The Chalice

by Nancy Bilyeau

She shrugged and laughed, in that winning way she had of saying, yes, isn’t this frivolous but I’m doing it and don’t I do it well. I was no longer seduced by Gertrude’s charm. But I acknowledged its potency.

  “Is it necessary that the dinner be held in the great hall?” I asked.

  Gertrude stirred her preserves with a long spoon. “That’s where we always have it. The room is only used for the yearly dinner for Montagu. The men enjoy feasting there. They call it ‘playing Plantagenet.’ ”

  “But it’s so huge and we are a small party,” I said.

  “Not that small,” she answered. “There’ll be Henry and me, and you, and Father Timothy. And then there are Baron Montagu, his sister-in-law, and Sir Edward Neville. Neville comes to these dinners, too—if he is in London. Which he is.”

  I was baffled. “Why does Baron Montagu bring his sister-in-law and not his wife?”

  A frown line danced between Gertrude’s eyes as she stirred. “Baron Montagu’s wife died early this year, Joanna. I assumed you knew that.”

  “No, but I am sorry for Baron Montagu’s loss,” I said. Still confused, I asked, “Who is the sister-in-law?”

  “Christine is the wife of Godfrey Pole.”

  “But Godfrey isn’t coming himself?” This dinner did not make sense.

  Gertrude’s eyes flicked up, at me, and then back into the pot of quince preserves. “Godfrey is in the Tower.”

  Just the word Tower weakened me. The steam heated the kitchen. But my rush of memory—those months in a cell, trapped behind walls so thick that no cannon fire could make them tremble—left me chilled.

  “Why is Godfrey Pole held there?” I asked.

  “I believe he is being questioned about his brother, Reginald Pole, who is in Rome, writing papers against the king, his divorce from Queen Katherine, and his break from the church. We have all disowned Reginald, of course”—Gertrude stirred faster—“but the king’s men want to be certain of loyalty.”

  “How long has he been confined?”

  Gertrude said briskly, “It is for my husband to answer all such questions—it is his dinner, not mine.”

  There was no question now of voicing my fears of the great hall. I backed away from Gertrude and her simmering pot.

  The rest of the day, I could not concentrate on needlework or conversation. That night I was not the least sleepy, so I read by candle for a long time, but restlessly. I had no idea that the king’s suspicions of those with any trace of royal blood—those who could conceivably make a claim to succeed him—had led to imprisonment. I wished I had not submitted to Henry’s pleadings to remain here. Everything about the dinner, now four days away, was wrong.

  I don’t know what time it was when the horse whinnied. Hoofs slammed on cobblestone. Another whinny. Leaving my candle by the bed, I went to the window.

  There were four horses on Suffolk Lane, all of them mounted. One gave his rider trouble. A single torch blazed in a fixture next to the entranceway, affording me enough light to recognize the auburn-haired rider as he spun around: Joseph. And yes, his twin brother, James, rode a gray. With a start, I realized two women accompanied them. Joseph finally got control of his horse, and James signaled that it was time to go.

  I strained to see the women. They weren’t ladies, that was obvious from their drab clothes. Their faces were obscured by long hoods. Could they be fellow servants? How would the Courtenays feel about the twins, trusted servants, riding out late, into the wicked dangers of the night, with women?

  The foursome rode up the street, away from the Thames. The woman who was second from last pulled on the reins, reached up and adjusted her hood. The torchlight danced on her. I knew this hand, this quick but elegant movement. The fingers were long. There were usually gold rings encircling two or even three of them—but not tonight.

  Those were the hands of Gertrude Courtenay.

  14

  I stood at that window long after the four of them disappeared. How easily I’d been fooled. Gertrude conspired, and it must be a dangerous cause indeed for her to ride disguised into the streets of London at night, defying curfew. She took bold advantage of her husband’s absence.

  I determined I would stay awake until they returned, no matter how late the hour. And then I’d make a report to the marquess through Charles, as I had promised.

  I had no timepiece in my room, so I never knew how long Gertrude and the others were gone from the Red Rose. It seemed like most of the night. Several times I nearly surrendered to exhaustion. But I fought off temptation.

