The Chalice (26 page)

“They are dispensable,” he said calmly. “As are you, Joanna. I’d not care a whit if you were back in the Tower but for the fact that you have ingratiated yourself with the Lady Mary. As long as His Majesty’s daughter cares about your welfare, then so do I.”

“I have no need of your solicitude,” I said. My desperate hold on my temper was fraying. Soon it would be gone.

Gardiner studied me in silence for a moment. “Do you know, I am not even sure of the legality of a union between a man and a woman who has taken vows of chastity advisedly. The king has quite pronounced views on the matter. I will discuss it with him during my next audience.”

To my great relief, Norfolk reappeared. He huddled with Gardiner for a moment, and then beckoned for me. “Time to go,” he said.

“Wait, Thomas,” said Gardiner. He murmured something to one of his minions, and a moment later a cloak was borne into the room on a page’s outstretched arms. It was black velvet with the letter
W
embossed in gold.

“We wouldn’t want the Lady Mary’s protégée to sicken from the cold,” he said.

“I thank you, Bishop Gardiner,” I said between gritted teeth, and wrapped myself in the heavy cloak.

“Di te incolumen custodiant,”
he responded, the Latin pleasantry trilling off his tongue.

At nearby Howard House, a tall torch flickered outside the entrance to the sprawling manor. A man slumped next to it, deep asleep. Norfolk jumped off his horse and kicked him in the leg. “Wake up, cur!” he shouted.

Servants rushed out the doors in a panic. Others scrambled from around the house to take our mounts to the Howard stables.

Richard helped me off my horse. My legs, my arms, my feet, my neck and shoulders, even the tips of my fingers, ached with weariness.

“How long am I to stay here?” I asked thickly.

Richard shrugged.

Norfolk heard my question and said, “As long as it takes to make arrangements to bundle you up to Stafford Castle.” He turned to a hard-eyed female servant. “Find her a room.”

My quarters that first night at Howard House were shabby by most standards. The bedding wasn’t clean; unwashed goblets littered a table. But all I could think of were the new prisoners at the Tower of London and what cells
they
huddled in tonight. I blew out the smoldering candle stump and stumbled into bed, still wearing the cloth of silver Gertrude had commissioned for me and the heavy cloak Gardiner forced onto my shoulders. I’d brought nothing with me. It was either sleep in these absurd garments or be naked between soiled sheets.

I should have lost consciousness at once. But they crowded before me, whether my eyes were open or shut: Gertrude, her eyes pleading. Henry Courtenay, clutching his weeping son. Baron Montagu, masking his terror with a show of arrogance. Geoffrey, struggling to pull me to safety—but never quite able to. And finally James, lifting the bloody head of his twin brother off the street. Each vision pierced me in a different way.

I’d told Baron Montagu I would pray for him; I’d promised the Lady Mary as well. And pray I did. Whispered pleas filled
my dark, dirty room. But they were all but drowned out by the noises in my head. Screams and sobs. Horse hoofs on Lower Thames Street. The slap of oars on the Thames. And one man’s voice, Stephen Gardiner’s, saying a single sentence over and over.

“I wonder who it was that told Gertrude Courtenay to find you in Dartford and bring you to the Red Rose.”

W
ake up, Joanna,” said a woman’s voice. “Ah, you’re still one of the hardest people to rouse in the morning.”

I opened my eyes to a small room flooded with sunlight. Sitting next to me on the bed was a long-faced woman in her middle years: my cousin Elizabeth, the Duchess of Norfolk.

Her presence in the house of her husband made no sense. The marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk was the unhappiest in all of England. Their mutual hatred often erupted into shouting and even blows, until my cousin ceased sharing a roof with the duke five years ago. She’d lived alone in the country ever since, refusing to grant the Duke of Norfolk a divorce or reconcile.

Elizabeth gathered a fold of my cloth of silver dress in both hands, holding it up to the light “Where did you get this dress?” she asked.

“Gertrude Courtenay gave it to me,” I muttered. My throat ached and my head spun from lack of nourishment. “Do you know what happened last night?”

She sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, it is all most upsetting,” she said calmly. “I will order that food and drink and suitable clothes be brought to you. If this were my father’s house, it would all be here within minutes. But it’s a
Howard house and I’ve only been back a week. I’ve not yet got the staff in hand. So it may take an hour.”

