“This mission cannot continue,” I said. “Bishop Gardiner knows too much—how can I return?”
“It must go forward,” Chapuys said with passion. “We will find a way to reinsert you into England.”
Jacquard said, “Gardiner’s spy did not send any word to England yet on what he’d discovered. He hadn’t taken a good enough look at you to determine if you were Joanna Stafford. And he hadn’t the time to send a message to England before shadowing us on our journey. I was able to extract that much.”
The word extract made me go cold. “Is the man dead?” I asked.
Jacquard looked at me steadily. There was no need of reply. Now a third death was laid on my conscience.
After a night of tormented sleep, I woke and once again assumed my costume of a man. The heat was already oppressive, and we would need to ride hard to reach Ghent before nightfall. Tonight was the appointed time for me to hear the third prophecy; we could not delay even a single day.
But the problem of the heat was nothing compared to what I learned next.
“I cannot go any farther,” Ambassador Chapuys told me. “No one must know of my involvement in this plot, Joanna. Those are the commands of the emperor himself.”
“You promised you would not abandon me,” I said.
Chapuys gripped me by the shoulders and shook. “Trust in me,” he said. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded.
“Solutions will be found,” the ambassador said. “You will return to your homeland. If, after the deed is done, you cannot live safely in England, then arrangements will be made for you to live in Europe. You could be reunited with the Dominican Order—I can easily find a place for you in a priory in the Low Countries or Spain. You will be taken care of, never fear.”
I knew Chapuys was right. It was too late for me to turn back.
Jacquard and I rode as fast as possible, with two men following. It was so hot that my face and body dripped with sweat; with all my strength, I fought against the numbness of the mind such conditions wrought.
It was nearly sundown when Jacquard Rolin and I came to the place where the Scheldt met the river Leie. Where I would hear the third and final prophecy.
The city of Ghent seemed as large as Antwerp. We passed a magnificent gray cathedral on our way into the city. Elegant houses and abbeys and guildhalls marked the curved streets. But there was a markedly different mood here than in Antwerp. That port city exuded an open and dazzling charm. Here I could see suspicion and distrust in the faces of all the people we passed.
“This is a defiant city,” Jacquard said. “The citizens have refused to pay the taxes to the Emperor Charles, saying they will not bankrupt themselves to his foreign wars. Without money, the empire cannot be controlled. But the burghers whip the city into a frenzy, saying they must be independent.”
I had never in my life heard of a city rising up in revolt against its monarch. And this was the place where the emperor was born? New questions gnawed at me. If the emperor could not rule Flanders, the cradle of the Hapsburgs, how could he master a huge, sprawling empire—and direct an invasion of England?
The street we followed led to a huge city square—I could see it ahead. But I could also hear something. It was the sounds of people shouting and jeering. And not hundreds of them. Thousands.
Jacquard cursed when we reached that square. A dense mob milled and stamped before us, surrounding a platform raised in the middle of the square. We could not ride any longer.
“The Gravensteen is on the other side of the square and down three more streets,” he fumed.
“What is that?”
“The ancient castle of Ghent, where the seer is being held to await you,“ Jacquard answered. “And we have less than four hours to midnight. It won’t be easy to force our way to the far side, or to explain why we’re leaving this square when everyone in the city of Ghent seems to have come for some specific purpose.”
He gave the two men the charge of all horses and bade them wait until the square calmed and then join us at our destination. “Don’t move an inch,” he said to me. “I will return with information.”
As I waited, I tried to prepare myself for the place called the Gravensteen. But as the moments crawled by, this milling crowd frightened me more and more. It brought back memories of the bloodthirsty mob of Smithfield that cheered as my beloved cousin Margaret burned at the stake.
I prayed for strength.
Jacquard returned with horrific news. The city had indeed refused to pay the regent of the Low Countries—the emperor’s sister, Mary of Hungary—the taxes imposed on them. The city’s leaders, the burghers, vowed to burn the document that bound the city of Ghent in loyalty to the Hapsburg. A deacon still loyal to Charles kept the document locked away, refusing to yield it. But the burghers had held their own trial and condemned the recalcitrant deacon. Tonight he would be executed in the square.
Jacquard pointed at the raised platform. I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was right. This was a mob thirsty for a public death.
Jacquard pushed me to walk forward, toward the platform itself.
“No—we can’t,” I said.
“This will not take long, for the deacon is to be killed at sundown,” he said into my ear. “Then we will be able to reach the Gravensteen.”
I could see it better now, this raised platform. Torches blazed at its four corners. I could see the deacon’s arms flailing, in terror, as they dragged him to the top. His screams mingled with the cheering of the crowd. A man chased after him with ax raised. This was no trained executioner as I’d seen on Tower Hill. It was butchery before an uncontrollable mob.
The ax rose and fell three times. The deacon died.
I did not falter at it; I felt only a helpless rage at the madness and pitilessness of men.
I looked sideways at Jacquard. He was perturbed, yes; but not sickened. To him, this was but an inconvenient delay in his mission après mort.
