The Crown

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Margaret threw back the blanket.

  “I don’t care about the rules, I’m lighting a fire,” she announced. “And then we’ll brush each other’s hair.”

  She used a candle to light the old kindling in the fireplace, and ten minutes later, Margaret was sitting in front of it, as I ran a brush through the thick reddish-gold hair that hung to her waist. I knew it was a treat for her to be waited on, since day and night it was her task to wait on Elizabeth.

  “Your father is so very kind to you,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “I miss mine very much,” said Margaret.

  I thought frantically of something that would give her comfort, but nothing came to me. Margaret’s mother, a servant at another of the duke’s castles, had died long ago.

  She said quietly: “If my father were here, I think I would be allowed to take vows.”

  “Is that what you want?” I’d never thought of taking vows. Margaret and I were both pious; it was one of the things that separated us from the other cousins. Still, to me, nuns were mysterious, sad creatures, tinged with scandal. Years ago, one of our aunts had been dragged to a nunnery by her husband—with the Duke of Buckingham’s approval—because she had behaved scandalously at court. There were even rumors she’d dallied with the king. She’d returned to her husband after a short time.

  Margaret took my hands in hers, excited. “Last spring, I traveled to Durham with my sister, to make a pilgrimage.” I remembered this trip, my mother had said the duke beat his wife very badly at their London house, and she had run away to the shrine of Saint Cuthbert, to seek relief and succor from her miseries. “It was such a glorious shrine; you would have been as impressed as I was, Joanna. But even though Elizabeth is one of the highest women in the land, we could not approach the shrine too closely, being female. It troubled my sister. So the next week, the duchess received permission for us to visit a small convent nearby, to meet the prioress. We were with them on Good Friday, Joanna. We crept to the cross with the nuns, on our bare knees, and it was so . . . beautiful. So inspiring. To be among women who were devout and kind to one another. Oh, they had joy on their faces, they looked peaceful fulfilling God’s mission. And Joanna, some sisters are very learned. They love to read as you do—they study Latin and holy manuscripts. To be one of them, to be saved from all temptation—”

  “Temptation?” I asked wonderingly. “What tempts you?”

  She looked at me for a moment. “Do you want to be married, Joanna?”

  “No,” I answered, surprised at my own vehemence. “I have met no man who I would wish to marry. Every man I see is so lacking in quality, so far away from . . . from . . .”

  Smiling, Margaret picked up Le Morte d’Arthur, lying on a stool by the fire. “From Sir Galahad and the knights?”

  “Is it wrong to hope for a man who is courageous and virtuous?” I asked.

  My bedchamber door burst open, and Charles Howard leaped in the room. With a wooden sword in his hand—doubtless taken from one of my young cousins—he parlayed as he made his way toward us. “Not at all!”

  I jumped back into the bed and scrambled under a blanket.

  “Listening at the door again, Charles?” Margaret sighed. “Have you nothing more worthwhile to do?”

  “In truth, I don’t. This is a very dull house.” Charles bowed low, and when he came back up, he had a glint in his eyes. “You are in need of my company.”

  I expected him to turn his attention to Margaret. She was so ravishing; men ogled her wherever she went. But instead he veered toward my bed, running his hand up the bedpost.

  “I could help prepare you for the men of the court,” he offered. “You’ll need to learn a few tricks to make the important marriage your mother is counting on.”

  “Leave now!” I shrieked, burying myself deeper under blankets. “Or I will call for my father.”

  Charles laughed, bowed again, and backed away toward the corridor. “You’ve missed your best chance,” he said, with a final flourish. “Good night.”

  After the door closed behind him, I emerged from the blankets. “He is loathsome,” I said.

  “Oh, he is not as bad as that.” Margaret shrugged. “Charles is the youngest son in a very large family. It’s not an easy position.”

  “How can you say that? He is vile.”

  Margaret was quiet for a long moment. She nibbled her lower lip—I knew what that meant. She’d devised a plan. And once my cousin had an idea in her head, it was very difficult to dissuade her.

