Roses in the Tempest (13 page)

“Lady Prioress! Lady Prioress!” Mary ran toward me at full bore, crashing into my skirts. My arms were encumbered by firewood, and I could not stoop to pick her up as she gestured for me to do.

“Mary! What is all this ado?”

Jane careered around the corner of the arcade, clearly after her sister in a playful game. Mary squealed as Jane caught up to her, and they chased one another, with me as their maypole. “Now stop. The two of you are making me dizzy.”

“I caught you, Mary! Did I not, Lady Prioress?”

“You certainly did. And yet, it seems that Mary has caught you as well.”

The both of them held tightly to each other’s skirts, tugging and laughing. At last, they lost their balance and fell hard against me, and with my own laughter rising to the treetops, I, too, fell over, my sticks of firewood scattering.

Footsteps approached at a run, and I looked up from the bundle of sticks and children to spy the disgruntled countenance of Cristabell.

“Madam! In the cloister!”

“Cristabell, you could be more helpful by assisting me to my feet.”

Belatedly, she held out her hand for me to grasp and I pulled myself up.

“This is unseemly!”

The girls’ chortles quieted under Cristabell’s harsh trumpeting and I, too, sobered. I patted them on their heads. “Run along. There must be chores for you to do. Go find Kat or Meg.” They groaned and shuffled their feet as they moved off. “‘The Lord loveth a cheerful giver’,” I called after them. Once they disappeared under the main arch, I turned to Cristabell. “Very well, Cristabell. Tell me. What vexes you now?”

“I see,” she said tightly. “My worries for this cloister are only vexations to you. I shall keep silent on it then, for my words of advice are ruinous to your goodly humor.”

“Dame, let us speak plainly. You disapprove of the girls in this convent. This I know. But they are here now, and their lives are the better for it. Can you begrudge me for enjoying them?”

“They do not belong in the cloister.”

“But they enjoy the garden so.”

“The cloister is for the nuns alone.”

“I have given my permission in this. Do you go against my judgment?”

Lips tight, Cristabell lowered her eyes. “I cannot. You are the prioress.”

“Yes. That is so. I ask your respect in this, then. Try to accept it in charitable obedience.”

“Yes, Madam,” she said with a bow. But when she left me, she turned back a countenance that possessed no hint of obedience to it.

APRIL, 1521

Blackladies

XIV

“Do you not know, my son, with what little

understanding the world is ruled?”

–Pope Julius III, 1491-1557

Apprehension was my shadow whenever I rode to Blackladies. Part of it was my excitement at seeing Isabella. The other was how she would receive me. Always she was cordial, yet a barrier lay between us. And rightly so. Visiting Chillington was only my excuse to come to Blackladies, and Dorothy knew it. But I am lord of my household, and no glacial stare from Lady Giffard could sway my intent.

I finally made my way up Kiddemore Green. Villagers doffed their caps and bowed. It was a familiar sight to see Thomas Giffard ride toward Blackladies. What could be made of that, they must have wondered?

The affairs of court kept me away from Brewood. Intrigues and trials characterized the wearying months there. Buckingham was executed for conspiring to murder His Majesty and take his throne. It was treason at its worst, yet there was much displeasure among the people at this action. Though Buckingham was a hothead, and a line could be easily drawn at court as to who liked him and who liked him not, there was unease among the nobles that a shift of power crept in under their noses—and it wore the crimson of a cardinal. Not that I thought often of Wolsey as a beadsman, for there was never a more greedy and scurrilous cleric than his bilious person. But he was mad with power, and the frustration of it was, the king listened to him.

What disturbed us more than Buckingham’s intrigues was the manner of his seizure, for he only paraded himself as possible heir. He was guilty perhaps of arrogance and ill humor, but it appeared that he was deemed guilty mostly by improper thoughts! Were a man’s own thoughts now to be suspect and treasonous? Was he not allowed a conscience? This was not the England we knew. I could only blame Wolsey for such ideas whispered into the king’s ear.

The grumblings at court did not silence with Buckingham. Much was still made of the king’s lack of a male heir. True, I disparaged the rule of a woman, but I was not alone. A queen was still a woman, and a woman by God’s law need defer to her husband. If the Princess Mary ruled, would her husband and consort not then be king? Would he not rule England? And who was to choose this consort? Wolsey? Such thoughts sent shivers down our spines. We were a divided court. Henry Fitzroy thrived, but would England put a bastard on the throne?

By God’s body, it was a vexation!

