The Crown (9 page)

His last two words hung in the air.

“The crows are busy in the North, mistress. They make a feast of the men—and the women, too, aye, the women, too—who hang from the trees and the gibbets we raised along the road. Those stupid peasants, at the end they begged me to spare them. They were wrong, they cried. Couldn’t the king forgive? I showed no mercy to a single one, mistress, not a one.”

The spit had gathered in the corners of the duke’s mouth, and I watched it slide down his chin as he ranted.

“Why did they do it? Why did they defy His Majesty, their anointed monarch?”

He rounded on me. “They did it for
you,
Joanna Stafford. They did it for all the nuns
and the monks and the friars. They wanted their abbeys restored and their feast days reinstated. They never accepted the king’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon or his new queen. They would not swear oath to him as head of the Church of England. They went into battle with banners of Jesus on His Cross—the soldiers wore badges of the five wounds of Christ. A holy pilgrimage, they said. A Pilgrimage of Grace. How
dare
these vermin take on holy airs? Their leader . . . Robert Aske. That foul lawyer—he will hang in chains in York while I stand watch, Mistress Stafford. But they had other leaders from the northern gentry, like Sir John Bulmer and his ‘wife.’ My damned sister-in-law. I heard the evidence at her trial. She encouraged her husband to lead men in rebellion against the king. She said to him, ‘The Commons want but a head.’ And that if the Commons did not rise, the family must flee to Scotland. She said she’d rather be torn to pieces than go back down to London.”

Such desperate words did not sound like Margaret. I suspected false testimony. And there was something else I wondered as well.

“I observed Margaret at Smithfield, and it was obvious she had been roughly handled,” I said.

“She wasn’t tortured, if that is what you suggest,” the duke said quickly. “And these statements of hers were made in the North, before her chaplain and others, men who freely gave testimony at trial. Do you know what she said about me?” He bared his yellow teeth. “She said not once but twice she wanted my head off. What family loyalty. Ah, but she paid for her crimes. She died a terrible death. You saw it with your own eyes.”

I flinched at his cruelty but refused to cower. “Yes,” I said, “and even if this ‘evidence’ is true, if it constitutes the worst of her offenses, I still don’t understand why her punishment was so severe, why she alone, of all the wives of the northern rebel leaders, was condemned to be burned at the stake before a mob.”

Something moved in the duke’s eyes, and I knew at once there was more to Margaret’s arrest and execution, another set of truths behind the ones I’d been told.

But before I could say anything more, he bore down on me, his black eyes smoking, his narrow chest rising and falling. “Your beloved cousin is gone now.
You
are now our concern, Joanna Stafford. And you want me to
believe that a novice at a priory, a girl raised in a noble family that’s a nest of traitors to the crown, could be a loyal subject to King Henry the Eighth?”

I stood mute.

“Look at this girl, Kingston,” he called out. “They say Howard women are troublesome, but it’s the Stafford females, like my accursed wife and this girl here, who are the worst in the land.”

He leaned in even closer. “I could horsewhip you now, and no one would blame me. No one would stop me. You know that, don’t you?”

The words came out before I could stop them. “And I know you would enjoy it.”

Seconds later, I was lying flat on the floor, facedown, my ears ringing, a burning pain in my jaw. The duke had hit me with his fist. I waited for more blows to rain down on me, for him to employ the whip. Would he kill me with his bare hands, here in the Tower, while Kingston watched?

Nothing came. I looked up, and Sir William Kingston had moved between us. He said nothing, raised no hand against the duke or hand to help me, but simply stood there, his face grave and pale. Norfolk had turned his back to me, his shoulders quaking.

Slowly, I stood back up, without assistance.

“Kingston, bring him in now,” the duke said in a low voice. His back was still to me, and I realized for the first time he was not a tall man. Kingston topped him by a head.

Nodding, Sir William went to the door and knocked twice. It swung open and the lieutenant walked in the room, the man who had received me at the Water Gate. He gripped another young man by the arm, half pulling him inside.

It was Geoffrey Scovill.

8

G
eoffrey
looked far better than when I had last seen him, carried away, unconscious, from the landing gate of the Tower. A proper bandage had replaced my makeshift one. He’d obviously been cleaned up and fed during his imprisonment. He stood tall, his hands unbound, before us.

But he wouldn’t meet my gaze. He stared down and away, toward the corner of the room.

