The Assassin's Wife (23 page)

“Some matters are best hidden.” The silken voice drove shivers through me. “Dame Butler will be safe within these convent walls. It wouldn’t be wise to trouble others with our secrets. I think you understand me?”

“I do sir.” I tipped up my chin, returning stare for stare. Silent rage throbbed through my body. I clenched my fists.

“Ah, but you are so young and impatient.” He smiled indulgently. “No doubt you long for marriage and children?” He studied the ebony crucifix nailed to the bleak stone wall of our tiny chamber. “Few of us can make such sacrifice.”

Sacrifice? What was he talking about? I wouldn’t stay here. I’d find my black-haired man. He formed the link between me and those boys whose lives I must save. I lowered my eyes so he couldn’t read the schemes festering in my mind. I refused to be intimidated by these veiled threats. I’d no intention of surrendering my freedom.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

But the Blessed Sisters had other ideas. Each passing day they subjected me to patient servitude, demanding I follow the wearying routine of convent life along with my mistress. They extolled the virtue of their calling, tempting me with its promise of heavenly merit and tranquil sanctuary from a sinful world. Dutifully I traipsed after Eleanor but I refused to be persuaded.

“We will bring you to God.”
 

Sister Ursula’s voice grated like the scrape of flint. Her smile, a gash in a face bleached almost to whiteness by lack of sunlight, challenged me.
 

“But I don’t want to be a nun.” I lowered my head in respect, keeping my voice neutral. From the chapel drifted the monotonous chant of early morning prayers. A breeze whipped through the desolate cloister, flapping angrily at Sister Ursula’s sombre robes.
 

“Many shun the quiet of the convent at first.” Behind the terrible smile she held hostility in check. “But in its shelter, a woman may discover the true nature of fulfilment.”

I refused to answer. Sister Ursula’s pretence of persuasion only made me more determined to escape. I fisted my hands, keeping my gaze fixed on the flagstones.
 

“Well, if prayer can’t offer solace, you may help Sister Agnes in the bakery.”

The calculated cruelty of these words snatched my attention. I looked up.

The dreadful smile still carved her face. I thought instantly of the stone gargoyle in the chapel. Her answering gaze struck me with a coldness which sickened me to my stomach. She knew I loathed Sister Agnes. “Perhaps some day you’ll follow your mistress’ example,” she said smoothly. Her eyes stung, sharp as slivers of metal. “She finds much consolation in her devotions.”

“My mistress clings to her faith.” I gazed fascinated by the extreme ugliness of her jutting jaw and thought what little else Eleanor had to lean on until September brought us both release. Inwardly I railed against the impetuous pledge I’d made. “But I must admit a longing for the things of the world.” I forced a smile. “Of course I admire those who possess such piety.” A delicious memory of a passionate, rain-blessed kiss coursed through me. My black-haired lover was no longer a figment of dreams. He was real and I meant to find him.

Feigning obedience, I trudged towards the bake-house, my every step under the chilly, disapproving eyes. But Sister Ursula couldn’t read my thoughts. I would never surrender my liberty. Even Brother Brian wouldn’t have asked that of me.

The bakery’s welcome blast reminded me of the Mercers but Sister Agnes’ acerbic tongue spoiled my pleasure.

“Not yet ready to discard vanity?” She peered at my gown with frank disapproval. I’d refused to don the brown habit favoured by the Carmelite community, though Dame Eleanor adopted it willingly along with the curious cloth known as the scapular, worn over the chest and back, fashioned by one of their saints who declared the Virgin delivered it to him in a vision. Such piety alarmed me.

Joining Sister Clement kneading dough, I cooled my simmering rage by wrestling the uncooked mass beneath my fingers. Timid Clement nodded fearfully. Sister Agnes had crushed her spirit.
 

