The Crown A Novel

8


Geoffrey 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.

I don’t have any idea how long I knelt, but when the sound of footsteps came again, my prayers were unanswered. I got to my feet just before the young lieutenant and maidservant Bess came through the door.

“You are to be moved to Beauchamp Tower,” he said.

Outside, on the green, I could see ragged clouds chase one another across a blue sky. A warm breeze stirred my hair. I followed the lieutenant down a well-trimmed path, Bess a step behind, toward a three-story stone building, just west of the square, white keep. A string of mulberry trees stretched along the path, their branches thick with pale-green leaves. Under one of them, a boy shook a branch, hard. White berries fell in a rain of gentle plops onto a dark blanket he’d spread on the ground.

Where on Tower Green did they perform the executions? Brave men had met death here—More and Fisher—as well as infamous criminals. The witch Anne Boleyn was executed on the green one year ago, as well as her infamous brother, George Boleyn. He was one of five men convicted of adultery with the queen.

But I could not think of George and Anne Boleyn now if I wanted to keep hold of my sanity.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.

The sound of bells rippled across the green. I looked to find the church it came from, to draw strength from it, but there was nothing. “Those are the bells of Saint Paul’s,” Bess said.

“Is it so close?” I asked.

“No, but the sound carries in the wind, and today all the bells must be—”

The lieutenant whipped around to silence her with a look.

Once inside Beauchamp Tower, I was led to a circular stone staircase, its steps worn smooth. On the second floor, we turned down a narrow passage. At regular intervals the walls were marked with wooden doors, bars built into the top half. I didn’t look inside any of them as we passed. I heard no voices, no sounds at all, but I was certain that each cell contained a prisoner.

At the end of the passage, the lieutenant beckoned for me to follow him through an archway and down another, even longer passage. As I passed one door, I heard a man’s sob, low and broken.

It was that pitiful sound that robbed me of courage. My head swam, and I reached out to the wall to steady myself.

“Mistress Stafford?” called out the lieutenant, at the end of the passage, his hard young face empty of sympathy.

Bess squeezed my elbow. I thought about my uncle, the Duke of Buckingham. He’d impressed all with the dignity shown when imprisoned here, in the Tower. I forced myself to walk the rest of the way.

This cell was smaller and dimmer than my former quarters: rectangular, with a pointed-arched recess at the end, two narrow windows carved in the stone. A bare fireplace along one wall, a bed against the other. My nose and eyes burned from a strong smell. It was lye, used within the hour to scrub the floor and walls—they gleamed with damp patches.

“I will bring you dinner,” Bess murmured and left.

I peered out the window. My view was of a raised outer walkway along the top of the castle wall, an allure running between this tower structure and another. Beyond it, the massive stone wall, William the Conqueror’s wall, blocked out all. I could see nothing of the green.

“I have a request,” I said to the lieutenant, who stood near the door, impatient.

“Yes?”

“May I have papers and pen, to inform my family and the prioress of my order that I am confined here?”

“Sir William Kingston was clear that you should have no means of correspondence. He will see that all are informed.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait,” I said, my voice breaking. “May I not have books? I thought that prisoners were allowed books.”

The lieutenant hesitated.

“The writing of Thomas Aquinas?” I said quickly, before he made up his mind to deny me. “How could there be harm in that?”

“I can make no promises,” he said. “I will pass the request to Sir William.” And he left.

Moments later, Bess reappeared with a tray of food: bread and a large chunk of cheese.

That is when the singing came. It was faint but lovely: many voices, at least a hundred, raised in common song.

“Bess, is that a Te Deum?” I asked, wonderingly.

“Yes,” she said. “It is the court. The king ordered the Te Deum sung. That is where Lady Kingston and Sir William have gone. All those who serve the king were summoned to Saint Paul’s.”

“Why?”

She looked at me for a moment. “It is Queen Jane,” Bess said. “The child has quickened in her womb, and all must celebrate. The king is certain that this time he will have his son and heir. This wife will succeed . . .” her voice trailed off.

Where the others had failed. That was what I thought, what anyone would think. His first wife, Katherine of Aragon, discarded after she could bear only a daughter. His second, the witch Boleyn, put to death when she could do no better.

Aloud, I said cautiously, “A prince would be a source of great joy for our kingdom.”

Bess nodded, but her eyes stayed troubled. Her shoulders sagged. That nervous, gossipy spirit of this morning had vanished. “Were you punished for allowing me to look out the window?” I asked.

“Oh, no. Lady Kingston cared only about the royal summons to Saint Paul’s. She was afraid Sir William would be held back here too late and they would miss it.”

“Then why are you so troubled?”

She shook her head. “I cannot tell you.”

“Please, Bess.”

She peered over her shoulder at the door, and then sidled close to me, to speak into my ear. “I heard what Sir William said to my mistress before they left for Saint Paul’s. The Duke of Norfolk told him that to catch you and your father in treason would be of great value to the king. That in so doing all the Staffords might finally be crushed and the crown made safer from challenge. If they could succeed in breaking you . . .” Bess fell silent.

“Go on.”

“Then there would be reward in it for the duke and for Sir William. The king would be grateful and be bound to give them lands.”

The voices of the court trilled higher on the final chorus of the Te Deum, the Latin words that give humblest thanks to God. The music slowly died away.

“Thank you, Bess,” I whispered. “I will say nothing. Please take the food away.”

As she picked up the tray, I saw a tear trickle down her cheek.

I fell onto the narrow straw bed and turned to face the wall. I did not close my eyes or move a muscle. I stared at the stone wall and watched the light grow dimmer against it. Night closed in. The Tower yeomen warders shouted to one another, conveying orders on the castle allure and in the passageway. I heard the word bonfires.

After a time, the men fired cannon to salute the king in his time of joy: once, twice, three times, more. It was very loud. A faint acrid smell drifted in through the window, perhaps from the celebratory bonfires, perhaps from the cannon. But through it all the walls of my prison cell never trembled. The walls of the Tower are the thickest in the land, and they never, ever tremble.