The Chalice

by Nancy Bilyeau

  He paused, squinting. “No, that’s not necessarily the case. I’ve heard of one sort of poison the Council of Ten developed that, if the man drinks a small amount, he suffers profound impotence and other foul humors of the spirit. It’s only the full amount that is fatal. But I’m sure, Joanna, that you will find a way to make the king drink his wine to the last drop.”

  I rose off my stool. “You expect me to do that? To serve the king wine in a special chalice?”

  “With your noble blood and connections, you’re the perfect choice,” he said happily. “The way back is clear. I’m certain that Gardiner’s spy never wrote a letter to his master. He intended to talk to the other English passengers in Antwerp, but there was one young man in particular named Adams whom he wanted to speak to.”

  Jacquard paused to allow that to sink in.

  Then he continued: “So what we do now is return you to England as quickly as possible and reestablish you as Joanna Stafford, and then insert you into the court of King Henry. We need to stay clear of Gardiner, but Chapuys and I have discussed this, and he believes there are ways to work you into the royal presence. ”

  “I’m not a poisoner,” I said.

  He slapped his hip in frustration. “What do you think we’ve been working toward all this time? In all honesty—are you so stupid that you didn’t perceive that from the beginning this was a conspiracy to create the perfect assassin?”

  I put my hands over my ears. “Say no more,” I pleaded.

  Jacquard made a visible effort to control his temper. “You’re very tired,” he said. “And you’re a woman of difficult humors even when well rested. I shall show you to the chamber that’s been prepared for you. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Jacquard led me to the room directly above his on the stone staircase. There were fine blankets on the bed, a change of clothing, food and drink on a side table; he’d even placed a book of Scripture by the bed.

  I ate nothing. I read nothing. I did not sleep for hours.

  Was I indeed a fool not to see that this was the plan from the beginning—for me to kill the king of England? I’d hoped, and perhaps it was grossly unrealistic, that in the end I would commit some act, such as the abortive attempt to rescue the bones of Thomas Becket, that would turn the tide of history. It would be something decisive but not violent. But how wrong I was, how tragically wrong. This, then, was the prophecy that I’d been intertwined with since I was seventeen. To be a murderess. What had I done to deserve such a destiny? How could I be the one to carry out a sordid and despicable murder, concocted by the darkest of criminals, the sort first bred in the age of the depraved Borgias?

  Yet, as the hours crept by, I began to consider the quest from a different aspect. The Tudor king had murdered my uncle the Duke of Buckingham, my cousin Margaret Bulmer, my friends Henry Courtenay and Lord Montagu, and others of the nobility. He’d shattered the life of Edmund Sommerville, my father, and Mary Tudor. He’d orphaned Arthur Bulmer. There was a parade of piteous martyrs to his savagery, beginning with Sir Thomas More and ending with the Abbot of Glastonbury. The Catholic Church had been violated, the monasteries destroyed. The pope had excommunicated Henry VIII and called for his deposition. And so it was possible I could receive forgiveness—even absolution—for removing the king from this earth.

  But I was not a murderess.

  I thought of my parents, of the devotion I felt to my friends at the priory. How close I came to the beauty and power of Christ’s wisdom and mercy when I served as a novice. Then how could I have been chosen for profound violence? Did I possess the necessary qualities within me of hatred and rage? I was a difficult woman—Jacquard wasn’t wrong about that—and I possessed weaknesses. But in the deepest part of my soul, I refused to believe that I was suited for killing.

  I remembered Gertrude Courtenay’s desperation: “You are the one who can save us.” Did she think it was murder—at my hand—that would save her and the kingdom of England? Even knowing her deep obedience to the true faith, I couldn’t imagine that to be true.

  And finally, I thought of Edmund. I had stopped fighting the prophecy, I had instead turned to embrace it as he had encouraged. I sought to restore England to faith and bring back the monasteries—to give Edmund his life back. And mine, too, if possible. But now I was certain that Edmund, of all the people on this earth, would not wish me to commit this terrible act.

