The Tapestry: A Novel

by Nancy Bilyeau

  I started out strong—Geoffrey could not have expected any more of me. An old man came to bring me meals, and I attempted to ask him questions. But my jailer knew only German, and I’d picked up perhaps fifty words and phrases of the language since leaving Brussels. Certainly not enough to ask if I could speak to someone in authority.

  A woman was kept in the room next to mine. I could not see her but I could hear her. She laughed, she wept, she sang—all in German. My attempts to communicate with her in French were met with silence, and then she shouted a string of angry-sounding German words. She was as frustrated with our inability to communicate as I was.

  I could only hope that Geoffrey was having more luck.

  After a cold night under the blanket, I saw snowflakes drift past the window come dawn. By midday, snow dusted the valley—to anyone else, it would seem a beautiful sight. But I was horrified. Would I be trapped in the castle all winter? Or even longer?

  Suddenly I could bear this no longer. I had nothing, I was forgotten, imprisoned, and lost to all I loved.

  “I am Joanna Stafford and I’ve done nothing wrong,” I screamed out the window. I waited for something to happen, for someone in the castle to crash into my room and exercise punishment, but no response came. It was as if I no longer existed in this world.

  Just before nightfall, as I crouched before the window, a large black bird soared past my window, banked, and dove to the ground to seize a small creature—a mouse, I saw, when the bird wheeled back up with its prey—and the creature was borne off, limp and dying, to some place to be devoured.

  34

  Another week or so went by before I realized the woman confined next to me had uttered no sounds—it occurred to me she’d either died or was freed. One afternoon I heard something else, something unusual: two men talking in the passageway. I stood on my tiptoes to get the best view out of the barred upper half of my door.

  What I saw made me grip those bars, my heart racing.

  My jailer was bringing a monk down the passageway. By the brown color of his habit—universal throughout Christendom—I knew him to be Benedictine.

  They stepped into the room next to mine, and I heard the murmur of male questions and the very faint sound of a woman responding. While it went on, I tried to plan what to do.

  As soon as I heard the door slam in the passageway and footsteps approach, I was ready.

  In Latin, I called out into the passageway, “Brother, I need to speak to you. I am a former novice of the Dominican Order. I am English. As a fellow member of a religious house, I entreat you for assistance.”

  The monk slowly came into view. He was of middle years, and thin, with large gray eyes bridged by a pair of thick eyebrows under his neatly trimmed tonsure. Those eyes slid sideways, fixing on my face in the door. Then his eyes slid back and he hurried to reach the far end of the passageway.

  Desperate, I called after him, still in Latin, one of the only rules of the Benedictine Order I could remember: “Not only is the boon of obedience to be shown by all to the abbot, but the brethren are also to obey one another, knowing that by this road of obedience they are going to God.”

  A door opened and clanged shut. I sat on the edge of my bed for hours, tears easing down my cheeks. He didn’t understand me; the gamble was lost.

  But the next morning, my door suddenly swung open. The monk took three measured steps inside my room and then stopped. A belt of frayed rope clinched his waist and he wore plain clogs on his feet.

  “How do you know the Benedictine Rule?” the monk asked in perfect Latin, studying me with gray eyes.

  So he had understood me. I clapped, and then forced my hands into a clasp of prayer.

  “As I told you, I was for a time a novice of a Dominican Order,” I responded.

  “And you are English?”

  “Yes,” I said, and then in a rush: “I am unjustly held here, myself and my friend, Geoffrey Scovill. We have committed no crime and I wanted to—”

  He held up his hands, palms out, as if pushing me back, although I was not by any means that close to him.

  “I know nothing of you or why you are here,” he said. “But I cannot intervene in a matter of law, my abbot was clear on that.”

  “You told the abbot that I spoke those words of Latin and asked for instruction?”

  “Of course. In obedience we find truth. He said it was my duty to learn more because of the nature of your appeal, but not to agree to any sort of intervention.”

