The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  This very morning, after High Mass, I’d made confession with the others. Doing so filled me with anguish. The day after my return I’d confessed to all sins committed at Smithfield and in the Tower except for agreeing to Gardiner’s charge, which I still hadn’t voiced. Although I knew I’d be damned for this omission, I couldn’t disclose my search. I had sworn to speak of it to no one, and that included poor old Brother Philip, our friar chaplain and confessor, on the other side of the confessional. Only the fear for my father’s life could have driven me to commit this sin. I could not hope to experience grace at Dartford without the cleansing act of true confession.

  Carrying the basket, my throat tight with grief, I shoved open the pantry door. It led to the vegetable garden and orchards and, beyond that, the barn and friars’ brewery.

  The children’s mother, Lettice Westerly, the priory’s head laundress, was a good-tempered and tireless woman who had, one month before my return to Dartford, collapsed with a pain in her head. She grew steadily worse and now lay in the infirmary, near senseless. Before her ailment struck, the children had been favorites at the priory, permitted visits by the sisters. Now they were here every day. No one had the heart to discourage it.

  “Children?” I called out.

  “Sister Joanna—here we are!”

  The Westerlys’ small forms materialized before me. It was as if they were sprites grown from the very shrubbery.

  I held up the basket of food. The first to reach me was Harold, a sturdy, compact boy. Then came the littlest one, the scamp, Martha, no more than four, clutching her doll. Last to join us was nine-year-old Ethel, darkened by a surliness I couldn’t fault. She was old enough to grasp the likely fate of her family.

  As their eager fingers seized the food, I took stock of them: dirtier than usual and more disheveled. Martha’s matted hair even sported a broken twig.

  “Ethel, when was the last time you were home?” I asked. I suspected they were sleeping in one of the outlying priory buildings, to be close to their mother. They couldn’t be sleeping outside—it was too cold, and I remembered that last night it had rained. They didn’t look wet.

  Ethel shrugged as she crammed the largest crust into her mouth.

  “It’s not safe or proper,” I reminded her. “You must stay in the village, with your father.”

  Harold piped up: “He’s never home, Sister.”

  I glanced at Ethel for confirmation. “He’s gone to London again,” she muttered. “He says there’s not enough work in Dartford for a rag-and-bone man.”

  I sat on a stump, pulled Martha onto my lap, and tried to tug the twig from her hair. She did not flinch from the pain, even though I could feel the roots of her hair arching from her scalp. She held her smiling rag doll with one hand and with the other stroked the rough cloth of my habit. When I’d finally extricated the twig, she turned and looked up at me. “Will ye be our mother when she’s gone?” she asked in her sweet singsong.

  “Yes, yes!” Harold clapped his hands. “We wanted to ask ye. Ye are our favorite. Marry our father. Please.”

  I patted Martha’s little shoulder. “No, children,” I said as gently as I could. “You know I will help you, but I can’t do that. I’m a novice here at Dartford.”

  “I told ye she wouldn’t do it,” said Ethel. But her lower lip trembled, and I realized that she, too, might have hoped for this.

  “I’m sure your father is a fine man, but I will never be anyone’s wife or mother,” I told her.

  Ethel squinted at me. “Is there going to be a priory much longer?” she demanded.

  Even the children of our servants doubted the future of Dartford. That left me shaken. At times, while I was performing my daily duties, or raising my voice in song or prayer, the threat to the monasteries receded from my thoughts. Of all people, I should know how very real it was. But when following in the faithful footsteps of the novices and nuns who had gone before me, lived and died by the Rules of Saint Benedict for centuries, it felt impossible that this way of life could end. Now, sitting with the children on the grounds of Dartford, panic clawed inside me. The ground itself seemed to rise and tilt—unsafe for me, for all of us. Cromwell’s soulless army advanced each day.

  I murmured to the children, “Eat your food, I must return the basket.” After they’d finished, I hugged each of them to soften the blow of my rejection. Ethel was like a scratchy twig in my arms.

