The Tapestry: A Novel

by Nancy Bilyeau

  “No,” I said emphatically. “I cannot believe Catherine would commit adultery with anyone after her marriage.”

  Surrey shouted, “She is innocent of adultery with Dereham. The man is a lout and a scoundrel. He blackmailed her into giving him a position.”

  “Won’t your father defend her?” I said. “The Duke of Norfolk can explain everything to the king.”

  Surrey closed his eyes in anguish. “At the first moment of crisis, he abandoned her.”

  “Who is it that brings these charges to the king’s attention?” I demanded. “Who pushes for her destruction?”

  “Archbishop Cranmer gave the king a letter that detailed her past immorality.”

  So the mild-faced archbishop showed his true colors. I took a deep breath. “Then we must do all we can to bring the truth to the king. I will go to him, if that is why you’ve come. I will speak for Catherine.”

  “He has left Hampton Court and is in seclusion, emerging only to see his council,” said Surrey. “The king will most definitely not see you. And the guards will admit no one to Catherine’s chamber.”

  “Well, what can be done?” I demanded. “You must have a plan.”

  Surrey said, “I came to you, Joanna, for the plan.”

  I paced the floor, trying to think.

  “When you came in the door, you said, ‘Help them.’ Whom do you mean by them? Catherine and King Henry?”

  “No.” The earl shook his head, as if he could not believe something himself.

  “What is it, Cousin? Tell me.”

  “There could be another man whom she has committed adultery with. It’s Thomas Culpepper.”

  I took a step back, stumbling on a table, and nearly fell.

  He held up a hand. “I am not sure. No one is. But it is possible. There are rumors.”

  I remembered Catherine’s confession in the garden park of Winchester House. She had fallen in love with Culpepper before she was forced to captivate the king. His rejection of her inflicted a deep wound—it was even part of the reason she was ready to become the king’s mistress. She thought it would goad Culpepper, whom she longed for. He stayed clear of her the entire time I was in Whitehall, but after she became queen, did something happen?

  “Is Culpepper arrested?”

  “No.” Surrey swallowed. “Not yet.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  Surrey said that nothing had changed since he confided in me on the day of Cromwell’s execution. Culpepper was profane, swaggering, and dangerous. He laughed at Surrey’s efforts to rein him in.

  “Where is Thomas now?” I asked.

  “At Hampton Court—that’s where everyone is,” my cousin said. “I need to get you there as soon as possible. Bring some clothes. I honestly don’t know how long this will take. I don’t even know what we can do, but we must do something.”

  I rushed to gather clothes, and snatched a book of Scripture. As we prepared to leave, Surrey said, glancing at my book, “If only I’d been able to find the fourth book of Cornelius Agrippa, then there could have been a chance for Culpepper. There must be men who can interpret it—priests, perhaps. And then we could have reversed the hex, the incantation, whatever it is that corrupted him. I tried, Joanna, but I had no luck finding it.”

  I was two inches from the door when I froze.

  “Of course,” I said. The Queen Regent Mary had told me that Chapuys was godfather to one of Agrippa’s sons, that they were close. Edmund said, The emperor and his inner circle have always been interested in seers and magicians.

  I turned to tell Surrey, “I am fairly certain that Ambassador Chapuys has the books of Agrippa.”

  “Chapuys?” Surrey said in wonder. “Yes, yes, you must be right. He is a great scholar, I’ve heard, educated in the same part of the world as Agrippa. But why didn’t you write to me of this at once?”

  “I didn’t realize it until this moment.”

  Surrey said, greatly excited, “I know where Chapuys resides in London.”

  “Then we must go there together before we attempt anything else and try to find it. There should be some way to see his library, whether the ambassador is there or not.”

  Determined, I pulled open the door—and there stood Geoffrey Scovill, the Howard retainers behind him.

  “Where are you going, Joanna?” he asked.

