The Chalice

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Telling lies had become effortless.

  I went to comfort Sister Winifred, who I knew must also be devastated by Edmund’s action, but she was being dragged from her home by her eldest brother. He insisted that she must come to live with him and his family in Hertfordshire now that Edmund had damaged the family name with his bizarre behavior. She and I wept in each other’s arms as Marcus waited impatiently. He was her eldest brother and now exercised his right to order her life. I would have fought for her to stay in Dartford if I hadn’t already made up my mind what I must do. Now that I had resolved myself, Sister Winifred should have no further association with me, for her own sake.

  And so I left few people behind. There were the nuns of Holcroft. They’d approached me with words of comfort after the wedding that never was. I thanked them and pretended to consider their offer of living with them, just as I had pretended with Henry Stafford.

  Finally, there was Geoffrey. He came to my house twice to speak to me, but I refused to see him. Who knew how much of a role he’d played in Edmund’s breakdown? That was yet another uncertainty I’d carry with me forever. But I did not hate Geoffrey Scovill. That emotion was reserved for others.

  The boat moved swiftly up the Thames the third time I left Dartford for London. The first time had been in secret—just two years ago, but I was infinitely younger then and ignorant of the world. The second time was last year, when I departed in the bosom of a family, noble and rich and a touch arrogant, too. The family had been crushed. And so now I went a third time, alone again and in secret, too, but with no hope of mercy or kindness, much less redemption for what awaited me. All I brought was a little money, a single change of clothes, and Edmund’s letter.

  The Thames narrowed now that London was close. “I can’t take ye farther, mistress,” said my boatman, an old man with a face like an apple left in the sun and a rough courtesy to match. “They’re making us discharge fares east o’ London Bridge. It’s to do with the assembly at Whitehall.”

  “Assembly?”

  “The London muster, mistress. Every man o’ the city must do a march-past today. The king will review his troops. They all reported to the fields between Whitechapel and Mile End at six o’clock this morning. They say there are twenty thousand men in the muster. Can ye believe it?”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  Heartened by what he perceived as my interest, the boatman crowed, “The Emperor Charles will be cut to ribbons if he tries to send his cankered Papists onto English shores!” Another boatman heard him and cheered the sentiment. Peering down at me, he said, “We’ve never had such a muster in London. The king and Cromwell and all the high nobles, too, will be at Whitehall to survey the muster. The common folk can go watch if they wish. So ye’re bound for Whitehall? Ye fancy seeing the king of England, do you?”

  Gripping Edmund’s letter, I said, “I would very much like to see the king of England.”

  The boatman rowed me to the wharf nearest London Bridge and I counted a shilling into his palm, which was permanently curled from so many years on the pole.

  Nothing could be easier than reaching the king’s palace of Whitehall. People were going there in a thick stream—women and children and a few men too old to be mustered. On the main street heading west, a short stretch north of the Thames, women crowded their upper-story windows, holding baskets of flowers. This must be where the route would take the men after Whitehall.

  The shops and houses and churches cleared and I reached an enormous field. A rippling sea of men marched across it, toward a distant sprawl of tall stone buildings. I’d reached the end of the muster, the army of Londoners at the king’s command. I could not count this moving mass, but it did seem very possible that I gazed upon twenty thousand.

  One of the most striking things about the muster was its color. The men, incredibly, wore white from head to knee. Thousands of white caps shimmered in the sun. The order must have gone out to all of these thousands that on this day they should don white caps and shirts and doublets and hose and breeches. They’d bought the clothes, washed them, and mended. The Lord God knew that a fair number of these men had little money. Yet for their king they’d done it. Was it abject devotion to their king? Or terror of him? Or hatred of the invaders?

  The men progressed slowly across the field. There was a firing of arms taking place at the front. Smoke puffed above the crowd and then dissipated. It looked like they moved up in groups and demonstrated their weapons for His Majesty.