  Inside, all was quiet. Everyone was occupied. Much of the work of the priory, from gardening to baking and brewing to studying Latin, took place between noon and five. There was more cleaning expected than ever before. Prioress Elizabeth had run an orderly priory, but her successor immediately laid down additional requirements for scrubbing and sweeping. I doubt there was a more spotless convent in England. The sisters who worked as teachers were not excluded from manual labor, either. Girls from good local families attended afternoon lessons on the upper floors of the front rooms. Only eight students appeared these days, when once it had been three times that, but teaching was still a priority.

  My afternoon responsibility was tapestry work. I hurried down the south passageway to the tapestry room, near the Dartford library. The library door stood slightly ajar. It was a room carefully supervised because of some of the manuscripts’ fragility. This was the home of the priory’s cherished private book collection, to be used for study in a connecting room. This library was a source of great joy to me from the moment of my profession. Few Englishwomen could read, apart from the ladies of the court. And even for them, reading was an accomplishment mastered so that the men of the family would be duly impressed and honored. In the convents, reading and study was a way to honor Christ, yes, but it was also a path to greater understanding of the spiritual world, to the improvement of our minds, which were not neglected here but respected.

  It was a wondrous privilege for me to study the books of the Dartford library, but rarely was it unlocked and unattended. I had never seen the library door hang open midday.

  I peered inside and saw no one, although candles burned on a table in the middle of the room, far from any books for chance of fire. Someone must have lit the tapers and then stepped out. Taking a deep breath, I slipped inside.

  Since the evening of my return, I’d learned absolutely nothing of the crown, not a scrap of information that could be of interest to Bishop Gardiner. Whenever I was not under direct scrutiny by the other sisters—which was seldom—I searched the priory for clues. I found an opportunity to examine the precious objects gathered in a large ornate chest behind the altar, but there was nothing resembling a crown among them. I had looked in every room for something significant, except for the prioress’s own chamber. Nothing. In less than a week I’d reach the date the bishop set—All Saints’ Day—and the only finding I had to report was that Prioress Elizabeth’s letter to her successor had gone missing. To an outsider it might appear the letter was stolen, but only a nun could have entered the private room of the dying prioress, and the thought of a sister of Dartford committing such an act . . . I recoiled from it. And yet how could such a letter be misplaced?

  It was highly unlikely I’d find it wedged among the manuscripts. But perhaps I’d learn more of Dartford’s origin and background, anything that could help explain why a king would hide a mysterious object here—and where to find it now.

  I scanned the covers of the books. Most were devotional, of course, such as The Mirror of Our Lady and The Book of Vice and Virtues. We owned three illuminated manuscripts, exquisitely rendered by monks and of great value. But the cornerstones of the collection were the books written by spiritual women of the Dominican Order: Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Margaret of Hungary, and more.

  There was nothing to be found about the origins of Dartford Priory.

  The last place to look was a small section on general topics. Impatiently, I examined them. One was on legal contracts, another on the reigns of the early Plantagenets. And then I saw it. A slender book, dark brow
n, with the title: From Caractacus to Athelstan. I blinked several times; I couldn’t believe I was looking at the word.

  I pulled the volume out and opened it, my hands quivering. A quick skim revealed it to be a history of early England, beginning at the time of the Romans and Emperor Claudius’s conquest of our isle. Caractacus was a Celtic ruler who defied Rome. Chapters followed of life under Roman occupation, the decline of the Caesars and their withdrawal from England, the Saxon invasions, the conflicts with the Danes. The book seemed straightforward, even ordinary. I leafed through to the last chapter, titled “Athelstan the One King.”

  After the death of Ethelward, his half brother, Athelstan, succeeded in 925, although born of a concubine. Many kingdoms opposed Athelstan. The Danes were not idle. They sent boats to take York once more, and plotted to drive south. They raided many villages and committed grievous atrocities, as was their wont. The Scots planned their invasions as well.