  “Constable, I am taking her to Hampton Court,” said the Earl of Surrey, who’d met Geoffrey at the Rose Tavern and now pushed past him.

  “That’s unwise,” Geoffrey said.

  “This is not your concern,” said my cousin, beckoning for his horse. He told one of the men to give his horse to me, and find some other way back to court.

  “Joanna, listen to me, when I say—” Geoffrey began.

  “We don’t have time for this,” interrupted Surrey. “I don’t see why this man feels he has the right to offer an opinion on what you do, Joanna, or to follow you around any longer, especially in view of Bishop Gardiner’s plan.”

  I whirled on Surrey, demanding, “What plan?”

  “The bishop is working on an exception to be made for his secretary, Edmund Sommerville, to marry even though he was once a friar. You can be his wife after all.”

  38

  I know nothing of this exception, you must believe me,” I said to Geoffrey, rendered silent by Surrey’s news. He stared at me, his eyes full of ravaged pride.

  Moments later, my cousin practically threw me onto the back of his servant’s horse.

  “If we don’t leave now, we won’t make London before nightfall,” said Surrey.

  “Give me a moment to speak to Geoffrey,” I pleaded.

  Surrey said, “This is Catherine’s life.” He jumped onto his horse, and with a swift kick he was off, my horse surging right behind. I turned around, frantic, trying to see Geoffrey without tumbling out of the saddle. He had not moved—he stood watching us go. He would not follow this time.

  Surrey rode his horse so hard I had a difficult time keeping up. He was as a man possessed—fear and guilt made for a powerful combination. As for me, I felt torn in two. I wanted to do everything in my power to help Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper, whose lives were in danger. But I was sick with regret that Geoffrey had been told in such a brutal fashion that Edmund meant to marry me. And I was furious that I’d not been informed. How dare Edmund and Bishop Gardiner make these sorts of plans for me?

  While waiting to cross London Bridge, our horses quivering with exhaustion, I asked my cousin if he thought Ambassador Chapuys would be at home. It might be easier to talk our way into the residence, ask to see the library and then make excuses, all before the ambassador returned. I wasn’t sure how to best go about securing the book. We could ask to borrow it, of course. But I was not above stealing it for a cause as crucial as this.

  Surrey said, “Chapuys is probably still at court, waiting to hear the news of the king’s council. The council meets for days, investigating Catherine and preparing possible grounds for divorce—and other possibilities.” Surrey winced. “Of course, the king himself is not there. As I told you, he is in seclusion. At this stage, he is always like Henry the Second: ‘Will no one free me of this woman?’”

  A strange feeling churned; I almost felt as if I would be sick. Another realization had sunk in.

  Ever since Geoffrey told me that in London the play actors who enacted the tragedy of Henry II and Becket were part of the plan, I’d wondered why they picked that tableau from history. The most frightening scenario I’d grappled with was that it was a reference to the night that Edmund and I joined the monks on their mission to rescue the bones of the saint from Canterbury Cathedral. But now I was struck by another possibility. Just as the four knights who killed Becket wanted to please a powerful king who desired the death of the archbishop but dared not directly order it, what if my
adversaries were trying to please someone who wanted to destroy me but could not give the order?

  The men in charge of London Bridge gave the signal, and the Earl of Surrey and I rode through. The crowd was thin; it was near dark. We rode toward Chapuys’s house.

  That’s when I felt it—that strange itch, something alighting on my shoulder and the back of my head. I swung around, but recognized no one.

  “What is it, Joanna?” asked Surrey.

  “Nothing,” I said. Except that I was now convinced that the house of Ambassador Chapuys was the last place on earth I should be riding to.

  But what about Culpepper and Catherine?

  I took a long look at my cousin. He was heir to a dukedom and a celebrated courtier and poet. Also a soldier, a man trained to fight. No one would dare trifle with me while I was by his side. And it would take only a few moments to obtain the book. I’d simply never let Surrey out of my sight.