A burgher rose to the top of the steps and waved something small and light of color. There was a burst of flame. Over the mutilated body of the deacon they burned the calfskin bearing the signature of the Emperor Charles. And so, destroyed the document binding them in fealty to the Holy Roman Empire.
The people of Ghent danced and sang. Jacquard and I tried to push our way through as best we could without raising suspicion. “Dance,” people shouted at us. I hid my face in Jacquard’s shoulder. As much as I loathed him, I could not smile in the faces of killers.
I don’t know if we would have been able to get out of that square in time if it were not for the wind.
Jacquard gripped my arm tighter when he felt it. “What’s this?” he said. He looked up at the sky. “Minutes ago, the sky was full of stars. How can there be a storm?”
I looked up, too, as the winds encircled me. The clouds stretched across the sky, obscuring the stars, as quickly as the sails had filled on the ship gliding to Antwerp.
The people of Ghent began to react to the windstorm, which gained strength with each second.
An old woman said, “It’s the judgment of God!” Her neighbors shushed her, but others seemed to pick up that fear.
I turned to Jacquard and said: “Now we can go to the Gravensteen.”
He peered at me in the darkness and said, “The storm may make it difficult—be ready.”
“I am ready,” I said. “You are the one who may not be.”
We staggered on. The last part of the road we traveled, Jacquard swung his arm around me and pulled me tightly to him, trying to shelter me as he pushed forward with the other arm, fending off the brush and gusts of dirt that propelled toward us. To anyone we might appear a loving couple, desperately trying to reach home.
The Gravensteen was a dread place. I’d thought myself well braced for the prison where I would hear the third prophecy. But when standing before it—that high stone turret with its window slits, the gray walls that spread in back—I felt a fresh spasm of terror. The Gravensteen devo
ured the stars and the moon and the wind and the light men make. It was the darkest place I’d ever seen.
As Jacquard and I reached the castle, there was a rattling of chains and the massive door came down. Two men leaped out and pulled us inside. The first thing they told us was that the Dominican friar in charge of the emperor’s prisoner died yesterday from a pain in his chest. I was horrified by this loss, but Jacquard shrugged. “I know what must be done,” he said.
Jacquard wiped the dirt from his face with a dampened cloth, then said, “Do you want to clean yourself first, Joanna, or drink something?”
“Just take me to the seer,” I snapped.
“I’ve always liked an eager woman. Saves a great deal of time. Let me speak to the man first while you rest.”
Over my protests, Jacquard strode off. I was led to a small room, where I, too, cleaned my face and hands. A servant poured me wine. Food was offered, but I shook my head. There was no mistaking the serious danger of my situation. Now I was at the complete mercy of Jacquard Rolin, held within a fortified castle, surrounded by a city in violent revolt against its sovereign. Food was out of the question.
Jacquard returned and was, to my amazement, smiling.
“All is well, Joanna Stafford,” he said.
Jacquard led me across the stone floor of the central keep, past an empty fireplace large enough for grown men to stand within. On the other side of an archway was a stone staircase. It led up—and it led down.
“What procedure shall be followed?” I asked.
“A simple one,” he said. “There are no elaborate necromancy circles to prepare this time, or rabid fits to witness on an abbey floor. He requires only a few . . . instruments. The Dominican wrote down the procedure and relayed it to Chapuys, who told me everything in Antwerp. I will prepare the instruments that the seer uses to learn his prophecy. While I do that, you and this man will talk together.”
“Talk together?” I repeated.
Jacquard said, “One of the more interesting aspects of this is he’s a man sure to be of your liking. I spoke to him and found him agreeable. He’s undemanding. Polite. An apothecary.”
I took a step back. “Jacquard, what have you done?”
“No, no, no,” he said and laughed. “I haven’t brought you Edmund Sommerville on a platter.” He gestured for the guard to unlock the door.
“Originally he lived in the South of France. Why he ventured into Spain, into the grip of the Inquisition, I could not say.”
The door swung open. Jacquard went first, and then beckoned for me to follow.
It was a small cell, with straw covering the floor. A bench ran against one wall. Candles had been freshly lit so the room was full of light.
A thin man in his thirties with a scraggly brown beard sat on a wooden bench, his hands in his lap. He looked at Jacquard and then, searchingly, at me as he rose to his feet.
Jacquard said, “Joanna Stafford, I present to you Michel de Nostredame.”
PART SIX
45
I’m told you are an apothecary?” My voice quavered in the small, dirty cell.
“I am indeed. But please—do sit,” Master Nostredame said in lilting French. He gestured toward the old wooden bench against the back of his cell. I stepped across the straw and sat down.
“I always wanted to heal others.” He nodded, sitting next to me, a respectful distance apart. “I tried to learn everything I could about the arts of medicine. My family believed in my dreams of a future; they paid for me to attend two universities.”
Master Nostredame was silent for a while, tugging on his scraggly beard.
“I had tremendous success fighting the plague,” he said. “My remedies saved lives; I was sent for from all around France. I even have a lifelong pension from one city because of my cures. I grew proud—much too proud. When the plague struck the town I lived in with my wife and children, I was sure that no one would die of it. After all, Nostredame was the physician and apothecary who did not lose patients.”
The man’s eyes glistened with tears.