  “Joanna, I want to give you something.” She lifted from her throat a delicate necklace strung to a medal. “You know this?”

  “Of course. Your father gave it to you. It’s from the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.”

  “Let’s look at it by the fire,” she said.

  Calmer now, I followed her. “I always think of the story of his death,” she said, holding the medal up to the fire so we could see it better. Four men wearing knights’ armor stood under a flowing tree. “Archbishop Becket was hated by King Henry the Second. He cried out, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ These four men answered his call.” I knew the story; every child in England was taught it, but as I listened to Margaret tell it once more, it appeared to have special meaning for her. “The men went to Canterbury and hid their swords under a sycamore tree outside the church. They went inside and told Saint Thomas to come out with them, but he refused. So they went out and retrieved their swords and reentered the church and hacked him to bits. They martyred him and violated a sacred space.”

  I shivered, even though the crackling fire was hot on my skin.

  She pressed the medal into my palm. “I want you to have this.”

  “Margaret, I can’t take your medal, it’s too dear to you.”

  My cousin hesitated, as if she were afraid to put something into words. “I want you to be protected at court,” she said.

  I knew how much Margaret loathed the king who had destroyed her father. She never accompanied her sister to court.

  “I will be with Queen Katherine at all times,” I reminded her. “My mother trusts the queen completely. Absolutely nothing can hurt me while I am in her service.”

  “Yes, Joanna, the queen is a pure and noble woman. But will you take this medal?”

  The way the dying flames reflected in her large eyes made me nervous.

  I pulled the delicate necklace with its Saint Thomas medal over my head. “I will wear it, cousin. And now, will you stop worrying about me?”

  Margaret threw her arms around me. “Thank you,” she whispered, and to my shock, I could feel her cool tears on my cheek.

  6

  The Tower of London, May 1537

  I knew something was wrong, for the bed was too wide.

  Every morning, just before sunrise, the subsacrist would ring the bell, and I’d sit up and cross myself, then grope for the side of my straw-stuffed pallet. It rested on the floor against the wall of the novice dormitory, next to Sister Winifred’s pallet and, on the other side, Sister Christina’s.

  In our pitch-black room, we would find the habits folded and placed at the side of our pallets hours before, and dress quickly. Within minutes, a yellow light would seep under the wooden door: the approach of the lighted lantern. The twenty-four nuns of Dartford would walk past our room, two by two, on the way to Lauds. We’d wait for the last pair to pass before taking our ordained place at the end of the line and walking down the stone stairs to church.

  But this morning, the bed was deep and wide as my fingers reached for the edge. And not just that. A thick, warm light weighed on my eyelids. The sun had already risen, yet that was impossible. No nun or novice of Dartford Priory ever slept through Lauds. If we were sick to our bellies, if our throats were on fire, if our loins cramped with the courses of the moon, we still walked the stone passageway to first prayers. Otherwise, we’d face the sternest of punishments at chapter.

  I wanted to
rise, to learn what had gone amiss, to make amends, but a strange heaviness held me. I could not open my eyes. It was as if the bed itself were pulling me in. Part of me fought it, but mostly I longed to submit to this sweet black nothingness.

  After a time, the nothingness parted, and people on a dirty field, shoving and laughing and cursing, their faces red with drink, surrounded me. I was at Smithfield again. “You are dreaming,” I said out loud. “Nothing can hurt you.” And indeed, this time my feet seemed to float above the mud. I was drifting, darting. Unobserved.

  Then I saw her, and it pulled me to the ground. She moved ahead, but I knew that proud walk so well, her way of pulling back and squaring her shoulders when displeased. I wanted to see her, to touch her, but I was terrified, too. I no longer felt safe in a dream. This had become real.

  I called for her, but she didn’t hear.

  “Mama, help me,” I screamed. “Don’t let them take me to the Tower.”

