The Crown A Novel

50


There is little time for mourning or sadness or regret or anger or much of anything else when you are raising a small boy.

My father spoke the truth. Arthur was difficult. He understood what I said to him but spoke very little. He wanted to do nothing but explore: run, climb, uncover, yank, spill. He understood I was his family now, and cleaved to me, but he still ran wild and uncontrolled with me and with all of the other sisters. He calmed a little in the presence of Brother Edmund, but the worst place for Arthur was an infirmary, full of breakable objects and dangerous potions.

The person who was best with him was John. He set up games for Arthur in the stables, even some simple tasks. I felt wretched farming my half brother out to a stable hand while I couldn’t be with him, but what choice did I have? I had to go to Mass and pray and lead the tapestry sessions; without these observances and duties, it was pointless to be here.

The prioress had made an enormous exception and allowed Arthur to sleep in the priory. Winifred moved into the nuns’ quarters, and Arthur slept with me. He was different when he slept: his face was sweet, pure, gentle. I could see my father in him, and yes, Margaret, too. It gave me a feeling of connection to him, that this boy and I were joined by blood. During the day, when I struggled to raise him, I was not sure of my feelings for Arthur. The many moments of frustration tore at my patience. But at night, watching him sleep, so helpless, I knew that I loved him. I would die for him without hesitation.

On the third Tuesday of March, a windy day that threatened rain, I finished tapestry work a little late.

Sister Eleanor stuck her head in the door.

“You have a guest,” she said, and was gone before I could ask who it was.

I went to the locutorium, the room that still made me deeply uncomfortable. I was relieved to find it empty. I continued my search of the front rooms of the priory but found only Gregory and the prioress herself, working in her cleaned-up and rehabilitated chamber.

It was time to check on Arthur, so I made my way to the barn. The mystery guest could wait; Sister Eleanor might even be mistaken. After all, who would visit me? I was alone in the world, except for poor Arthur. I tasted the bile of self-pity and fought it down. I mustn’t give in to it.

I heard happy cries in the barn. A young woman’s laugh and a man’s voice, definitely, but not John’s. I eased through the doors. Arthur stood on the edge of the top of a stall, his eyes sparkling. He threw fistfuls of straw at Geoffrey, who had donned a huge farmer’s hat and clowned for the boy. Sitting there on a large box, watching, was Sister Beatrice, her face glowing with pleasure.

Geoffrey saw me, and the boyish foolery came to a halt. “Sister Joanna, I have to speak to you,” he said, his manner respectful, almost formal. “It’s important.”

Again, the sourness rose within me. Was I never to know carefree, foolish laughter, to play? Why must Geoffrey take on such an official demeanor at the sight of me? Sister Beatrice gathered up Arthur. With a final smile at Geoffrey and a strange glance at me, she led the boy away. We were alone in the barn.

“I’ve come to tell you about Sister Christina,” he said.

“She’s dead.”

He looked a little surprised at the way I hastened to it. “Yes, she is.”

“You went to observe, of course,” I said.

He cocked his head at me. “Why does that anger you?”

“It doesn’t,” I snapped. And then I did turn angry because I knew I was being unfair. Yet I couldn’t help myself. “It’s what you do, Geoffrey—observe the execution of women.”

He stared at me, astounded.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I sat down on the same box where Sister Beatrice had been moments before. “It’s just so hard, to keep hearing things that are terrible, and seeing them with my own eyes, and yet knowing that soon enough, it will get even worse. The place I care about more than anything will be destroyed. I will no longer serve alongside the other sisters—I may never see them again. There’s nothing to look forward to, just loss and more loss.”

“There’s Arthur.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said wearily. “There’s Arthur.”

“Where will you go?”

I told him that my cousin Henry had answered my letter. Arthur and I could live at Stafford Castle with the family. There was not much enthusiasm in the letter, but I wouldn’t have expected it. The Staffords were not affectionate with one another, but they closed ranks when called upon. We’d have a roof over our heads for life.