“I understand Dame Butler kept an easy-going house in London.” Aware the comment was designed to goad, I didn’t answer. I’d learned quickly this malicious nun’s appearance, as well as the gentle name she’d adopted, belied her true nature. The wren-like stature and soft, pink lips suggested gentleness but she burned with a fierce energy, and her beady eyes constantly probed for secrets.

“Indulgence is a grave mistake.” She pursed prim lips. “Without discipline, servants are apt to grow dishonest or even wanton. Is it true the king was a frequent visitor?”

She can’t know, I thought, my heart racing. Surely she can’t know!

“His Grace called once or twice regarding the restoration of my Lady’s estate,” I answered steadily.

“They say he’s very handsome.” Dreamy-eyed Clement carried a tray of loaves to the oven, clumsily knocking an earthen jug to the floor in passing.
 

“Slovenliness is a sign of an unclean mind,” Sister Agnes snapped.

Tearful Clement stooped to gather the shattered pieces.

“This world is awash with uncleanness,” Sister Agnes continued. She thrust the loaves into the hot dark well of the oven with a malice bordering on joy. “They say our handsome sovereign keeps a lascivious court, where lust and covetousness are cultivated like precious flowers, and virtue is ridiculed.”

She fixed her nasty, little eyes upon me.

“I can’t say for I was never at court,” I replied, shovelling the unwieldy dough into the moulds. In spite of Brother Brian’s early teaching, I lied to the nuns without compunction. I wouldn’t share the memory of the noise and extravagance of Westminster with them. These cold virgins savoured no joy. Discipline etched lines into their faces. It stiffened the soft curves of their bodies, dowsed the light in their eyes. They subdued pleasures of the flesh with rigorous fasting, mind-numbing tasks and constant prayer. I despised the way they shuffled through the cloisters, eyes bent modestly toward the dry dust to which they would return, seeing nothing of heaven’s reflection in the busy heat of life. Secretly, I delighted in the knowledge that Eleanor had enjoyed at least a moment of pleasure.

“A king is known by the company he keeps. King Henry was a saintly man and kept about him devout men and women.” Sister Agnes wiped her virtuous hands on her linen apron.

“Sister Ursula told us King Henry spent so much time in prayer, at the Eucharist he was blessed with visions of Our Lord.” Sister Clement’s piety earned a rare nod of approval. I fumed at this naïveté, recalling the damage poor Henry’s madness had inflicted on the country.

“Dame Butler’s husband was killed in battle, wasn’t he?” Clement threw me a shy glance.

“He was,” I replied. “Although I wasn’t in service at Sudeley then. I didn’t have the good fortune to meet Sir Thomas.”
 

“You surprise me.” Sister Agnes” sharp voice intruded. “From your closeness to Dame Butler, I thought you to be one of the old family servants. He must have been dead some time then?”

I cursed my careless tongue.

“For a child not to know its father is so sad.” Sister Clement’s plaintive interruption saved me a reply. “Did you know, King Henry’s father died when he was only a few months old?”

“Any fool knows that. Fortunately Dame Butler has the quiet of the convent to comfort her. Here she may bring her child into the world without arousing undue attention.” Again, Sister Agnes fixed her sharp eyes on me. Heat flooded my cheeks. I longed to slap the self-satisfaction from her smug face.

“She seems so very melancholy.” Ingenuously, Sister Clement voiced my own disquiet.
 

“She’s encountered much adversity.” I pictured the king’s faithless, heart-stealing smile. “She misses her family and her old friends. When she returns to Sudeley, I’m sure she’ll—”

“Sister Clement!” Sister Agnes jolted me from my reverie. The slack-faced Clement flapped like a bewildered goose. “Can’t you smell the bread’s burning?”