  I’d again splashed water on my face when I heard a faint noise. I crept to the window. The torch had been extinguished outside. There was no moon. But I could just make out four riders coming down Suffolk Lane. Two of them dismounted and approached the entryway. The others rode to the stables. Gertrude was home.

  I fell asleep the instant I lay down. It had been a grueling night. What felt like moments later, someone gently shook my shoulder.

  Alice said. “I’m sorry, mistress. I knocked. But you didn’t answer. The dressmaker is here.”

  I’d forgotten it was the day of the fitting. I could not seem to assemble my thoughts. I lamented such thick-headedness. I’d need all my wits now.

  “Tell Charles that I will have a message for him this morning,” I muttered.

  I did not want to be pinned and pinched by dressmakers. Or to be in the presence of Gertrude. But I had no choice.

  To my surprise, the Marchioness of Exeter did not appear weary at all. As the dressmaker and her apprentice pulled me this way and that, Gertrude watched closely. The precious cloth of silver, which looked so light in the merchant’s box, weighed heavy on my limbs.

  Yet as I studied her, a difference became apparent. Her smiles, her laughter, her pointing—all carried an extra degree of animation. I remembered when we met, in Dartford, and she’d shown that same brittle excitement beneath her courtly words and gestures. I thought it her normal manner then. But while in the Red Rose, she calmed herself; the excitement lessened. What had revived it? It could only be what happened last night.

  When the fitting was over, Gertrude insisted I remain.

  “You looked beautiful in that cloth of silver, Joanna,” she said. “It sets off your coloring.”

  I said nothing.

  In that same false tone, Gertrude said, “My confectioner is trying a different mixture, employing the new sugars of the islands across the sea. Tell me how this treat tastes. If you like it, I’ll order it for our dinner.”

  Reluctantly, I took a seat next to her. The treat made me wince. “Too sweet,” I said.

  “Oh, really?” Gertrude mock-pouted with disappointment.

  “I shouldn’t be the one you ask. I don’t much care for treats.”

  Gertrude shifted in her chair and tilted her head. “Joanna denies herself all pleasures, even a sweet.”

  I could not bear her banter any longer. Once again, I made to leave. And once again she detained me. This time she rose from her chair and stood before me, her hands on her hips.

  “Joanna, whatever is the matter?” she asked. “Are you ill?”

  “No.” I started to edge around her.

  “Did you have trouble sleeping?” she pressed.

  There was not a trace of anything but affection in those large brown eyes. Try on these clothes, eat a treat. Yet she plotted and lied, putting her husband and son—and myself and Arthur—in the greatest danger.

  “No,” I said slowly. “I did not sleep well.”

  It was darkly thrilling, this decision I had just made. No more dissembling. I shall confront her, I thought. I am not afraid. Anger sent strength into my bones and cleared my mind of confusion. From a distance rose the image of Brother Edmund, shaking his head, pleading with me to curb my anger. But he was not present to dissuade me.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  I answered: “I was awake for hours, waiting for you to return.”

  The corners of her mouth twitch
ed. But Gertrude did not flinch.

  At that very moment, Constance opened the door to say, “My lady, Charles is here. He wants to speak with Mistress Joanna. He said she has a message for him.”

  Without taking her eyes off me, Gertrude said, “Tell Charles to wait.”

  After we were alone again, she said, perfectly calm, “Aren’t you going to ask me where I went? You wouldn’t want your message to my husband to be incomplete of facts. That is what you arranged, isn’t it? When he came in secret to your bedchamber—that you’d send messages through Charles? I think I should be the one questioning you, Joanna. About your light conduct with my husband.”

  “You know that is not true,” I said, furious.

  “Do I?” she said. “I suppose so.” She laughed.

  Her laugh made me even angrier. “Yes, my lady, I will send word to the marquess of your leaving the house last night.”

  I made for the door. But before I took three steps, she seized me by the wrist, just as she had in Dartford. Her grip was stronger this time.

