and the pope denied him. So His Majesty turned to the law of the land. I was the one who could supply him with legal . . . solutions. I argued the king’s case before Pope Clement himself.”
Now a chill rippled through me. The king’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon was what sent our country hurtling down its path to chaos, and I was in the presence of one of its architects.
“How easy your face is to read, Sister Joanna. You look at me as if I were Lucifer himself.”
Embarrassed, I stared at the floor.
“I know that you served Katherine of Aragon after the divorce, in the last month of her life, as one of her ladies.” He sighed. “No, you could never understand my actions. It’s unfair of me to expect it. Let us just leave it at this: I serve the House of Tudor.” There was a ferocious edge to the way he said Tudor.
Bishop Gardiner tapped those long fingers, three times, more rapidly than before.
“You are not terribly knowledgeable about events of the day, so let’s talk about the past, shall we? Do you know history? English history?”
I nodded.
“Do you know of Edward the Third? His son, the Black Prince? How about Richard the Lionhearted? Or our king’s dead brother, Prince Arthur?”
Hearing this list, I wondered, for the first time, about Bishop Gardiner’s state of mind.
“Do you know of those men, Sister Joanna?” he repeated, enunciating each word as if I were slow-witted. “Please answer me.”
“Yes. But what bearing have they?”
“Edward the Third founded your priory almost two hundred years ago—surely you are aware of that.”
“Yes, Bishop,” I said.
“It was of vital importance to him that an order of nuns be founded close to London, near the court. And not just any order. They must be Dominicans. Why did he wish to found the first Dominican convent in England?”
I tried to remember what I’d been told at Dartford. “Because the Dominicans are a very holy order, dedicated to spreading God’s word and living in commitment.”
Bishop Gardiner smiled. “Some things do not change, even now. The young novices at a Dominican Order are instilled with such pride.”
I flushed. Pride was a sin. “Forgive me, Bishop Gardiner.”
“No, no, it does your prioress credit.” He continued with his saga. “Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife of the first Edward, sought to establish a nunnery at Dartford. But it was not until her grandson, Edward the Third, took up the cause that ground was broken. He paid for the construction from his own privy purse. He insisted that four senior Dominican nuns be brought from France to be the founding sisters of Dartford. The intensity of his involvement was thought peculiar at the time. His oldest son and heir, Prince Edward, the Black Prince, was dying. England had just lost a war with France. Parliament had refused a bill of taxation. And yet he was interested in establishing Dartford Priory. More than ‘interested.’ Obsessed with it. Foreign ambassadors made note of it in their posts home. Can you explain this?”
“No.”
“Many of our monasteries and priories house holy relics, Sister Joanna. Yet Dartford does not, neither for the comfort of its sisters nor for the public to make pilgrimages to. Is that correct?
“Yes, that is correct.” I rubbed my eyes, weary and confused.
“Sister Joanna, you have heard of nothing that exists at Dartford that is of great value, that was housed at the priory at the time of its founding by Edward the Third?”
“No.”
Bishop Gardiner bent down, closer to me, his eyes searching mine. “Are you sure? Absolutely sure there is nothing the priory has that is special?”
Again, I groped for an answer. “Dartford is famous for its tapestries. The sisters have done exceptionally fine work for generations.”
Bishop Gardiner’s mouth quivered. In just a few seconds, his entire face turned deep red. A vein bulged on the side of his neck. Grabbing my forearms with both hands, he said in a completely different voice, a rough one: “Do you think that I have come all this way and gone to all this trouble for tapestries?”
I was too shocked by his transformation to answer.
He tightened his grip on me and hissed, “Sister Joanna, have you seen the Athelstan crown?”
My stomach clenched. I tried to force a blank expression onto my face, but I could tell from his excitement that it was too late.
He let go of my arm and laughed—a high-pitched, triumphant whoop. “You have seen it; you know about it. I was right.