“And you have no idea why I was sent here?” My voice rose in disbelief.
“It’s true,” he insisted. “The bishop said that I was never to ask, that it would be dangerous to know. I am just the means of communication.”
I shook my head. “But why would you do this for Gardiner?”
Brother Edmund’s lower lip trembled. “That I can’t tell you.”
I was so angry, I literally danced up and down on the cold ground.
“You can’t tell me—is
that
what you just said?” I shouted. “But do you want to know why
I
do it? Why I spy on the sisters of Dartford? Do you, Brother Edmund?”
He did not answer me. He looked truly ill. But I could no longer restrain myself. “He tortured my father to induce me to come here and work for him. Did your
esteemed Bishop Gardiner supply you with that fact?”
Brother Edmund’s mouth fell open. “By the Holy Virgin, that cannot be possible.”
“He was racked in the Tower, right in front of me, with Gardiner giving the orders!” Tears of rage filled my eyes. “The bishop forced me to come back here, where I was not wanted. You heard from the commissioners how I was arrested at Smithfield and imprisoned. Bishop Gardiner pressured the priory to take me. My father is still in the Tower. I am here to find something at Dartford, something hidden for a very long time. If I ultimately fail, God alone knows what will happen to my father . . . and to me.”
Brother Edmund whispered, “What does he seek, Sister Joanna, that he would go to such terrible lengths to secure it?”
I said, “If he had wanted
you
to know, he would have told you.” Brother Edmund flinched, and I felt a twinge of regret over my cruelty.
Neither of us spoke. Two red-breasted birds landed on the front wall of the leper hospital and began calling out, singing a cheerful duet. I was seized with an urge to throw something at the birds—a rock, a tree branch, anything to smash their joyfulness. It was terrible, to feel such murderous anger.
“What of Brother Richard?” I asked. “Why was
he
sent to Dartford?”
“I’m not sure,” said Brother Edmund. “We don’t speak of it, not . . . directly. But I believe Gardiner placed him here to protect the priory while you investigate.”
“And in return he gets his own monastery someday—he’ll finally make prior?” I asked bitterly.
“Actually, I don’t require that level of quid pro quo,” said a voice behind us.
Brother Richard emerged from the bank of trees.
“I followed you, Sister Joanna,” he said, not the least embarrassed. “I thought in a time of crisis, more aggressive action needed to be taken.” He brushed the dusty brown leaves off the shoulders of his friar’s robes as he walked toward us. “I’ve had quite enough of skulking in the trees, thank you.”
Neither Brother Edmund
nor I could find words.
“You are as perceptive as always, Brother Edmund,” he continued. “Bishop Gardiner instructed me to protect Dartford Priory and, as much as possible, to protect Sister Joanna during her investigation. Which has proved quite challenging at certain junctures.” He sighed deeply.
Brother Edmund said, “But what is the crisis, Brother? Cromwell’s commissioners left without ordering our dissolution.”
Brother Richard kicked the ground. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Winter is upon us. It wouldn’t be so easy to take down a priory such as Dartford, as mighty as a castle, in such a season, particularly if there must be digging beneath. That scope of necessary destruction must wait until spring, when the ground softens.”
“Is there no way to avoid such a fate?” I asked.
He laughed humorlessly. “There is, indeed. I believe the prioress has brokered some sort of arrangement with Layton and Legh. They have told her what they seek, and she intends to find it for them.”
“She told you this?” Brother Edmund asked.
“Of course not. Part deduction, part listening at the door. There is a reprieve on the priory until spring. If she produces the desired object, they spare Dartford. If she does not, they tear it apart, brick by brick.”
“No, no, no,” I moaned.
“But if the commissioners were not able to find it thus far, nor Sister Joanna, how will
she
manage it?” asked Brother Edmund.
“The prioress cannot be underestimated,” he said somberly. “Oh, this woman. How she plagues me.” He rubbed his temples, weary. “She is the most dangerous combination: a person who possesses terrible judgment and tremendous cleverness, in equal measure. She believes that if she gives Layton and Legh what they want, it will save the priory.”
“Save it?” I cried. “That is why the priory was built: to
conceal
it. If she uncovers it without understanding its power . . . My voice trailed away as Brother Richard’s eyes bored into me.