  Jacquard, as promised, came to see me the next morning. He didn’t look as if he’d slept either.

  “I sent Chapuys’s two men to Antwerp, with letters in code explaining the full prophecy,” he said. “They left before dawn, one hour apart. If one is killed, the other can get through. It is good they left, because now there is a fresh barricade of men in front of the Gravensteen. Somehow word got out. The city knows that there’s a man loyal to the emperor in here. They can’t get in—but they won’t let us out. It’s not going to be easy to leave Ghent.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I have made my decision. I will not proceed with this. I won’t poison the king of England.”

  Jacquard looked at me for a long moment. “When I am buried,” he said, “on the gravestone will be carved, ‘He was driven to his death by vexation over a woman named Joanna Stafford.’ ”

  46

  Jacquard did not return for at least a week. Servants brought me food and drink. I even received a change of clothes. But the door was always barred. I was a prisoner, no different than Michel de Nostredame.

  When next he came to my room, Jacquard wanted to talk politics at first.

  “Queen Mary of Hungary, the regent of the Low Countries, has begged for assistance from the emperor in bringing Ghent into submission,” he said. “Of course, she would like her brother to come personally, but getting here from Spain is very difficult. Autumn is nearly here, making travel slow. The people in this city are confident that nothing will happen to them, that the emperor would never come to Ghent. They grow ever more defiant. There is always a guard on this castle.”

  I said nothing. As much as I hated the Gravensteen, I did not want to leave this place if it meant an assassin’s mission to England.

  “Yet it is imperative that I get you out of here,” Jacquard continued, beginning to pace. “The marriage contract for Anne of Cleves is on its way to Germany. Her brother the Duke of Cleves is so ambitious, he sends her to the bed of a wife killer. In three or four months she arrives in England and takes her place as fourth queen.”

  “Well, Jacquard,” I said, “that has nothing to do with me.”

  That is when he lost his temper. Jacquard cursed me. He threw things against the wall. He ranted about my stupidity and stubbornness. Then he called for the men of the castle and they came running to serve. I was to be moved, he said, to the cell beneath Nostredame’s.

  “Now you shall consider the choices before you,” he said, once I’d been shoved into a straw-covered, windowless room with a bench, a narrow pallet against the wall, candles, and a privy bucket. “I shall return soon to find you more compliant, I’m sure.”

  He was in the doorway, almost out of sight, when I called out, “Wait, Jacquard. Wait.”

  Smiling, he said, “Ah, that didn’t take long.”

  I said, “I merely thought it prudent to remind you that I was once confined in the Tower of London for four months, in a room not much larger than this one. And suffered no permanent damage.”

  He stared at me, his hand on the door.

  “We shall see, Joanna Stafford.”

  Just as when I stayed in the chamber far above, food and drink were brought to me in my new cell below. I had candles. I’d been allowed to bring my book, so there was a means to occupy my mind. I spent most of my hours in prayer. When I was kept in the Tower, there had been periodic exercise. I missed that keenly now. But in the Tower I was plagued by uncertainty and confusion, with fear for my father’s life. Now was different. I no longer felt lost. I had achieved a purpose. I was determined to resist the plans o
f Jacquard.

  The days passed; the weeks passed. It was very hard. I often felt weary and disoriented. My bones ached. Tears slid down my cheeks. But still I drove myself forward. I prayed for strength every minute of the day, and God rewarded me. I held steadfast.

  I could hear the men yelling to one another outside my door, though I rarely could pick out Jacquard’s voice. To my relief, they made mention of Nostredame. He still lived, and I was glad of it. His visionary powers frightened me, but I also sensed a true benevolence in the French apothecary. He had been caught up in something uncontrollable, just as I had.

  On those stone steps, there was much complaining about Master Rolin—of his harshness and arrogance. No surprise for me there. But also the men grumbled about the possibility of food running out. It would seem that the city had inflicted a siege upon us. How long, I wondered, before we were starved out of the Gravensteen?