  “We didn’t travel far, Joanna. I had an appointment with a man. A hard man to find. But I finally found him and made arrangements to go to his secret place, and on the most propitious date and time of the year for his particular business.”

  I pulled free my wrist but did not move toward the door. If Gertrude was of a mind to reveal herself, I would discover it all.

  “What is his name?” I asked.

  “I don’t know his real name. He has taken the name Orobas.”

  “Taken?” I repeated impatiently. “What does that mean? What sort of name is ‘Orobas’?”

  A nerve danced on the side of Gertrude’s slender throat. “I believe it is of Latin origin. As to why he took it, I think it is because Scriptures say the demon Orobas serves as the chief oracle in Hell.”

  I made the sign of the cross.

  “A demon?” I cried. “You are consorting with those who worship demons? It is the worst sort of blasphemy. You have gone mad, Gertrude.”

  “I am not mad,” she said, “Orobas is not a demon worshipper. It’s just a name. I am not sure what the description is. I will settle on ‘seer.’ And I do not consort with him. I pay him, and I pay him well, to divine the future. Last night he shared with me a prophecy I’ve waited a long time to hear. I must perform one more task and then I will learn the rest. He has sworn it.”

  I dropped to my knees before Gertrude Courtenay and clasped my hands. “I plead with you—I beseech you—do not proceed. Do not seek out prophecy. It is so dangerous to you and your family, to all who love you. In the name of the Virgin, I implore you to stop.”

  She looked down at me, entirely unmoved. “It really doesn’t suit you, Joanna. To beg on your knees. Which is rather amusing, when one remembers you were almost a nun.” She yanked me to my feet. Our faces were inches apart. “I must know—what did she say to you? What did Sister Elizabeth Barton say to frighten you this badly?”

  I ripped myself from her grasp. I backed away from her so fast I stumbled over a table.

  “You know I went to Canterbury,” I stammered.

  “I know that in October in the Year of Our Lord 1528, Sister Elizabeth Barton informed you that you would come after if she should fail to stop the king of England. She told me that herself. But how you would do it and the precise prophecy that concerned you? She shared it with not a soul. I don’t believe anyone knows it but you and Sister Elizabeth, and she’s dead.”

  Gertrude bore down on me again, her eyes afire, like a hunter who is seconds from killing long-sought prey.

  “Sister Elizabeth Barton recanted,” I said. “The prophecy meant nothing.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” Gertrude said. “There is a reason that Sister Elizabeth Barton broke down in the Tower and begged to deny her prophecies. Her gift of prophecy was genuine—given by God. She falsely recanted because it was the only way to stop their questions before they forced your secret from her. She did it to protect you.”

  “No, no, no,” I said, covering my ears. “I won’t hear this.”

  Gertrude wrenched my hands away. “Stop it,” she hissed. “You’re not a child. You are the key to our enterprise, you are the one who could deliver us from Henry Tudor and restore the true faith to England. But you won’t.”

  “I don’t know what you imagine can be done,” I said, shaking my head violently. “The king has dissolved the monasteries, the churches are stripped. We have no choice but to conform.”

  “Conform?” she cried. “When our souls are in peril, you of all people counsel us to conform? Just weeks ago, the king took his latest step against the true faith, the most blasphemous of all. He sacked the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The jewels and precious objects were carted to the royal treasury. All that is left now are the holy bones of the saint himself.”

  In a dozen steps, perhaps less, I could reach the door. Charles was just outside. Gertrude was strong, but if I could get around her and run for the door, she could not prevent me from escaping this room.

  I began to move, but Gertrude thrust herself directly in front of me.

  “If you don’t get out of my way, I will scream,” I said.

  “No, you won’t,” she said. “There will be no message for Charles today. And not only that. Tomorrow night I am going back to see Orobas, and you will come with me. You must come of your own free will and unconstrained.”

  It was a savage blow, to hear those words again. So the letter did concern me. I now saw that everything she said or did in this house was to drive me toward the next stage in the prophecy.

  “I will never agree to that,” I said.

  “Give us what we want, Joanna,” she said, her voice thick with desperation.