She made for the door. She wore a somber, square-necked dress, the sort my mother favored years ago.

“Wait—Elizabeth,” I cried. “What’s to happen to me?”

“You’re to be sent up to Stafford Castle as soon as possible. The Howard secretary writes a letter today to my brother. When the duke returns from court, the letter will be signed and dispatched.”

Pulling myself up in the bed, I said, “But I have a home in Dartford. Arthur must be there by now. My friends are there—my life is there. Please, you must help me.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Don’t be tiresome, Joanna. It’s all been decided. Arthur will be sent up to Stafford Castle, too, when the time comes. But he can’t stay at Howard House. The duke won’t hear of it.”

She opened the door. “You can attend me in my receiving room later, but not if you intend to harangue me. Your tantrums always made my head ache.”

With a swish of her dark skirts, she was gone.

The Duchess of Norfolk was correct, it took nearly an hour for a chunk of bread and mug of weak ale to arrive. But that gave me time to think. And once new strength flowed into my body, I was ready to attempt a plan.

I was not going to be sent anywhere but Dartford. I would do whatever it took to find a way home.

Elizabeth and I had never been close. She was seventeen years older. Among the females of the Stafford family, she, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, reigned at the top of the heap. My place was near the bottom, if not
the
bottom. But Elizabeth’s young half sister, Margaret, was the closest companion of my childhood. After the Duke of Buckingham was executed, Margaret went to live with her unhappy sister. I saw them both on visits, and Margaret wrote me many letters besides. I knew something of the moods of Elizabeth.

I could hear the duchess’s sharp voice from outside her receiving room. “Must I go through this
again
?” she demanded. “Do you remember nothing of what I taught you?”

I eased inside.

Elizabeth stood, arms folded, mouth set in a severe line, in front of a table. There were a few objects set upon it: pewter plates, cups, tiny mounds of salt in dishes. And a large knife. It was a strange assembly and yet familiar, too.

On the other side of the table quavered a girl of about sixteen, short and verging on plump, with long auburn hair. She was not the duchess’s daughter. The only other time I had been inside Howard House, at a masque party given by Elizabeth’s oldest son, the Earl of Surrey, I met this girl. Catherine Howard. She was one of the many nieces of the Duke of Norfolk. I remembered her as giggling and lovely, with deep dimples. She most definitely did not exhibit dimples now. Catherine was frozen in indecision, her hand hovering over the knife.

“You must prostrate yourself three times before you touch it,” said Elizabeth.

“The knife—or the salt?” she whispered.

Elizabeth threw up her hands. “See what I must cope with, Joanna?” she demanded, seeing me enter the room. “My husband said I am to train her for court service. The Howards are making her their candidate for maid of honor. Catherine is the only one of the right age and bonny enough to qualify. But she knows nothing! Her only talents are lute playing and dancing. The Howards haven’t taught her anything serious—she can barely read—and yet they expect her to wait on a queen brought up in Paris or Brussels?
Ridiculous
.”

Catherine, scarlet with shame, peered over at me. Recognition flickered in her eyes—she remembered me, too.

I moved toward the table. “You curtsy as low as possible to the knife,” I explained. “You rub the plate with some of the salt. Then, you put a tiny mound of salt on the knife.”

“I am most grateful for your kind help,” the girl said to me,
a smile restoring the prettiness I remembered. “But how do you know all of this, mistress?”

“My mother taught me how to prepare dinner for the queen’s presence chamber,” I said.

The duchess said approvingly, “Joanna’s mother was trained in Spain, where they have the highest standards of all for court ladies. She and I served the queen together; I waited on Katherine of Aragon for sixteen years.”

Catherine said timidly, “Your Grace, it might help me if I understood why this is done.
Why
must the plates be rubbed with salt?”

“It has to do with the threat of poison,” Elizabeth said.

Catherine’s eyes flickered with interest. “Has anyone ever tried to poison a queen of England?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Elizabeth admitted, “but the Borgias were not so long ago, with their poisoners.”

“Who are the Borgias?” asked Catherine.

Elizabeth groaned. Once again, I stepped in to explain. It was not easy. The Borgia crimes always made me uncomfortable. Some people claimed the Borgias were in some part responsible for igniting the firestorm of heresy that now threatened to engulf Christendom.

