The Chalice (52 page)

Something stirred, frantic, in the corner of my mind. This is serious, I thought. But how could it be serious when I felt so peaceful?

Señor Hantaras shook me. “Tell me why you were with Anne of Cleves,” he said.

The grip of his hands hurt, and I was glad. It helped to clear my head. “I am carrying out the prophecy of the third seer,” I said. “Why else would I be with her?” I tried to peer out the back of the wagon. “Where are we now? You’d better return me to the royal party at once. I must be with her when she meets the king at Greenwich.”

“Why did you attack Jacquard Rolin?” he countered.

He knew what happened, and he did not say “kill,” but “attack.” So Jacquard lived.

“I was defending myself,” I said.

Hantaras regarded me for a good long time. Then he shook his head. “If you were still working with us, you would have gone to Antwerp and reported to Chapuys.”

A laugh bubbled up. I couldn’t help it. “Jacquard told me that Chapuys planned to hand me over to the Inquisition for practicing sorcery. And I was supposed to go to him?” I shook
my head. “I went to Calais because it was the only other route to England. I decided to carry out the prophecy myself—I can’t trust Chapuys anymore.”

Señor Hantaras stared at me, frowning.

I tried to say as seriously as I could, “I know what to do. I understand the prophecy better than anyone,” but it sounded like giddy boasting.

I tried not to look away from him; I prayed that my bluff would work.

“We shall see,” he said, and turned to Nelly’s mother. “Bind her mouth again—and watch her. Don’t give her so much the next time.” He edged his way to the back of the wagon.

“What about the blindfold?” his mistress asked.

“She’s already seen us,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter in any case.”

Señor Hantaras eased out. I heard him say to someone else standing outside of the wagon, perhaps someone standing guard, “We can’t eliminate her until the deed is done.”

They are planning to kill me.

The wagon began to move. Horses pulled us forward. Nelly’s mother sat in the dim back of the closed carriage, watching me every second. I strained to hear what was said outside. At first it was just a jumble. Nelly’s mother gave me no more of the tincture and my powers of perception sharpened. I was rewarded by hearing “Rochester.” And then “the queen’s retinue.” So we were following the progress of Anne of Cleves into London. She had gone from Deal to Dover to Canterbury, and now the queen was in the city of Rochester. In two or three days’ time, we could be in London.

Nelly’s mother undid the strip around my mouth again to give me food. She sliced a loaf of brown bread—while trying to look as if I didn’t notice, I tracked where she put the knife. She returned it to the bottom of an open box against the side of the wagon.

I ate the bread silently, trying to show as much compliance as possible. I ate every bite. This was my chance. I still felt the effects of the dose, but I might not get another opportunity. Edmund had performed all of his duties while taking small amounts of the tincture. I would have to force myself forward through this lingering peacefulness to an act of darkness.

“I need to use the privy again,” I said.

She lifted me up to a kneeling position and then half pushed, half dragged me to the part of the wagon where the bucket was kept. When we had almost reached it, I collapsed and rolled so that my back was to the side of the wagon, in front of the box. “Forgive me,” I said. “It is hard to move this way.” With my hands, I reached until I felt the blade of the knife. I twirled it around so I could grab it by the handle.

“I’ll have to bind your mouth again before you use the bucket,” she said, suspicion darkening in her eyes.

I said, “I understand.”

I had the knife.

She pulled me up and lifted the cloth toward my mouth, and as she did, I tore away and then made a swift circle, the knife in my hand.

I stabbed her in the leg.

She cried out in agony as I scrambled to the very back of the wagon. I turned the knife this way and that, tearing at the ropes around my wrists.

Nelly’s mother tried to follow me, but the wound was too painful and she collapsed, writhing and gurgling.

She found her voice: “Help!” she screamed. “Help, she’s escaping!”

I had only seconds.

I ripped the last bit of rope from my wrists and smashed open the back door of the wagon with my left shoulder, the knife still in my right hand.

A man stood a few feet away from me, his mouth gaping. He was breathless—he must have been running to the wagon, in response to the scream. It took me a few seconds to recognize him—this was the red-haired fellow spy who came to talk to Jacquard right before we left Gravesend.

