The Chalice (45 page)

Jacquard glanced up at the highest platform. I followed his gaze, to a tall man who stood next to a fixed silver cannon.

“Yes, of course,” he said and turned to me, doubtless to urge me to get belowdecks right away.

But before he could speak, Charles Adams appeared on my other side.

“I will make sure your wife comes to no harm,” he offered cheerfully.

Jacquard kissed me lightly on the cheek, simultaneously squeezing my hand so tight it hurt.

I realized after a while that it was not necessary to guard myself against disclosures in the presence of Master Adams. I did not need to speak at all. He was the most voluble of young men, talking of galleons and the cloth trade and his doting mother. His conversation spread to others standing around us. He became the center of attention, and I could confine myself to smiling and nodding. Every few minutes I looked up at Jacquard, with the captain and the officers. Perhaps because of the large sums of money he had paid, they assumed he would want to share the bridge with them. I hoped Jacquard could see I was maintaining near muteness.

The galleon sailed faster and faster. Everyone commented on the good time we made. It seemed the winds conspired to bear me out of England. I edged away from Master Adams and farther up, closer to the bow of the ship. The wind whipped harder through the flapping sails, blowing my dress this way and that.

The Thames widened as we continued east. Looking straight ahead, I could see the point where it would open to the sea. That point was not so distant—we’d reach it in perhaps an hour. And then I would be gone from England. My head spun as I gripped the wooden railing of the surging galleon. When would I return—and with what terrible knowledge gained? I’d never be the same person as I was today.

“Are you feeling the seasickness, Mistress Rolin?” came the friendly voice of Charles Adams. He had left the others to speak to me.

“If you’ll forgive me for saying so, you’ve lost your color,” he said. “You’re not worried about pirates, are you? We are well armed, and this captain is most formidable.”

I nodded, and hoped he would return to the others. But he didn’t.

“Mistress Rolin, may I share some of my fruit with you? It’s nothing but salted meats and bread on board, so I brought it with me. I believe fruit aids the humors.”

Master Adams fished in a small bag he carried and removed a wrapped parcel. In it was a bunch of red cherries, perfectly ripened.

“My mother insisted,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

“Then I definitely could not take any, since they are meant for you,” I said.

But he would not desist. And so I slipped a ripe cherry into my mouth. Its pulpy sweetness delivered a moment of pleasure. When we grew cherries in the priory orchard, they were my favorite treat.

As we stood there, the ship dipped and surged and a fringe of water sprayed us. We jumped back from the railing. Master Adams laughed. As for me, I flicked the water off my hat, but a few drops landed in my mouth—I was startled by its salty taste. The sea mingled with the river here.

“Another cherry?” he pressed me.

I accepted a second. This one was even sweeter. I closed my eyes; the sun warmed my face as I savored the taste. The sails snapped in the wind.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ve always loved cherries.”

“My mother does, too—and my sister. We have them specially grown in an orchard outside London. They can be difficult to nurture, I’m told.”

“Yes,” I said. “Our trees in Dartford required careful nurturing.”

The instant the word
Dartford
escaped me, I froze.

“Did you live in Dartford before you married?” he asked.

“No, never,” I stammered. “I . . . I visited friends there.”

Such a contradiction only compounded my blunder, but Master Adams seemed to think nothing of it. He put the cherries away and began to speak of the books he wanted to buy
in Antwerp. I nodded, barely listening, as I watched Jacquard make his way back to me. I was profoundly grateful he had not heard my slip.

“My wife may need to rest,” he said to Charles Adams.

“Yes,” I said quickly. “I’m weary.”

Master Adams cocked his head and said, “Of course, though I thought the cherries refreshed you, mistress.”

“They were delicious,” I said with a weak smile.

Jacquard ushered me to the cabin, which was hot and airless. But I welcomed its confinement after my foolishness on deck. I considered telling Jacquard what I said, but I did not want to alarm him further. I was certain that Charles Adams would forget the remark—he had probably already forgotten it.