“But the plague struck them down—my wife and both our children. I tried to save them; I tried everything. All that had worked before, on others—on strangers—did not work on the people I loved. That was five years ago. After that, I was lost. I didn’t care so much what happened to me. I traveled everywhere. I have had a lot of time to think in the past year, and I believe that inside my soul, I wanted to die. I wanted to join my family.”
I swallowed. “But the inquisitors did not kill you.”
He shook his head. “No. At first they questioned me about a comment I’d made, years ago, about a church statue. The remark suggested heresy, they said. And then they fixed on the faith of my grandfather.”
If I was to accept prophecy from Master Nostredame, I wanted to know everything.
“Are you a converso?” I asked.
He shook his head and said simply, “I’m a good Catholic.”
“Then why are they so convinced of your regressing?”
“My grandfather’s name was Gassonet. My father changed it to Nostredame, the most Christian name he could conceive of, one year before I was born. My parents made sure I was baptized and raised in the Catholic faith.” He sat up straighter on the bench. His gentle manner shifted; he did not cool toward me or menace. But he withdrew and yet saw beyond me—ages beyond me. A chill raced up and down my spine.
He said, “I do not follow the practices of Jews, but I tell you, the people of Israel will prevail upon the world, though the date is not yet set.”
It was true—he was a seer.
Nostredame then stood up, his head cocked. It was as if he heard something, though I could detect no noises.
He turned to look down on me, his face long with regret. “Master Rolin approaches and Mistress Stafford, I have something to tell you.” A few seconds later, I heard a first footfall on the stone steps.
He lifted up his hands; his palms were creased with dirt. “I’m truly sorry for this,” said Michel de Nostredame.
I stood up to face him. “No,” I said. “I’m the one who is sorry, for my fate has cost you your freedom and may yet cost you your life.”
The door swung open, and Jacquard and the guard who’d been posted at the door brought in three things: a shallow bowl filled with water, a brass tripod, and a wooden wand.
Nostredame carefully placed the bowl of water on top of the tripod, in front of the bench. The others left, with Jacquard sending me a searching glance as he left. I pretended not to see.
“Stand as far away as you can, and turn away, please,” said Nostredame very politely.
I did as he requested. As I stood there, inches from the stone wall, my heart beat so rapidly that I could not hear or breathe or see. All was dead silent behind me. I had no idea what would happen—this was nothing like Sister Elizabeth Barton or Orobas.
Suddenly there was a flash of vivid golden light reflecting off the wall, like a flame igniting. I whirled around to see.
But there was no fire in the prison cell. Only Nostredame, sitting in front of the bowl, staring into it. His eyes were open so wide I feared they would roll back in his head. Slowly, very slowly, he dipped his wand in the water.
He nodded, three times, his eyes still in that fearsome stare.
Nostredame opened his mouth.
“The raven rides the rope,” he said in a strained voice. “Now the dog will fly like a hawk. Look to the time of the bear to weaken the bull. It is the only time . . .”
He fell silent for a moment.
Nostredame lifted the wand high off the bowl of water—and pointed it directly at me.
“Hers is the hand that touches the chalice. The chalice must be of the Council of Ten. Drink he must before the fourth wife comes to his bed. Or the son named William will come. He will come and he is the one. William is the king who will tear the world asunder.”
Nostredame shuddered and fell back. He dropped the wand on the
floor. His eyelids fluttered.
The door flew open. Jacquard came in, and he looked at me, enthralled.
“So now we know what to do,” he said. The guard crept in after him, frightened. Jacquard ordered the guard to remove the instruments. He and Jacquard ignored Michel de Nostredame, who slumped over on the bench, spent.
“You listened outside the door?” I said accusingly.
“Of course I did.” He pulled me out of the room by both arms. He looked so happy, I thought he would twirl me around in some sort of insane dance, as joyous as in the square of Ghent.
“Come to my room,” he said, grinning. “Now we will make our plans.”
Moments later, I sat on a cushioned stool in the large, tapestried room Jacquard had made his own. I was uncomfortable to see a single huge bed on the other side of the room. For the first time, I wondered where I was supposed to sleep in the Gravensteen.
“Drink this,” he insisted, trying to push wine upon me.
“No,” I said firmly. “Tell me—what do you mean, ‘Now we know what to do’? I don’t know what to do. What is the Council of Ten?”
Jacquard took a deep draught of his wine and then answered, “Of course not. You wouldn’t. The Council of Ten is a secret school of poisoners. Based in Venice. They are the most skilled in the world. The best.”
Poison.
“And the chalice?” I asked, beginning to tremble.
“I have heard that the council has a certain technique that makes use of a chalice, or a cup. There is a compartment in the base of it that releases a substance when wine is added. The wine is harmless. Can come from anywhere. But in the alchemy of the wine mixing with the substance, a poison is created.” He grinned. “It’s a Borgia trick.”
“And the poison . . . it kills the man who drinks it?” I said.
Jacquard said, “No, it puts him in mind for a nice little nap after dinner.”
I stared at him, confused. He burst out laughing. “Yes, of course it kills him. Within the hour.”
The Chalice Page 37