  I was once exactly like this Benedictine monk. Eager to follow the rules, to obey the will of the head of the house. But what happens when the house is shattered and there is no leader any longer?

  I said, “So you visit the prisoners held in Heidelberg Castle?”

  “Only when we are sent for. My abbot was informed that the woman also kept here, charged with counterfeiting, had not much more time left to her. She has the lung rot. I was providing her with Christian comfort.”

  I said, “I am most happy to find the Palatine a Catholic land.”

  The monk gnawed on his lip. “The truth is that most of the people who live in the Palatine follow Luther, but Prince Elector Louis is faithful to the True Church. He asks our abbot to sup with him, often. He protects our monastery. We pray for a long life for the prince, because afterward . . . nothing is certain.”

  This was the opportunity I needed.

  “That is regrettable. But I am sure the prince elector has many years of life remaining.”

  The monk shifted from one foot to another. “He is advanced in years, and to be truthful, his health has not been good. We pray for him continually, all of us at the monastery. His young nephews, they follow Luther. When one of them inherits . . .”

  I hated what I was about to do to him, but this was the way out of Heidelberg Castle.

  “I know what that is like, to fear that sort of change,” I said. “In my priory, we feared it, and when it came, it was even more sorrowful than our worst imaginings. We were exiled from our house with small pensions, and our priory was torn down.”

  Fear rippled across his face. “The abbot says that our house, the Monastery of Saint Michael, is too revered to be in danger.”

  How often I heard the sisters say that same thing to one another at Dartford, in the months leading up to the end.

  “I’m sure there is no reason for alarm,” I said. “But still, it will be very important for your abbot—and for you—to have important and influential friends, should a change come.”

  “Yes, my abbot says that.”

  “Do you not think that Queen Mary, the regent of the Netherlands, and her older brother, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, would be the best friends to have?”

  The monk smiled. “Of course. But every Catholic in Christendom would beseech the Hapsburgs for help. They cannot reach down to us all.”

  I spread my hands, as if making an offering. “What do you think your abbot would say if I could introduce him by letter to the queen regent, if she were to be grateful to him? I was presented to her in Brussels, and she gave me a passage of safe conduct. My friend is her cousin, Princess Mary of England. Should they hear of my case, both of those women would want to help me. If the abbot were to write to the queen regent in Brussels . . .”

  The monk edged toward the door. “That sounds very much like intervention.”

  “Talk to the abbot,” I said. “He sounds like such a wise and far-seeing man. Seek his counsel.”

  “I will do that,” said the monk, knocking on the door, signaling for the jailor to come and let him out.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Brother Theodoric.”

  “My name is Joanna Stafford, and I was once called Sister Joanna. God was good to me when he sent you down this passageway, Brother Theodoric,” I said. And meant it.

  The
re is a difference between hope with nothing to support it but prayer and longing, and hope with specific cause. The latter is more powerful but also more torturous. I paced the room; I slept in patches; my heart jumped at every sound in the passageway. Each day crawled by, endless. Would my gambit lead to anything?

  I had rarely in my life felt such relief as when Brother Theodoric’s bushy eyebrows appeared on the other side of the door

  “The abbot will help you,” said Brother Theodoric. “He has written a letter to Queen Mary, Regent of the Netherlands, stating your case.”

  In this moment, I loved the abbot of Saint Michael’s.

  My elation dimmed when Brother Theodoric told me that a letter from the abbot might not reach Brussels until the spring, making it possible that we wouldn’t hear anything from the queen until summer. Geoffrey and I looked at six months spent in Heidelberg Castle. But there was no alternative but to wait.

  I pressed Brother Theodoric to take a message to Geoffrey. He refused. “No one but you shall know of the letter to Brussels, that is the abbot’s wish,” the monk said. “Once we have received word from the queen regent, your friend shall also be informed.” The way he said “your friend” hinted at disapproval, that a former Dominican novice should have formed any sort of association with a man. He did, when I pleaded, confirm that Geoffrey was still in Heidelberg Castle, held with a handful of male prisoners in another wing.