  Most of the spectators waited here, but a pack of bold young women wanted a better look now. They swerved to the side of it all, following a line of low and scraggly trees that stretched toward the palace. These women meant to see their king and his councilors.

  I ran to catch up with them.

  The men of London marched in tight companies of five across, each man bearing his pike or his bow or just a long knife. There were some horses in the midst of it, dragging carts piled with munitions.

  My forehead was damp with sweat by the time I’d gotten halfway across the field. But I didn’t care how hot I was, or how tired. Because now I could see the platform erected in front of the Whitehall gatehouse and the figures of the men who stood on it.

  In the center was King Henry. He was a head taller than everyone else; in the twelve years since I saw him last, I’d forgotten his exceptional height. He wore a deep blue brocade doublet, its sleeves slashed deep and trimmed with gold. It swung like a ship whenever he turned, for the king had become fat. As I drew yet closer, I could see the hair hanging below his feathered cap. It was reddish gold, the same color as my uncle’s, the Duke of Buckingham. We were bound by blood, as much as I hated to acknowledge it. The king’s grandmother and my grandmother were sisters.

  One woman pointed and shouted, “It’s the Lord Mayor!”

  A stout man stepped out of the front line of the muster and bowed to the king and his council. King Henry said something to him in his high-pitched voice and then gestured to the man who stood next to him but a little behind.

  Thomas Cromwell stepped forward. Once again, the king’s chief minister was dressed very plainly.

  “Lord Privy Seal, to you the city of London is and shall forever be much bound,” boomed the mayor. “We stand prepared to meet the forces of that foul serpent, the Bishop of Rome.”

  “Thank you, good Sir William,” said Cromwell. It unnerved me how ordinary that voice was. Neither high nor low, aristocratic nor common. It could be absolutely anyone’s—and it belonged to the man who had planned and presided over the destruction of the monasteries.

  I scanned the faces of the men who stood on the other side of the king. There was the Duke of Norfolk, the man the king picked to lead his army when war came. Today he looked upon the subjects who might very well live and die at his command.

  Next to Norfolk, as always, hovered Bishop Gardiner, the undoubted author of the Act of Six Articles. Gardiner glanced over at the king, then down at the Lord Mayor. His attention then shifted to where we, the female observers, stood.

  I could not turn around now, nor try to shield myself behind another woman. Any movement like that might catch the bishop’s eye. I stood still, and fixed my eyes on the platform floor. I did not look above the shoes of the High Lords of England. I counted to fifty and then slowly looked up again. Gardiner hadn’t recognized me in the crowd. I’d once been his favored spy. But now I was an anonymous face in a crowd of common women.

  Six horses pulled up the largest wagon yet, bearing two cannons. Men lowered them to the ground, and then tried to find the best direction to point them in for demonstration.

  King Henry pointed down as they did so, crying out, “Not that way, bring it this way!” He walked to the edge of the platform, but his movements were stiff and pained. He moved like an old man, far older than the Duke of Norfolk, who topped the king in age by almost twenty years.

  As a dozen scrambled to carry out the king’s wishes, I edged to the side of the group. Befor
e leaving Whitehall, I paused a last time to take in the sight of four men on the platform: King Henry, Cromwell, Gardiner, and Norfolk.

  I shall make it right, Edmund, I vowed. I shall bring the country back to grace and faithfulness and obedience to the Holy Father. I won’t fail you again.

  I followed the same path I used coming in, along the line of trees through the flat, marshy field. I could hear repeated cannon fire as I hurried to my destination in London. The sun had lowered in the sky—it was nigh on time for supper—when I reached the street I sought. These prosperous houses were numbered, and it did not take me long to find the one I sought. Three very large men stood guard.

  The moment I approached, they surged toward me.

  “Be off, girl!” said one of them. Another waved his weapon at me.

  “I need to speak to him,” I said, pointing at the house behind him.

  Suddenly there was a fourth man. I didn’t see where he came from. He was older than the others, with olive skin and careful eyes.

