by D. L. Bogdan
She patted Cecily’s hand to distract herself from the vision. “Of course, Cecily. Of course I’ll be here.”
Cecily regarded her with eyes so filled with trust it pained Mirabella doubly to lie.
“Father, I wonder if you could arrange for me to visit the court,” Mirabella told Hal as the two went riding together one crisp December afternoon. “You have always been in favor with the Seymours.” She offered a warm smile. “You are in favor with everyone,” she added fondly. “But I should like to be presented to Queen Jane.”
Hal’s blue eyes widened at the suggestion. “I never fancied you a lady of the court, Mirabella, but if it is what you want I shall set to it directly.” He searched her face a long moment. “You have endured so much. I know I cannot change the past. I cannot right the many wrongs. But I promise you, Mirabella, I will always try to help you any way I can.” With this he nudged his horse closer to her palfrey and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
Mirabella reached up to finger the moist spot his lips had left behind. “I appreciate it, Father, truly.”
But the sincerity of his declaration was lost on her.
She could only think of the queen, of Henry’s court, and of her own private mission.
“Court? No!” Cecily cried upon learning of Mirabella’s plans. “For how long?”
“Only a short while,” Mirabella promised her. They were in Cecily’s confinement chamber. Already the fear of another complicated birth had sent Cecily into a panic. Wild-eyed, she imagined every horror fate could hold and spent many an hour in restless anxiety.
“But you said you would be here to attend me in childbed.” Cecily’s voice was thick with disappointment as she regarded Mirabella. “Mirabella, I told you how awful it was last time. I thought ... I thought ...”
“You have the midwife and your friend Alice,” Mirabella reasoned. “She knows more about childbed than I ever would want to—” spitting out brats one after the other, she added in her mind. “You cannot think I’d be any comfort to you. Besides, I must go. There are things happening in London that I must be a part of.”
“Just like Father Alec,” Cecily muttered, casting her eyes down at the coverlet.
“What do you mean?” Mirabella’s tone was sharp.
“He left for the great happenings of Henry’s London,” Cecily explained. “Left on my wedding day,” she added in tones soft with reminiscence. “I suppose I am just one girl. What’s one small girl in comparison to all London has to offer?”
“Cecily, it’s about the convent,” Mirabella said, dismissing Cecily’s remark. “About all the monasteries Cromwell is dissolving in King Henry’s name. It’s about the Pilgrimage of Grace. You cannot pretend to think that wouldn’t matter to me, that I would just accept my lot without some kind of protest?”
Cecily shook her head, defeated under Mirabella’s crushing, resentment-fueled determination.
“I had just hoped you would find some kind of happiness here,” Cecily said. “That you could let go of the past, start again.”
“You have no idea what you are saying.” Mirabella rose from Cecily’s bed and began to pace. “If you had only seen what I have seen, you would understand.”
“Then tell me,” Cecily urged, tears clutching her throat. “Make me understand.”
Mirabella whirled toward Cecily, her face wrought with grief. Her lips parted to speak, but no words came forth. She clamped her mouth shut and looked down at her hands, which clenched and unclenched a rosary. All that could be heard for long moments was the sound of beads rubbing and clicking against one another. A shiver coursed through Cecily at the grating sound, causing her arms to be dappled with gooseflesh.
At last Mirabella raised her head. The beads were silenced. “Robert Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage, has been invited to court for Christmas to establish some kind of peace. I should like the opportunity to meet him. And if I am presented to Queen Jane, I can tell her ... everything. She can tell the king. Perhaps some difference can be made.”
“Are you daft?” Cecily cried, unable to contain her anger another moment. “Do you really think anyone has any sway over this king, least of all his wife? One wrong word and he’ll have her head!” Cecily sank against her pillows, closing her eyes against Mirabella’s illogical ambitions.
“So I am supposed to stay here and do nothing, to cloister myself in my own little world where everything is lovely and safe and no one disagrees, where the biggest problem is what is on the menu for the evening?! Well, forgive me if I cannot be as accepting of tyranny as you and my father are!” Mirabella spat.
