The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “After no one could find you, we ran away and hid in the friars’ brewery. There’s a little room no one goes in. It was cold, and it smelled bad, but we were safe there. We didn’t want to leave the priory just yet. The next day, everyone was running about, getting ready for the feast; we weren’t noticed. We had places all over the priory we liked to go to, where no one saw us.”

  I opened my mouth to ask more about their secret hiding places, but Geoffrey tapped my arm gently.

  Ethel went on: “We overheard the sisters and servants talking about the feast, and we knew that most people didn’t even want that man at Dartford. It wasn’t right he be there. And then, afterward, we heard some of the sisters crying. We knew that Lord Chester said very bad things about the priory—that it would be closed down soon. And he hurt one of the novices. We heard it was you, Sister Joanna.”

  I shook my head. “It was Sister Winifred.”

  Ethel hung her head, and I knew the next part of her story did not come easily. “We don’t have much money, Sister. We heard that Lord Chester wore very fine rings when he came to the feast. And then he fell down drunk and had to be carried to the front rooms . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  Geoffrey said, very softly, “You thought you’d sneak into his room and take one of the rings?”

  Martha began to cry again. “We’re so sorry.” I stroked her soft little arm, trying to soothe her.

  “How did you get to the front of the priory, when the doors were all locked?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Through a window,” Ethel said.

  “But we checked all the windows and—” I poked Geoffrey this time. I didn’t want to use up the goodwill we’d built by challenging them on the windows.

  “What time was it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Ethel. “It was a long time after last prayers. We’d slept for most of the afternoon, so we weren’t tired. We knew where the guest rooms were, so we went there as quietly as we could. We opened the door off the passageway just a crack and—” She jumped in her chair as if she were reliving some shock.

  “What?” Geoffrey asked in a low, urgent voice.

  “There were two doors. Left and right. A woman was going through the door to the bedchamber on the right.”

  My stomach turned over.

  “Do you have an idea who it was?” Geoffrey asked.

  “No, sir.” She shook her head violently. “It was dark.”

  “Did she wear a habit? Was it a sister?”

  “I just couldn’t tell. It was a . . . a glimpse. She went through the door and shut it behind her. But I saw that what she wore was long and dark.”

  Dominican habits were white, so it couldn’t have been a nun. Unless the woman wore a cloak over it.

  Geoffrey leaned in, closer. “Young or old? How quickly did the person move?”

  “Quickly, sir. But I just couldn’t say how old the woman was.”

  I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Did you see anything more?”

  She shook her head. “We went back out into the passageway.”

  I grimaced in disappointment. But Geoffrey’s eyes stayed locked on her face. “There is something else?” he prompted, calm as ever. I don’t know how he managed such patience.

  “We heard voices. Two people. One voice was definitely a woman’s.”

  “Did you hear what they were talking about?”

  “No, sir,” said Ethel. “They spoke for a moment or so. Low voices. Then the man said, ‘No.’ He wasn’t shouting or angry. Just the one word. But then, there was this strange thumping noise from the room. We heard it at least four times. Thump, thump, thump, thump.”

  A chill clawed at my spine. The children had heard Lord Chester being murdered.

  “It was so strange, we ran away,” Ethel said. “We went back to the friars’ brewery house, and the next morning we walked to town. Father came back the next night.”

  Sister Agatha grabbed my arm and shook it. “It was a woman in his room,” she said, excited. “Not Brother Edmund.”

  Yes, but which woman? I wondered.

  We both looked at Geoffrey Scovill. He was deep in thought.

  “What happens now?” I asked him.

  “I will report to Constable Campion and Coroner Hancock what I’ve heard here—what happens after that, I can’t be sure,” he said carefully.

  Sister Agatha pressed to leave at once, to return to the priory, but Geoffrey said he needed to speak to Catherine Westerly for a few more minutes, with the children not listening. He persuaded a reluctant Sister Agatha to occupy the girls, and beckoned for me to help him with their stepmother.

