The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  I trembled. I couldn’t deny the truth to his words, but to join forces with Bishop Gardiner, to bind myself to such a man, was dangerous. Dangerous to my soul, not just my flesh.

  As if he could see into my thoughts and knew that I wavered, the bishop said, much more quietly, “I do not go about to prove myself a saint, yet I am not utterly a devil. Follow my lead, Sister.”

  Something rose up within me, stirred by the memory of my father stretched taut on the rack. I said, “And if I do not agree, what will you do to force me this time? Will you seize Arthur, imprison him, hurt him?”

  Rage ignited in Gardiner’s eyes. The mask of the flattering, persuasive, sincere bishop fell, revealing the coldhearted, ruthless schemer.

  “Bishop Gardiner, I will never again be your tool,” I said.

  I started up the hill. He leaped after me and grabbed my arm.

  “I am not finished speaking to you, Sister Joanna.”

  I pulled my arm away. “My priory has been suppressed, Bishop. I am released as of today, and am no longer subject to church jurisdiction.”

  “How dare you address me in such a way?” he roared. “I am not some parish priest for you to shove aside, I’m a chosen adviser to the King of England. I was once his principal secretary, and I shall rule over his council again someday. Defy me, and you shall bitterly regret it, as shall all my enemies.”

  “Then take me now,” I shouted back at him. “Return me to the Tower. Put me on your rack. Torture me—pull the levers yourself this time. But I will not live as your creature ever again, nor any other man’s.”

  I turned and walked up the hill. I waited for him to grab hold of me, to force me. But he did not impede me. With all of the strength I possessed, I resisted the urge to turn around and look at the bishop one last time.

  I pushed my way through the trees and hurried to rejoin the people who awaited me.

  “Where is the bishop?” asked Prioress Joan, peering warily behind me.

  “Bishop Gardiner is reflecting,” I said, and turned to Brother Edmund. “Let’s go. At once.”

  We mounted our horses, and I shook the reins, Arthur sitting on the saddle in front of me. The bells rang as we cleared the gatehouse. It must be time for the office of Sext. Everyone would file into the church, take their appointed places, begin the psalms and songs.

  While making our way to the road, I heard the voice of Brother Richard: “It is not a matter of saving our homes, our habits of living. These monasteries are all just stone and mortar and wood and glass. What has been torn asunder can be rebuilt. Those who were cast out can be summoned again. Saint Dominic walked among the people barefoot and penniless to preach the word of God. There is no reason we can’t follow that wisdom in our search for meaning.”

  52

  By the end of the third day of travel, Brother Edmund was confident we were not being followed. Our explanation of a journey northwest to Stafford Castle was believed. And indeed, we would go there. But we’d stop someplace very important along the way.

  We found the Celtic cross in the ground, just a few hours south of Malmesbury Abbey. Brother Edmund and I examined it while Sister Winifred played with Arthur. It was a warm day, full of promise.

  As I watched Brother Edmund study the writing on the cross, I thought it a shame that he had chosen not to become a priest and directly share his spiritual vision with the people. I knew it was not so much because he recoiled from the changes in religion ordered by King Henry, as difficult as they were, but because he felt himself too unworthy. Brother Edmund might never forgive himself for falling prey to the numbing powers of that tincture. I hoped that in time, after dedicating himself to helping the sick, the dying, and the poor, he would find some peace.

  Thoughts of illness always triggered my deepest worry, one that nagged at me day and night.

  “Arthur looks well, doesn’t he?” I asked anxiously. “You don’t see any signs?”

  “No, and I don’t think we ever will, not the kind you fear.”

  I stared at Brother Edmund, horrified.

  “Yes. Of course. Arthur has royal blood. You think that someday it will be he who . . . who . . .” I couldn’t put it into words.

  “No, Sister Joanna. I don’t expect that, either.”

  Then I understood.

  “You don’t believe in the crown’s power or its curse. But, Brother Edmund, how could you say that? You have always been blessed with faith.”