“So now we are the ones seeking escape?” Cecily observed, fixing Mirabella with a hard stare. “ ‘Cloistering ourselves’? I did not take you for a hypocrite, Mirabella.” She expelled a heavy sigh, rubbing her belly. “We accept what is going on around us because we cannot change it. We will not try to change it. That does not mean we like it. But we have more than ourselves to think of. We have Harry. We will not jeopardize our children’s future because we disagree with policy, no matter how unjust. How will it do to have Hal’s or my head on a spike? So our children can keen, ‘Why did they give their life?’ Why, indeed? For some intangible point? To make a statement? The only statement it makes is foolishness and carelessness for your own family—your father and Harry and me, whose lives you could put in jeopardy. But you would not think of that.” Cecily expelled a heavy sigh. “Sometimes the greatest heroes are those who survive these ordeals by keeping silent and waiting it out.”
Mirabella’s sigh betrayed her exasperation. “I see we will never agree on this. I do think some things are worth dying for. But I will not remain to debate this with you and upset you further in your condition. I am going to London and that is that. I am opening up Sumerton Place on the Strand.”
“After everything that happened, you can still stay there?” Cecily regarded her, eyes wide with incredulity. It seemed nothing could penetrate Mirabella, not the fact that Sumerton Place was the locale of Brey’s and Lady Grace’s deaths, nor the fact that the elegant riverside home was also where Mirabella had learned of her parentage.
“It is only a house,” Mirabella said. “It is immune to the events that transpired within.”
“But you are not,” Cecily said. “Are you?”
Mirabella scowled. “Of course not! But it makes sense to stay there. I am not going to dwell on what happened. It is a lovely house and I will make good use of it. I will refurbish it, perhaps. Make it my own. Father said I could do what I like with it.”
“Well, then,” said Cecily. “It seems you have everything figured out.”
“Yes, I do,” Mirabella said in cool, unaffected tones. She rose. “I best make ready.” She leaned in, kissing Cecily’s forehead. As she pulled away, Cecily reached up, cupping her cheek.
“There are some things worth dying for,” Cecily said. “Family.”
Mirabella bit her lip, blinking several times, then shook her head as if to shake away an unwanted thought before quitting the room.
Father Alec Cahill knew this would be no ordinary Christmas. The king had invited the notorious rebel leader Robert Aske to court. Just that month the Duke of Norfolk had successfully negotiated a truce in the king’s name. It was such a slick transaction only Norfolk could pull it off, with his rumbling voice and silvery tongue. To the rebels he assured a pardon, promising that all of their demands would be met. He was a predator luring in his prey. A skilled manipulator, he would summon every wile at his disposal to quell the Pilgrimage of Grace with as much efficiency as possible to please His Majesty and obtain the favor he once enjoyed when his niece Anne Boleyn was at her apex.
The rebels were fools to believe any promise made by King Henry or Norfolk, Catholic as he may be.
Yet, pity the rebels’ fate though he might, Father Alec knew the Pilgrimage had to be stopped. Reforms must be pushed through, a precarious ordeal as it were with Henry’s attachment to the Catholic religion, sans Pope
though it may be. The rebellion posed a real threat to the ambitions of the reformers. Archbishop Cranmer was as hated as he was loved. It was his Ten Articles, the list of sacraments to be celebrated by the Church of England, that was as much at the heart of the rebellion as the dissolution of the monasteries.
Father Alec did not want to see violence committed in the name of progress, even in matters of faith. He did not believe in holy war—the taking of a life could not be called godly, even if done in His name. It was his hope that wily King Henry and the hawk-nosed Norfolk could diffuse the Pilgrimage before more lives were lost.