  The days grew shorter, and darker, and colder, as full winter came to the Palatine. The unnatural heat and drought was over; this seemed the usual pattern of the season. I spent my days in prayer and reading, for Brother Theodoric brought me some devotional books. I tried my best to stay hopeful.

  When signs of spring arrived, I found it harder to control my impatience. The snow melting, the calling of birds, those first flashes of green below. They were welcome, but they taunted me as well. Life was going on everywhere, but here, in this castle, time stood still for me and, somewhere else within these walls, for Geoffrey.

  One day was particularly difficult for me, because I learned that April had come and thus it was a full year since I traveled from Dartford to Whitehall and set so many things in motion.

  Shortly after, Brother Theodoric returned with news.

  “The abbot received a letter from the queen regent,” he said. “She confirms who you are, and your family’s standing in England, and your appointment as tapestry mistress to your king. She wrote that suspicions of spying could only be baseless.”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment, I was so convulsed with relief and with gratitude.

  I finally said, “Shall your abbot inform the prince elector?”

  “Yes, as soon as the prince elector returns from the Diet in the free Imperial City of Regensburg.”

  Brother Theodoric explained that the Emperor Charles had urged the princes of the German lands to come together with the leaders of the Catholic Church and representatives of other kingdoms to try, once more, to find a compromise, to heal the religious divisions that many feared would lead to war and bloodshed.

  “It does seem a worthy cause,” I sighed.

  Brother Theodoric did not leave but neither did he do anything else; he stood, clogged feet planted in the middle of my room, and gnawed on his lip.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “There is sickness in the castle,” he said. “Most of the men held prisoner have the disease.”

  The fear hit me as powerfully as a slap. “Geoffrey Scovill, the Englishman, is he sick?”

  He nodded.

  Jesus, in Your Mercy, I entreat you to preserve the life of Geoffrey. Let him not be stricken.

  “You must help him,” I said. “Go to him, Brother, as soon as you can.”

  The monk looked miserable. “I am not an apothecary or a healer of any sort, but I will try.” He paused. “I have learned something that may help you and your friend. Among the distinguished people invited to the Diet of Regensburg is an English churchman who traveled here to represent his king.”

  That was not what I expected.

  “My abbot says this churchman is most impressive, both in his own knowledge of theology and that of the secretary who assists him. His name is Bishop Stephen Gardiner. I don’t know the name of the secretary.”

  I lost the power of speech for a moment and then asked, choking, “He is here? Bishop Gardiner?”

  “Regensburg is two or three days’ journey, but yes, your bishop is close by. The abbot will send him a letter apprising him of the situation, and it could speed your release, and your friend’s, too.”

  No matter our differences, I knew Bishop Stephen Gardiner would help us, even impoverished and dangerously ill.

  I said, “I am sorry, but we need to leave this castle at once. I will take Geoffrey with me to Regensburg.”

  “How will you reach it?” he asked.

  “You will take us,” I said. “In a wagon or coach.”

  Brother Theodoric edged toward the door.

  I did not know what would persuade this monk to do something so reckless, I only knew that he was my way out of the castle. There was no other. If I waited for letters and princes and bishops to decide, Geoffrey could die.

  “Brother, I know full well what you do not,” I blurted. “My priory in England was destroyed. I pray that does not happen to you, but I must be truthful. It is possible, very possible. And when that time comes, one of the things you will discover is that we who serve God have only each other.”

  He stared at me, frightened.

  Too desperate to control myself, I seized his arm and shook it. “We need each other. Don’t you understand?”

  Brother Theodoric shook me off and hurried from my room, his clogs banging on the floor.

  I wept for hours, lost to despair. When, at sunset, the jailer opened the door and slid the tray of food inside, I turned away. I almost missed the note, sealed and placed between plate and mug.

