The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Sister Winifred started coughing. A rasping cough with a ragged wetness to it.

  Sister Christina and I both knew what that meant, and we jumped to our feet.

  “Loosen her habit,” I suggested.

  “No, it’s too late for that,” Sister Christina said.

  Sister Winifred’s white face flushed scarlet as she fell back on the bench, gasping and coughing.

  “This is your fault,” Sister Christina called out accusingly to Sister Agatha. “You upset her with talk of being turned out into the road. We are supposed to work in silence here.”

  Sister Agatha sputtered with indignation. “I am your novice mistress—you cannot criticize me.”

  Lifting up Sister Winifred, I announced, “I am taking her to Brother Edmund.”

  After I’d ferried Sister Winifred to the door, I paused, but no one tried to stop me. Our novice mistress was caught up in her quarrel with Sister Christina.

  I glanced over at Sister Helen, in the corner, sorting through her silks as always. But she was far from indifferent. I saw a long tear drip off her cheek.

  19

  I could hear the man screaming from the cloister garden.

  The infirmary came off the east side of the cloister, at the end of that passageway. To shorten the distance, I pulled Sister Winifred straight across the garden, minding that we kept to the paths. She staggered alongside me, and I had to be careful she didn’t overturn the baskets full of harvested valerian or bump her head against the branch of a quince tree. The sound of screaming made her shudder, but I tightened a grip around her heaving shoulders. “All will be well,” I said.

  When we came through the infirmary doors, I saw Brother Edmund bending over someone, his hands running across the man’s collarbone and shoulder. It was John, one of our stable hands, slumped forward on a pallet, his shirt loosened, his eyes bulging. I was relieved that this was Brother Edmund’s time to work in our infirmary, and not in the one he managed in Stanham, which was nearby.

  “It hurts, Brother. Christ’s blood, it hurts.”

  “Do not blaspheme,” Brother Edmund murmured. His fingers halted their exploration. “I will adjust your shoulder now. The pain will be sharp, but then it will ease. Prepare yourself.”

  John made a wild sign of the cross with his one hand, the other dangling at his side. Just as he’d finished, Brother Edmund threw himself onto the man’s damaged shoulder, his black friar’s cape whipping into the air as he attacked.

  “Brother, no!” I cried out. But I was unheard, drowned out by John’s agonized screech. He collapsed onto the pallet.

  As Brother Edmund stepped back to straighten his robes, he spotted us standing in the corner.

  “Sister Winifred is having another fit,” I said.

  Brother Edmund hurried to his oak cabinet, a key gleaming in his hand. “Set her down anywhere,” he said over his shoulder.

  I helped Sister Winifred, whose choking had settled into bursts of wheezing, onto another pallet. A tendril of blond hair hung down in her face, and I tucked it back under her novice cap.

  “When did it begin?” Brother Edmund asked me as he briskly ground a dark plant in a bowl with mortar and pestle.

  “Just ten minutes or so,” I said. “She was agitated, then began the choking.”

  “What agitated her?” Brother Edmund stooped before the low fire with his bowl.

  I told him of Sister Agatha’s laments over the future of the priory.

  “I see.” He stopped grinding. “I am going to apply the remedy. Step away, Sister Joanna. It is best you do not inhale it as well.”

  I backed into the corner, watching as he propped her up and placed the smoking bowl under her face. I had been in the infirmary last week when he administered the same remedy. He had brought many new medicines and potions—and new skills—to this position. Sister Rachel, a sharp-tongued nun, had been in charge of the infirmary when he arrived and was furious to be ousted. But even she had to admit that Brother Edmund was an apothecary to be respected. And it was a simple matter for him to move between the priory infirmary and the small one in town, skimpily attended since the death last year of Brother Matthew. Friars were accustomed to moving among outsiders. They were not monks or nuns, living in retreat from the world.

  “Breathe,” he commanded. “Again. Again.”