  Catherine Westerly regarded the two of us with hard, wary eyes. “What do you want from me?”

  “Before you married the children’s father, where did you live?” Geoffrey asked. “Did you say it was Southwark?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think that before you married, you worked for a bawd.”

  Catherine Westerly covered her face with both hands and turned away from us, toward the wall. “Go away, go away,” she moaned.

  I was shocked. I’d never been in the same room as a harlot before.

  “I’m not asking you this to shame you,” Geoffrey said, his manner gentle. “I saw how terrified you were when we came in, as if you were in hiding. Also, that scar on your face is one that the bawds give to whores who’ve disobeyed. Did Master Westerly settle up for you when he took you to Dartford?”

  She shook her head slightly, her face still covered. “He tried and tried, but he couldn’t earn enough money to pay off my debt. He knew his wife was dying, so we went into hiding in London. We are married—that is true. I have the papers.”

  Geoffrey nodded. “I believe you, Mistress Westerly. I only bring up this delicate subject because the children will need to be interviewed again, officially, and I fear that you will not remain in Dartford.”

  She shrugged. “It’s up to my husband where we live.”

  “Very well,” Geoffrey said. “I will come back and speak to him as soon as I can.” He touched my elbow. “Now we can go.”

  We were halfway to the door when the girls flew into my arms. Martha had a lock around my waist. “Don’t leave us here, Sister Joanna,” she begged.

  Ethel’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to go to the priory, to be with you and the sisters,” she whispered. “I’m old enough to work. Take me.”

  My throat tightened; I couldn’t speak. I glanced at Catherine Westerly, who’d heard everything.

  “Yes, the children hate me,” she said flatly, and straightened her shoulders. “They blame me for the neglect of their mother the last year of her life. But I shall do my duty and care for them the best I know how. Perhaps, in time, they will come to like me.”

  Geoffrey turned to me: “Come, we’ll talk outside.”

  I kissed the girls good-bye one more time and followed Geoffrey out the door.

  “I can’t let the children be raised by a harlot—it’s a crime,” I whispered to him, brokenly, as we walked down the steps.

  “Working for a bawd may be a sin, but it’s not a crime,” he said. “Those brothels are licensed. In fact, I’ve heard tell the Bishop of Winchester is the landlord for most of the Southwark brothels.”

  Stephen Gardiner owned the land that brothels were built on? I put that from my mind. Unthinkable.

  “What of the children’s souls?” I demanded. “They require moral guidance, not just food and a bed.”

  We were outside the house. Sister Agatha was right: it was late. We hadn’t much time to get back to the priory.

  Geoffrey said, “She appears to be penitent and desire a new life. Westerly must love her very much to make her his wife and risk so much on her behalf.”

  I shuddered. “Love her? How could he love such a person? His poor dead wife, Lettice, the mother of his children, was a kind woman, a good Christian.”

  Geoffrey looked up at the second floor of the house,
as if he expected to see the faces of the Westerly children. No one looked back. “We can’t always help whom we love,” he said in a strange voice.

  Sister Agatha shouted from the wagon. “What are you waiting for? We must get back to the priory, Sister.”

  “Yes, let’s depart, Sister Joanna,” Geoffrey said, and steered me to the wagon. “My horse is in town, near the market. Why don’t you take me there, and then I’ll escort you? I should have a word with your prioress about what we’ve learned.”

  Sister Agatha said, “Couldn’t you walk to the market?”

  Her rudeness surprised me. “Sister, we should not begrudge this.” I turned to Geoffrey. “Please, come with us.”

  It was an uncomfortable ride to the market, with Sister Agatha puffed up with disapproval. As soon as Geoffrey leaped out of the wagon to mount his own horse, I leaned over to ask, “Why are you angry with Geoffrey Scovill? He has assisted us today.”