I took a deep breath. “Now tell me about Sister Christina.”

“She was hanged at Tyburn. No one was there to represent her. The official of the court said a few words, and then they led her up to the platform. I’m told she had made no sense to anyone for weeks. Right before they hanged her, she said a prayer in Latin.”

“It would have been the Dominican Prayer of Salvation,” I whispered.

“At the end of her prayer, she looked out at the spectators. I’m afraid there was a large crowd of strangers; she’d become notorious. She recognized me and called out to me.”

“What did she say?”

“She wanted me to tell you something.”

I tensed with apprehension. “What?”

“She said, ‘Tell Sister Joanna it’s the fire on the hill.’ ”

I was silent for a long moment, and then the tears pricked at my eyes.

“You know what that means?” he asked.

I nodded. “You see, in a way, we understood each other; that is why her crimes are so especially troubling for me. I saw some of her spirit. She revealed more to me than to anyone, but not enough. If I had not been so blind and stupid, I could have helped her, and stopped her before all of the violence.”

Geoffrey sat down next to me. The box creaked with the weight of both of us. “You can spend hours, days, weeks, years in the company of someone, and not fully understand the other person. Believe me, I know this. And you, you are not blind or stupid. You are the cleverest and bravest woman alive.”

He put his arm around me, and I melted into the comforting strength of Geoffrey Scovill.

It happened so fast I lost my breath.

The closest thing to it was going underwater. I couldn’t swim, but when I was a child I fell in a lake, and my father had me fished out in seconds. I remember that sense of tumbling down into something that was so powerful.

I should have recoiled from Geoffrey, yet I responded to his kisses. I behaved like anything but a priory novice. I pressed against him; I pulled on his hair; I sought out his lips, which were hard on mine, then soft, then hard again. I waited for the feeling of revulsion to seize me. It didn’t.

I could feel his excitement, his passion, but his experience, too. He was practiced in his caresses. I felt a pang, knowing that he had loved women before today.

I pulled away from him. We both sat there, stunned. Uncertain. It rose up in me then, the disappointment in my conduct. The sorrow over my lapse.

Geoffrey’s rueful laugh interrupted my thoughts. “If only you knew how I was planning to lead up to this, the careful stages—nothing that would frighten you off. All would be done properly, with respect. And then we leap on each other? Ah, Joanna, nothing about us ever goes according to any sane plan.”

I noticed he’d dropped “Sister.” It gave me another pang.

He took my hand and held it carefully in his. “You didn’t seem very enthusiastic about going to your family. I have to know what your idea is for your future.”

“Nothing,” I whispered. “There’s nothing.”

“Is it possible that your future could . . .” His voice trailed away. Geoffrey looked more nervous than I’d ever seen him, even when he was being rowed to the Tower of London.

“Don’t say anything more,” I pleaded. “I beg you.”

He withdrew his hand and stood up.

“I was foolish to hope you could ever consider me,” he said, his face reddening. “I am so far beneath you in rank. You’re descended from royalty. I met your father. If you were to know my father . . .” His voice trailed away, and he shook his head.

“Is that what you think of me?” I demanded. “That I would reject a person for reasons of birth?”

Geoffrey said nothing.

“It is not that.” Tears of frustration stung my eyes. “Oh, Geoffrey, it’s what inhabits my soul. I took a vow to be a bride of Christ—that is what I wanted, the path I chose and worked toward. A commitment I made. If you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand me at all.”

Geoffrey looked at me searchingly, a sad smile curving his lips. “No, I don’t understand you, Joanna Stafford. And yet, the feeling I have for you is greater than for any woman I’ve ever known.”

He made his way to the door of the barn and paused. “No matter what you decide, or where you go, I don’t believe that can ever change.”

