When I first left the household of Queen Katherine over a year ago, I would not speak to anyone. I wept or I lay in bed, my arms wrapped around my body. My mother had to force food into me. Everyone attributed it to the shock of the king’s request for an annulment—the queen, devastated, wailed loudly; the tall, furious monarch stormed from the room. This happened on the first day I entered service, to be a maid of honor to the blessed queen, as my mother had before me. The annulment was without question a frightening scandal.
But, from the beginning, my mother had suspected something else. She must have pressed me for answers a hundred times. I never, ever considered telling her or my father the truth. It was not just my intense shame. George Boleyn bragged that he was a favored courtier. His sister Anne was the beloved of the king. If my father, a Stafford, knew the truth—that Boleyn had violently touched me, his hand clapped over my mouth, and would have raped me had he more time—there is no force on earth that could have prevented him from trying to kill George Boleyn. As for my mother, the blood of ancient Spanish nobility, she would be even more ferocious in her revenge. To protect my parents, I said nothing. I blamed myself for what happened. I would not ruin my parents’ lives—and those of the rest of the Stafford family—because of that stupidity.
By the time summer ended in 1527, a certain dullness overtook me. I welcomed this reprieve from tumultuous emotion, but it worried my mother. She could not believe I’d lost interest in books and music, once my principal joys. I spent the following months—the longest winter of my life—drifting in a gray expanse of nothing. The apothecary summoned to Stafford Castle diagnosed melancholia, but the barber-surgeon said no, my humors were not aligned and I was too phlegmatic. Each diagnosis called for conflicting remedy. My mother argued with them both. When spring came, she decided to trust her own instincts in nursing me. I did regain my health but never all of my spirits. My Stafford relatives approved of the quieter, docile Joanna—I’d always been a headstrong girl—but my mother fretted.
That morning in Canterbury, when we’d finished dressing, my mother declared we had no need of servants. The priory of Saint Sepulchre was not far outside the city walls.
Our maid was plainly glad to be free of us for a few hours. The manservant was a different matter. “Sir Richard said I was to stay by your side at all times,” he said.
“And I am telling you to occupy yourself in some other way,” my mother snapped. “Canterbury is an honest city, and I know the way.”
The manservant aimed a look of hatred at her back. As much as they loved my father, the castle staff loathed my mother. She was difficult—and she was foreign. The English distrusted all foreigners, and in particular imperious females.
It was a fair day, warmer than expected for the season. We took the main road leading out of the city. Majestic oaks lined each side. A low brick wall surrounded Canterbury, most likely built by the Romans all those centuries ago.
As we neared the wall, my horse stopped dead. I shook the reins. But instead of starting up again, he shimmied sideways, edging off the road. I had never known my horse—or any horse—to move in this way.
My mother turned around, her face a question. But just at that moment, her horse gave her trouble as well. She brandished the small whip she always carried.
The winds came then. I managed to get my horse back onto the road, but he was still skittish. The wind blew his mane back so violently, it was like a hard fringe snapping at my face. By this time, we had managed to reach the gap in the wall where the road spilled out of Canterbury. All the trees swayed and bent, even the oaks, as if paying homage to a harsh master.
“Madre, we should go back.” I had to shout to be heard over the roar.
“No, we go on, Juana,” she shouted. Her black Spanish hood rose and flapped around her head, like a horned halo. “We must go on.”
I followed my mother to the priory of Saint Sepulchre. Dead brush hurtled over the ground. A brace of rabbits streaked across the road, and my horse backed up, whinnying. It took all my strength on the reins to prevent him from bolting. Ahead of me, my mother turned and pointed at a building to the left.
I never knew what struck me. My mother later said it was a branch, careening wildly through the air. All I knew was the pain that clawed my cheek, followed by a thick spreading wetness.
I would have been thrown but for a bearded man who emerged from the windstorm and grabbed the reins. The man helped me down and into a small stone gatehouse. My mother was already inside. She called out her gratitude in Spanish. The man dampened a cloth, and she cleaned the blood off my face.