The red-haired man lunged for me. I jumped out of his grasp—and then counterattacked.

Pivot, drop, and thrust.

The man scrambled to get out of range of my knife. His shock was obvious. That was my initial advantage—his disbelief that a woman would fight in such a way. He did not know what I’d been trained to do by the best—by Jacquard. I started laughing, I could not stop myself

Pivot, drop, and thrust.

He leaped away again, but a determined glint came into his eyes. He was planning a way to overpower me.

We tangled at the end of a quiet road. Yet suddenly it was not so quiet. As the red-haired man turned to come at me another way, a man at the top of the street called out, “What’s this?”

I heard running feet. At least two men thundered toward us.

The red-haired man turned and sprinted in the other direction. He had slipped through an opening in two houses by the time the two men had reached me. I had already tossed the knife on the ground, behind a mound of rubbish. It would be hard to explain a bloodied knife in my hand.

“What was that about?” one asked me. “Have you been injured?”

The two of them looked me up and down. After being tied up in a wagon for three days, I must have appeared disheveled indeed.

“Are we in Rochester?” I asked.

They exchanged glances. “Of course this is Rochester,” the other one said. “Do you need a constable? A justice of the peace?”

“Do you know the constable here?” I asked. Perhaps that was prudent—to go to someone for help. Señor Hantaras and the red-haired man would most certainly try to kill me, especially if Hantaras’s mistress bled to death in the silent wagon not ten feet from where I stood. Although what explanation could I give to a stranger?

“I know all the constables in this part of Kent,” replied the first man.

“Do you know Geoffrey Scovill, in Dartford?” I asked. “Can you send for him? Is that in any way possible?”

The two of them looked at each other again, with sadness.

The second man said, “We know Geoffrey well. He used to be a constable in Rochester. His wife died several weeks ago, in childbirth. The baby was born dead, too. He cannot be troubled with anything at present.”

And with that, the numbing tincture receded and I felt a twist of real grief.

“Mistress, you look so distressed,” said the first man. “What can we do to help you?”

I swallowed, and then I said, “Is Anne of Cleves in Rochester?”

They nodded. “She’s at the Bishop’s Palace.”

I managed to draw out of them direction to the Bishop’s Palace. In minutes I was on my way. I had no cloak and it was bitter cold on these streets. But I welcomed it; the cold helped clear my mind. There was no ice, nothing to prevent me from running. I picked up my skirts and did just that, following the streets as they slanted toward the large building silhouetted against the winter sky—it could only be the Bishop’s Palace.

I was forced to slow down a short distance away. There were so many people clogging the streets; they were also drawn here, eager to catch a glimpse of the new queen.

I heard a muted roar, a strange one—and one that made my
knees begin to tremble. Just then a young blond man passed me on the left, leading a large dog by a rope.

“Where are you taking that dog?” I cried.

The blond man looked over his shoulder to answer, “The bear baiting.”

I scrambled after him. To the side of the Bishop’s Palace was a circle of boards, a pit for bear baiting.

“Look!” shouted an old woman. “The new queen likes the bear baiting.”

I squinted to see. Yes, the old woman was right. The third-floor windows of the Bishop’s Palace were flung open, and a woman wearing a triangular cap stood at it, peering down. It was Anne of Cleves. I recognized stout Mother Lowe next to her.

Although it was so cold, a sweat broke out on my forehead.

I darted around the bear-baiting pit to the front of the Bishop’s Palace. At least twenty of the king’s guard clustered in front of it. How would I best gain entry? Would Mother Lowe or Southampton remember that the queen wanted me in her party?

“It’s the king!” shouted one of the guards.

“No,” said another. “He’s in London.”

But there were more voices, raised in recognition. They pointed at a line of horsemen in the distance, bearing down on us.

The king was not waiting for Anne of Cleves to arrive in Greenwich. He wanted to see her now—today—in Rochester.

Look to the bear to weaken the bull. When the raven climbs the rope, the dog must soar like the hawk.

I
edged toward the entranceway to the Bishop’s Palace, desperate to make my way past the guard. But I was noticed at once. One of them pushed me back, but then I spotted Sir Thomas Seymour chatting to another man just inside.