  My mother turned around; her gaze settled on me. “You promised,” she said, unsmiling. “You promised her you’d never tell anyone the secret.”

  I tensed. “Who do you mean?”

  My mother’s black eyes flashed. “You know who, Juana. Era una promesa sagrada.”

  Now I was the one to shake my head. “No, Mama, no. You couldn’t know about that. You weren’t there. You were already dead!”

  It was as if by saying those words I cast a spell to send her away, for she melted into the crowd, replaced by Sir William Kingston.

  “I don’t want to go back to the Tower,” I said.

  “You’re not.”

  More hands on me, and then I was being thrust to the top of a small hill of branches, with a stake soaring in the middle. They tied me to it, circling my waist with scratchy ropes. Soon the men were gone, and orange flames licked at the twigs below my feet. A circle of jeering people surrounded me, cheering my death as they’d cheered Margaret’s.

  I pulled against the ropes, but they were too tight. The smoke rose to form a column around me. In seconds I would be in agony.

  “God, please help me!” I screamed. “I beseech you—forgive me, save me.”

  The smoke parted. A figure floated down: a beautiful man, wearing a breastplate of silver armor. He glided closer. He had curly blond hair and porcelain skin and blue eyes. Atop those curls was a golden crown. With a shock, I knew him. The Archangel Gabriel, God’s messenger, had come down to fetch me.

  “You won’t feel any pain,” he said.

  The flames crawled all over me. My arms and my legs, even my hair, were consumed, but it was nothing to me. I laughed, my relief was so great. I knew that was impertinent, to laugh in the presence of the mightiest archangel, he who laid waste to Sodom, but Gabriel laughed, too. My ropes fell off, and I floated up. We began to twirl together; we danced in the sky.

  Someone else shook me. I couldn’t see the hands, but I felt them.

  The luminous blue sky I twirled in began to darken, the Archangel Gabriel to tremble. “No,” I cried. But everything broke apart, like a ship dashed to pieces on the rocks. My angel left me; the last glimmer was of his golden crown.

  And then I woke.

  I shrank from the woman’s face but two feet from mine. She was as base and ugly as Gabriel was gossamer beauty. She glared at me with eyes set deep under thick brows, as baleful as a demon.

  “Don’t hurt me.” My voice sounded so hoarse. My limbs felt weak and heavy.

  “Of course I won’t hurt you,” she said. “I was simply trying to wake you. You must eat something. It’s been too long.”

  Slowly, it all fell into place. I had seen Margaret burned at Smithfield; my father caused a disturbance, injured himself, and was taken away; I’d been arrested with poor Geoffrey Scovill and brought to the Tower of London. I must have slept for some time, awakened by this woman, who, I now perceived, having gained distance from my dream, was not a hideous demon but an ordinary woman in her middle years, albeit one dressed in rich brocades and an elaborate French hood.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Lady Kingston. And now you will eat. Bess?”

  She beckoned, and a second woman, younger and heavier, carried over a wooden tray. The pungent smell of thick fish broth hit me like cannon fire; every sinew of my body craved food.

  “We tried to give you something to eat yesterday,” Lady Kingston said as the serving woman named Bess set the tray on my bed and withdrew.

  “Yesterday?”

  “Don’t you recall it? You have slept for two nights and a day. We tried to wake you yesterday. You took some wine, and then fell back asleep. Your dress was changed, the one you had on was too dirty to rest in.” I realized I wore a long cotton shift. Lady Kingston pointed at a drab gray dress folded at the foot of the bed. “I know it is not appropriate to your station, but I am kept much occupied.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said as I drank my first spoonful. Lady Kingston pursed her lips and watched me eat. It occurred to me that a woman wearing such elaborate clothing while doing her husband’s business in a prison cell would not approve of my indifference to fashion. But I couldn’t care about that. All that mattered was the broth. Every steaming mouthful sent strength back into me.

