherine than with any other woman he’s married or bedded. More than even Anne Boleyn. Catherine has given him back his youth, he proclaims.”

  I was not certain that their May Day covenant had anything to do with Cromwell’s arrest and death. But for Culpepper to commit such acts—what other explanation was possible? I took a deep breath, and then another. “Listen to me. We shall go, the two of us, to see Orobas. If it is difficult to find him, we will force Lady Rochford to help. There may be a way to reverse what has been done to Culpepper and we will find it.”

  Surrey smiled sadly. “You are quick, Joanna. It took me days to think of that. And it is possible that the grimoire does possess some sort of incantation, a ceremony to do just that, to reverse the effects and restore the Thomas Culpepper we once knew.”

  I stood up. “Then let’s go. We must accomplish this at once. I leave England in a few weeks.”

  “No, Joanna.”

  “No?” I turned on him in outrage. “After what Culpepper did for you, you won’t risk your safety to help him?”

  My cousin slammed his fist on the table. “Of course I would! I’d do anything. But we can’t go to Orobas, because there is no more Orobas, Joanna. He’s dead.”

  I sank back into the chair.

  “Dead? How?”

  “Suicide. He hanged himself ten days ago.”

  I made the sign of the cross. “May God have mercy on his soul.”

  “That is doubtful, for you know how God punishes suicides.” Surrey’s words were becoming slurred. I had lost track of how much wine he’d consumed.

  “Was it because of your ceremony?” I asked.

  “No one knows. He said nothing to anyone and left no letter.”

  I shuddered at the memory of Orobas, a man who trafficked in the blackest arts known to man. Now, for taking his life, he was doubly damned.

  “What about Agrippa’s grimoire?” I asked. “If we could find someone else to study it—”

  “Clever Joanna again. But that is not possible. Before he killed himself, Orobas burned it. He could have sold it for a fortune, but he burned it, along with all of his other books of magic and necromancy.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I found a woman named Hagar who associated with him; whether she was his common-law wife or his servant or his familiar, who could tell? But I paid her an enormous bribe and she showed me the evidence. I recognized the grimoire from its cover. Everything else was ashes.”

  “But you said there was a second grimoire in England.”

  “Yes, but the woman didn’t know who might have it. She truly di
dn’t. I could tell she would have happily betrayed anyone for more gold. All she could tell me was that Orobas once said the second grimoire was in the possession of a man of importance.”

  “Then you must find it.”

  “Yes, Joanna, that should be a simple matter. Perhaps at the next banquet I’ll stand up and ask, ‘Who among you keeps in secret a heretical text that contains incantations and spells?’ ”

  Tears of frustration stung my eyes.

  Surrey said, “So now you understand my suffering. And you will suffer with me, Joanna. There’s nothing we can do but see it all out. It’s like a play that we have only the first pages for. The lives of Culpepper, myself, King Henry, Catherine, you, and that constable who follows you everywhere, all of us—we must wait and see what happens when the play ends.”

  29

  When Geoffrey and I booked passage on a Flemish ship bound for Antwerp, we assumed that the rest of the people on board would be strangers. But a friend decided to join us: Master Hans Holbein.

  He did not form his decision immediately. When I emerged from Surrey’s room, I found the painter inebriated. He wailed in German, half song, half lament. The worried tavern keeper lent us his wagon and three workers to take Holbein to his home on London Bridge. By that time, it was dusk and a sobering Holbein begged us to share his quarters for the night. After some deliberation, Geoffrey agreed, for otherwise we would not reach Dartford until after sunset, a dangerous proposition.

  Sleep was impossible. A nightmare filled with blood and shrieking bedeviled me. I wrenched myself free of it to sit up in the bed, breathless, while I struggled to figure out where I was. After I grasped that I occupied a room in the home of Master Holbein, my heartbeat slowed.

  I had no idea of the hour, only that it was blackest night. Feeling unbearably restless, I crept to the door and opened it an inch. My room was at one end of the long, narrow parlor. At the other, a candle burned by the door leading to the stairs. Geoffrey sat next to it, his makeshift bed untouched. He was still and alert. The flickering of the candle picked up a shiny gray sliver in his hand. I realized he held a knife. Geoffrey was keeping watch, afraid for my life.