The Crown A Novel

PART


THREE





32


This leech was different than the others. The dark-brown creature that the barber chose for Sister Winifred’s face was thinner and livelier than the three he’d already applied to her forearms. It squirmed in the air when the barber plucked it from his water jar and calmed only when it attached to her left cheek, near her ear.

It bit her. I could always tell when the leeches bit because Sister Winifred’s eyes would widen and her lips would part. I was leeched three times myself, as a child, and I remembered that stinging twinge, followed by a spread of numbness.

I leaned forward to catch Sister Winifred’s gaze. I prayed that this leech would draw out the ill humors from her blood. But as I watched, her eyes glazed over; the dullness returned.

Two weeks earlier, the jury of inquiry in Dartford took an hour to decide it was Brother Edmund who must stand trial for the killing of Lord Chester. Coroner Hancock, Justice Campion, and Geoffrey Scovill took him directly back to Rochester, to gaol—we did not see him again. Brother Edmund would stand trial in Rochester when the winter session of the Courts of Assize opened. I overheard a distraught Brother Richard tell the prioress that he had never heard of a murder trial where the accused went free. All murder defendants were found guilty—and all were hanged or burned.

I sat by Sister Winifred’s bed when she heard the judgment of the coroner’s jury. She understood; she thanked the prioress. But then the melancholia truly consumed her. She went from speaking very little to not at all. It reminded all of Sister Helen. However, our tapestry mistress had been very much a part of the bustle of the priory. Sister Winifred, on the other hand, didn’t want to get out of bed, and she didn’t want to eat. Despite our best efforts, she’d shrunk alarmingly since Geoffrey Scovill had taken Brother Edmund away. Her cheeks grew more sunken; her ribs seemed to arch from her body. Soon there would be nothing left.

The suffering of Sister Winifred was but an extreme case of how we all felt. Dread of Cromwell’s commissioners hung in the air of the priory, mingling with grief over the death of Sister Helen and revulsion over the horror of Lord Chester’s murder. It was so unbearable an atmosphere that two of our servants left Dartford, even though work was scarce. The parents of the girls who learned lessons at the priory withdrew them from attending, and that was especially painful for me. Ours was the only school for females in northwest Kent.

When the leech had drunk its fill, it trembled, and the barber returned it to his second jar, to swim with the others that had fed off her. He examined Sister Winifred. “I don’t see any stirring of the spirit,” he announced. “Shall we try another one, Prioress? I could do three more leeches for the agreed fee.”

“No, that’s sufficient,” said Prioress Joan. “We may still see improvement later today, or tomorrow, correct?”

“It’s possible,” said the barber in a tone suggesting otherwise.

After he’d left, Sister Rachel spoke up. She had resumed her duties in the infirmary, with my assistance whenever possible. “Prioress, it costs a great deal, but there is a physician in London who treats the insane. He cuts holes in the skull and sees startling improvement. We could send for him.”

“Sister Winifred is not insane,” I said hotly.

Sister Rachel frowned at my rudeness. I knew it was best for me to assume silence, but I simply couldn’t. “If Brother Edmund were to return,” I said, “that would bring her back to us, not cutting holes in her head.”

The prioress said, “It is too soon to take that particular action, Sister Rachel, but I will bear it in mind, thank you. For now, we will continue with our nursing. Tender care and prayer will prevail, I believe.”

Sister Rachel nodded.

The prioress turned to me: “Fetch a bowl of broth. Get as much into her as you can.”

“Yes, Prioress,” I said. I hurried for the door.

“And Sister Joanna?”

Something in the prioress’s tone made me freeze. “Yes?”

“We will meet in chapter house in one hour’s time to discuss the various infractions committed by our members in the last month. It has been too long since correction.”

“Yes, Prioress.”

As I waited in the kitchen for the cook to heat the broth, I chafed at the prospect of chapter discipline. It wasn’t because I was unquestionably the one who would be receiving the most of it. We had seen death inside these walls, both natural and unnatural, and one of our own had been imprisoned—wrongfully. We faced imminent dissolution. What could be served by a round of chastising?

But it was no use fretting. Whatever the prioress willed would, of course, be done.

I peeked inside the pot strung up above the fire; the broth did not yet bubble. Restless, I paced around the kitchen until my eyes fell on a poignant sight: the rag doll of Martha Westerly’s, carefully propped next to a box of herbs on a shelf.