“It’s not a deep cut, thank the Virgin,” my mother said, and instructed me to press the cloth hard on my skin.
“How much farther to the priory?” I asked.
“We are at Saint Sepulchre now, this man is the porter,” she said. “It’s just a few steps to the main doors.”
The porter escorted us to the long stone building. The wind blew so strong that I feared I’d be sent flying through the air, like the broken branch. The porter shoved open tall wooden doors. He did not stay—he said he must see to the safety of our horses. Seconds later, I heard the click of a bolt on the other side of the door.
We were locked inside Saint Sepulchre.
I knew little of the life of a nun. Friars, who had freedom of movement, sometimes visited Stafford Castle. I had not given thought to the meaning of enclosure. Nuns, like monks, were intended to live apart from the world, for prayer and study. That much I knew. But now I also began to grasp that enclosure might require enforcement.
There was one high window in the square room. The wind beat against the glass with untamed ferocity. No candles brightened the dimness. There was no furniture nor any tapestries.
A framed portrait of a man did hang on the wall. The man wore plain robes; his long white beard rested on his cowl. He carried a wooden staff. Each corner of the frame was embellished with a carving of a leafed branch.
My mother gasped and clutched my arm. With her other, she pointed at a dark form floating toward us from the far end of the room. A few seconds later we realized it was a woman. She wore a long black habit and a black veil, and so had melted into the darkness. As she drew nearer, I could see she was quite old, with large, pale blue eyes.
“I am Sister Anne, I welcome you to the priory of Saint Sepulchre,” she said.
My mother, in contrast to the nun’s gentle manner, spoke in a loud, nervous tumble, her hands in motion. We were expected, she said. A visitation had been granted with Sister Elizabeth Barton, the storm roughened our journey, and I’d been slightly injured, but we expected to go forward. Sister Anne took it all in with perfect calm.
“The prioress will want to speak with you,” she said, and turned back the way she came, to lead us. We followed her down a passageway even darker than the room we’d waited in. The nun must have been at least sixty years of age, yet she walked with youthful ease.
There were three doors along the hall. Sister Anne opened the last one on the left and ushered us into another dim, empty room.
“But where is the prioress?” demanded my mother. “As I’ve told you, Sister, we are expected.”
Sister Anne bowed and left. I could tell from the way my mother pursed her lips she was unhappy with how we’d been treated thus far.
In this room stood two wooden tables. One was large, with a bench behind it. The other was narrow, pushed against a wall. I noticed the floor was freshly swept and the walls showed no stains of age. The priory might have been modest, but it was scrupulously maintained.
“How is your cut?” my mother asked. She lifted the cloth and peered at my cheek. “The bleeding has stopped. Does it still hurt?”
“No,” I lied.
I spotted a book mounted on the narrow table and decided to inspect it more closely. The leather cover was dominated by a gleaming picture of a robed man with a white beard, holding a staff—similar to the portrait in the front chamber but mo
re detailed. The beatific pride of his expression, the folds of his brown robe, the clouds soaring above his head—all were rendered in rich, dazzling colors. Running along the square border of the man’s picture was an intertwined branch: thin with slender green leaves. With great care, I opened the book. It was written in Latin, a language I had dedicated myself to since I was eight years old. The Life of Saint Benedict of Nursia, read the title. Underneath was his span of life: AD 480 to 543. There was a black bird below the dates, holding a loaf of bread in its beak. I turned another page and began to absorb the story. Underneath a picture of a teenage boy in the tunic of a Roman, it said that Saint Benedict forsook his family’s wealth, choosing to leave the city where he was raised. Another turn showed him alone, surrounded by mountains.
I’d been concentrating so closely that I didn’t hear my mother until she stood right next to me. “Ah, the founder of the Benedictines,” she said. She pointed at the branches that stretched across the border of each page. “The olive branch is so lovely; it’s the symbol of their order.”
