The Tapestry Read Online Free Page A

nothing, learn nothing.
    There was no other explanation for this. While my horse plodded across London Bridge, I concluded that my mind was twisted by Jacquard Rolin, the imperial spy who trained me as part of the conspiracy, demeaned me, and, finally, attacked me. Because the third part of the prophecy could only be revealed in Ghent, the birthplace of the Emperor Charles, Jacquard took me there. When the raven climbs the rope, the dog must soar like a hawk in the time of the bear. That was the full prophecy. After the hanging of the “raven,” the mystic nun Sister Elizabeth Barton, it was up to me, the Dominican, the order associated with the dog, to act swiftly in the time “of the bear.” And the objective was . . . to kill the king. When I had recoiled, Jacquard demanded, “Are you so stupid that you did not perceive that from the beginning this was the conspiracy to build the perfect assassin?” But no matter what King Henry had done to my family and friends, to my chosen way of life, I could not commit murder. I spent four harrowing months in Europe, most of it imprisoned in Ghent. After I escaped from Jacquard—when he nearly killed me—I managed to make my way back to England.
    In the peace of Dartford these last months, I’d never felt threatened, never been contacted again by those men of the shadows. None of these self-protective instincts Jacquard nurtured in me had stirred. But now, traveling to the most dangerous city in England, they were awakened.
    I reached up to press between my fingers the slender chain holding a crucifix, hidden beneath my bodice. When I returned home, I would seek guidance in prayer for how to return to true peace, the obedience and humility and wisdom of the Dominican Order that I would always revere.
    Our horses reached the other side of the bridge. Judging by theposition of the sun, there was ample time for this mission. I’d been told king’s officials performed business until nightfall. That was hours away. We rode past the churches and taverns, the goldsmiths and grocers, the haberdashers and brewers, the salters and sadlers. And we wove around the Londoners who’d emerged from their narrow homes to embrace April—perhaps the first genuinely warm day of the Year of Our Lord 1540—with their pale, dirty faces turned upward to the cleansing rays of the sun.
    With the Thames now on our left, we rode on the Strand and then the King’s Street to the massive complex of buildings rising in the distance before us. We left the city of London for the liberties of Westminster, where the seat of government lay, whether it was the king’s grand palace, Parliament’s vast hall, or the church’s soaring abbey.
    I had not been inside palace or abbey. Last summer I came close. An anonymous woman, I’d watched as thousands of men marched before the king and council in the Great London Muster, proving their readiness to defend the realm. I remembered the men striding past a platform in front of a massive gatehouse.
    Today I approached the same gatehouse not from a park but from a street that grew so crowded that we had to dismount. The street continued under the gatehouse archway, beyond to the abbey and Parliament. Entrance to the palace itself on the left appeared to be through a large door in the side of the gatehouse.
    Now I faced a new problem. Perhaps one hundred men, many of them clutching papers, jostled to move forward in the mass of humanity trying to gain admittance to that door. Master Gwinn, a bear of a man, pushed his way forward, creating a path for me and his wife. As we shuffled forward in his wake, one name was repeated, to the right and left, forward and behind: Cromwell, Cromwell, Cromwell, Cromwell . Once again I saw that precise script on my royal summons and shuddered. He had signed the document, but I was not here to see the Lord Privy Seal, I told myself. My humble business would involve only