  The answer came one day in the form of Jacquard Rolin, holding a flask of wine in one hand and a letter in the other. I knew that I must look very poorly from these many weeks of imprisonment—but he did not look so handsome anymore either. His doublet was disheveled; he was not bothering to trim his whiskers.

  After he ambled in, he said, “Joanna Stafford, I need to celebrate. These men of the castle are not worthy companions in my revels. So I have no choice but to turn to you. But after all, we are married by documents accepted in any court. So I’ve come to pay a call on my wife.”

  He dangled the letter before me.

  “This came through a window today—Chapuys sent someone skilled enough to infiltrate Ghent and shoot a message through a window of the Gravensteen with a bow and arrow. Imagine. And now I have all sorts of news to share with you.”

  “Such as what?” I said.

  “Ah, she speaks.” He chuckled. “Madame Rolin speaks. She is so excited that the ambassador reached out to us. You’ve always had such admiration for Eustace Chapuys. It moves me.”

  I leaned forward on the bench.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “The first piece of news is that the Emperor Charles is so angry with the city of Ghent that he very much wants to grant his sister’s request and come here—with his imperial army—and punish the rebels personally. He has submitted a formal request to the king of France that he be allowed to travel through that country.”

  “Then we will be freed,” I said. “When?”

  “The emperor arrives as soon as January,” he said. He drank very deep from his flask. “Ah, but there is a complication. Queen Mary the Regent has granted the English king’s request to allow Anne of Cleves to travel from Cleves to England through the Low Countries. She leaves very soon with her grand German entourage—she may already have left. If I had been able to communicate directly with the Regent, I would have pleaded with her not to do that, to instead delay Anne of Cleves. But she didn’t know any better.”

  I watched Jacquard intently. There did not seem to be any way that I could reach England before Anne of Cleves did. I passionately hoped that this poison plot would be abandoned, and I’d be allowed to leave Ghent when the emperor arrived and try to pick up the threads of my former life.

  “So now we have the directives of Ambassador Chapuys,” he said, caressing the letter. “The plan goes forward on two prongs. The first is that you and I, using diversionary tactics, endeavor to escape from this castle as soon as possible and race to London.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t agree to that, and I expect you’ll have a difficult time getting a ‘wife’ out of the Low Countries who resists you every step of the way.”

  Jacquard threw back his head and stared at the ceiling of my cell. “It was assumed that would be your attitude, and yet there was some small hope inside of me that you’d see reason.”

  “What is the second prong of the plan?” I asked.

  Jacquard said, “The chalice was swiftly crafted by the Council of Ten and has already been sent to England. If necessary, someone else will complete the task outlined in the prophecy.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Someone else?”

  “We have a candidate in position,” he said. “The person won’t know what is in the chalice, just that it is important that it be filled with wine and served to His Majesty. A very obedient person—which brings all of us untold joy, after these many months spent with you.”

  I was stunned by this development. “But the prophecy is very specific that I must be the one to serve the chalice.”

  He grimaced. “Yes, that is a drawback, and why it serves as second position. It would be preferable for you to carry out the prophecy.” He leaned forward. “Do not think that if you continue to refuse, it will be looked on kindly.”

  I stared into the gold-flecked eyes of Jacquard while bidding good-bye to the hope I’d cherished, of pulling together the threads of my life after abandoning the assassination plan.

  Jacquard said, “When the emperor reaches Ghent, he is sure to bring his inquisitors as well as his high nobles and his officers. The inquisitors will take custody of Michele de Nostredame—and most certainly burn him—and then they will consider the case of Joanna Stafford.”

  I recoiled. “What crimes have I committed? Or Master Nostredame, for that matter? He is a good Catholic.”

  “Oh, come,” he said. “You have both trafficked in sorcery and the arts of necromancy. That is forbidden by the Inquisition.”

  I sprang to my feet. “It all took place at the instigation of the emperor and his representative, Ambassador Chapuys,” I shouted.

  “Is that so?” he asked. “How can you prove it? Do you have anything written?”

  “Chapuys did not order you to deliver me to the Inquisition,” I said. “That’s impossible.”