After I’d finished, Elizabeth marched over to a stool pushed against the wall. She snatched up a piece of needlework and waved it at me. “This is all that Catherine is capable of.”

Even from across the room, the stitches looked primitive. I snuck another glance at Catherine. She rolled her eyes at me—I was relieved to see she had spirit—and then dipped a curtsy. “I apologize for all my shortcomings, Your Grace.”

“When is the new queen set to arrive?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing is decided yet,” Elizabeth answered, “but the field is narrowing.

My cousin nibbled on a fingernail and then said, “Catherine, I’ve endured enough of you. Leave me.”

The young Howard girl scampered out of the room.

“Will
you
wait on the queen?” I asked my cousin. “I’d imagine you would be the principal lady of waiting.”

“It’s possible.”

“Then you will need all sorts of new garments to wear to court,” I said, with a single clap of my hands. I wanted it to seem as if the idea just occurred. “I want you to have that cloth of silver dress, Elizabeth. It can be easily mended. And all the rest of the fine dresses the marchioness of Exeter gave me—you should have them as well. We are of the same size.”

My cousin’s face lit up. She tried at once to dampen it—she realized its unseemliness. She said, “If it can be managed to secure them from the Red Rose, then, yes, I could make a place for them here. Are you quite sure, Joanna?”

“Oh, I want you to have the clothes,” I said. Which was true enough. I would never wear them again.

Elizabeth suddenly flung herself across the room. Thin arms encircled me. “It’s kind of you, Joanna. Most kind. If there’s anything I can do—”

I counted to five and then said, “You can speak to the duke about my returning to Dartford, not Stafford Castle.”

She rapidly withdrew from our familial embrace. “No I couldn’t,” she said. “The duke would never, ever agree. Joanna, this is your fault. You shouldn’t have taken lodgings in Dartford with that child in the first place. It was not fitting—no one approved at the time.”

“ ‘That child,’ as you call him, is Margaret’s own son,” I said.

Elizabeth said, “I know—yes, of course I know of the poor boy,” she said. For the first time I glimpsed the caring heart that Margaret always insisted that Elizabeth possessed. “I’ve wanted to see Arthur for a long time—I wanted to be by Margaret’s side at the end. Impossible. I’m the highest ranking lady in the land after the king’s wives and daughters and Lady Margaret Douglas, but I have no power at all.”

Elizabeth had always raged over our sex’s inferiority. Other women submitted to slights if not abuses every day. Not Elizabeth.
That was one of the reasons she had taken the shocking step of leaving her husband. She was unwilling to submit to him after she felt wronged.

“Why have you returned to Howard House now?” I asked.

“I had no choice,” she said. “My husband would not give me a proper allowance after I left him. I have no money of my own. No one would visit me, not even my children. They took their father’s part. Gertrude Courtenay, your great friend, abandoned my cause like everyone else. I asked my brother Henry if I could return to Stafford Castle and live with him and his family—and do you know what he did? He wrote to my husband that he did not want me—he did not even write back to
me
at all. There’s too much scandal attached to my name.”

“Perhaps cousin Henry won’t want me either,” I said hopefully.

Elizabeth waved a hand at me. “I’m the Duchess of Norfolk, and you’re a nobody. It’s not the same.” She sighed. “It was Cromwell who brokered this reconciliation. My condition was Howard not strike me or humiliate me by keeping his whores under the same roof. In return I will take his households in hand again, though it is not easy. My husband wants to keep Christmas in grand style.
Ridiculous
. Everyone in the family comes and goes, the accounts are in chaos. The Howards are a bad lot. I told my father that when he forced me to wed. Father laughed at me—but I was right.”

Looking at her mournful face, I had another idea.

“Let me help you, cousin,” I said. “I can teach Catherine needlework and the other things she needs to know to be a proper maid of honor. I will assist with all the preparations for Christmastide.”

Elizabeth brightened. “Would you do that for me, Joanna?”

I felt a twist of guilt over my deceit but forced myself to say yes. Southwark was so close to Dartford, two hours by horse. If
I managed to make myself indispensable here, I could yet find a way to maneuver home. If I were forced to return to Stafford Castle, it would be much, much harder.