“It would, of course, assist me immeasurably if I knew what everyone was searching for,” Brother Richard said. “Gardiner would not tell me.”
Now both friars looked at me,
with grave expectation.
“But that is the very thing I can’t tell anyone,” I cried. “I promised someone, a very great personage, I would never breathe a word of the secret of Dartford Priory. I only told Bishop Gardiner under duress. At the end, his instructions were specific—that I was to say nothing to the friars.”
Brother Richard turned away, anguished.
“Brother, he keeps us divided out of suspicion,” said Brother Edmund gently. “If we could work together, we would stand a greater chance of success, but Bishop Gardiner fears it too much—the strength and unity of purpose that come with knowledge. This object must possess such powers that he does not trust us with it. He has Sister Joanna in such a grip of fear of him, it is only she whom he trusts. And even she is kept in half ignorance.”
Brother Richard nodded. He turned his face up to the November sun and shut his eyes, as if in meditation. In the harsh light, I saw gray hairs I’d not noticed before.
“Bishop Gardiner is wrong,” he said, his eyes still closed. Brother Edmund and I looked at each other, startled.
“The savage politics of the court have soured his judgment of humanity.” Brother Richard opened his eyes. “There’s very little time left. It is not a matter of saving our homes, our habits of living. These monasteries are all just bricks and mortar and glass. What has been torn asunder can be rebuilt. Those who were cast out can be summoned again. Saint Dominic walked among the people barefoot to preach the word of God; he slept on the ground at night and ate next to nothing. No, what is being destroyed is the soul of England. The darkest forces are gaining in strength, fostering ignorance and pain and destruction. All that has been created here, in our island kingdom, all of the labor and wisdom and beauty of our holy church, it stands in the gravest peril.”
My heart pounded in my chest. Yes, if all were made right, Brother Richard should lead other Dominicans in service of God. He possessed a true gift, the gift of inspiration.
“Bishop Gardiner believes there is something in Dartford Priory,” he continued, “something that, in the right hands, could halt the destruction of the monasteries.”
“But how?” asked Brother Edmund.
“We can’t know that unless we
know what it is. You realize its existence is why we were sent here. That is why the commissioners came, with the pretext of Lord Chester’s murder. We three must join in trust now; we must work together to achieve the end that the bishop himself desires above all other things. No one has been able to stop Henry Tudor thus far. Sister Elizabeth Barton, the nun of Kent, prophesied against the king’s divorce and was hanged for it. Cardinal Fisher and Sir Thomas More refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy to the king, and they were executed. They died martyrs, revered throughout Christendom, but it did not slow the king’s determination to rule over the church. Others refused and were tortured and killed, those poor abbots and monks and priests. And it mattered not a whit. The entire North of England rose in rebellion, calling for the restoration of the monasteries and the saints’ days, to protest the prominence of Cromwell, and their army was crushed. Their leaders horribly killed.”
I thought of my cousin Margaret, and my whole body ached.
“But I can’t find it,” I whispered. “I’ve tried and tried. I can’t.”
“Let us help you,” Brother Edmund said. “Sister Joanna, won’t you tell us what it is, so we can help you?”
His plea moved me. Brother Richard’s words stirred me. But I could not tell them of the Athelstan crown. I could not take such a risk. It was not simply for my own safety—it was my father’s life. I wished I could make them both understand.
A painful silence filled the air. The birds had stopped their singing; there was only the whisper of the wind in the trees. My bones were chilled.
Brother Edmund cleared his throat. “We have been away from the priory a long time. I think we should return.”
“We shall, Brother, but give me a few minutes more,” said Brother Richard. “I came here vowing to help Bishop Gardiner in his quest. We know Sister Joanna has been guided by love of her father and fear for his life.”
I started, in surprise. I had not thought him capable of such understanding.
Brother Richard nodded. “Yes, Sister Joanna, I grieve that you were handled so roughly
in the Tower. These desperate times have brought out the worst in Bishop Gardiner. Although that excuse has been made for savage methods since time immemorial.”
“But I thank you for your words,” I said.