“Why would Martha leave her doll behind?” I wondered aloud. The cook, busy chopping vegetables, paused in her labor. We looked at each other, both struck with sadness at the thought of the Westerly children.

“Or did she give it to you?” I asked, curious.

“John found the doll and brought it to me,” the cook said, resuming her chopping.

“John, the stable hand?”

She nodded.

I walked over to the cook and gently tapped her hand, to stop her from chopping. “When did John find the doll?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “Sister, he gave it to me the day the men came from Rochester.” She lowered her voice. “He had to stand guard that morning, outside of the room where Lord Chester’s dead body lay.”

I was taken aback. The Westerly children had nothing to do with the murder of Lord Chester. Connecting the two, even through the finding of a doll, upset me. I’d heard that the day after Brother Edmund was taken away, the Westerlys’ father appeared at the priory to claim his wife’s body, and showned anger when told she’d been buried already in the priory graveyard. Word had been sent to his house in town the night of her death, but no one had responded, so the sisters took initiative. It was an honor for a servant to be buried there, but Master Westerly didn’t see it that way. He left uttering curses and refused to answer inquiry about the safety of his children beyond that it was no one’s business but his.

The broth bubbled and popped behind me, on the fire. The cook ladled some into a bowl, and I bore it on a tray to the infirmary.

Something about the doll bothered me. At first, I couldn’t sort it out. I sat next to the listless Sister Winifred, preparing to feed her, when it struck me.

“What if they saw something?” I asked aloud.

Sister Rachel, measuring out some healing potions, jumped. Purple liquid spilled onto her table.

“Sister Joanna, see what you’ve done?” she scolded. “What are you talking about? Who saw what?”

“Can you feed Sister Winifred?” I scrambled for the door. “I’m sorry, but it’s very important.”

Without waiting for a reply, I raced back to the kitchen and persuaded the cook to let me borrow the doll.

It was a sullen November day, and I ran to the stables without a cloak. But I didn’t care. For the first time in weeks, purpose sang in my veins. I’d felt weary and defeated ever since Brother Edmund had been taken and, more than anything, was preoccupied with Sister Winifred’s decline. I’d learned not one thing more about the Athelstan crown, and since that terrifying night when I’d felt the priory breathing around me, I had never again sensed its mystical powers. Most of the time I despaired, feeling I would never find the crown, nor puzzle through the identity of Lord Chester’s killer. My father would never be freed from the Tower.

But now, just the possibility of discovering something that would help the priory made my feet fly over the damp, cold ground.

I found John pitching dirty straw out of a stall at the end of the barn. My questions plainly made him wary.

“Why do you want to know how I found it?” he asked. “What does the doll matter to anyone?”

“Please think,” I begged.

Avoiding my eyes, he muttered, “I don’t know, it was a while back.”

“John, listen, I know it sounds trivial, but it’s not. The doll matters.”

“Who would it matter to?” he asked.

“Well, to all of us here at Dartford, but most of all, to Brother Edmund.”

John put down his pitchfork. “Brother Edmund mended my arm . . . he kept the porter from dismissing me,” he said. “By the Virgin, I’ll do anything for him.”

“Then tell me exactly when you found the doll—and where.”

“All right, Sister. That morning, ye know the porter ordered me and Harry, the head farmhand, to stand guard outside the guest bedchamber, to keep anyone from viewing the corpse. After a time, I looked down the passageway, to the end, and I saw something small and white lying there. It was the doll. Looked like it had been dropped. The maids came by, and I asked them about it. They got all angry; they said the doll wasn’t there the day before. They swore they’d done a good job sweeping and cleaning and they wouldn’t have missed it. So I just stuffed it in my jerkin and gave it to the cook later.”

“Didn’t you think it strange?” I asked.

“What, Sister?”

“The doll was not there the day before, but appeared that morning?”

John threw up his hands. “I just thought the maids missed it. I didn’t want to get no one in trouble, especially since the men from Rochester came right after. Everyone was scared of them.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t think the maids missed it, John.”

He looked truly bewildered. “What are ye saying, mistress?”

“Do you know where the Westerly house is in the village?” I asked.

“Aye. I’ve lived in Dartford all my life.”

“And their father, you know him?”

He made a face. “Stephen Westerly is not an easy man, I’ve not had many dealings, but yes, I know him.”

I patted his arm, excited. “John, prepare two horses. I have to go back to the priory. But I’ll return as soon as possible.”