My finger froze on the page. I realized that for the first time since last May, when I submitted myself to the profligate court of Henry VIII, I felt true curiosity. Was it the violent force of the wind—had it ripped the lassitude from me? Or had I been awakened by this spare, humble priory and the dazzling beauty of this, its precious object?
The door opened. A woman strode into the room. She was younger than the first nun—close in age to my mother. Her face was sharply sculpted, with high cheekbones.
“I am the prioress, Sister Philippa Jonys.”
My mother leaped forward and seized the prioress’s hand to kiss it and go down on one knee. It was not only theatricality: I knew that in Spain, deep obeisance was paid to the heads of holy houses. But the prioress’s eyes widened at the sight of my prostrate mother.
Pulling her hand free, the prioress said, “I regret to hear of your mishap. We are a Benedictine house, sworn to hospitality, and will offer you a place of rest until you are ready to resume your journey.”
My mother sputtered, “But we are here to see Sister Elizabeth Barton. It was arranged. I corresponded with Doctor Bocking while still at Stafford Castle.”
I stared at my mother in surprise. My impression had been that the trip to Saint Sepulchre was spontaneous, arranged in Canterbury or London at the earliest. I began to comprehend that the healing waters served as an excuse to get us here. Coming to Saint Sepulchre, without servants to observe us, was her purpose.
“I have not been informed of this visitation, and nothing occurs here without my approval,” the prioress said.
Most would be intimidated by such a rebuff. Not Lady Isabella Stafford.
“Doctor Bocking, the monk who I understand is the spiritual advisor of Sister Elizabeth, wrote to me granting permission,” my mother said. “I would have brought his letter as proof, but I did not expect that the wife of Sir Richard Stafford—and a lady-in-waiting to the queen of England—could be disbelieved.”
The prioress clutched the leather belt that clinched her habit. “This is a priory, not the court of the king. Sister Elizabeth is a member of our community. We have six nuns at Saint Sepulchre. Six. There is much work to be done, earthly responsibilities as well as spiritual. These visits rob Sister Elizabeth of her health. ‘Will this harvest be better?’ ‘Will I marry again?’ She cannot spend all of her time with such pleadings.”
“I am not here to inquire about harvests,” snapped my mother.
“Then why are you here?”
With a glance at me, my mother said, “My daughter has not been well for some time. If I knew what course to take—what her future might hold—”
“Mama, no,” I interrupted, horrified. “We were ordered by Cousin Henry never to solicit prophecy, after the Duke of Buckingham’s—”
“Be silent,” scolded my mother. “This is not of the same import.”
There was a tap on the door, and Sister Anne reappeared.
“Sister Elizabeth said she will see the girl named Joanna now,” the elderly nun murmured.
“Did you tell her of these guests?” demanded the prioress.
Sister Anne shook her head. The prioress and nun stared at each other. A peculiar emotion throbbed in the air.
My mother did not notice it. “Please, without further delay, show us the way to Sister Elizabeth,” she said, triumphant.
Sister Anne bowed her head. “Forgive me, Lady Stafford, but Sister Elizabeth said she will see the girl Joanna alone. And that she must come of her own free will and unconstrained.”
“But I don’t want to see her at all,” I protested.
My mother took me by the shoulders. Her face was flushed; I feared she was close to tears. “Oh, you must, Juana,” she said. “Por favor. Ask her what is to be done. Sister Elizabeth has a gift, a vision. Only she can guide us. I can’t cope with this anymore all alone. I can’t.”
I had not realized how much my spiritual affliction troubled my mother. Her suffering filled me with remorse. I would go to this strange young nun. The visit should be brief; I intended to ask few questions.
The prioress and Sister Anne spoke together, in hushed tones, for another minute. Then the prioress beckoned for me alone to follow.
She led me down the passageway, through the front entranceway, and down another dim corridor. Following her, I thought of how the elegance of her movements contrasted with the ladies I’d grown up with. Hers was certainly not movement calculated to draw admiration. It was grace that derived from simplicity and economy of movement.