  “Us?” I repeated. “Who told you to secure me from Dartford? Who tells you to take me to a seer now?’

  Gertrude said, “I can never tell you that.”

  Enraged, I said, “I will not go with you tomorrow or any other day, Gertrude. I shall send a message to the marquess and then leave this house.”

  Her lower lip trembled. Red patches flared in her hollow cheeks. “Don’t you care what I tell my husband about you after you’ve gone?”

  “No.”

  “That his precious Joanna Stafford secretly met with Sister Elizabeth Barton, just as I did? That you are a liar and a traitor, too?”

  I flinched from her ugly words but said, “Tell him anything you want.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that. There is one thing you don’t want Henry or anyone else to know, something that has nothing to do with prophecy.”

  The door swung open and Constance reappeared. “Charles is most insistent, my lady. He said he must speak with Mistress Stafford.”

  I moved toward Constance, and Charles waiting behind her, but Gertrude suddenly had me by the shoulders.

  “And what if I tell others that you were once the whore of George Boleyn?” Gertrude whispered in my ear.

  I could not find my voice, could not breathe. This is what it is like, I thought. This is what it is like for the world to end.

  Finally I managed three words: “Shut the door.”

  Constance slipped back out. There was a muffled conversation and then the sound of footsteps walking away.

  “You should sit down, Joanna,” said Gertrude. Her desperate tone was gone. She was all solicitude. “You are not well.”

  I turned my back as I struggled to control myself. Finally I said, my voice hoarse: “Lady Rochford lied to you.”

  “Oh, Joanna,” Gertrude said. “It is obvious that she told me the truth.”

  Tears coursed down my cheeks. “I was sixteen years old.”

  Gertrude shook her head. “If it’s any comfort to you, just before he was beheaded, Boleyn told the crowd he was a sinner who deserved death. Perhaps he was thinking of you and all the other girls he hurt.”

  I made fists and pressed them against my eyes, to stop the weeping. But it did not
work. The tears seeped through my fingers. “Who else knows?” I said.

  “No one,” said Gertrude. “And I will never tell a living soul, I swear to you before God—if you go with me tomorrow. The seer said he would not complete his prophecy without you being present. He stipulated that you must come of your own free will.”

  For so long I had feared that the second prophet would divine my future and bring me closer to a terrifying destiny. Nearly as great was my fear that George Boleyn’s crime against me would be revealed. I did nothing to encourage him and struggled to get away from him when he trapped me in the curtained corner of his sister’s receiving room, but he was too strong. I knew that women were never believed. I’d always been afraid of how people would at once condemn me and my family if his attack on me were known. Now my fears had intertwined, and by doing so become so powerful that I was crushed to nothing.

  I would do what Gertrude asked. She knew that. I could not live with the sordid truth being exposed.

  Then a new fear took hold. “But how can you be sure of Jane Boleyn, that she has told no one else what her husband did to me?” I asked. “Or that she will remain silent in the future?”

  Gertrude said nothing. I lowered my fists from my eyes and turned to face her. I expected to see a woman gloating. But it was the opposite. Hers was a visage of aged sorrow. The faint lines crisscrossing Gertrude’s face had deepened. In the last ten minutes, she had truly aged ten years.

  “Tell me,” I said, louder. “Set my mind at rest that in return for going with you I shall never be shamed before the world. How can you be this sure of Lady Rochford’s silence?”

  Gertrude sank into her chair. Her hands trembling in her lap, she said, “Because Jane Boleyn never told me anything. She is ignorant of his actions against you. I saw how you reacted to meeting the widow of George Boleyn—and the entire court knew of his nature, of his predilection for despoiling girls. I wagered that that was what happened to you. It was a gamble. And I won.”

  PART THREE

  15

  The doors of the Red Rose were always locked after sundown. The servants finished their duties sometime after seven o’clock and found their beds by eight. But that night, after ten, there was a tapping at my door. It was James, dressed in a threadbare coat and breeches. Without a word, he held out his hand, palm up. I took it, though to do so made me shudder. He pulled me out of my room and into the darkness.