What a grave mistake he’d made by coming to my aid,
I thought. He was one of them, after all; he’d gone to Smithfield to observe the administration of the king’s justice. Geoffrey Scovill would be a fool if he did not distance himself from me now. He had not struck me as a fool.

His arrival blew new purpose into the duke, who pointed at him with his whip and asked me, “What is your connection to this man?”

“There is no connection,” I said quickly.

“Wasn’t he by your side at the burning, as you rushed to interfere with the execution?” Norfolk pressed. “What conspiracy did you form?”

“None, Your Grace. A short time previous, I met Master Scovill when he came to my aid. Another man, a ruffian, attempted to harm me, and he put a stop to it. He was trying to persuade me to leave Smithfield when Lady Bulmer was brought to the stake. He was only concerned for my safety. When he was struck down by the soldier of the guard, Master Scovill was trying to pull me back into the crowd, to protect me.”

“How chivalrous.” The duke smiled. I hated that thin-lipped leer. I preferred his rage, even his blows, to that. “So you attracted a strapping young protector at Smithfield. That doesn’t seem the way a nun should conduct herself.”

Geoffrey’s head snapped up.
He finally looked right at me, and his mouth fell open. With my disheveled clothing and hair, and the bruise sprouting on my jaw, I was doubtless a pitiful sight.

The duke sneered. “But then you weren’t a nun yet, were you, Joanna? Still a novice, eh? And this could have been your last chance at a man. He seems a fine enough candidate for the honor.”

Geoffrey Scovill yanked his arm out of the lieutenant’s grip and moved in the direction of the duke, his blue eyes sparking with rage. He was rising to the bait. In a moment he would defy the Duke of Norfolk, and for someone of his station, the error would be irrevocable.

“Your Grace is most mistaken,” I said in my hardest voice, turning toward the duke to cut off Geoffrey’s approach. “I had no significant dealings with this man. How could it be otherwise? You must know enough of him to be aware he is a base commoner. I would never form a personal connection with such a person. You yourself say I am of noble family, descended from Plantagenet kings. He is an insect.”

I turned back toward Geoffrey. He stood frozen in place, his eyes glistening. But I couldn’t say or do anything, couldn’t send him a signal, no matter how subtle, to let him know I was doing this to absolve him.

“Take him away, Lieutenant, and discharge him from the Tower,” said Norfolk with a shrug, as if calling for a bundle of clothes to be pitched into the river. A minute later, Geoffrey Scovill was gone. I felt relief, but the victory was a heavy one. My false words had caused pain, and I’d never be able to explain to him, to atone.

A strange scratching sound filled the room, and I looked around, confused. It was the Duke of Norfolk’s wheezing laugh.

“It was worth a try, eh, Kingston?” he asked.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Sir William said.

I gasped as the truth hit me. “You knew that Geoffrey Scovill had nothing to do with any crime before bringing him into this room. You just wanted to see how we would react to rude questions.”

Kingston looked away, uncomfortable. The duke, anything but apologetic, said, “I’d already had him investigated, yes. There was but minor fault in his actions.”

My face flushed hot. As calmly as possible, I said, “I have done nothing wrong. I am guilty of no
treason, Your Grace, no conspiracy. It may have shown poor judgment to go to Smithfield and to reach out to my father, but nothing more. You are not entitled to harass or harm me or anyone else connected with me. I know something of the laws of this land. You must bring me to trial, or you must free me.”

The duke’s face turned sour, but he did not raise his whip or storm about the room again. It was possible, just possible, that I had won and would follow Geoffrey Scovill out of the Tower.

A sharp rap sounded at the door.

Kingston let in the lieutenant, who rushed to Norfolk with what looked to be a bundle of letters. The three of them huddled in the corner, passing papers back and forth.

When the Duke of Norfolk turned toward me again, his eyes blazed with new life.

“After I heard you were arrested at Smithfield, Mistress Stafford, I remembered my wife talking about you. Ten years ago, as a matter of fact. She told me that you were to be a maid of honor to Katherine of Aragon, that since your mother came over from Spain in her entourage, it was only right and fitting that you, the only daughter, carry on this tradition. And you were approved to occupy court lodgings. Am I correct?”

My mouth dry as dust, I could only nod.

“So what happened, mistress?”

I said nothing. There was no amount of abuse, no device of torture, that would ever make me disclose what had happened on the single day that I spent in royal service ten years ago.