  When I’d finished the soup, I looked around the room. I was being held in an enormous space—it looked about forty feet long—with a cracked wooden floor and high stone walls. Sunlight poured in through a series of barred windows halfway up one wall. The only pieces of furniture were my bed, a small table, and Lady Kingston’s chair.

  My face must have posed the question.

  “We do not usually keep prisoners here,” she said, shrugging. “But there are few empty rooms, and we didn’t want to put you among all the men.”

  I sat up straighter. “Is my father in the Tower?”

  Lady Kingston picked up the tray and carefully placed it on the table. She gave me a steady look as she sat back down.

  “You said some things before I roused you,” she said. “You called for your mother, but there were others you called for as well. I heard of an angel?”

  “I was dreaming.”

  “Were you?”

  The serving woman, Bess, appeared at her side. “Sir William says you’re required in the Lieutenant’s Lodging, my lady,” she murmured.

  “Very well.” Lady Kingston stiffly rose to her feet. “Bess, prepare her.”

  As Lady Kingston swept across the long room, I bit my lip. What were they preparing me for? As the last vestiges of my strange dream faded, an icy dread took hold.

  The instant the door shut behind Lady Kingston, Bess grabbed my hand. “Don’t tell her anything, I beg you.”

  I studied her more closely. She looked about thirty. The deep pockmarks in her cheeks and chin meant that she’d had a strong bout of the disease and that it had nearly killed her. Yet what struck me most were her eyes. They gleamed, they shone, they even sparkled. My presence seemed to enthrall her.

  “Why?” I asked, trying to pull my hand loose from her clammy grip.

  “She’s a spy for him.” The words came in a feverish rush. “Lady Kingston calms the women and feeds them, and she asks questions, and they sound very innocent, but she writes it all down for her husband, everything they say, and then Sir William writes to Cromwell.”

  “Is that so surprising?” I asked.

  “You should have heard her with Queen Anne. She went mad here, the queen, when the king had her arrested. She screamed and cried, and she laughed. Yes, she rocked with laughter. She couldn’t stop. Lady Kingston sat with her night and day and calmed her. And she wrote down every word. I heard they used it all against her at trial.”

  I swung out of bed and wrenched free of Bess. “Never speak to me of Anne Boleyn,” I said. I backed away from her and hit my head against something. It was a huge ring fastened to the wall.

  “What’s that?” I rubbed my head.

  Bess smiled, following me over. “It was to chain the elep
hant.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The elephant.”

  I shook my head, edging away from her again. “You’re the one who’s mad.”

  “No, no, no,” she said. “I’m telling you the truth. This isn’t the White Tower. You’re not being kept with the rebels from the North or any other prisoner. They didn’t know where to put you, so they had a bed brought to the West Tower. This is the menagerie.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you know of the royal beasts? In this room they kept the elephant that Louis of France gave King Henry the Third. It was just the one elephant. After it died, there was never another. But he was proud of it, and he built this room for it to live in.”

  It dawned on me that Bess could be speaking the truth.

  “There were women kept in this room later,” she continued. “That could be why they chose it for you. When King Edward the First needed money for war, he had the women Jews brought to the Tower, and their fathers or husbands had to pay to free them. If they couldn’t bring enough money, the Jewesses were starved to death.”

  “That is sinful.”

  Bess looked surprised. “They weren’t Christians. And they were foreigners.”

  She was the sort of Englishwoman my Spanish mother had most despised.

  The sound of men shouting came through the windows. Bess glanced over and then back at me. “You must trust me, I believe in the old ways, what you believe in,” she said anxiously. “You are a servant of Christ, and I will help you as much as I am able.” She started to pull on a delicate chain around her thick neck. “I need to show you something.”

  “You don’t need to show me anything.”

  She pulled the chain all the way out. It was attached to a locket, and she opened it. “Look at this.” She panted with excitement.

  I glimpsed a lock of dark-brown hair. “It’s hers,” she breathed. “Sister Barton’s. She was in the Tower three years ago.”