The Tapestry by Nancy Bilyeau

trained to obey the leaders of the church.
    We walked side by side, but he did not speak again for a time. Glancing back, I saw the Duke of Norfolk talking intently to Catherine. Perhaps he was telling her of the outrage perpetrated on the tombs of the Howards.
    The bishop finally broke the silence with a question: “Have you been given any indication of why His Majesty has asked you to dine with him?”
    â€œNone,” I said.
    â€œHe called you ‘kinswoman’ in Westminster Hall, but King Henry has never been fond of the Stafford family,” mused the bishop. “He detests all monks and nuns and friars. Yet he must know that you were pledged to the Dominican Order for more than a year. He may well remember that you were ordered to the Tower of London because of interfering with the course of justice in your cousin’s burning.”
    I should have been braced for it. Hadn’t I learned, time and again, that the Bishop of Winchester had a talent for censure mixed with praise, for keeping his opponents forever off balance? But the callousness with which he spoke of Margaret’s terrible death nonetheless brought hot tears to my eyes, and angry words to my lips.
    â€œPerhaps the king plans to exact some punishment of me today, saving you the time and effort of devising your next plot,” I said.
    The bishop stopped short to stare at me. “Do you honestly feel that I mean you harm?” he asked. “Yes, I disowned you yesterday at Westminster Hall in front of Cromwell, but you could scarcely expect otherwise. I was the one who saw you released from the Tower of London three years ago, who protected and watched over you ever since, even though you’ve refused to serve me again. But no matter what you say or do, you will always be my Sister Joanna.”
    I was astounded to hear his side of our long and tormented association. There seemed no possible response, so I began to walk toward the sundial again and he matched my steps.
    Gardiner went on, “I hope that you do not speak to His Majesty as you do to me, in which case you may very well provoke his anger, something which you must take all possible steps to avoid.”
    â€œI don’t want to make him angry,” I said honestly.
    The bishop tapped his long, bony fingers together, a gesture I knew meant he was working out some problem in his agile lawyer brain. “King Henry never does anything without having a secret purpose to it and usually two purposes ahead,” he said. “But what his purpose is in drawing you closer, I simply cannot fathom.”
    We reached the fountain, encircled by brown hedges beginning to bud. It was empty of water, not even a silt-thickened puddle at the bottom. It had been a dry spring. I glanced back, but the Duke of Norfolk and his niece had disappeared.
    The bishop resumed his musings. “This must have something to do with his relations with Queen Anne. We’d thought him quite disaffected from her, but Cromwell’s being made Earl of Essex, and now this formal dinner with her, they bode ill for our cause.”
    â€œI don’t understand what Cromwell has to do with the marriage,” I said.
    â€œDon’t you? This marriage, this alliance with the Protestant powers of Germany, was all Cromwell’s doing. How could he have predicted that the king would take such a dislike to Anne of Cleves the first moment he laid eyes on her?”
    I turned away from Gardiner. They all thought it a whim, a vagary of human desire, which made King Henry recoil from his fourth wife. But I knew the true reason why the marriage failed at the start. The king blamed Anne of Cleves for his being unable to perform as a husband. He would never know he was poisoned when he sipped from the chalice.
    Gardiner said, “We have done all we can to make sure the king continues to detest her. And soon he may not need her. The king only married her because France and Spain had made a