  “I do still have faith,” he said. “But I am also a man who knows healing and disease. And those three princes whom we suspect touched the crown, they could have been struck by ordinary fatal illnesses that kill men every day, no matter if they’re royalty or blacksmiths.”

  I considered what he said. Part of me was desperate to agree, for Arthur’s sake. But I remembered the night the walls came to life at Dartford Priory. Or when I shivered in the presence of an inexorable force in the abbey crypt. And I wasn’t sure of anything.

  Brother Edmund made a joyful sound. “I think I have it,” he cried, of the words he had been struggling to translate on the Celtic cross. “It says, ‘Without darkness, there can be no light.’ ”

  We looked at each other for a moment, and then returned to the others, to continue on to Malmesbury.

  Just as he had not been surprised when we first appeared in his half-ruined abbey, so Prior Roger Frampton greeted us calmly when we arrived a second time.

  “The king will be buried with his most sacred possession,” I said, my voice unsteady, as I held out the heavy box that contained the crown.

  “I knew it, God in His mercy be praised,” said the prior fervently. “I knew you would return to us in time.”

  Brother Edmund asked, “Was it foretold by Brother Eilmar?”

  The prior smiled. “Not all is foretold. Sometimes it is what one feels in the heart and soul.” His green eyes filled with tears.

  The prior offered to allow us to witness the ceremony that he could now perform, the reunification of the king of all England with the crown he wore into historic battle. Then the long-dead Saxon would be buried in a place of great secrecy.

  But I had no desire to look upon the crown again. I saw flashes of it every day, and it quivered in my dreams every night. The pointed, swooping golden crown: simple, ancient, with gleaming crystals running along the rim, within which you could see the tiny dark speck of what might—or might not—be thorns plucked from a desert hill fifteen centuries ago. Nor did I want to be any nearer to the spirit of the king, to contemplate the wreckage caused by his irresistible challenge.

  Outside the abbey, on the green, Arthur hopped over bricks while Sister Winifred clapped and smiled. His heedless laugh made the rubble of Malmesbury less tragic, the king less ominous.

  “How many more days do you think it will take to reach Stafford Castle?” asked Brother Edmund.

  “Not that many,” I said. I reached out to touch his arm.

  “But Arthur and I will not be traveling to Stafford Castle, Brother Edmund.”

  He looked at me for a moment, and then his thin, sensitive, suffering face was suffused with joy.

  “Shall we begin the journey back to Dartford now?” he asked.

  I nodded. I did not know what I would do in the village after the priory was dissolved, or whom I would be with, or where I would find guidance. But my destiny lay there, not with my relations at Stafford Castle. Of that I was certain.

  And so Brother Edmund and I gathered up Arthur and Sister Winifred, and left the beautiful, broken green of Malmesbury Abbey, to find the road over the river that would take us south once more.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful for the help and encouragement I received in writing this book.

  It all began in 2005. For more than a year, I climbed the many steps leading to the apartment of novelist Rosemarie Santini, leader of a fiction workshop. It was Rosemarie who helped me through the painful beginnings. She steered me toward historical novels I’d never r
ead before and to spiritual possibilities I’d not explored. Through the years that I researched The Crown and wrote—and rewrote—my chapters, I gained immeasurably from the wisdom of screenwriter and teacher Max Adams and from the guidance of novelist and teacher Russell Rowland. In Russell’s Gotham Writer’s Workshop fiction course, I received the encouragement and constructive feedback I needed to finish my novel. I thank my fellow students Rachel Andrews and Barbara Sachs, in particular, for going the distance. Instructors Greg Fallis and Brandi Reissenweber also taught rich lessons in the craft of fiction.