I curled up on the borrowed officer’s bed. Jacquard did not return to our cabin until after I’d fallen asleep. The sound of the door being unlocked and opened woke me. It was as black as ink in this room—I could not see him. But I could smell the wine on his breath and hear him as he moved about, settling on the floor. I fell back asleep quickly. Something about being on this massive surging ship sent me deep into oblivion.

There was a small glass window in the cabin wall, enough to let the light flood in. The morning sun weighed on my eyes. I rubbed them, turning to wake.

Jacquard stood inches from me, looking down.

I stared back at him. There was no desire in his expression. Quite the opposite—he looked at me with colder eyes than I’d ever seen.

“What’s wrong?” I said, my voice raspy.

“Nothing.”

He’d changed his clothes—I was grateful that he’d managed it while I was asleep to avoid embarrassment.

“I’ll have food sent down,” he said. “Stay belowdecks until I come to fetch you. We have excellent wind and should dock
at Antwerp well before nightfall.” He paused. “Do you understand me, Joanna Stafford?”

“How could I not understand you?” I asked, taken aback.

He left the cabin.

After I’d splashed water in my face from the basin and dressed and broken my fast, I decided that Jacquard’s coldness was only to be expected. This was a dangerous mission. He’d had disturbing news moments before we left shore yesterday and hadn’t slept much last night. Today we’d set foot in the Low Countries, a prospect that perhaps unnerved him as much as it did me, although we showed it in different ways.

I was sweaty and restless by the time Jacquard came to get me. “They will fetch our trunk soon from here and bring it up top.”

He led me out into the cramped walkway. The steps leading to the deck were a few feet away. “We will see Chapuys later tonight. When we get to Antwerp, we will have something to eat and drink first. I know a place.”

“Why not see Chapuys at once?” I asked. “What could be more important to him than our mission?”

Jacquard did not answer me.

Once I reached the deck, I forgot about Jacquard’s curtness, for it was wonderful to feel the wind and sun on my face again. Our ship had crossed the brief stretch of sea while I was belowdecks. Now we sailed east in a wide channel between an island and the coast of the Low Countries. This was the prosperous land of Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent. More people lived along this coast than the English one, there was no question of that. Roofs and steeples, jammed close together, filled the horizon. Our ship eased into a river—the Scheldt. Like the Thames, it was a major waterway and would lead us to the city we sought. The river was crowded with ships. There were galleons as large as ours as well as many, many smaller ones.

“I’d forgotten about this, how it feels as if the whole world is bound for Antwerp,” said Charles Adams as he joined us.

“That’s because it is,” answered Jacquard. “Portuguese spice traders, German printers, Milanese silk merchants, Venetian glass blowers, Dutch printers, and”—he bowed to his companion—“English cloth merchants. All base their business
here
. The Hapsburgs are the monarchs of the Netherlands, but truly, the bankers are the princes of Antwerp. They’ve even created a safe haven for the Jews—the persecutions of Spain are frowned on in Flanders.”

For the rest of our sail up the Scheldt, Jacquard and Charles Adams conversed happily, of books and wine and music. I could tell by their familiarity that they’d spent hours on these subjects already today and perhaps even last night as well. Jacquard had taken a distinct liking to this merchant’s son.

I will never forget arriving in the port of Antwerp. The sun was low in the sky behind us, and so it reflected in all the windows of the houses and guildhalls and taverns of the city. A golden light flashed, shuddered, and then sank into dusk as we found a place for anchoring. While waiting for the rowboats to reach us and take us the rest of the way, Charles Adams shared with me the meaning of the word
Antwerp
.

“It has to do with a legend—a story about a giant,” he said. “The giant lived on the river Scheldt and demanded a toll, and if a person refused, the giant cut off his hand. ‘To throw a hand’ in Dutch sounds like
Antwerpen
. And so you have it.”

“Oh,” I said.

Even in the twilight I could see him flush. “Oh, perhaps that’s too gruesome a story for a bride—I hope you’re not angry.”

“My wife likes gruesome stories,” Jacquard said, with a strange intensity.

Just then the rowboats came, and we were on shore. To my surprise, Jacquard insisted that Charles Adams come with us to sup
and drink. Charles himself tried to beg off, saying he was weary.

