Roses in the Tempest (23 page)

“You will want to return home to warn them at Blackladies, will you not?”

I did not look at her. How much did she truly suspect? How much did she know? “Yes, I will.”

“Then let’s away as soon as we might.”

We departed the next day and arrived at Stretton with somber postures. All the while I was thinking of Isabella and what could be done, but as soon as I crossed the threshold of Stretton, I made straight for our private chapel.

Alone, I walked in under the solemn arch, glancing at the flame in the sanctuary light that signified God’s presence in the tabernacle. I stood a long moment before the small altar, examining the golden crucifix, before I was compelled to kneel. My gaze fell upon the cross, its intricate carvings flickering in amber radiance from the candle flames. In that moment, I was suddenly fearful. Fearful of all that was and would not be again. Why did I lift no finger to stop it all? Is a man’s earthly life so precious that he would do anything to keep it?

And then I thought of Thomas More, and my eyes burned.

I brooded over the crucifix a long time. No man would dare question my honor, and those who tried, fell to the point of my sword. But where was the honor in this? How was a man to be a man, serve his God, and serve his king, if he must put a lock on his conscience?

Before long my mind fell again upon Isabella and her decaying convent. No love had I for convents, especially Blackladies that kept her prisoner. But—God help me—it was the life she chose when no choices there were, and I was grateful for such a harbor for her.

What scheme was the king planning now that he needed accountings from such destitute places?

“Will you go, husband?”

Ursula’s slim silhouette slashed the bright light of the doorway. If I squinted, if I looked at her at just the correct angle, she could almost be Isabella; tall, thin, a face worn from years and worries, of troubles far from her control.

I told her I would go, and moved to stride past her. Softly, her voice whispered in the sacred gloom, only a whisper. “Is it… Do you…love her?”

There was no anger in my heart, and none upon my face when I turned toward her. “Do you truly wish to know?”

Her composure vanished. Color bloomed in her cheek and her eyes lowered, blinking. “No. I find…I suddenly do not.” Her eyes rose again, seizing mine fiercely, possessively.

Was it possible to love two women? I pressed my hand to hers with the impossibility of expression, before I left quickly for Blackladies.

WINTER, 1535

Blackladies

XXV

…malicious and lying witnesses have risen against me.

–Psalm 27:12

When Thomas warned us all those months ago, I expected the commissioners to come over the hill at any moment. When they did not come, I contented myself that the commission was over, having found nothing amiss. But when the appointed commissioners did come at last, local men—Sir John Talbot, Walter Wrottesley, John Grosvenour… and Sir John Giffard—they took inventory of the entire household, including that in the cheeseloft and brewhouse. Embarrassed by our poverty and our piety, they soon went away again, apologies upon their lips and coins of offering left in the almsbox. I thought that was that, but foolish was I. For this simple inventory was not all there was to it. More commissioners were to come, men who were not local nor concerned for the monasteries in their midst. These were commissioners from court, and I was troubled by what they might want.

“No good at all,” said Father William as he watched the three of us—Dame Felicia, Cristabell and I—prepare the evening repast. Felicia chopped and peeled the garden roots and crumpled dried herbs into the cooking pot while I stirred it all with a large wooden spoon, its savory steam rising about me. I cast a glance to our salt cellar with its dwindling inventory. “They will come and look at our poor priory and sit in judgment,” he went on. “These tradesmen and rustics. They, who have never spent a decent hour in prayer, will say to us we are wasting our time.”

“We will do our best to show them otherwise.”

“What is it they want this time, Lady Prioress?” asked Felicia.

“They seek abuses. Reform, not ruin, so it is said.”

“But there are no abuses here,” said Felicia. She leaned forward like an alewife, her forearm lying across the table. “Except, perhaps, for the continual presence of Thomas Giffard.”

Silence followed her pronouncement, and I could not help but raise my eyes to Cristabell, doing her best to scrub the color from the wooden table.

“Do you credit these visits to be abuses, Dame Felicia?” I asked softly.

She twisted her lips, pulling her whole face with it rather like a rabbit’s twitching nose. She glanced once at the prudent Father William. “You are prioress. If you do not deem it unseemly, then neither do I. He is our patron. He brings us news. Faith! I wish he would come today and tell us about all this foolery!”

“He has already warned us countless times. I only wonder how many more times we are to worry over such visits from court.”

It was then I turned to the doorway. Still as death and just as pale, Dame Alice stood. At first I thought her to be ill, and I moved toward her, but she raised a hand and said in a roughened voice, “They are here, Dame. The commissioners are here.”

No one moved at first. Father William braved the inevitable. “I will greet them,” he said.