  “Lower your sticks,” he said to the guards in an accented voice. They did so at once.

  He took a step closer to me. “Forgive them for their discourtesy, but we’ve had a number of people shout threats and even throw objects.” He gestured down the street, in the direction of Whitehall. “The king would have it so. He staged quite a display today, purely for the sake of our master who did not attend. It wouldn’t have been safe for him.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said.

  The man looked me up and down: my travel-stained dress, the bag in my hand and, finally, my face, with a complexion to match his own and strands of black hair loosened around my hood.

  The man said, “Now, who should I say has come to call on Ambassador Eustace Chapuys?”

  “Tell him,” I said, “that it is the one who will come after.”

  PART FIVE

  41

  It is not so hard to pretend to be someone else. At least, it wasn’t for me.

  Two months after I agreed to put myself in the service of the Emperor Charles, I was given a task that possessed some difficulty. Not physical difficulty but requiring subtlety and deviousness. It was a task of manipulation, and Jacquard, the master of the art, felt I was ready, and I did, too. And so I found myself on a very hot July day standing on a London street, talking about marchpane.

  My new neighbor, a woman named Mistress Griswold, leaned over in Saint Paul’s Row to confide in me. “You must spare no expense on the rosewater when making it,” she said. “Too many people worry about the quality of the almonds. But it’s the rosewater that gives it that particular taste.”

  “Is that it?” I said. “I wish I could prepare a marchpane that delectable for my husband. It’s his favorite sweet. ”

  “I could have the recipe written out for you,” said Mistress Griswold hesitantly.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask so much of you. Particularly if it’s a secret.”

  “Don’t push,” Jacquard had instructed me. “Never be eager.”

  A horseman trotted down the middle of the narrow street, and we stood to the side. She looked back to her own house; she’d part from me in a moment and I didn’t have what I needed.

  “Of course, I could learn a great deal just from eating a slice of your marchpane,” I said. “Might I trouble you for a slice the next time you prepare it?”

  Mistress Griswold brightened. “I’m baking today. I will bring you one over this afternoon.”

  “No, no, that is too much,” I demurred.

  “Consider it my wedding present,” she said and patted me on the cheek. “I’d very much like to meet your husband. None of us on Saint Paul’s have seen him and you’ve lived among us for weeks.”

  “His business keeps him much occupied,” I said, and made a face of wistful regret.

  “Oh, I remember what it was like to be a young bride.” Mistress Griswold laughed kindly. I felt my first twinge of regret, then, for what I was doing.

  My neighbor turned away, toward her half-timbered house across the street from mine. Then I remembered. How stupid of me. “You must get her to specify the time,” he emphasized more than once.

  “Mistress Griswold, wait,” I cried to be heard above the din on the street. “When can I expect you? I will have some spiced beer ready.”

  “That would be most welcome,” she said. “When the clock strikes three?”

  “Excellent.” I hurried up the steps to my narrow house. The housemaid Nelly stood just inside. She’d been listening at the window.

  “Go and tell him the time,” I said.

  Nelly moved swiftly to the back door, which led to a garden and then the street. Although pretty and plump—in some ways she reminded me of Catherine Howard—she was not like most sixteen-year-old girls, who’d be afraid to run alone down the streets of London. The ward north of Saint Paul’s Cathedral was not the roughest in the city, but it was not the nicest either. Saint Paul’s Row was the sort of street a respectable young married couple with a modest income would be expected to live on. It had been carefully chosen.

  I did not leave my house for the next five hours, though it was very hot. This was the warmest July I could remember. If I lived in the country, or Dartford, or closer to the Thames in London, an occasional breeze might venture in a window. But here, in the center of the crowded, stench-ridden city, there was no relief. Still, I rarely left. The chances were remote that I’d be recognized in this ward. But we could not be cautious enough.

  At last the clock struck the appointed time. I was perched at my table, staring at the pitcher of spiced beer. Nelly had just put out mugs and plates. They were unchipped, the sort that a bride would possess.