  In the first year the Saxon nobles were discontent with their new king. Athelstan’s younger brother Edwin was said to plot against him with the nobles and was condemned. Edwin protested his innocence and took a sacred oath before priests. But Athelstan set Edwin to sea in a boat with no sail and neither food nor water. The boat was never seen again.

  I shivered a little, thinking of that young man on the boat, cast out. Frightened. Starving. How pitiless King Athelstan was. Then I resumed my reading.

  Athelstan later made penance for his brother’s death. He was a monarch who showed a ruthless spirit to his enemies but was pious and virtuous above all others. He heard Mass three times each day. He founded many monasteries and was known throughout Christendom as a collector of holy relics.

  “You are a lover of books?”

  I gave a cry and dropped what I was reading. It hit the floor with a loud clap.

  Brother Richard stood inches away from me. I had been so absorbed I hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Did I startle you?” he asked

  “Yes, Brother.” To my horror, my voice broke.

  “I’m pleased to see the works amassed in nearly two centuries; this is a fine little collection at Dartford,” he said in his patronizing way.

  “Yes, Brother.” My voice had calmed. I bent down to pick up the book.

  “May I see what you were reading?” he asked.

  I held it out to him.

  “Ah, this is not a time that much is known about,” he said, leafing a few pages. “Rome . . . the Celts . . . the Saxons . . . Alfred the Great.” He paused. “And his grandson, King Athelstan.”

  He closed the book but did not give it back to me. “You have curious interests, Sister Joanna.”

  I bowed my head slightly, turned, and left the library, my heart pounding. I could feel his eyes burning into my back.

  Tapestry work was well under way when I hurried in to join my fellow novices. Sister Christina and Sister Winifred paused in their weaving as I rushed over to my place on the bench before the large wooden loom. Ours was the only such loom at a priory in all of England; most tapestries were woven in Brussels. At the turn of the century, a farsighted Dartford prioress had arranged for the loom to be brought here, and a special room made to accommodate it: large windows allowed more light into this room than reached any other. It took a year for three weavers, sitting side by side, to make one tapestry that reached five feet in length.

  I sat between the other novices. They looked nothing alike. Sister Christina was tall, with piercing eyes and high cheekbones. Her piety was profound. Beneath her formidable exterior, though, was a perceptive spirit. She noticed things others missed. As for Sister Winifred, she was much smaller than either Sister Christina or myself. With her large liquid eyes and heart-shaped face, she seemed childlike, and the older nuns tended to coddle her. But I had seen her push herself to accomplish difficult tasks. Her determination could never be discounted.

  This afternoon, my arrival drew only a cold stare from Sister Christina, who had given no sign of ever forgiving me for my crimes against Dartford, but Sister Winifred flashed me a smile. Perhaps, for that friendship, there was hope.

  I braced myself for reproof from Sister Agatha, sitting at the head of the room to supervise the novices. But her face was creased with worry, her eyes cloudy. She didn’t comment on my lateness. Behind her, Sister Helen, our tapestry mistress, small and elegant, sorting out her silks, didn’t say anything, either, but since she hadn’t spoken to a soul in three years, it was no surprise.

  Prioress Elizabeth received special dispensation from the Continent for Sister Helen to remain with us, even though she did not sing, chant, nor pray aloud. It had been that way since her older brother, a monk, was hanged in chains in Tyburn for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy to the king. In the beginning, when the king first attacked our way of life, some brave monks and friars and nuns and abbots chose to oppose him. They were punished with stunning savagery. Following that, most took the oath.