“Sir Thomas!” I shouted. “Sir Thomas, it’s Joanna Stafford.”

Ladies of noble birth did not shout for gentlemen to come to them. Heads turned. One guard poked another in laughter. But I did attract the attention of Seymour. He pulled himself away from his companion to approach me, grinning.

As he drew closer, the smirk changed to a grimace of distaste.

“What’s happened to you?” he asked.

“Please, I would be so grateful if you’d tell the Duchess of Suffolk I need to speak to her,” I said, trying my best not to beg.

Seymour turned to look at the party of men who’d almost reached the Bishop’s Palace. “Christ’s blood, is that the king?” he exclaimed. He’d lost all interest in me.

At the moment that everyone turned in that direction, I scrambled for the door. I was inside, moving as fast as I could, when I heard a man shout behind me, “Hold her! Hold her!”

I looked across the long chamber and spotted Catherine Brandon, the daughter of Maria de Salinas, with her husband,
the Duke of Suffolk, on one side and her dog on the other. She wore the same sweeping, dark velvet cloak as at Deal Castle.

She hurried over to see me.

“I looked for you everywhere at Deal and could not find you—no one could,” she said, frowning. “Southampton’s been concerned. Where have you been?” She looked me up and down. “What happened to you?”

“Your Grace,” I said, “you must help me.”

She took a step back, alarmed. I must have seemed mad to her. Perhaps I
had
gone mad.

“For the sake of your mother,” I said. “Your mother loved Katherine of Aragon her entire life. As did mine. We both have Spanish mothers. For their sake, will you help me?”

Something flickered in her eyes. This was a woman who loved—and missed—her mother.

But then she said coolly, “You took vows to become a nun, didn’t you?” I remembered what I’d heard at the Courtenays’ table. She was a passionate believer in religious reform.

“Yes,” I said. “Our beliefs may differ. But you have to help me get upstairs. I must go to the princess.”

At that exact moment, the king and his party burst in the door. Dressed not in royal garb but in a gentleman’s coat and hat, he strode eagerly across the room, one of his legs slightly dragging, as everyone bowed low. His friend Charles Brandon hurried to his side, and the two talked near the staircase.

Thomas and other gentlemen clustered around the king, laughing at something His Majesty had just said. Charles Brandon returned to his wife. Ignoring me, he said, “The king is going to do some playacting. He plans to call upon her without telling her he’s the king, and then reveal himself. If all goes well, he may advance the wedding ceremony or at least one aspect of it.” He chuckled and returned to the king’s side.

I watched the group of men ascend the stairs. But I could not follow, for the head of the king’s guard had found me. “Your
Grace,” he said to Catherine Brandon, “this woman gained entry without permission. The king is here—we can’t have it. She’ll have to go.”

Something about the man’s tone disturbed the duchess’s dog and he growled. “Hush, Gardiner,” she scolded her animal.

“Did you say ‘Gardiner’?” I asked. “You named your dog after him?”

“Yes, I did,” she said with defiance.

There was nothing I could do to prevent it. The lingering effects of the tincture, the fear, the exhaustion, everything. I doubled over, nearly choking with laughter.

“Are you well, Mistress Stafford?” Catherine Brandon asked.

“I am quite well,” I said, straightening. “I apologize, it’s just that I am acquainted with the Bishop of Winchester and that is . . . that is an
excellent
name.”

Catherine Brandon blinked in surprise, and then a smile split her young face.

The head of the king’s guard repeated his demand that I leave. She turned on him and said, “This woman is a friend of mine. And the queen has requested that she be part of the royal party. So there is no need for concern.”

“But Your Grace, I—”

“Leave us,” she snapped. “At once.”

He retreated.

I saw none of the king’s party at the top of the landing any longer. He could already be in the presence of Anne of Cleves.

“Give me your cloak,” I said.

“What?”

“Give it to me,” I said. “I can’t see the king like this.”

“The king?” she said.

“I implore you, the cloak,” I said.
“Por favor.”

Her eyes wide, Catherine Brandon unbuttoned her long cloak and handed it to me. I threw it over my soiled dress and fastened the top buttons, smoothed my hair.