“You were deemed not good enough, weren’t you? You didn’t please the court for some reason. So you returned to Stafford Castle, correct?”

I nodded, awash in relief that he was moving on.

“And what happened to you then?”

“I took care of my mother. She was often ill.” Two sentences that did not begin to capture my life during those years: the darkened rooms, the herb-soaked poultices, the tinctures and teas, and the bloodlettings that never, ever helped.

The duke continued, speaking more to Sir William and the lieutenant than to me. “When Katherine of Aragon was divorced and exiled, her favorite ladies
were not permitted to attend her. But at the end, when she was dying, the King’s Majesty was magnanimous. Her two Spanish ladies were recalled to wait on her. Maria de Salinas, who married an Englishman and became the Countess of Willoughby, and Isabella Montagna, who did the same and became Lady Stafford.”

The duke glanced down at another one of the letters.

“Here is the report from the Spanish ambassador. This was one of Chapuys’s letters intercepted and copied before it left England.” A sneering grin from the duke. “The letter to Emperor Charles said, ‘The queen your blessed aunt died in the arms of her ladies, the Countess of Willoughby and Mistress Stafford.’ I thought it was an error of writing then, that he meant Lady Stafford. Nothing more.”

The duke took a deep breath.

“I’m a man of detail, Mistress Stafford. Whether it be preparing for battle or for questioning a prisoner of the state. I requested the recent papers having to do with the family in residence at Stafford Castle, and this is what I received just a moment ago.” He held up a letter; I could not read its signature. “It says, ‘Isabella, Lady Stafford, died on November 5, 1535.’ Which I find very interesting, because Katherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536. Two months later.”

He wasn’t shouting anymore. His voice was calm, almost gentle. “It was you, Joanna Stafford, who went to Katherine of Aragon in Kimbolton Castle, and cared for her in the last weeks of her life, wasn’t it?”

I met his steady gaze with one just as steady. “Yes,” I said. “It was. The summons came one week after she died, and I went in her place. It is what my mother would have wanted.”

Norfolk nodded slowly. “You personally served the woman who has been the cause of so much contention. How many people have died for her? Cardinal Fisher. Thomas More. Do you know where I was this morning, before the Tower? Newgate. There are seven Carthusian monks chained up, Mistress Stafford, and I approved the orders to give them no more food. They have refused to take the Oath of Supremacy to Henry the Eighth as head of the church, above the pope. And so they will starve.”

Pointing a finger at me, he said, “Katherine of Aragon died in
your
arms, and afterward
you
decided to take holy vows,
to follow the old ways that she loved. And you expect anyone to believe that you came to Smithfield without a shred of any treasonous intent?”

He did not seem to expect an answer, and I did not give him one.

“There shall now begin a deep investigation of you, Joanna Stafford. ‘Bring me to trial,’ you commanded, as if I were your damn page. Rest assured, mistress, you shall have one.”

The duke fingered his horsewhip. “My work is finished here, Kingston, and we must now move with all possible speed.” He stalked to the door, the other two men in his wake. As it swung open, he paused, casting one more look back at me, of pure gloating.

“Today is a most happy day for the king, our master.”

The door slammed behind them, and I was, for the first time since waking that morning, alone in my Tower cell. I sank to the floor, to my knees, and bowed my head.

The Lord God knew of my innocence. I had never planned conspiracy nor plotted treason. Like all members of the Stafford family, I’d sworn the Oath of Supremacy to the king two years ago. My cousin Henry, eager to prove our utter loyalty, had insisted we be the first of the old families to do so. And then, when called upon, I nursed a weak and abandoned woman whom my mother—and much of Christendom—revered, but there had been no political agenda. I was not a political person.

Perhaps I was being tested by Him for some purpose I couldn’t grasp. If so, I could accept that, but I longed for a sign of grace. When I’d prayed over my decision to go to Smithfield, I’d been filled with the conviction of purpose. That rushing, splendid sense of order blooming out of chaos. I had followed my soul’s calling, but it took me to the vicious mob at Smithfield and then to the Tower of London, to men who sought to trap and torment me. Where had I erred—where was my offense to God? The throbbing in my knees sharpened to fiery pain, and still I prayed, pleading to be filled with, if not purpose, at least a feeling of calm, that I was in the hands of the Lord.