  The Crown would not exist without my wonderful literary agent, Josh Getzler at Hannigan, Salky, Getzler Agency. Josh responded with enormous enthusiasm to my manuscript and has kept me informed, grounded, and sane ever since. I’ll always think of him when Fourth of July comes around. I’m also grateful to Jesseca Salky at Hannigan, Salky, Getzler and Kate McLennan at Abner Stein. Of course, the real fireworks began when Trish Todd, the amazing editor in chief of Touchstone Books, bought my book. Trish’s insightful and meticulous edit pushed my novel to the next level. She was a pleasure to work with at every turn, as were publisher Stacy Creamer, editorial director Sally Kim, senior editor Heather Lazare, senior publicist Jessica Roth, and editorial assistant Allegra Ben-Amotz. I also have a deep regard for Genevieve Pegg, senior commissioning editor of Orion Publishing Group, in England. I can’t quite describe my emotions when I learned that Genevieve liked my book, except to say it made all the skipped vacations and five a.m. writing sessions very much worth it.

  Many wonderful people helped me with my research of The Crown. First on the list is Mike Still, assistant museum manager of Dartford Borough Museum, in Dartford, Kent. He generously shared his knowledge with me and alerted me to the two books written about Dartford Priory by Peter Boreham, now curator at Medway Council in Rochester. I also wish to thank Sandie Brown, parish administrator of Malmesbury Abbey; historian Ron Bartholomew; Christopher Warleigh-Lack, curator of the Architectural Drawing Collection of Historic Royal Palaces; Emily Fildes, curatorial intern, Tower of London; and Jarbel Rodriguez, associate professor of medieval history at San Francisco State University. Sandra Font provided valuable assistance with my Spanish dialogue.

  I spent many productive hours working on my novel at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue. The Beaux Arts architecture and exquisite ceiling murals of the Rose Main Reading Room never failed to move me. I thank Jay Barksdale, study rooms liaison, for accepting my application to work in the Wertheim Study. An important source of inspiration in New York City was the Cloisters Museum and Gardens of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Fort Tryon Park. I thank the curatorial staff for their patience as I pestered them with questions or lingered in the chapter house, the tapestry rooms, or at the tomb effigy of Jean d’Alluye. I appreciate the wonderful list of suggested resources sent to me by Egle Zygas, senior press officer of the museum, primarily the books on sixteenth-century tapestries written by Thomas P. Campbell, now director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  The Tudor group on yahoo.com, led by the incomparable Lara Eakins, has been a cherished place of historical discussion and debate. My special gratitude goes to member Hans van Felius, who read my book and gave me notes. My dear friend Harriet Sharrard also read and shared her keen observations; my novel benefited from her knowledge of tapestries and embroidery. I’m grateful to Kurt Buker for his comments on sixteenth-century lute music and the Reverend William Collins for his stimulating theological discussions. I wish to thank other friends who gave me support during this journey: Meredith O’Donnell, Lorraine Glennon, Donna Bulseco, Ariel Foxman, Isabel Gonzalez, Nikki Ogunnaike, Megan Deem, Nicole Vecchiarelli, Natasha Wolfe, Erik Jackson, Joanna Bober, Marcia Lawther, Eilidh MacAskill, Catherine Hong, Faye Wright Penn, Elaine Devlin Beigelman and her husband Mark Beigelman, Patricia Burroughs, Tina Jordan, Megan Kelley Hall, Jim Sullivan, Evelyn Nunlee, Nina Burleigh, Anthony DeCurtis, Patty Keefe Durso, Tish Hamilton, Sandy and Brechin Morgan, Karen Park, Sulya Fenichel, Ilissa and David Sternlicht, Michele Koop, Kitty Sibille, Rhonda Riche, Beth Arky, Diane Salvatore, Jessica Branch, Toni Hope, Ellen Levine, and all the members of 5150. Special thanks to Maggie Murphy, Lisa Arbetter, Alison Gwinn, and Daryl Chen at Parade.

  And my family deserves my most profound gratitude: my mother and sister, and my husband and two children, Alexander and Nora. They were the ones who had to live with me while I anguished over my book. Without their acceptance, their love, and their patience, I couldn’t have finished it.

  Finally, I pay tribute to the love of my artist father, Wally Bilyeau, who, if he were alive, would be sharing in my happiness over creating something of my very own.

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