I looked down at my hand. The reins were wound so tightly about my wrist it was like to cut off the blood! Easing the strap from my hand, I settled back in the saddle. This was not the time for such ruminations. I came to Brewood, after all, to forget court for a time! It was the hour to quiet myself and enjoy the country in which I was raised, this little village which was a second home to me. A quiet refuge of cottages, charming church, greenswards, and woodlands.

And…I was to see Isabella.

I reached Old Coach Road and saw ahead the forecourt of Blackladies. It was a simple stone building with a prominent three-story façade, serving as the dwelling for servants and nuns alike. The nunnery itself was too small for its own church and was served by a small country chapel all of wood, which lay toward the rear near the mill stream. In the forecourt of Blackladies, the bailiff’s dwelling sat to the east, and at the west end of the court were the stew ponds, which one of the servants was tending with a long-handled net. He only disturbed himself enough to glance my way, but by then the bailiff heard my mount and was already unlocking the gate. It was long past the time I was announced and kept waiting. He bowed, swinging the gate aside with a “good day, Lord Giffard.” He took my mount and allowed me to go up to the house unattended, whereupon I rang the bell to the cloister.

Waiting, I listened to the calming strains of the mill wheel beyond the sheltering trees at the north corner of the main house, and the mill race as it burbled on its way to Ladies Brook.

A dark figure all in black swept around the corner. Her head was angled modestly, but she raised green eyes to me for only a moment before tightening her lips and opening the gate without a word. She was called Cristabell, I think, and her disapproval could hardly be missed as she led me to the great hall of the house. “I shall await in the garden,” I told her. “Will the prioress see me there?” Prioress Margaret often dispelled with these niceties, but I thought it politic to greet her first.

Dame Cristabell gazed at me oddly, bowing her head. “As you will.”

I stepped through the portal and deeply inhaled. When Isabella first came to the priory, the garden was merely a pleasant diversion, but upon her years of attendance, it blossomed into a sanctuary of sweet-scented roses, herbs, and hedges. Delights were found round each carefully cultivated turn; imaginative designs of boxwood terminating to a pot of stately lilies; a modest wooden statue of a saint garlanded with morning glory vines; a fragrant stand of herbs huddled together in extravagant display. It was her hand in it, I was certain. Her graceful hand. How I longed to kiss that hand and those lips that tortured me in my dreams and in the odd hour of a simple supper at my own table in Caverswall. To think of all those wasted years when I could have loved her, could have possessed her…

I pressed my head to the cool stone of the cloister arch. Would that this were an earlier day! A day in our youth. No, the years had not tempered my passion for her, my longing. Day and night, adulterous in my thoughts, I repined for Isabella. My Isabella.

And then she stepped into the sunlight from the shadows. Tall, stately, her gown and veil blended to one velvety vision of chaste womanhood. The white wimple cupped her cheeks as I longed to do with my own hands, framing her oblong face with virtuous modesty. She was more beautiful thus than she ever was in her yeoman’s napron. Was it the black veil that gave her such loveliness? Or was it now these new eyes with which I beheld her?

With light steps, she approached me and bowed her head. “Lord Thomas.”

“Dame Isabella.” We played this game. It seemed to satisfy her proprieties. “But I thought I might first greet the prioress.”

Her small mouth curved, and something of the old mischievous Isabella crept through. She paused only a moment more before she said, “You are greeting the prioress.”

It took a heartbeat for me to discern her words. She looked no different except for a wooden cross hanging from her neck and a ring upon her finger. All at once, the notion of her new status seemed to further distance her from me with unexpected finality. I hid my discomposure with a light laugh. “Prioress? Prioress Isabella? Unbelievable…but inevitable. You are a stone, Isabella. A foundation stone.”

“I am only a worker bee. One of many in the hive.”

“Surely the sweetest honey.” At that, I could not resist taking her hand and glancing a kiss upon it. She gently pulled it free.

“How long shall you be at Chillington House, Thomas?”

“We have only arrived today. I will be wanted at court before too long. I enjoy coming to Brewood, as you know. But you will not put me off.” I took her hands and held them out. “Look at you. Prioress. When did all this occur?”

“Two months ago. Three months ago our dear prioress…”

“Ah. Of course. How stupid of me. God rest her soul.”

We becrossed ourselves and solemnly contemplated that dear lady, while birds winged and chirruped above our heads, and white blossoms fluttered down from their breezy flights.

“It was unexpected,” she said at last. “Her death and my appointment, I mean.”

“I will wager your Cristabell thought she should be appointed.”

“Hush, Thomas.” She blushed, searching the shadows. “You must not speak so of one of my charges.”

“What makes her so sour, anyway? You are not cruel, are you?” She saw my smile, but did not add hers to my merriment.

