The Tapestry by Nancy Bilyeau Read Free Book Online Page A

his shoulders hunched.
    â€œNo,” he groaned. “No.” Was this illness? Or grief? Had he suffered some loss? It was quite wrong of me to bear witness to such a private moment. This man was in distress.
    I must have shifted on the bench—made a noise—for the man turned to face me, his hands dropping from his face. We stared at each other, both of us shocked by the face beheld across the room.
    The man in the room with me was Thomas Cromwell.

6

    J oanna Stafford,” Thomas Cromwell said, as if he could not himself believe it. “Why are you here?”
    I could not speak, could not move.
    He bore down on me and I flinched, as if preparing for a blow, the sort of vicious smack I’d suffered more than once from the Duke of Norfolk. But the king’s chief minister did not strike me. He took the summons from my hand and read it.
    â€œOf course,” he said, his voice very quiet. “Gardiner uses the king’s passion for tapestry to set his spy on me.”
    That helped me find my voice.
    â€œI am no spy, my lord,” I sputtered. “The Bishop of Winchester had nothing to do with my coming to court. It is your signature on the summons.”
    â€œWhy come here ?” he countered. “This summons directed you to the keeper of the wardrobe, not to Westminster Hall. This is where Parliament convenes. It’s a stupid mistake, and we both know you are not a stupid female.”
    His calm words were laced with anger. It was not my being in this room that infuriated him but the fact that I had witnessed his distress, his fear. He was the second-most-important man of the kingdom. I knew that Cromwell and Gardiner were enemies, but he couldn’t truly believe that the wily bishop would ask me to follow him here —in the building that housed Parliament? If I were to disclose the truth, it would end his suspicion. But I did not want to tell him why I’d come to Westminster Hall. If I did that, then I mustalso disclose the attack on me, and how could I trust this distressing business to Thomas Cromwell? It wasn’t just that. I had to protect Culpepper—I owed him that much, at least.
    Cromwell took a step backward, nodding. “No answers for me, of course. But I shall have my answers, Mistress Stafford. Come.”
    I rose, but I was so full of fear that my legs wobbled. To steady myself, I touched the chain round my neck.
    Cromwell opened the door with a mirthless smile. “I expect that is a crucifix you fondle, Mistress Stafford. Before nightfall, we shall know for sure—and all of your other Papist secrets.”
    He was a man whose eyes missed nothing, whose mind worked faster than any other’s. How long would it be before he knew every single thing about me?
    In the passageway outside the room stood five men, all startled at the sight of me. “This lady shall accompany me,” Cromwell said by way of explanation. The men immediately fell in behind us, as the Lord Privy Seal escorted me down the hall.
    A way out of this suddenly occurred to me, and I said, “My Lord Cromwell, how could I be accused of spying on you if you entered that room after me?”
    Cromwell said smoothly, “That is not yet an established fact, mistress, who was present in the room first.”
    So he intended to alter the facts. It would be my word against his, and who would believe Joanna Stafford? As I walked down the passageway, my thoughts circled around Agatha Gwinn. How distraught she would be. My onetime novice mistress had sensed danger for me beyond the palace gatehouse, and she had been right.
    I expected that some sort of small room, sterile and windowless, would be my destination, the sort of place where Thomas Cromwell got answers to his questions, whether the targets be the lovers of Anne Boleyn or the friends of Henry Courtenay. But instead I was ushered into what was quite simply the largest hall I had ever stood in.
    There were rows of