  “Sister Joanna, there is a certain familiarity between the two of you that, as your novice mistress, I must correct you on,” she said, in her most pompous and scolding tone. “When you converse with him, it appears that you are well acquainted with each other, though I don’t see how that’s possible. It is most certainly inappropriate.”

  I could feel my cheeks redden. “Yes, Sister Agatha,” I said, as meekly as I could manage.

  We rode the rest of the way to Dartford Priory in silence, Geoffrey trotting ahead. The sun had never appeared that day. It was the kind of damp November afternoon in which the gray gradually darkens until all trace of light is finally extinguished. I don’t know if it was the grimness of the day, or my nervousness about being late to the priory, but I didn’t feel as much joy as I’d expected over obtaining proof that Brother Edmund was innocent. The discovery that a woman may have killed Lord Chester with such vicious fury unsettled me.

  A bleak dusk gripped the countryside as John turned the wagon into the lane leading to Dartford Priory. When we rounded the curve, I saw a ball of orange light glowing in the distance. It made me uneasy; I couldn’t imagine its cause. Two torches burning at our gatehouse wouldn’t illuminate the grounds like that.

  Geoffrey kicked the sides of his horse and galloped the rest of the way—he would arrive well ahead of us.

  Once we’d neared the gatehouse, I could see a bonfire freshly lit in front of the priory, with two of our servants tending it. Prioress Joan, Brother Richard, and Gregory clustered around three men I did not know. Geoffrey had leaped off his horse to talk to them.

  Sister Agatha said, “This can’t possibly be because of us, can it?”

  “No, the sun just set a few moments ago,” I said.

  We rumbled through the gatehouse arch. As soon as the wagon came to a halt, I scrambled out the back and ran toward Geoffrey.

  He turned away from the others to speak to me.

  “Did you tell Prioress Joan what the children said?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” he said, running his hands through his hair.

  “But she must know that a woman’s voice was heard, that it was a woman that night.”

  “It’s already known,” Geoffrey said.

  “But . . . but . . . how?” I stammered.

  “The priory received word from these men that today Lady Chester threw herself out the window of her manor. She left a note asking for forgiveness for her crime. It would appear that she killed her own husband and now she’s killed herself.”

  35

  At my mother’s insistence, I had a tutor when I was young who schooled me in mathematics as well as Greek, Latin, literature, and philosophy. He was an excellent teacher, and I mourned when we could no longer find the money to pay him and he left Stafford Castle. I learned from him how to do complicated sums, and I remember well the feeling of solving one, of hearing a click in my mind as everything fell into place. I heard that same click when Geoffrey Scovill told me that Lady Chester had killed her husband.

  And yet, a moment later, a new uneasiness formed. Lord Chester had been a vile husband; I did not doubt that. His behavior toward her at the requiem feast had been execrable. It was hard to believe she’d slept through a murder in the next room. But I’d heard the screams of Lady Chester that morning and seen her stumble down the passageway, blind with panic and horror after the body had been found. Was she such a good play actress? And what of the reliquary—how had she obtained it from the church? This revelation answered some questions, but it created new ones.

  Geoffrey had returned to the bonfire. “Prioress, this is very important,” he said loudly. “Did any member of the house leave the priory this afternoon, besides Sister Agatha and Sister Joanna?”

  “No,” the prioress said.

  “Are you sure?” He turned to the porter.

  “I was in the front part of the priory all afternoon, Master Scovill,” Gregory said. “The cloister door was kept locked the whole time, and no one but the prioress went in and out.”

  Geoffrey nodded, and hurried to his horse.

  “Wait.” I ran to him, but he was already mounted and shaking the reins. “You harbor doubts?”

  “Not of Lady Chester taking her own life,” he said. “Her servants saw her standing in the window and then leap out. The letter left in her room was definitive.”

  “But there’s something,” I insisted. “Tell me.”