  Sister Helen, perhaps to compensate for silence, put great effort into the tapestries, her domain for some twenty years. They were original, exquisite, haunting. I arrived at Dartford an adept seamstress; under my mother’s tutelage, I’d mastered the most complicated stitches. But we did not stitch these tapestries, we wove them, with a bobbin, in and out, through the warp threads. Sister Helen taught me how to weave quickly yet carefully, and when to push the pedals beneath our feet. Most remarkably of all, it was Sister Helen who came up with the design of each tapestry, what story it would tell. A talented artist, she drew the picture to be followed and then painted the life-size cartoon. Before beginning each tapestry, the cartoon was cut into vertical shreds and fastened beneath, to show patterns. We were more than halfway finished with this latest one.

  As my bobbin went in and out, I thought not of my work but of the book I’d discovered. Athelstan was a real person, a king in the time of the Saxons. He would indeed have possessed a crown. But why would it be hidden at Dartford? Monasteries had existed in England during that dark, turbulent time; he himself founded them. So why did Edward the Third not use one for hiding the crown instead of building Dartford Priory from the ground up, as Bishop Gardiner had suggested?

  I thought about Brother Richard’s reaction to finding me with the book, how his fingers had closed tightly on the volume. He’d known at once the identity of Athelstan, even though he was an obscure ruler, born in the last years of the first millennium.

  A low moan from the front of the room jarred me from my thoughts. It was Sister Agatha. Tears glittered in her close-set eyes.

  We novices looked at one another, unsure what to do.

  It was Sister Christina who spoke up, as was usual. She was the senior. “Are you well today, Sister?” she called out.

  Sister Agatha shook her head, as if angry. “It isn’t fair—you are young; you have prosperous families who could take you in. I have nowhere to go. My family is dead, and I’ve no money of my own.”

  “What do you mean?” Sister Christina asked.

  She shook her head. “I should not speak so. But I heard this morning that Cromwell’s commissioners have started another round of visitations. Of the larger monasteries. I had hoped it was all over, that we were safe. But the new reports from London say otherwise.”

  Sister Winifred looked at me, frightened. I made a face of surprise, though it was anything but news to me. Whispered fears must be racing up and down the passageways of all the large houses, from Syon to Glastonbury.

  “God will protect us.” Sister Christina’s voice rang out. “And, Sister Agatha, never think us more fortunate than you. I myself will never leave Dartford, no matter what occurs. If I must, I will do the Lord’s work in the rubble.”

  I looked sideways at Sister Christina. She’d stopped weaving; her jaw tightened with resolution.

  Sister Agatha seemed heartened by such conviction: “Yes, it is quite impossible to believe the king could ever suppress Dartford. We are a priory favored by the nobility.” She gl
anced at us—not angry anymore, but with hope. “The king’s own aunt was a nun here, before I professed.”

  “Wasn’t her name Sister Bridget?” asked Sister Winifred.

  “Yes, Sister Bridget,” said our novice mistress. “She was the youngest sister of Queen Elizabeth. The old queen visited her on occasion—once she brought along her son, Prince Arthur.”

  A sharp pain pierced my left palm. I had scissors in my lap. I looked down: a perfect circle of blood bloomed on my skin. I’d jabbed myself at the name “Arthur.”

  I grabbed a scrap of cloth and pressed it into the heel of my palm. “When was that, Sister?” I asked quickly. “When did they visit Dartford?”

  Sister Agatha thought for a moment. “I believe it was just after Prince Arthur married Katherine of Aragon. I’m told Queen Elizabeth wanted Sister Bridget to meet Arthur’s wife, so they traveled down one day.”

  Struggling to keep my voice casual, I said, “Katherine of Aragon was at Dartford?” The throb in my palm grew worse; I pressed the cloth harder.

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. Blessed Queen Katherine was just a girl then. So long ago. Before my time.” She calculated in her head. A minute crawled by. She was not quick with sums. “More than thirty years ago. Yes, that’s it. You see? We have direct ties to the royal family. How could the king ever suppress Dartford and turn us out onto the road?”

  So that was no deathbed hallucination of Queen Katherine’s. She did come here with her young first husband.

  I looked down—I could not staunch the blood flow, and so weaving must stop. I mustn’t drench these delicate light blue and white silk threads with blood.