That said, Father Alec could not say in honesty that he supported the dissolution of the monasteries himself. Though he had read Cromwell’s reports of the corruption that took place behind cloistered walls, he knew the committed Lutheran Privy Seal to King Henry had trumped up the charges that he might further his own agenda. Father Alec had not the tolerance for Cromwell that his master did. A narrow-eyed, jowly man who reminded Father Alec of the result of a terrier-weasel union, Thomas Cromwell would not hesitate to take one life or a thousand if it meant achieving his goal—the Lutheranization of England. He had stood by and watched innocent lute player Mark Smeaton tortured into confessing his “affair” with the late Queen Anne with a delighted twinkle in his eye. No doubt he would stand hundreds more “confessions” if he were to prosper from it.
Father Alec knew no religious agenda was worth such blood-drenched intrigue. One could die for one’s faith, but one could not kill for it.
These were the thoughts that whirled in Father Alec’s mind as he strolled through the cold gallery at Windsor. He was wrapped in a cloak lined with soft otter fur to ward off the bitter winter chill and found himself clutching it around him, his fingers burrowing into the fur like worms desperate to shake the frost. He watched steam escape his lips as he expelled a heavy sigh, sniffling. He hoped he didn’t run into anyone too illustrious. The cold always made him sniffle and it was most unbecoming facing a nobleman or -woman with drippage running down his face.
As he reached up to wipe away the crude reminder of his connection to humanity, his eyes beheld a woman dressed in black damask, tendrils of cropped curls spilling out from her gabled hood matching. Green eyes flashed from an olive-skinned face. Father Alec was rendered immobile.
Mirabella Pierce.
She was cocking her head at him now, her face drawn in concentration, immersed in the task of recognition. As he approached, her face softened into a hint of a smile. She extended her hands.
“Father Alec,” she said, the smile growing wide as he took her hands in his. She shivered at his icy touch.
He withdrew them immediately. “Lady Mirabella, what a pleasure!” To his amazement, it truly was. Despite the many heartaches he had witnessed at Sumerton, there was still something about its residents that would always evoke in him a sense of home, of family.
“You’re here.” Her voice was soft. “Really here.”
“You’re here,” he returned, his easy, husky voice bright with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “You must tell me everything. Unfortunately, I haven’t occasion to write to anyone, I’ve been kept so busy these past few years. And you, what are you doing here?” In his excitement the words came out all a-jumble. He emitted a soft laugh.
Mirabella laughed in turn. “Father is well. They had a baby, you know, a little boy, Harry, and Cecily is expecting another any moment.”
Cecily, a mother? Father Alec’s heart lurched, he supposed for the little girl who once was, his little pet, his little Cecily.
“They are happy, then,” he said at last. “I am glad they are happy.”
Mirabella nodded.
“And you?” His voice softened as he returned his gaze from his reverie to the woman before him, taking note for the first time of the fierce glint in her eyes, the expression lit with an intensity burning from within, the proud set of her jaw. For some unknown reason, he shuddered.
“No doubt you have heard of my abbey’s closing,” Mirabella said in tones not altogether accusatory.
Father Alec drew in a breath and nodded. Now he understood her presence at court. He braced himself for her next words, no doubt an onslaught against him and Cranmer and anyone she perceived to be in on the destruction of her dream.
But they were no such thing. Instead she said, “It was an honor and privilege to spend the time there that I did. I will remember it well.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Father Alec asked, “And Sister Julia? What became of her?”
“She passed on,” she answered without breaking her unflinching gaze.
“My deepest condolences,” Father Alec managed to say. Something seemed wrong with her response. It was too cold, too detached. Too hurried. And yet what could he expect? Mirabella knew who his master was. He could not expect her to divulge all of her secrets to him as she had in days gone by.
“Mistress, if it means anything at all,” he began to venture, then stopped himself. He could not share his views about the dissolution, not even with Mirabella. As he had noted only moments before, they were no longer at Sumerton. She was a papist. He was a reformer. Her convent had just been closed and her mother was dead. He would be a fool to trust her. But he cursed himself for mistrusting her, along with the world that had made them this way.