  Sister Winifred took a final deep breath and groped for his hand. “Thank you,” she moaned. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly, then eased her back down to rest. Seeing them together, I was struck by the siblings’ resemblance. The same brown eyes, pale eyelashes, and wide mouth with thin lips. But I also noticed that Brother Edmund did not look well today. His skin had a yellowish tint, and lines crinkled around his eyes.

  I crept toward the smoldering bowl. “What is this cure?” I asked.

  “Ephedra helvetica is a remedy, not a cure,” he said. “The leaf of a plant grown in Italy. A Swiss brother traveling to Cambridge had a supply for himself and told me of it. I send for it every six months. I’ll need a greater supply now. Dartford is not the best climate for Sister Winifred—there are so many marshes nearby—but there’s no help for that. So I must redouble my course of remedy.”

  John stirred behind us. To my amazement, he smiled.

  “Brother, it’s better, ye’re right,” he said. “When can I return to my work?”

  “Do not lift or pull anything heavy for two weeks,” Brother Edmund said.

  Jumping off the pallet, John said, “A one-armed stable hand is useless. The new porter is a hard man—he’ll dock my wages or even dismiss me. There are ten men in town that could take my place tomorrow. The priory is the best place to draw a wage. Could you speak for me? Please, Brother, I have a wife five months with child.”

  He was beginning to babble. Brother Edmund held up his hand. “I can’t promise you anything, but I will put in a word.”

  “Thank you, Brother,” John said fervently. “It was a good day for us when you came to Dartford.”

  After John left, I said, “He shows you true gratitude.”

  Brother Edmund sighed. “Just because I know of a few treatments, a few potions, doesn’t mean I can work miracles. There is very little that I can do to help anyone. It’s all in God’s hands.” He gestured toward the far corner of the infirmary, next to its tiny chapel. A blanket was strung across two poles. At the far end I could see two stockinged feet peeking out.

  “Lettice Westerly?” I whispered.

  Brother Edmund was back at his cabinet, to replace his leaf potion. I watched him remove a small velvet purse from another drawer.

  “All I can do is ease her suffering,” he said as he approached Lettice’s corner.

  “May I see her?” I asked.

  He pulled back the blanket. For a second I thought I looked upon a corpse. Her skin was ashen; her mouth hung open; her tongue was coated with a frightening dark slime. Then I saw her chest rise and fall.

  Brother Edmund removed a gleaming black bead from his bag. He lifted Lettice Westerly’s head to push the bead back into her throat. “Get me some ale to wash it down, Sister Joanna,” he said. “I must make her swallow.”

  I poured the ale for him. “What is that potion’s name?” I asked.

  “It has no Latin name,” he said. “It comes from the East. It has been called the stones of immortality.”

  My skin prickled at the name; it had an eerie power.

  “Come, Lettice, swallow. Yes, there we go.” He eased her head back down.

  “Brother Edmund, how much longer will she live?”

  He felt her forehead, and then touched her wrist. “A week. Perhaps two.”

  My throat tightened as I pictured the three Westerly children bounding toward me for food.

  Suddenly, Brother Edmund had my own hand in his. I flinched, knocking him away in fright.

  “Sister Joanna, you are bleeding,” he said patiently, pointing at my left palm. The cloth I had wrapped around it had fallen off
, and the blood still trickled.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “I pierced myself with scissors, but not deeply.”

  Brother Edmund smiled. “Then my sister was not the only one agitated by the talk of the monasteries’ fate?”

  “That is not what agitated me,” I muttered.

  He looked at me more closely. “But something else did?”

  I said nothing. He bore a solicitous attitude, but, as with Brother Richard, I sensed a deeper purpose to his questions.

  “Come, Sister Joanna, let me clean it. I’ve seen terrible festering diseases caused by a prick smaller than that one, if left unattended.”

  He turned my wrist over to look more closely, then wiped the blood away with a dampened cloth. His large bony hands were amazingly deft.

  “Sister Joanna!”