  The bonfire reflecting in Geoffrey’s eyes lent him a strange visage. “I’ve never been certain that Lord Chester was murdered solely because of what occurred at the feast.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember what he himself said that night: ‘I know you have secrets. No one knows better than I do about the secrets of Dartford Priory.’ ”

  I shuddered; it was so odd to hear the words of Lord Chester, words I’d repeated to myself, come from Geoffrey’s lips. “You think that he was killed because of the secrets he knew?” I asked.

  He straightened his jerkin. “At present, my theories are not important. I must be off to Rochester. The coroner and justice of the peace must be told of Lady Chester’s suicide immediately.”

  “Tonight?” I asked, alarmed. “Is it safe to ride that distance after dark? What of robbers on the road?”

  Geoffrey bent down from his saddle with a smile and said: “Don’t you want Brother Edmund freed as soon as possible? I thought that was more important to you than anything else.”

  Before I could say a word to that, he straightened up and rode away.

  That evening I detected a ripple of hope in the refectory and the passageways of the priory. Soon all of England would know that it was not a friar, not a member of a religious order, who’d killed a noble guest under our roof. When the king’s commissioners arrived to examine Dartford, we’d be free of that stain on our honor.

  There was, of course, one person in the priory directly affected by Lady Chester’s suicide. I wasn’t with Sister Christina when she was informed and did not see her for a number of hours, but after last prayers, when I came to novice quarters, I found her there and greatly changed. Her determination and her sense of intelligent conviction were gone. She looked completely lost. Frail.

  “Do you need anything?” I asked. “I feel I should do something for you, Sister Christina. You’ve had a tremendous shock. Should I fetch Sister Agatha?”

  “No, please don’t.” Her voice was scratchy. “I don’t want Sister Agatha with her questions, or Sister Rachel with her potions, or the prioress with her prayers. The only person I can bear to have near me is you, Sister Joanna. I know that if I ask you to be silent here, you will respect my wishes, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  And not another word was said.

  • • •

  Late the next day, Sister Christina’s uncle, the Bishop of Dover, arrived. He had not come to the priory after the murder of his older brother, but the suicide of his sister-in-law brought him to Dartford. Sister Christina spent several hours talking to him in the locutorium and e
merged from it less lost, though still subdued. I honestly couldn’t imagine how she would cope with the horror of a murdered father and a mother who took her own life. Lady Chester could not be buried in consecrated ground.

  But it was Sister Winifred who worried me the most. The morning after I went to town I made my usual stop at the infirmary and found her tossing, restless, in her bed. Her forehead felt warm; two red spots flared in her cheeks.

  Sister Rachel said nervously, “This is what I’ve been fearing. She has contracted infection and does not possess the strength—or the will—to throw it off.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I’m preparing an application of comfrey; you can assist me,” she said. “Although you most likely should keep your distance from Sister Winifred.”

  “I never take ill; please let me nurse her,” I pleaded.

  She sighed. “Very well, but if we lose you both, the prioress will be most grieved.”

  I received permission to spend all my hours in the infirmary, except for time spent observing the Dominican offices. Yet my nursing made no difference. The comfrey did not bring her relief, nor did the remedy Brother Edmund taught me. In the night Sister Winifred started a wet cough. Every time I heard it, my body tensed.

  The next morning, cooling her brow with a dampened cloth, I couldn’t deny my fears any longer. Sister Winifred might very well die. For the tenth time, I wondered if it would strengthen her to learn that Lady Chester had admitted to killing her husband, that Brother Edmund was innocent of crime. Sister Rachel and I had discussed it the day before, but the manner of Lady Chester’s own death was so upsetting, and, without the certainty of Brother Edmund’s return, she felt the news would only further confuse Sister Winifred.

  She coughed, and it was such a deep one, she shuddered with pain. “May the Virgin heal and protect you, Sister Winifred,” I whispered. She turned her head toward me. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. “Edmund,” she groaned.

  “Yes, I know, I miss him as well,” I said, patting her delicate throat with the cloth.

  “I am here, Sister,” said a familiar voice behind me.

  My heart leaped—it was Brother Edmund.