  There was a timid rapping at the door. Nelly led in Mistress Griswold, clutching her plate of marchpane. She stared with great curiosity at every object in the room while attempting, without success, not to be too obvious.

  Nelly poured spiced beer when the door swung open again with a bang.

  “Hello, sweetheart!” called Jacquard from the front room.

  When he rounded the corner, he stopped for a second, startled at the sight of Mistress Griswold. Then he made his courtliest bow. The heat seemed not to have affected Jacquard. His clothes were fresh; his hair dry.

  “This is my husband,” I said, and made introductions.

  He turned his most charming smile on her, with predictable effect. Mistress Griswold, flustered, explained that she’d become acquainted with me and thus learned of Master Rolin’s fondness for marchpane.

  He sat down and ate a piece with delight. He could not compliment her enough.

  “It is the best I’ve ever tasted since coming to this country,” he vowed.

  “Yes, I understand you are from Brussels?” she asked, unable to curb her eagerness to learn about this foreigner.

  “I left the Low Countries when the truth of the gospels became known to me,” said Jacquard. “Now I must return, for my father is quite ill and needs me. But I bring with me an English wife.”

  He stood up, walked over and slipped both hands around my waist. He bent down—only a few inches, for he was not much taller than me—and kissed me on the lips. I fought it as hard as I could, that impulse to shrink away.

  “How sweet,” said Mistress Griswold, averting her eyes, excited but a trifle embarrassed, too. “Yes, you are certainly a most handsome couple.”

  “My Catherine is so beautiful,” he said, giving my shoulder a final squeeze.

  She fanned her face rapidly.

  “I hope that before you leave London, we’ll see you both at church,” she said. “Everyone has been so curious about you, Master Rolin.”

  “I would like that very much,” said Jacquard, his somber gleam filling the kitchen.

  After a few more moments of this, Mistress Griswold left.

  Jacquard sat down and drank a full mug of spiced beer. He wiped his mouth and said, “You did well. Now the biggest gossip of Saint Paul’s Row will
tell all of her friends about us. Should someone come asking questions after we’ve gone, she can describe Catherine and Jacquard Rolin. She will tell of a nice brown-haired woman from Derbyshire who married the man from Brussels.”

  As he said that, I tugged on a strand of the chestnut-colored hairpiece I wore at all times. It concealed my coal-black tresses, which were unusual.

  “I have news from Dartford,” he said. “Constable Geoffrey Scovill is married.”

  I flinched—and could see from the satisfied glint in Jacquard’s eye that he’d meant to do that to me, to jab at a vulnerable spot. I’d pushed Geoffrey away so many times; now he was starting his life with someone who truly loved him in a way that he deserved to be loved. I should feel nothing but joy at this news.

  “It was a wedding much talked about, for the bride had a swollen belly,” Jacquard said.

  So Beatrice was pregnant. When did they know it? She didn’t attend the Gwinn wedding because she didn’t feel well, Geoffrey said. Was it possible that she was with child even then—and yet he declared himself to me as we danced?

  I forced myself to shove such thoughts from my mind.

  “I know I’ve asked you this before, but still I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would anyone come here, to Saint Paul’s Row, asking questions after we’ve set sail? No one suspects you of anything—Cromwell thinks you’re one of his own.”

  Jacquard looked at me for a moment. Instead of answering, he called over his shoulder, “Nelly, I require supper.” She quickly put together a platter of meats and cheeses. We could say anything we wanted in front of her. Nelly’s mother was the English mistress of Pedro Hantaras, the man I met outside Chapuys’s house and had seen dozens of times since. Señor Hantaras was Chapuys’s most trusted aide; his mistress worked tirelessly for the Spanish cause, and now her daughter did as well.

  I knew that Jacquard would answer me eventually. He did not usually sleep in this house; I saw him erratically. But in this guise as a married couple, a guise that often caused me unease, we were thrown together enough that I now recognized his mannerisms.