  When we reached Chapuys’s house, there was a candle burning inside, but just one. A good sign. The ambassador must not be home. We knocked on the door, and told the startled young man who answered that we were there to call upon Chapuys. Surrey instructed his own servant to remain outside with the horses.

  “I will make inquiries,” said the young man.

  He led us to a small downstairs parlor without a single book in it and then disappeared. This was going to be more of a challenge than I thought. We couldn’t rampage through the ambassador’s house. What excuse could I give for going upstairs?

  “Greetings, my lord Surrey—and Mistress Stafford,” said a familiar voice. Señor Hantaras smiled in the doorway to the parlor. “I am most pleased to see you here. My master the ambassador is not at home. Would you like to wait?”

  Smiling right back at him, we said we would like to do just that. Surrey’s friendliness was more genuine than mine. The sight of Hantaras always made my flesh go cold.

  “The ambassador has a superb wine collection—may I offer you refreshment?”

  Surrey agreed with enthusiasm, as I feared he would. This was not a social occasion. We must not get distracted from our goal: finding the library.

  “We can’t ask to see the library at once,” Surrey whispered. “It would be more natural after conversation and a drink.”

  Hantaras was gone for quite a while, but then reappeared with a bottle. He personally poured the wine. As he filled my goblet, bending down, I saw that his neck was damp. He must have greatly exerted himself to break out in a sweat on such a cool night.

  I didn’t touch the wine. Glancing out the mullioned windows, barely listening to the casual conversation between Surrey and Hantaras, I wondered when Chapuys would arrive.

  “Considering how painfully and with what goodwill they have proved it, I find it interesting that—” My cousin broke off in the middle of a sentence, and loosened a button on his doublet.

  “Forgive me,” he muttered. “I’m feeling . . . rather warm . . . terribly warm . . . I regret that . . .” With that, Surrey blinked, and coughed twice, and slithered out of his chair and onto the floor in a faint.

  I sprang to his side and cradled his head in my hands. My cousin was breathing but his eyes were shut, dead to the world. “What is wrong?” I cried. “You drank one glass of wine, how could this be?”

  I looked up, at Señor Hantaras. He still stood on the other side of the room, his hand on one hip. He hadn’t moved a single inch.

  “The Earl of Surrey needs help—can’t you see that?” I snapped, his head in my lap. “What are you waiting for?”

  But that didn’t send him across the room. Nor did he seem offended by my angry tone. He just kept studying me. Not the unconscious earl. Me. As we locked eyes, all of his hospitality drained away, replaced by unadulterated hatred.

  I heard a creak on wood, like the sound of a step on stairs. And a second and third, steady steps on the stairs. Not a large man, to move like this. Someone light and graceful, but with purpose. Was Ambassador Chapuys at home after all? Had they practiced a deception? Rage flooded through me that they would trifle with me and my cousin in such a way.

  Señor Hantaras turned his head toward the sound on the steps and nodded, once, to someone I couldn’t see. And with that, I knew who would appear in the doorway a split second before he appeared.

  Jacquard Rolin, smiling as he came into view, said, “After all that we’ve been through, all the waiting and watching and making our attempts, in the end she comes right to me, like a lover.” He patted his chest. “It’s just so incredibly touching.”

  The most important thing was to keep thinking. Jacquard taught me that. I must not lose my head. There was only one door to the room, and Hantaras stood just inside it. But there must be something else I could do.

  “I couldn’t believe it when their horses turned onto the Strand and then stopped here,” said Señor Hantaras. “Once they were inside, I had to climb in through the back window to come through the house to receive them.”

  I looked down at Surrey’s slack face. “You drugged him.”

  Hantaras said, “I would have drugged you, too, and then I wouldn’t have to look at you one moment longer. But you didn’t touch it, you troublesome bitch. I thank God I won’t have to deal with you after today.”

  I knew now.

  “It was you,” I said to Hantaras. “You were the one who watched me. Every single time.”

