The Chalice (28 page)

It was a fantastical sight from the south side of the Thames. Houses and shops, painted all different colors, crowded on top of the stone bridge. I’d heard that bookmakers, merchants, and artists throve in their homes perched atop the Thames.

“Oh, there’s a line of people waiting to walk over,” said Brother Edmund, regretful, pointing at a string of men and women standing to the side of the wagons and horses that streamed into a dark, narrow opening, more like a tunnel than a bridge. “This could take longer than we’d wish.” He glanced at the door we stood in front of—a solid bench was nailed to the ground next to the doorway, out of the main thrust of the street. At the end of it began the throng of taverns and whorehouses that surrounded Winchester House.

“Why don’t you sit here?” asked Brother Edmund. “I’ll make inquiries. You look fatigued, and we have a ways to walk yet before we reach Lincoln’s Inn.”

I sat down. As I watched Brother Edmund hurry the rest of the way to the bridge, I had to admit that it felt good to rest.

A strange guttural roar sounded from across the busy street, followed by men’s cheers. It seemed to come from the other side of a high wall of wooden planks, tied together to form an enormous circle. The guttural sound rose up again—it was not like any other noise I’d heard. But I could see nothing but the wooden circle.

An old man standing by the bench noticed my straining to see what caused such an unearthly noise.

“That’s the bears, mistress,” he said.

I stared at him. “There are bears in Southwark?”

“They are hard to find but men capture them far away and bring ’em to Southwark for bear baitin’,” he said. “People save pence for months and months to pay for a trip to the baitin’.”

I swallowed. Something disturbed me about these bears.

A gang of young men led in dogs to the bear-baiting arena. The dogs were large. I knew they were to be used against the captured beast but not quite how.

Then I remembered, with an icy rush, what it was about bears I feared. I heard the voice of Orobas, channeling the spirit of a long-dead Saxon nun:
“Look to the bear to weaken the bull.”

Next the prophecy of Sister Elizabeth Barton hurtled into my thoughts. Why would these words all descend on me now, unbidden, in the midst of loud Southwark? I did not know, and yet I could not suppress it:
“When the raven climbs the rope, the dog must soar like the hawk.”

I felt Gertrude Courtenay’s eyes boring into me from the wagon conveying her to the Tower of London.
Do something,
those eyes screamed. Yet I’d never for a single moment understood what it was that I could do.

“Sister Joanna?” Brother Edmund had already returned. “What’s wrong?” he said. “You look terrified.”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s the bear baiting. Nothing.”

He stared at me. “Bears frighten you?”

I leaped to my feet. “Can we now cross the bridge?”

Brother Edmund explained that because the bridge was so narrow and the horse and wagon traffic so heavy, all who trod across it on foot must walk carefully, in a single file. We’d have to wait our turn. We might not be across the Thames for another hour.

“That’s fine,” I muttered, still thinking about the screams of the bears.

“Wait, Sister Joanna.”

Brother Edmund stopped walking. His arms were folded across his chest, his frown running deep. “I must know what has happened to you,” he said. “Something
else
has shaken you.”

I could not say a word to Brother Edmund.

“If you tell me what’s happened, I can help,” he prompted.

I said, “Brother, we need to cross the Thames.”

In tense silence we walked those last yards to London Bridge. My mind worked frantically with every step. I thought about how Brother Edmund had helped me in the desperate search for the Athelstan crown. How valuable his intelligence was. And, just as important, his integrity and compassion.

I stopped short of the line to cross the bridge. I pulled Brother Edmund away, finding a place where no one else could hear us: a filthy, narrow alleyway between shops. He was not startled, nor did he pull away from me. He knew full well that I would tell him what he wanted to know.

“When I was seventeen,” I said, “my mother took me to Canterbury.”

B
rother Edmund listened to my story—my experience of twice hearing prophecy that pushed me toward an unknown fate—in rapt silence. The only time he interrupted was after I told him that Sister Elizabeth Barton repeated the words of another seer, Mother Shipton of Yorkshire: “When the cow doth ride the bull, then priest beware thy skull.”