“No, Father,” I heard myself say. “I am prioress. I will greet them.”

I patted his hand in reassurance before walking forth with heavy steps. I untied the napron and flung it away from me. I gathered my confidence in the smoothing out of my gown, in affixing my rosary, and in straightening my veil, all motions I readily did on any given day out of practice. Today, my hands went through the motions as if I were a ghost on her nightly hauntings, mocking that which she did in life.

At length I reached the front gate and unlocked it, glancing at the round man at the portal and the taller man beside him. There were men in livery behind them. I wondered if they meant for all of them to enter as well.

“You are the Lady Prioress?” the first asked me.

“Yes, my lord. Prioress Isabella Launder.”

“I am Dr. Legh. And this, my associate Dr. William Cavendish. Here, my brother Richard.”

“My lords,” I said to them, bowing. He caught my gaze flicking toward the other men, and a warped smile creased his face.

“My men can wait without. Too many men in a woman’s cloister would not do, eh?”

With relief I bowed again. “Let me take you to the hall.”

He spoke quietly to his brother who waited in the courtyard with the liveried men. I led the way with no further conversation. I felt their glare upon me, two sets of scrutinizing eyes, deciphering my very soul from beneath the folds of my gown.

Once in the hall, I gestured to the benches and retrieved two ceramic cups that I filled from a jug of beer. I apologized for the lack of wine and explained that we seldom served it at Blackladies.

They both glared into their cups as if they never saw the drink before, but after a moment, quaffed each in turn. I filled them again.

“You need not stand, Lady Prioress,” said Dr. Legh. “Sit. We will talk. Certainly you are anxious. I mean to relieve you of your fears.”

I reached behind for the seat and slowly lowered myself to the bench, sitting closest to Cavendish. His straw-colored hair reached almost to his shoulders and an equally light-hued beard, shot with streaks of gray, covered his chin. Dr. Legh was round and squat like a turnip, and his dark velvet gown only added to his girth. He wore a black furred hat with ear flaps. His nose was red and chapped from the weather.

We all watched each other’s breath rise in soft white clouds. I stuffed my hands within my scapular for warmth. The fire had burned down to gray ash in the hearth. In order to conserve fuel, I ordered that no fire should burn in any room when no one was present.

“Madam,” said Legh cordially, “we are here by the king’s commission to discover whether abuses are transpiring. Many of the monasteries in this realm are flagrant in their abuses. We have seen much of it already.” He paused as he pulled a black book from his scrip. Licking the end of his thumb, he leafed through it, until coming to the spot he desired. He withdrew a pencil and placed the pencil’s tip to the page. “Now, Madam. You do acknowledge his gracious majesty as Supreme Head of the Church in England, do you not?”

“I have sworn the oath, my lord.”

He looked up at me with expressionless eyes. “That I did not ask you, Madam. I asked if you acknowledged the king as the Supreme Head of the Church in England.”

“The king rules England,” I said soberly, “and he is the patron of the churches on English soil. Verily, King Henry is the head of the churches.”

“
Church of England
,” Legh corrected.

I shook my head, but did not raise it. “Church, churches. You put too fine a point on grammatical matters, Dr. Legh.”

“And you obfuscate by them, Madam.”

I felt light-headed, but crushed my nails into my palms to keep thoroughly alert. “But so. It goes without the saying.”

“I am afraid, Madam, that it very much must be said. Tell me, how do you take the king?”

“I…take him as God and the Holy Church take him, as one hopes he takes himself.”

Cavendish drew forward. “You must play no games with us, Madam. These are serious matters.”

“Forgive me, sir,” I said softly, but the Lord gave me strength within my outrage. “Forgive me for the slow creature I am, for I am but a woman and weak of mind. These concepts are hard learned by me. You say that the king is the head of the Church and that the bishop of Rome is no longer to have the title pope, and so I must attend to you. Is our king, then, now the apostle on the seat of Peter? For just England or all the Churches of the world?”

Cavendish blinked at me before casting a wary glance at Legh. “Well…His Majesty… he is… he sits in power over England’s Church. No foreigner will dictate his authority here.”

“I see. Then I thank you for setting us aright.”

Legh scowled at Cavendish and waved his fusty hand. “That is all well, then. Let us go on.” He consulted his book again. “How many sisters have you here?”

“Four, including myself.”

“Four? Four keep this house?”

“Yes, my lord. And several servants. We could not do it without their generous help. We are blessed by such attendance.”

“Indeed. And are they justly compensated?”

“As best we can. ‘Pay the worker his wage,’ Dr. Legh. We make certain the servants are paid before ever we use the funds. Oft there is scarce enough left.”