The tears came fast. I rocked back and forth; loud, wrenching sobs filled the empty barn. I wept harder than any time since my father’s death. I mourned my weaknesses at the same time as I regretted hurting Geoffrey. There was a part of me that wanted to run out of the barn, to find the road to Rochester, to ask him to take me. But I did not do it. Eventually, as my weeping subsided, I became aware of a new and strange feeling. It was, to my astonishment, relief. I was filled with anguish and yet I felt lighter, too.

It took a long time to realize why, but it finally came to me. I had responded to Geoffrey Scovill—although it was morally wrong, I had been able to do it. All these years, I’d been filled with shame and fear and disgust because of what George Boleyn had done to me when I was sixteen years old—and I’d recoiled from the prospect of any man touching me again. Sister Christina, even in her madness, had sensed that something happened to me. But Boleyn’s defilement had not permanently damaged me, as I had thought for all these years. I knew something else at last, with certainty: I had not sought out Dartford Priory as a novice because of fear of man but because of hope for a spiritual life and true faith in Christ.

My tears spent, I rose to my feet and returned to my duties in the priory.

I dreamed that night, the most disturbing one I’d had since my imprisonment in the Tower. We women clung to each other, terrified. The axes were at the door, and we could hear the shouts. Smoke filled the room. I panicked and clawed for the window. Sister Christina tried to pull me back. Her fingers closed around my neck.

“No, Sister Christina, no—don’t hurt me!” I screamed, hurtling out of sleep.

I lay in the dark, sweating and confused. My heart hammered so loud it rang in my ears.

“Jana?” said Arthur.

“I’m well, go back to sleep,” I choked. I patted his plump little arm.

I took deep breaths and made a plan for tomorrow.

Sometimes the early spring throws up a day, a winsome day that thaws our bodies and souls. The sun shone warm and bright when, after morning prayers, I took Arthur by the hand and led him to the site of the ancient ruined nunnery on the hill.

In his other hand he had a long garden shovel. Arthur loved digging; a part of the barn was set aside for that activity after we discovered it would occupy him, happily, for long stretches.

“Look, Arthur, we can walk a square,” I said. “Watch me.” I found the stone foundation in the earth, where green shoots were just beginning to fight their way up out of the winter-scarred sod. I walked carefully, finding the rocks with my feet. Arthur happily followed.

I walked to the center of the square of Saint Juliana, something I had not done with Sister Christina on All Hallows’ Eve. Was this where they gathered, the nuns, when they immolated themselves? I looked down and noticed a place where the ground was fresh and torn.

I stared at it for a long time, while Arthur jumped and giggled and threw pebbles.

“Arthur,” I finally said. “Give me your shovel.”

He didn’t understand, so I pulled it gently from his hand. “Dig,” I said. “We dig.”

We dug for at least a half hour. My back and hands ached from it. But Arthur never got tired. He was the one who tapped on the top of the box, then smiled at me, gleefully, as any boy would at the sight of buried treasure.

I pulled up the box from the earth. I started to open the lid, but I couldn’t, my hands were shaking too much. “Open, Arthur,” I said. “Open.”

And he did. My little brother reached into the hole in the ground and opened the lid. I couldn’t look down into the box because I was too terrified. I stared at Arthur’s awestruck face.

I could see the jewels of the Athelstan crown reflected in his eyes.

I fought down my panic and prayed, out loud, seeking humble guidance and wisdom. I pointed my hands to heaven and begged for it, my eyes shut tight.

Arthur made a noise. I knew what had happened in the second it took for me to open my eyes.

Arthur wore the crown on his head.

“No!” I cried. “No, Arthur. Oh, no.”

I snatched it off his head—it was so heavy, how had he managed it?—and shoved it back into the box.

My weeping upset Arthur. He didn’t understand it. I hugged him, desperate, crushing him with my terrified embrace.

“Are you all right, Arthur?” I asked over and over. But of course he didn’t answer me. I dried his eyes and kissed his cheeks. A wobbly smile returned to his face.

“Everything will be all right, Arthur,” I said. “Everything will be all right.”