“I’ve heard that,” he said. And then: “Continue.”

When I’d finished, he was silent for a good while. He stared at the filth-covered wall of the alley, faint crinkles deepening around his eyes. Then he turned to me.

“Do you believe it?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. “I have asked myself that question so many times, considering everything: Sister Elizabeth’s recanting, and then Gertrude’s explanation for why she recanted. The possibility that Orobas was a fraud after Gertrude’s money. This is what torments me—I am not sure. I go round and round and round.”

I laid my hand on his arm. “Tell me, Brother Edmund, you must tell me what
you
think. Can such prophecies exist?”

“Oh, prophets and seers and witches and necromancers abound, all of them claiming to divine the future,” replied Brother Edmund. “As to how much of it is genuine, it’s impossible
to know. Certainly tricksters excel at extracting coins from the gullible. But your experience, what you’ve seen and heard, makes me believe . . .”

To my amazement, Brother Edmund smiled. I’d expected him to be frightened for me, not react like this. “Sister Joanna, I do believe this could be genuine.”

I was taken aback. “And you think it welcome?”

“It’s frightening, yes, and most mysterious, but just think, if it be true, then you would be the one,” he said.

“The one?” I repeated blankly.

He seized both my arms and shook me, not in anger but with excitement. “You would be the one to restore the
monasteries
.” Our faces were inches apart—his was transformed. Longing poured from him. He’d lost his life as a Dominican friar, though his calling remained. We’d all been forced to abandon our dream. Yet now, because of what I’d revealed, a restoration was possible. Why didn’t I surge forward, snatching at my place in prophecy, eager to bring back our way of life? But I couldn’t. I moved away from him, bumping against the brick wall.

A man laughed at the end of the alleyway, and his companion shouted at us, “That’s right, my lad—take her where ye can get her. Up against the wall!”

Brother Edmund immediately stepped back. I blushed at such crudity.

Still laughing, the two men walked away.

I cleared my throat and said, “None of it has ever made sense to me. All those descriptions of birds and animals—I don’t understand why the prophecy has to be delivered in such an unclear manner.”

“Prophecy is dangerous,” Brother Edmund said, calmer now. “The king knows this and that is why he fears and hates it among his subjects. He’s proclaimed it ‘devilish.’ A prediction of what may come to pass could inspire men to commit desperate and violent acts. Do you know anything about codes?”

I shook my head.

“Foreign ambassadors and statesmen—and the spies they employ—often write in code to protect their meanings from anyone who would steal or misuse their communications. Animals, birds, plants, insects—they can symbolize certain people or events. But a code works only if both parties understand the meanings: the sender and the receiver.”

“But that’s my point,” I said. “I
don’t.”

“They are not always difficult to decipher,” Brother Edmund said. “What Mother Shipton said—‘When the cow doth ride the bull, then priest beware thy skull’—has been widely interpreted as what happened to us all when Anne Boleyn ruled over King Henry.”

It was as if a door opened.

“The bull is the king,” I cried. “But Orobas said, ‘Look to the bear to weaken the bull.’ That animal must symbolize the man or woman who will weaken King Henry. So who is the bear?” I winced. “Could the bear possibly be
me
?”

Brother Edmund thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t have any idea.”

“Why me at all? Why would I be chosen to perform some sort of act? Sister Barton said, ‘You are the one who will come after.’ Gertrude said I would be the salvation of the true faith in England. And Orobas suggested that the future of the whole kingdom depends on something that I do. But I have no power, no influence over anyone. I’m not even courageous.”

Brother Edmund smiled. “I would beg to argue that point.” Then he bit his lip. “I can think of two reasons why you would be chosen. First is your Stafford birth. I know you deplore your noble blood, but it does put you into the court and near the king and Cromwell, should you wish it.”

“I don’t,” I said sourly. “What is the second reason?”

“You are a Dominican. Perhaps when you met with Sister Elizabeth Barton, it was known by her, with her talent for seeing into the future, that you would profess vows to our order.”

“How does being a Dominican make me a more likely tool of prophecy? There are other orders that delve deeper into such mysticism.”