I also tried to plan how I could speak to Sister Elizabeth Barton without disobeying the command of Lord Henry Stafford, my cousin and head of the family. It had been the prophecy of a friar, much distorted, that was the basis for arresting my uncle, the Duke of Buckingham. During the trial, he was charged with seeking to learn the future—how long would Henry VIII live and would he produce sons—so that the duke could plot to seize the throne. Afterward, my cautious cousin, his son, said repeatedly that none of the family could ever have anything to do with prophecy. My father agreed—he harbored a personal distaste for seers, witches, and necromancers. It was one of the many ways in which he differed from my mother.
The prioress rapped on a door, gently. She hesitated, her eyebrows furrowing, and then she opened it and we stepped inside.
This room was tiny, as small as a servant’s. A lone figure sat in the middle of the floor, slumped over, her back to us. There was no window. Two candles that burned on either side of the door provided the only light.
“Sister Elizabeth, will you attend Vespers later?” asked the prioress.
The figure nodded but did not turn around. The prioress said to me, “I shall be back shortly,” and gestured for me to step forward.
I edged inside. The prioress closed the door.
Sister Elizabeth Barton wore the same black habit as the others. She didn’t turn around. I felt awkward. Unwanted. The minutes crept by.
“It’s a wind that brings no rain,” said a young voice.
“Indeed, Sister,” I said, relieved that she spoke. “There wasn’t any rain.” But a second later I wondered how she knew anything about the elements without a window in the room. Another nun must have told her, I concluded. Just as someone told her my name—the monk Doctor Bocking, perhaps. I did not believe that she possessed the powers my mother spoke of. Although devout, I held closer to the spirit of my pragmatic father in such matters.
White hands reached out and Sister Elizabeth turned herself around, slowly, sitting on the floor. This nun was but a girl, and so frail looking. She had a long face, with a sloping chin.
As she gazed up at me, sadness filled her eyes.
“I did not know you would be so young,” she whispered.
“I am seventeen,” I said. “You look to be the same age.”
“I am twenty-two,” she said, and continued: “You have intelligence, piety, strength, and beauty. And
noble blood. All the things I lack.” There was no envy. It was as if she mulled a list of goods to be purchased at market.
Ignoring her assessment of me, which I found embarrassing, I asked, “How can you say you lack piety when you are a sister of Christ?”
“God chose me,” she said. “I was a servant, of no importance in the world. He chose me to speak the truth. I have no choice. I must submit to His will. For you it is different. You have a true spiritual calling.”
Sister Elizabeth Barton was confused. “I am not a nun,” I said.
She frowned, as if she were responding to someone else’s voice. She slowly rose to her feet. She was spare and small, at least three inches shorter than me.
“Yes, the two cardinals are coming,” she said. “It will be within the month. They will pass through on the way to London. I will have to try to speak to them. I must find the courage to go before all the highest and most powerful men in the land.”
My mother had said nothing of Sister Elizabeth leaving Saint Sepulchre to go before the powerful. “Why would you do that?” I asked.
“To stop them,” she said.
I was torn. A part of me was curious, but another, larger, part was growing uneasy. There was nothing malevolent about this fragile nun, yet her words made me uncomfortable.
At last the curious part won. “Whom must you stop, Sister?” I asked. “The cardinals?”
She shook her head and took two steps toward me. “You know, Joanna.”
“No, Sister Elizabeth, I don’t.”
“Your mother wants to know your future—should she marry you off in the country to someone who will take you with meager dowry, or try to return you to the court of the king? Your true vocation leaps in her face, but she cannot see. Poor woman. She has no notion of what she has set in motion by bringing you to me.”
How could the Holy Maid of Kent know so much of my family? Yet I said, nervously, “Sister, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Her lower lip trembled. “When the cow doth ride the bull, then priest beware thy skull,” she said.
The Chalice Page 2