  Jacquard held out the letter. “Do you want to read it? I will have to give you the code to decipher it, but I am happy to do so if that is what is required.”

  As I stared at the letter quivering in his hand, it hit me like a blow. Jacquard did not need to give me codes. Chapuys had betrayed me.

  “If you come with me willingly, then you don’t have to fear the Inquisition,” Jacquard said urgently. “You may not believe this, but I don’t want you to burn, Joanna Stafford. I have seen people burn.”

  “So have I,” I blurted, and a horrible memory appeared of billows of black smoke rising as Margaret died in Smithfield. And now I would join her? Before I could stop it, I began to laugh, but it was a mad laugh, hysterical and twisted.

  I sucked in air, hard, desperate to calm myself. Finally, I looked straight at Jacquard. “Is this the worst that you have?”

  “I know you would like me to say yes,” he said. “But it gets even worse.”

  “Worse than burning? I don’t see how.”

  “Because it’s not your own fate in question but that of someone you hold dear,” Jacquard said. “If you do not agree—and the fires of the Inquisition do not motivate you—then we may need to welcome another guest to Ghent.”

  I gripped the bottom of the bench. He was correct—this was worse. Just as Gardiner used fear for my father’s life to force me to act for him, now Jacquard would exert similar pressure through threatening someone I loved. But whom?

  “You can’t mean Arthur,” I babbled. “Your men could not steal him from Stafford Castle and bring him all the way here.”

  “I’m not talking about a child,” Jacquard said.

  A cold, sick dread congealed in the pit of my belly. It was so terrible that I could not speak.

  “We’re not going to be kidnapping people from England,” Jacquard said. “We have resources and a certain amount of skill—Señor Hantaras is a man most formidable. But no, one of our spies saw a familiar name show up in the list of licenses requested for departure from England. The license was granted and this person, who wanted so much to leave Dartford after unfortunate circumstance, is now traveling through the dominions of the Emperor Charles. I think there is much you would do to prevent harm from coming to h
im.”

  “No,” I moaned. “No. This can’t be. It can’t be.”

  “Yes, efforts are being made to secure Edmund Sommerville, and bring him to you. Won’t it be nice for you to see your friar once more?”

  I leaped off the bench and sprang on him, closing my hands around his throat and pressing hard. “If you hurt Edmund, I will kill you, Jacquard!” I screamed. “By sacred oath, I swear it.”

  Jacquard ripped my fingers from his throat and threw me across the room. I stumbled and fell onto the straw. “Now that’s the side of you I love to see,” he said.

  He pulled open the door to my prison cell—and paused.

  “You’re not going to kill me, Joanna Stafford. You’re going to kill Henry the Eighth.”

  47

  I do not know how much time passed—I believe it was three days—when the voices of the men in the Gravensteen clamored louder. Then the shouting died away, and I heard nothing. No one came with food or drink for a day. I had not felt well enough to eat the maggot-riven meat or drink the sour ale brought yesterday, so this was the second day without food or drink. And I was down to my last candle. Perhaps the siege had lifted and everyone had left. I thought it unlikely that Jacquard would leave, too, without one last attempt at pressuring me to comply. But the possibility also existed that the castle had been breached, and Jacquard was taken or killed.

  My cell door had a barred opening at top, as did Michel de Nostredame’s. It allowed a very faint light to come into the room. I pressed myself against the door, straining up, and cried, “Hello? Hello? Hello?”

  There was no answer.

  Though I’d tried to fortify myself for death with continual prayer, this was a ghoulish end to contemplate: to die of thirst and starvation in a dark cell. And I raged against Jacquard for denying me the right of a Catholic to make confession to a priest before death.

  Dazed with hunger, I slept on my pallet in the straw—whether it was day or night, I could not know. When I finally woke, I beheld a row of fresh candles on the floor, all of them lit. A platter of food sat next to it: meats and cheeses and breads. There was a jug of ale, too. And other things: a dress, hung over a chair; a basin of fresh water; lye soap.