“There is a deeply mystical side to our order,” he insisted. “We are engulfed by God. Knowledge comes to us, wisdom and understanding, that is not knowable through the intellect. A part of that knowledge is glimpses into the future.”

“So any Dominican can become a prophet?” I asked, taken aback.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Very few possess true prophetic powers. If only I had access to the books of a Dominican monastery. We could try to find the keys to unlock these predictions. Without knowledge, there is only fear.”

Brother Edmund was right. It was time to stop trying to escape from the prophecies. If I could decipher their meanings, at least I would gain some advantage in knowledge.

But there was a serious obstacle.

“If the monasteries are all destroyed, so are their libraries,” I pointed out.

Brother Edmund said, “The greatest of them all—Blackfriars—was just surrendered to the king. The library may still have its books.”

“Are you familiar with it?” I asked.

He nodded. “I was a friar professed there for four years. Today we could go to Blackfriars and then on to Lincoln’s Inn. The two are not far from each other.”

Full of new purpose, we took our place in line waiting to cross the Thames on the sixty-foot-high London Bridge. After paying, we shuffled slowly across the river, the wagons and carts rumbling so close to us in the narrow passageway that they sometimes brushed against us.

The moment I stepped out into the light on the north side, we heard, “Where are ye bound? Do ye need a horse? A riverboat? For a few pence, I can find ye anything!” The offer was
made by a hunchback who greeted the foot travelers as they emerged.

“I thank you, sir, but we travel by foot to Blackfriars,” answered Brother Edmund.

The hunchback laughed. “No one goes on foot to Blackfriars,” he said, and moved on.

“What does he mean by that?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” said Brother Edmund, looking rather pained.

And so I did.

Blackfriars is the largest Dominican house in England and the wonder of Christendom. For two centuries, its friars answered to no English rulers, king or clergy, only to the pope. Despite its fame, I had never seen the monastery with my own eyes. Brother Edmund was surprised by that—like many others he believed being a member of a noble family denoted intimate knowledge of London. But there were many parts of London I did not know. After we arrived, I stepped through an enormous arch—carved into it the revered Dominican crest, with its stars and white lilies and the word
Veritas
—and into a cobbled courtyard, as large as the one at Winchester House. To the left stood a gatehouse and, behind it, an enormous windowed castle and churchyard and supporting buildings set within high stonewalls. One would come on horseback or litter to such a place, not humbly on foot.

We found the porter, a red-faced man in his forties, sitting alone in the gatehouse, singing.

“This is Master John Portinary,” Brother Edmund said. “For many years, the tireless porter of Blackfriars.”

“And proud of it, proud of it,” the man shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “Ah, it’s a mercy you weren’t here when the cowardly prior surrendered us to the will of Cromwell. Only sixteen friars left at the end—can you believe it? Sixteen. When once there were hundreds. But they drifted away. Like you, Brother Edmund, you transferred to Cambridge, I know, and after that one was dissolved, you were sent to Dartford?”

“That’s correct—I am honored you’ve followed my progress,” Brother Edmund said. “We’ve both come from Dartford Priory.”

“I always kept up with the friars who showed the most promise.” The man peered at me. “Ah, so this is she. I remember you telling me about your sister in Dartford.”

I waited for Brother Edmund to correct him, but he did not. When we traveled to Malmesbury last year, we’d passed as brother and sister to attract less notice. Perhaps it was best to take up that pose again, though I hated to deceive.

“I thought we would walk in the monastery tonight, to pray and see the library,” said Brother Edmund. “Would that be possible?”

“Possible?” He brightened. “I say to you as porter of Blackfriars, it is possible for you to walk through the monastery—and even to sleep here tonight—but only if you drink the prior’s malmsey with me.”

Brother Edmund tried to refuse, but the man would not hear of it. He filled goblets high, for both of us. Sipping the rich, sweet malmsey sent a warm current coursing through me. I had not eaten a thing and this was far more potent than the watered-down strawberry wine I sometimes consumed.

Glancing over at Brother Edmund, I saw his cheeks flush and knew he was experiencing its heady strength, too.