  “Either me or someone directed by me, and I hated it, every minute,” Hantaras snarled. “It was a lot of work, and enormous expense, to get hold of you.”

  I said, “In London, in the Whitehall gatehouse, at Tower Hill, it was you.”

  Without looking down, I began to ease the earl’s head off my lap, using the smallest of movements. When I made my dash, it would have to be a surprise. Until then, I must keep them talking. “Have you been in England without my knowing it, Jacquard?” I asked.

  “Not until last month,” he said, coming around the table by the door to stand nearer to me, unfortunately. “I devised the plan with Hantaras in letters, and agreed on various scenarios for your abduction. He was to hire men to hold you in England, outside London, until I could find an excuse to book passage and deal with you, finally, myself.”

  “But Chapuys forbade it,” I said. “I was not to be harmed.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, Hantaras scowled, shifting from foot to foot. He didn’t like what I said. Which must mean one thing.

  “The ambassador does not know anything about this,” I said.

  Jacquard shrugged. “He was the one who received the edict from the ambassador after you betrayed us and saved the life of your king. ‘No harm shall come to the woman in Dartford.’ How long we have analyzed that sentence! Did he mean no harm should come to you at all? Or that no harm should come to you but only as long as you remained in Dartford? In the end we decided the emperor must mean the latter. Every time you left Dartford, you were fair game.”

  You should stay there, the emperor said in grave reproof in Regensburg. He knew the sort of men who worked in his service, and so he knew that was the only place of safety for me.

  I had to keep them talking while I continued to ease Surrey’s head down onto the floor. “If you were confident with your interpretation, why not bring Eustace Chapuys into it?” I asked, turning to Hantaras.

  But he responded by turning to Jacquard, “Get her out of here.”

  Jacquard took a step closer to me, his lips moist. “It’s too early, there are people still on the street who will notice unusual movements outside the ambassador’s residence. Chapuys won’t be back for at least an hour. I can accomplish quite a bit in an hour.”

  Fighting down nausea, I said, “Chapuys must have said something about wishing to be rid of me, and you decided that was all you needed. ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ Wasn’t it like that? It must have
been, for you to stage that little play in London. You must have loved the thought of sending me a coded message.”

  Jacquard smiled, in delight. “You see how clever she is? That’s the pity of it all. She was my finest pupil. But I just couldn’t break her spirit. And if you can’t break in an animal, you have to put it down.”

  He took another step toward me. He was no more than six steps away now.

  I said rapidly, “You taught me always to think things through, Jacquard, to have contingencies for everything, and I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” I turned to Hantaras. “You shouldn’t have let Jacquard talk you into drugging us here, you should have tried to take me when I was alone. What are you going to do when the Earl of Surrey wakes up? And what about his man outside? This will cause an incident, my going missing and the earl falling mysteriously ill in the ambassador’s house. Señor Hantaras, you have failed your master tonight.”

  “Get her out of here!” shouted Hantaras in Spanish. “Get her out!”

  I slid Surrey’s head all the way to the floor and sprang to my feet. I dashed for the window. I’d scream my head off and pound on the glass. The window was close to the street—the attention they feared would surely come. At the least, Surrey’s man would come running in.

  I was inches from the window, and opening my mouth to scream, when a powerful hand seized me by the waist and hurled me back. I felt a sharp pain on the side of my neck, like the chop of a hand, and darkness spread.

  • • •

  When I regained consciousness, my wrists hurt and I could hardly breathe. Something filled my mouth. My legs were free, but my hands were tied to something and my arms were spread apart. The room was lit by candlelight, and I looked up at the canopy of a bed.

  I smelled Jacquard before I saw him, that musky amber he doused himself with.

  A rope tightened around my left wrist, stretched high and tight over my head. I strained to look up. Jacquard, a knife between his teeth, tightened the rope around my wrist. He was tying me to the backboard of a bed. I tried to cry out, but a rag was stuffed in my mouth.