“Enough left for what?”

I looked up at last. “For food, Dr. Legh.”

He cleared his throat and swallowed more beer. He slid his cup toward the jug and made as if to take more, but he seemed to think better of it. “Show me your chapel, Lady Prioress.”

“Anything, my lord.” I rose and pulled my veil around me.

We reached the dim chapel and I reached into the font to sketch a cross over my forehead before bowing to the crucifix.

Both Legh and Cavendish hastily becrossed themselves and squinted at me. “Have you no candles, Lady?”

“We have the sanctuary light, Dr. Legh. We light no others unless we celebrate the mass. Beeswax candles are expensive. We use some of our own beeswax, but we sell most of it.”

“You paint a gloomy picture, Prioress.”

“Do I? I assure you, it is not gloomy here. We are all very happy, in fact.”

“Indeed,” said Cavendish. “According to this,” and he consulted his own book, “the annual income of this house is £20 13s 4d. But come. I understand that your patron donates lavishly to this house. Where is it, Madam? Where do you put these donations? If not in candles, then where? Are they not given to the poor?”

“The donations are given to this house for the specific upkeep of the nuns and their welfare. May I remind you, Dr. Cavendish, that we are poor.”

“You need not be,” said Legh, squinting into the dimness. “You may go back to your homes, after all.”

For the first time, I recognized in them something foreign, something malignant and tarry, stinking like peat. I heard in their voices, saw it in their eyes, a breath of evil. Oh, I knew it existed. From the truth of the scriptures, I knew it was in the world, but I never before encountered it myself. And now I feared, for I knew what these commissioners wanted. They wanted our destruction. They were not after reformation or to root out abuses, but to destroy God’s Church. I finally understood that if the king were to rule a Church, it must be his own and not that of St. Peter’s. I saw at last what brave Englishmen were afraid to utter, afraid to believe that their sovereign was capable of. Even Thomas, in all his veiled warnings, never suspected this. Lord, I prayed,
preserve me and my nuns from such malignancy. Help us to overcome your enemies. In Christ’s precious name I beg.
“This is our home, Dr. Legh, Dr. Cavendish. We are holy sisters. We belong to God, as did the Holy Mother.”

“This is not a proper home, Madam. A proper home has a man at its head, with a woman to wife and children.”

“A home can be in many forms. We are God’s handmaids. We toil for Him.”

“Toil? At what, Madam? Poverty?”

“We pray, Dr. Legh. For all mankind. And we do so in our poverty as Christ Jesus did on this earth. I can best serve God by possessing great compassion for His creatures…Even for you, Dr. Legh.”

He snorted and hitched up his belt over his considerable middle. “Prayers, Madam, are not a worthy occupation for young women who can better suit the realm by begetting children for the king’s army.”

I frowned. “You are indelicate, sir.”

“I am no more indelicate that the supposition that your playacting at poverty can do the world at large any shred of good.”

“If no good then no harm, at least. And we do serve the poor. How much in your capacity as a king’s commissioner do you do so, my lords?”

He ignored the last and puffed bigger, a cockerel in a barnyard. “And yet there are still poor in this parish, Madam.”

“As I said. We are poor ourselves. We cannot alleviate all the poverty in this land alone.”

“We are not here to discuss the doings of your charitable acts. I am instructed by the crown to question you and your nuns.”

I bristled and straightened to my full height, which was taller than Legh. “Then ask your questions.”

He consulted his book again, but found he could not read it in the dim light. He stepped out onto the porch and expected me to follow. I did so slowly in my due time, my skirts gliding across the stone floor in ripples.

After a pause, he raised his head. “Are you chaste, Madam?”

Involuntarily, I turned my shoulder toward him as if to fend off the blows of his words. “I object most strenuously to such a question! You insult me!”

“By no means, Madam.” Without change to his expression, he looked at his book, and then again at me. “I am instructed to ask you and to ask your nuns about you—whether any immorality of any kind goes on here.”

“I shall answer nothing without my confessor present.”

“That will do you no good, Lady. I am instructed to obtain an answer from you or suppose a conspiracy of silence. Silence condemns as easily as confession.”

“By your reasoning, how can anyone be innocent?”

“Come, come, Lady. I see you have a fondness for dramatics. Let us not have a disguising here. Now answer. Are you chaste?”

Looking him in the eye did no good. I have heard of the king’s torturers. Rumor had it that they were deaf to the pleas of their victims. There was no mercy in this man’s eyes. He wanted his answer, and like the torturer, he would extract it by any means. “I came to this priory a virgin twenty years ago,” I said softly, “and I remain so to this day, as God is my witness.”