  I jumped away from Brother Edmund to face Sister Eleanor, the priory’s new circator. She was just thirty years old, and yet the new prioress had chosen her for this important task, the enforcer of rules. It might have something to do with the fact that she was the niece of Prioress Elizabeth. The departed prioress had loved her but also gently remonstrated with Sister Eleanor for her burning zeal to serve God, fearing at times for her health. Sister Eleanor fasted more days than anyone else, refused sleep in order to redouble her prayers to the Virgin Mary, and whipped her back with cords. I wondered if Prioress Joan now cautioned Sister Eleanor—or if it was the opposite.

  “Why are you here, Sister?” she demanded, her dark eyes blazing in her thin face. “This is your time for tapestry work.”

  Brother Edmund stepped forward. “Sister Joanna pierced her skin in the tapestry room.”

  Sister Eleanor’s scowl deepened at the sight of Sister Winifred, who was sitting up at the end of her pallet.

  “And what of her?” she asked. “Another fit?”

  Brother Edmund nodded.

  “Sister Winifred, are you well enough to return to the tapestry room alone?” Sister Eleanor asked, in a manner that suggested disagreement would be unwise.

  The novice nodded.

  “Good. Because I came here for Brother Edmund and was going to fetch Sister Joanna next. You’re both wanted in the prioress’s chamber immediately. Follow me.”

  Brother Edmund and I exchanged a look of puzzlement, and then we followed Sister Eleanor out of the infirmary. I couldn’t imagine why we were being summoned. I wondered if it had something to do with Brother Richard’s finding me in the library, reading the book on King Athelstan. But no matter the reason, I’d finally make my way into the last unexamined room of the priory.

  Less than a minute after Sister Eleanor rapped on the door connecting the cloister to the front of the priory, Gregory, the new porter, unlocked it. Jacob had been swiftly pensioned off, as the prioress had planned, and now lived in a small house in the town of Dartford. Gregory was one-third his age, a tall man with a well-trimmed beard. He nodded with respect at the sight of Sister Eleanor and ignored the friar and me.

  The prioress’s chamber lay at the east end of the front passageway. Sister Eleanor bade us wait in the antechamber, on the bench, and then hurried off to complete her inspection.

  There were voices on the other side of the prioress’s door. At first they were low and indistinguishable. After a moment, they grew louder, and I knew one was a woman and the other a man. And after they grew louder still, I could tell it was Prioress Joan and Brother Richard—and the conversation was a furious one.

  “Whatever makes you think you could trust Cromwell?” Brother Richard shouted. “Because he took your bribe? Do you think that will save the priory? He is the sort of man who will take a bribe with a smile and still dissolve us. You will live to regret your dealings with him, be assured.”

  “And you think Gardiner will save us?” Prioress Joan screeched. “Then you’re the greater fool. Everyone knows where they are with Cromwell. He makes no secret of his policy. But Wily Winchester has betrayed everyone who put trust in him.”

  Brother Edmund leaped to the door and pounded on it.

  It flew open to a wild-eyed Brother Richard. He stared at Brother Edmund, and some sort of silent message passed between them. Brother Richard glanced over at me, took a breath, and then beckoned for us both to come inside.

  20

  I followed Brother Edmund inside, and we both bowed to the prioress, sitting behind the large oak trestle table that dominated her chamber. I furtively glanced around the room. I had not been inside it since Prioress Elizabeth was alive. Besides the table and a few chairs, it was bare of other furniture; there were no bookshelves or chests. No place where a valuable object could be hidden away.

  “The reason I have summoned both of you is to tell you we are to have guests at Dartford Priory,” said the prioress.

  Brother Richard made a strange sort of noise, as if he could not bear to listen, and he walked to the window facing the sweeping lawns. The prioress’s lips tightened.

  “Lord Chester, our neighbor, is coming to the priory in nine day’s time,” she said.

  “Sister Christina’s father?” asked Brother Edmund.

  “That is correct.” I heard a faint click, click, click from under the desk. I knew what it was. The prioress wore a delicate chain around her waist attached to a silver pomander ball. It was stuffed with sweet-smelling, exotic spices. Sister Agatha told me the spices were specially delivered from the Far East. With nervous fingers, the prioress often clicked the pomander ball against the chain.