“I do not know, Thomas. But it is not to be discussed in such a manner.”

“Forgive me, Lady Prioress,” I said with a bow. I walked a little way along the path and she followed, her footsteps lightly crunching the gravel. “So you are mistress of your own household at last. I expected that you would be more pleased. Instead I find you solemn. It is not as I am used to with us.”

“Much is changed.”

“And there is much that has not.”

She raised her head to look at me but quickly dropped that gaze away. “What is the news at court? We receive no word from anyone but you.”

“The news…” I stepped over the gravel to stare at surely the largest rose bloom I ever encountered. How proud it was! How stately! Only Isabella’s hand could have coaxed such a thing from nature. I bent to sniff it, enraptured by its fragrance. “The news is not as sweet as this bloom, I am afraid. But you need not worry about court. The doings of men are of no concern to you.”

“Why is it the doings of women are always effected by the ‘doings of men’?”

Chuckling, I turned from the roses. “Isabella, I have missed you. Well, then. If you must know, the news is not good, for the most part. Have you heard that Buckingham was beheaded?”

Her look of horror and belated becrossing aroused in me a visceral sensation. Was I jealous of even poor dead Buckingham?

“How is the queen?”

“The queen does not well, and it is doubted that more pregnancies are possible.”

“Then the Princess Mary will be queen?”

“It may be so, but more hopes are pinned on her son as heir.”

“She is just a child. It will be another seven years before she may wed. In seven years, anything may happen.”

“Well, Buckingham will not be king, that is a certainty.”

“Did he aspire so? Is that why he is dead?”

“Some say he did. It is known he desired it. But the nobles think more that he was arrested and convicted for having disagreeable opinions. And as you know, most of us at court have disagreeable opinions.”

“But you are close to the king, are you not? Surely he does not think such things about you.”

“I try to keep such opinions to myself when in His Majesty’s company.” Her brow was troubled, and it made me smile. “Do you worry about me?”

Her features turned to a rapid blush. “Court is a dangerous place. And you are sometimes too impetuous.”

“I know when to keep a civil tongue. And who my friends are. If the king would not have taken Wolsey into the chancellor’s seat—”

“He is a man of God. Surely his advice—”

“A man of God? It is a wonder he can wear a crucifix without it burning his skin!”

“Thomas!” Her voice echoed in the cloister, and she glanced furtively at its reverberations. More quietly she said, “He is a cardinal and you must not speak so. He is my superior. And yours, when it comes to it.”

“Wolsey is my superior in name only.”

“And that is all that matters at court. Learn from Buckingham.”

The color was back in her cheeks and I cheered from her stern words to me. This was the old Isabella I knew, and I was glad to see it peeking out from behind that veil. Yet almost as quickly as its familiarity appeared, it receded again.

“Perhaps we should not talk of court,” she said. “It only causes strife between us. It causes me also to forget myself and my manners, for I must offer our thanks for your many gifts of late. Would you like to see what good use we put to your generosity?”

She led me through the house and to the forecourt of the dwelling. She raised her hand to show me, but distracted, I could only look at her.

“We built dovecotes,” she said. “Already wood pigeons come. We will have eggs and fresh meat all year. The more self-sufficient we can be the better.”

“How enterprising,” I said, studying the large, inexpert structure. Grey breasted squabs perched and cooed from its rooftop as if to thank me as well. “Have you raised doves before?”

“On my father’s farm, Thomas.”

“I forget. It seems so long ago now.”

A burly fellow busied himself with a shovel, digging a series of holes along a hump of trees, and beside him were little packages of holly bushes, their roots neatly bundled in cloth. He must have been at this business a long time, for I noted more little bushes newly planted about the grounds.

“There seems to be great industry in planting holly here. Since when have you been overly fond of the stuff?”

“To feed the livestock in winter. It is all practical, Thomas.”

She led me back into the dwelling and through to the garden once again. “Not all practical, Lady Prioress. This garden, for instance. Surely it is a vanity to your pride to toil on something so frivolous.”

She blushed and I warmed to see it. “It is neither vanity nor frivolity. You would have us live in a perpetual state of gloom. That is not the purpose of holy orders. It is to celebrate God’s gifts, His beauty. These flowers are gifts from God. And it is as fitting a place to pray or meditate as a chapel or a church. It is only through hard work that such things are accomplished. This, too, is the Opus Dei. You see, I do not while away the time until your return. This is not my father’s grange. I have a life now.”

“So I see. Am I now superfluous to it?”

She smiled. “I do not think that will ever be the case. After all, you and your father are our patrons. We rely on you.”