Mirabella studied him, reading his expression. Sympathy, kindness, reluctance, wistfulness. All the expressions she had cherished in him and had somehow forgotten over the years. Her heart constricted at the sight of him, his wavy brown hair flecked with snow, his tanned face ruddy from the wind, his hazel eyes sparkling. And when he took her hands ... It was the same reaction. It would always be the same reaction.
If fate were kind she could have remained a nun, cloistered away with her mother. If fate were kind she could have remained kept from this world of sin and vice. But fate was not kind. She was in the world now, in the world where he was. She had to learn to bear it if she was to survive.
Forcing these thoughts from her mind, Mirabella decided to rescue him from the awkward moment that had insinuated itself between them. “Robert Aske is here, I am told. It seems as though my prayers are being answered at last, that compromises are being reached.”
His face, his honest face, changed once more, registering an expression Mirabella knew all too well. Pity. She averted her eyes.
“The king does not compromise, Mistress Mirabella,” he told her in soft tones.
“You are a man of faith, Father Alec,” she returned. “Do not tell me you have been jaded by this court, that you have become doubting.”
To her surprise Father Alec released a small chuckle. “Just practical, mistress.” He reached out, touching her nose in the fond gesture of a parent to a small child. “But I see you have lost none of that fiery spirit of yours. My prayer is that it serves you well.”
A furious flush heated Mirabella’s cheeks as she bowed her head, touched and flustered.
“Are you staying at court then?” he asked her.
“I am staying at our home on the Strand if you would like to visit,” she said.
He regarded her strangely at this but said nothing except, “I will.” And then he bowed. “I am afraid I must be off. Bless you, Mistress Mirabella. God keep you.”
And then he was gone, leaving Mirabella breathless and fighting against the hope that she would see him again soon.
Mirabella did not have too much time to dwell on Father Alec or the strange stirring in her gut when a vision of him was summoned to mind. Today she was being presented to Queen Jane. Today she was going to make a difference.
Because of her father’s connection to the Seymours, Mirabella was secured a private audience with Her Majesty. She had brought to Windsor with her one servant, a widow woman named Sarah Lucas who served as chaperone and lady’s maid while she stayed at Sumerton Place. She was the perfect company for Mirabella, quiet and reserved. She asked no questions. She did what was expected of her, no le
ss and no more.
Now she waited in the antechamber while Mirabella was shown into the queen’s presence chamber. She could not appreciate the sumptuous chambers, the silks and brocades, the tapestries, the carpets. She could only focus on her good fortune of actually being invited into the queen’s presence. It was a rarity to be granted audience without Her Majesty’s ladies in attendance. Mirabella planned to make the most of it. Her heart raced as she dipped into her deepest curtsy before her sovereign, and as Mirabella raised her head she met one of the gentlest countenances she had ever seen. Though the tiny queen was no beauty, with her dusty blond hair, pasty complexion, and chin that suggested weakness, there was something in her delicate grace that reminded Mirabella of Cecily. Momentary guilt surged through her. She did not want to think of Cecily as she had last seen her, her eyes begging her not to leave in Cecily’s time of need. If only Mirabella had told her why it was so imperative to make this journey, then perhaps she would have understood... .
“We are glad you have come to court, Mistress Pierce,” Queen Jane said in soft tones as she gestured for Mirabella to rise.
Mirabella did so but kept her head lowered. There was something so pious about the woman it seemed disrespectful to gaze upon her.
“We remember your father fondly. He used to come to Wulfhall to hunt with our father and brothers,” she went on. “Is the earl well?”
Mirabella nodded, eager to be finished with trivialities. “Yes, quite well,” she answered in wavering tones. “Thank you for asking, Your Majesty.”
Queen Jane’s lips curved into a smile. “But you didn’t request a private audience to discuss pleasantries. Please sit. Tell us how we can be of service.”
The words, so sweet and sincere, caused Mirabella’s throat to constrict with tears.