He turned to Brother Edmund. “And now—what of you? Why did Gardiner select you? I must know that, at least.”
Brother Edmund winced. “It was not to my better instincts the bishop appealed, as with you,” he said angrily. “It was more along the lines of Sister Joanna’s experience.”
“This is the time to disclose it,” said Brother Richard. His words were calm but carried a hint of command.
A haunted look came over Brother Edmund’s face. “You spoke of the Oath of Supremacy before. Of those who refused to take it and embraced martyrdom instead. I did not want to take it, to forsake the Holy Father and swear allegiance first to King Henry the Eighth, a man obsessed with lust for his wife’s handmaiden.” He bit his lip. “And yet, I was afraid. I prayed for courage, but it eluded me. I’d heard about the Charterhouse monks. I could not face the reality of a full execution for high treason. Of being hanged and taken down while still alive, of then being slit open and my intestines and organs removed before my eyes as I experienced the most intense pain.”
I swayed on the hill with the horror of what he depicted. To be hanged, drawn, and quartered—yes, it was the most terrifying death of all.
“That was when I first took it,” Brother Edmund said in a voice so faint I could hardly hear him.
“Took what?” asked Brother Richard.
“The red flower of India.”
Brother Richard gasped. “No, Brother, no.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. How could a person “take” a flower?
Brother Edmund said, “Do you remember, Sister Joanna, when I was nursing Lettice Westerly, and I gave her something for the pain? I told you then.”
It took only a moment to recall that eerie name. “The stones of immortality?”
He nodded. “A certain red flower of the East has a powerful effect on the mind. Many
apothecaries and physicians know that, but they use it rarely because it is so difficult to know how much is the correct dose for each patient. Just slightly too much of it will kill. I give it only when the patient is sure to die soon anyway.”
“So you risk death each time you take it yourself?” I asked, aghast.
“No, no, I consume it in a different form: in a tincture, using proportions taught me by a traveling monk, Brother Mark, who learned it in Germany. He told me to use it sparingly to calm the nerves and ease the suffering of the soul.”
He swallowed. This was a very hard story for Brother Edmund to tell.
“I was so tormented by my cowardice over the Oath of Supremacy, I took my first dose the day that the king’s men arrived to administer it. And Brother Mark was right. It did ease my suffering. I felt quite calm. I hardly minded swearing the oath at all. But I did not want to face what I had done. I was warned to take it sparingly, but I took more the very next day.”
He laughed, a high-pitched, ragged, frightening sound. Brother Richard patted his shoulder, but he swung away. “I cannot accept your sympathy,” he insisted. “I am cursed with this, bedeviled. And have been for three years.”
“So why do you keep taking it?” I asked.
“I have no choice!”
Brother Edmund cried. “If I try to pull away, if I cease taking it completely, I become sick, nauseated, agitated—eaten up with fears. And the nightmares. Oh, you cannot imagine the nightmares it inflicts when you try to break free.”
“That is what you are enduring now,” I said. Now I understood his radically changed appearance and behavior.
He nodded. “I hid a small amount in my cowl the day that Geoffrey Scovill took me to gaol in Rochester. But it ran out, and I began to suffer the torment of
addictus
.”
“How did Bishop Gardiner find out about you?” asked Brother Richard.
“I receive my drug in parcels from Venetian traders; everyone does. There are secret sufferers at monasteries all over Europe. Physicians, too.”
Brother Richard
said solemnly, “I’d heard rumors of this.”
“Bishop Gardiner has many contacts on the Continent, and I believe he paid someone in Venice to learn who received the red flower here, in England. When he came to our abbey, he already knew. At first I denied it, but it was easy for him to get the truth from me.” Brother Edmund’s eyes glittered. “He told me I was to accompany you to Dartford Priory, Brother Richard, to serve as apothecary and help you in any way you saw fit. But then we received those new separate letters, remember? The orders had changed. We must report to the Tower of London and accompany Sister Joanna Stafford to Dartford. And I must take her letters from the place at the leper hospital and courier them to France without opening them or telling you anything about it. If I refused to go to Dartford or failed in my mission, I’d be put out on the road with the other displaced friars, but he would also make public my weakness. I’d be damned forever.”