“Come now—you’re five years younger than I am, and I’m not tired,” Jacquard teased him. “Just one tankard of wine?”

Flattered, Master Adams agreed. I was grateful for it; this meant Jacquard would spend his time talking to his new friend and not needling or lecturing me.

Although night beckoned, there was no sign of curfew in Antwerp. The flat streets teemed with people. I heard a little French and Spanish but mostly a strange language I was told was Dutch. Music poured out of the doorways and windows, all flung open to the balmy evening.

Another way Antwerp was different from London was smell. I assumed all large cities smelled the same. But along with the inevitable filth of a huge metropolis, there was the acrid odor of newly printed books as well as a pungent brew of spices: cloves and ginger and peppers and other exotics I’d never even dreamed of.

Were I in the Low Countries for another reason, I might have felt ecstatic about exploring such a city as Antwerp. But we’d entered this part of the world on a mission laced with darkness.

Jacquard led us down a quieter street to a tavern. The establishment was not as well situated as I expected. But he was known there; he called out to one man, nodded to another. They spoke to him for a moment, saying how long it had been since they saw Jacquard. Then both of the men left the main room.

We sat down at a table. Jacquard boasted that the finest wines in the known world were found in Antwerp. “The silver and spices from the Americas keep pouring in, so the lowliest tavern of Antwerp boasts a better selection of French wines than Paris.”

Charles Adams sipped the wine Jacquard ordered.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” Jacquard demanded.

Master Adams hesitated, then said, “The wine is a bit sour, I am sorry to say, Master Rolin.”

“What?”

Jacquard flew out of his chair and out a doorway to the back. No more than three minutes later he returned. He beckoned for Charles Adams. “The owner of this tavern has apologized—and offers us a drink from his best collection in his private chamber. Wine from Madeira. Come.”

Glancing at me, Master Adams said, “And your wife?”

“She will be fine. We can start the wine here and then return to her. It’s from a casket—it has to be poured in the back and tasted immediately.”

The minute Charles Adams left with him to try the wine, I noticed how quiet the tavern was. There was no one else being served. A sad-eyed woman polished glasses in the corner. I could hear music, faintly, from another establishment up the street.

I don’t know how I knew it. There was no noise. No strange sights. But I did.

I ran to the same doorway that the men had passed through. The woman polishing glasses looked up as I sped by.

The door did not lead to the room of the owner of the tavern. It led to a very narrow stone passageway. At the other end, a torch was fixed to the wall. Under it Jacquard bent over Charles Adams. He’d just cut his throat.

D
o you think I wanted to kill this boy?” Jacquard said to me, his face rigid and slick with sweat. “I had no choice.”

He had dragged me back into the tavern. The door to the street was shut and locked. One of the men who’d greeted us when we entered clamped a hand over my mouth a second after I screamed; I hadn’t heard him come after me. Before I was dragged away, I glimpsed the other one dragging Charles Adams to the far end of the passageway. They were all Jacquard’s confederates from past missions.

The old woman put a glass of something in front of Jacquard and he drank it down in one gulp.

“Why?” I wept. “Why would you do such a terrible thing?”

He pointed at me. “The blame belongs with
you
. After all my instructions, repeated and reinforced, you tell him you are from Dartford an hour after we board?”

I stared at him, frozen.

“Yes, I saw you two talking and sharing fruit and I made it my business to find out exactly what you’d told him.” Jacquard beckoned for another drink from the old woman.

“But to kill him—you didn’t have to do that,” I said brokenly.

Jacquard slammed his fist on the table. “Gardiner is
hunting
you. It’s only a matter of time before he learns you are no longer in Hertfordshire—perhaps that you never were in Hertfordshire. If he knows I left for Antwerp on that ship, he could investigate my supposed wife. He’d be bound to learn which other Englishmen were on the boat and interview them. And you told Adams you were from Dartford. Not Derbyshire—Dartford. How could you do that?”

I sobbed into my hands, convulsed with guilt and grief over the death of this kind young man.

“Stop it,” Jacquard spat. “I can’t bear the sound. Not after what I’ve endured the last two days. You must gather yourself. We leave for Chapuys’s house now.”