  “Lord Chester wishes to come to Dartford on All Souls’ Day,” she said. “That evening we will be holding the usual special Mass, the honoring of the departed. That is, of course, only for members of the priory. But in the afternoon, before the Mass . . . She raised her chin. “Before the Mass we will have a requiem feast, to which Lord Chester and his wife are invited.”

  I could not believe I had heard her correctly. A feast . . . inside the priory?

  “What sort of feast, Prioress?” I asked.

  “The usual sort,” she snapped. “Food. Drink. Music.”

  Brother Edmund and I were shocked into silence. The clicking of the pomander ball quickened.

  After a moment, Brother Edmund said, “May I inquire as to the reason we are holding this feast?”

  “Ha!” Brother Richard turned from the window. “Because Lord Chester has asked us to, that’s why. And we must curry favor with a courtier in high favor with the king.”

  The prioress said, “Brother Richard, the next such criticism will lead to your transfer out of Dartford Priory forthwith. Bishop Gardiner will simply have to find another place of refuge for you.”

  The prioress’s cheeks flamed scarlet as she glared at Brother Richard. He met her gaze for a full moment, and then looked down, in submission.

  “Since Lord Chester is the father of our senior novice, it is only natural for him to wish to visit her,” she continued, much calmer. “I believe his choice of day has to do with his other child, his son, who died a year ago.”

  I remembered that last November, Sister Christina had received special permission to leave the priory for the funeral. She had come back very pensive; it took her a few weeks to return to her usual forceful self.

  “How can Sister Joanna and I be of service?” Brother Edmund asked.

  The prioress answered, “For the performing of music at the requiem feast. You play the lute, I am told. Sister Joanna is quite skilled on the Spanish vihuela.”

  I was stunned the prioress knew of my passion for music. I had played my vihuela only a few times at the priory. It was a prized possession; my mother had sent to Spain for the instrument when I was twelve years old and had taught me to play it herself. I brought it with me, and Prioress Elizabeth had encouraged my practicing, but I hadn’t touched it since my return. I was moved that the new prioress had taken note of my small talent.

  Brother Edmund asked in the same mild voice: “Wouldn’t Lord Chester be better served by employing musicians familiar with s
ongs of the court?”

  The prioress answered irritably, “No, Brother, he would not be better served. He’s specifically requested that members of the priory play for him.”

  The friars began to discuss the plan for music with the prioress, along with other details of the feast. These plans included me, yet my interest was drawn elsewhere. A large portrait hung on the back wall, behind the prioress. It had been there every time I entered this chamber. But I had never taken close note of it until today.

  The wooden frame was carved in the shape of intertwined branches sprouting leaves. The frame’s brown color gleamed, as if the leaves and branches had been painted gold more than a century ago and gradually faded. But it was the man who drew me in. He was solemn, neither old nor young, with brown hair parted in the middle and hanging just past his ears. He did not resemble a saint, nor any of the great Catholic princes revered by the Dominicans. He looked more like a knight of high chivalry, perhaps one of Chaucer’s heroes. A dark patterned tunic stretched across broad shoulders; a simple medallion hung down his chest. His face was handsome, with a thin nose and high cheekbones, but there was a severity to his expression, a cold haughtiness. It went beyond the stiff sameness of men painted by artists in past centuries, before the innovations of Master Hans Holbein.

  I heard myself say, “Who is the man in the portrait?”

  Prioress Jane stopped in the middle of her sentence, surprised, and turned around.

  “Isn’t it Edward the Third, founder of this priory?” asked Brother Richard.

  The prioress shook her head. “No, it is Edward the Third’s oldest son, the Prince of Wales. King Edward commanded that this portrait be hung here.”

  “Why would he have wanted a portrait of the Black Prince in this room?” asked Brother Richard.

  The Black Prince. I’d heard someone speak of him recently, but not at the priory. An anxious memory gnawed at me.

  The prioress opened her mouth to answer Brother Richard when a knock sounded at the door. The porter told her that a messenger had arrived from London.