Chapter Thirty

Every afternoon before Vespers Eleanor and I hunched in our sparse, little room sewing garments for the poor. The dreary silence of the convent and the steady drip of rain from the eaves lulled me into a kind of trance, so that my fingers hemmed of their own volition allowing my mind to travel. It carried me across a wide expanse of moorland. Rolling hills opened out before me and huge crags like ancient monuments reached skyward. Streams cascaded amongst stones, sunlight painting them with sparkling rainbow hues, while skirling birds wheeled over pasture-land teeming with grey-faced sheep sporting curling horns. Slate-coloured clouds scudded across a vast, wind-scrubbed sky.
 

“There,” said a familiar northern voice. “That’s it.”

I followed the line of my lover’s outstretched arm to where the magnificent castle walls rose up—
 

“My cousin, Gournay, and his wife will take the babe when he’s born.” Eleanor’s voice startled me.

She’d not spoken of the expected babe before. Her shame-faced sister apprised me of the situation in Norfolk although I’d already guessed at it in Silver Street. The Duchess swore me to secrecy. I wondered if Stillington knew.

Secrets—so many secrets—Whenever I heard the word, I thought of Mistress Evans and wondered what else her prophecies held in store. I’d already travelled north. And hadn’t she told me to “look to the nun”? But which one of them deserved my special attention? My mind leaped to the final part of her prediction: “Beware the man with blood upon his hands.” A pair of fierce blue eyes filled me with the shameless heat of desire. But Mistress Evans’ prophecies had a way of turning out quite unlike what one expected.
 

“Won’t you keep the babe, madam?” Drawn back into the harsh present, an unpleasant thought struck me with all the suddenness of an arrow-bolt. Suppose Eleanor chose to remain in the convent after the birth? My mind raced with the implications.

A tear fell on the coarse fabric. “Canon Stillington said it would be best—” Her words choked into incoherence.

Stillington! Even his name had power to chill me.
 

Eleanor’s muffled weeping forced me back into the bleak reality of the little chamber. Shadows crept across the floor blurring my vision.

“Shall I light a candle, madam?”
 

“Aye, light a candle for me, child. I’ve need of prayer.”

Involuntarily, I jumped, dropping my needle. Something about Eleanor’s hunched shape and odd manner of speech recalled mad King Harry. Hadn’t he bidden his captors pray for him? Sister Clement’s innocent words darted shockingly into my mind. I half rose. Eleanor pinched my arm.

“Ask Brother Thomas to come to me.” Her eyes stared wide and trusting as young hind’s.

“Madam, we’re at Norwich.”

“Norwich?” Fear leaped into her puzzled gaze.

I crouched beside her, speaking soft and slow. “Brother Thomas isn’t with us anymore. Don’t you remember leaving Silver Street? Canon Stillington sent for Brother Thomas the night before we left.”

Eleanor stared blankly, her fingers fumbling at her crumpled needlework.
 

“Jack told me and I meant to find out what happened to Brother Thomas but—”
 

The memory of the missing priest flooded me with guilt. What had become of him? Suppose Stillington had arrested him too?

Eleanor’s whimper stopped me from screaming. She pressed her hands against her belly, her sewing sliding to the floor.
 

“Help me,” she said. Her delicate features distorted with pain and fear. “Fetch Joan.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Eleanor’s child was a boy as she’d predicted—a tiny, frail infant with a fuzz of golden hair, born on a mellow September afternoon as the bells tolled the Angelus. Holding him in my arms I experienced a tremendous rush of love. How could she think of parting with him?

“Would you like to hold the babe, madam?” When I tried to lower the child in her arms she shrank away, averting her head. “He’s a lovely boy.” I knelt beside her, cajoling in my most persuasive manner. “Look at his little hands. He’s a strong grip already.” She shuddered with distaste.
 

Pale and silent, she sat gazing into the hearth while the wet-nurse suckled him, and I ached with desire.
If he were mine
, I thought,
I’d walk through flames to keep him.
 

“The Duchess of Norfolk has been informed.” Sister Ursula hovered in the doorway. I wondered how long she’d been watching us. She pursed her lips, her wintry eyes fixed on Eleanor’s back. “How long has she been like this?”