  “Be ready to leave Heidelberg Castle before dawn,” said the note in perfect script.

  I did not know whose decision it was to help me escape from the castle, Brother Theodoric’s or his abbot’s. He did not explain. The monk helped me out of the castle, leading the way by candlelight. An open coach awaited us outside, with Geoffrey in the back, unconscious, under blankets. I jumped into the coach, next to him, and Brother Theodoric took the reins. It was a four-horse coach, so we would have greater speed.

  It wasn’t until the sun rose on the road to Regensburg that I grasped how ill Geoffrey was. His beard was long, but underneath I saw a face so gaunt I would not have recognized him. He did not open his eyes until several hours after we’d set out, the horses speeding east, for the road was dry and well maintained. Spring was well under way.

  “Joanna?” he whispered. And then: “I’m sorry I could not manage . . . a way out.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey, we’re out now.”

  “I knew you could do it,” he said, and swallowed. The swallowing pained him, and he shivered.

  I tried to tell Geoffrey that we were bound for Bishop Gardiner, but it seemed to agitate him, and so I spoke of only soothing things, and tried to make him comfortable.

  Late in the afternoon his breathing turned raspy, and red spots flared in his cheeks. “Your friend is worse,” said Brother Theodoric.

  “How much farther to Regensburg?” I pleaded.

  “If the weather holds, late tomorrow,” the monk told me.

  “Cannot we ride through the night?” I asked.

  “Even if it were safe to travel the road at night—and it is not—these horses must rest,” Brother Theodoric said firmly.

  We found a small village at sunset, with a shrine to the Virgin at the gateway, a lamp burning. This would be a place of safety. I spent a sleepless night tending to Geoffrey, trying to ease his pain and fever with the remedies
and herbs supplied by Saint Michael’s. I tried to convince myself that he was improving, while a growing dread clawed at me. Geoffrey could die, here, in a Bavarian village. We finally found our way to each other—and I had found a way out of our prison—yet now I would lose him.

  At dawn, Geoffrey croaked, “You should . . . have left me.”

  “Oh, that is ridiculous,” I said.

  To my amazement, Geoffrey smiled. “From the beginning,” he said, “you’ve been the same.”

  “I know,” I said. “You, too.” I caressed his feverish face. “But, Geoffrey, how could I abandon you? You’ve never abandoned me.”

  Brother Theodoric and I carried him to the coach, for he could no longer walk. Geoffrey fell into a restless sleep as our coach moved faster and faster. When Brother Theodoric grew too exhausted to control the horses, I took the reins. I didn’t want to stop to eat, and only rested and fed the horses because I knew it was necessary. Every moment we delayed was a moment in which Geoffrey worsened.

  Through my fear, I saw that a carpet of light green grass covered the ground; the trees were thick with leaves. And vivid flowers, yellow and white and pink, dotted the side of the road. Their scent was so strong, it burned my nostrils. We passed small villages that offered little shrines of prayer, and the countryside was sprinkled with white stone crosses and slender ones of wood, too. A wild and desperate hope took hold: Were these signs of God’s forgiveness? Would He bless our journey and spare Geoffrey’s life?

  Peering over the horses’ heads as we emerged from the woods, I gasped at the sight of a wide and tumultuous river, sparkling and blue, with red-roofed houses and gabled churches and gardens and markets crowded alongside it. It was a large city, larger than Heidelberg.

  “Is this Regensburg?” I cried.

  “Yes, on the other side of the Danube,” Brother Theodoric said, and pointed at a stone bridge of many arches spanning the river. “That’s the only way into the city.”

  The abbot had told Brother Theodoric where the dignitaries would be housed, and we made our way to that section of the city, through the thickening crowds. I had never seen so many finely appareled men walking on the streets of a city. Peering down a dark, narrow street that led to a courtyard, I glimpsed row after row of soldiers, in tight formation.