“Both your sons are well,” he says. “And confident that these troubles will soon be over.”
I nod. “You can dine in hall tonight, if you wish.”
He bows. “I thank you.”
Someone else steps forward with some complaint about the cost of ale in one of my tenant alehouses and the steward steps to my side and takes a note of the problem.
“Get that man to my chamber before dinner,” I say quietly. “Make sure no one sees him.”
He does not blink. He merely writes down the claim that the ale has been watered and that the jugs are not full measure and waves the next petitioner forward.
Langgrische is waiting for me by the little fire in my bedroom, concealed like a secret lover. I can’t restrain a smile. It’s been a long time since there was a man waiting for me in my bedroom; I have been a widow now for thirty-two years.
“What’s the news?” I sit in my chair at the fireside and he stands before me.
Silently, he shows me a small piece of cloth, a token like a man might sew to his collar. It is the match of the badge that Tom Darcy gave me, the five wounds of Christ and a white rose above it. Silently, I touch it as if it were a relic of faith, and return it to him.
“The pilgrims have dispersed most of their force, waiting for the king to agree to their terms. The king sent a dishonorable command to Tom Darcy, to meet with the pilgrim leader Robert Aske as if to talk in honor, kidnap him, and hand him over to Cromwell’s men.”
“What did Tom say?”
“He said that his coat should never have such a spot on it.”
I nod. “That’s Tom. And my sons?”
“Both well, both releasing men from their force to the pilgrim army every day, but both sworn to the king’s force and no one suspecting different. The king has asked for more details of the pilgrim demands and they have explained them.”
“Do Montague and Geoffrey think that the king will grant the demands?”
“He’ll have to,” the man said simply. “The pilgrims could overwhelm the royal army in a moment, they’re only waiting for an answer because they don’t want to make war on the king.”
“How can they call themselves loyal subjects? In battle array? When they hang his servants?”
“There have been remarkably few deaths,” he says. “Because hardly anyone disagrees with them.”
“Thomas Legh? Well worth hanging, I agree.”
He laughs. “They would have hanged him if they had caught him but he got away. He sent out his cook in his place like a coward, and they hanged him instead. The pilgrims don’t attack the lords or the king. They blame only his advisors. Cromwell must be banished, the destruction of monasteries reversed, and you and your family restored to the king’s council.”
He looks at me almost slyly and smiles. “I have news of your other son, Reginald, too.”
“Is he in Rome?” I ask eagerly.
He nods. “He is to be made a cardinal,” he says, awestruck. “He is to come to England as a cardinal and restore the Church to its glory, as soon as the king agrees to the pilgrims’ demands.”
“The Pope will send my son home to restore the Church?”
“To save us all,” Langgrische says devoutly.
L’ERBER, LONDON, DECEMBER 1536
This year we will keep the twelve days of Christmas in the old ways. The priory at Bisham may still be closed, but here in London I open up my chapel and set Advent lights in the window and keep the door open so that anyone can come in and see the altar dressed with cloth of gold, the chalice and the crucifix gleaming in the incense-scented darkness, the shine of the crystal monstrance holding the mystery of the Host, the chapel lined with the smiling, confident painted faces of saints and draped in the banners of the Church and my family. In the darkness of the corner of the chapel the banner of the white rose palely gleams; opposite is the rich pansy of the Pole family in papal imperial purple. And I kneel and bury my face in my hands and think that there is no reason that Reginald should not become Pope.
This Christmas is a great one, for our family and for England. Perhaps this will be the year that my son Reginald comes home to restore the Church to its rightful position, and my sons Montague and Geoffrey restore the king to his true royal place.
I know from a note from my cousin Gertrude, from a messenger from the Spanish ambassador, and from my own people in London that the king has been persuaded there will be no ruling any of England, let alone the North, unless he forges an agreement with the pilgrims. They have told him, simply and respectfully, that the Church has to return to Rome, and the old noble advisors to his chambers. The king may complain that nobody has the right to tell him who to consult, but he knows, as the lords know, as the gentlemen know, as the commons know, that nothing has gone well with his reign since he put lowly clerks in the highest office and pretended to marry the daughter of my steward.
Finally, blustering and angry, he consents—he can do nothing but consent—and Thomas Howard rides back north through flurries of snow in freezing weather, carrying the king’s pardon, and has to wait in the cold outside Doncaster while the Lancaster herald offers the king’s pardon to the thousands of patient northerners in their massed and silent ranks. Robert Aske, the leader who came from almost nowhere, kneels before his thousands of pilgrims and tells them that they have won a great victory. He asks them to release him from his post as captain. When they agree, he tears off the badge of the five wounds and promises that they all will wear no badge but that of the king.
When I hear that, I take the badge that Tom Darcy gave me from my pocket, and I kiss it, and put it at the back of an old chest in my wardrobe rooms. I don’t need it as a secret reminder of my loyalty anymore. The pilgrimage is over and the pilgrims have won; we can all put our badges away and my sons, all my sons, will be coming home.
London is filled with joy at the news. They ring the church bells for the Christmas service but everyone knows they are pealing out that we have saved the country, and saved the Church, and saved the king from himself. I take my household to watch the court progress from Westminster to Greenwich, and we laugh and walk on the frozen river. It is so cold that the children can slip and slide on the ice and my grandchildren Katherine, Winifred, and Harry cling to my arms and beg me to tow them along.
The court, in its golden Christmas glory, walks in the center of the river, the bishops in their copes with their miters on their heads and their jeweled crooks sparkling in the light of a thousand torches. The men-at-arms hold back the crowds so that the horses in their special ice shoes with sharp studs can take to the center of the river as if it were a great white road curving its way through an ice city, as if they could ride all the way to the Russias. All the roofs of London are crusted with snow; every thatch has a fringe of glistening icicles. The prosperous citizens and their children are brightly dressed in holly colors of red and green, throwing their rosy bonnets in the air and shouting: “God save the king! God save the queen!”
When the Princess Mary comes out, dressed in white on her white horse, she gets the greatest roar the crowd can raise. “God save the princess!” My grandson Harry is thrilled to see her, he jumps on the spot and cheers, his eyes bright with loyalty. The people of London don’t care that she is to be called Lady Mary, and is a princess no longer. They know that they have restored the Church, they have no doubt but that they will restore the princess too.
She smiles as I taught her to smile, and turns her head left and right so that no one is neglected. She raises her gloved hand, and I see that she has beautifully embroidered white leather gloves, sewn with pearls; at last she is being kept as a princess should be. Her horse has trappings of deep green, her saddle is green leather. Over her head her standard flaps in the icy wind, and I smile to see that she is flying the Tudor rose, with the red of the center so small that it looks like a white rose, and she flies her mother’s flag too, the pomegranate.