Chapter Fifty-Four Cecilia
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cecilia
Cecilia never ventures into sanctuaries unless she cannot help it.
They have always made her uneasy, even when she was a young girl when her only god was her father and the law of his word.
They are too full of judgement; they make her want to shout merely to hear something.
They are empty, and they make her worry that there is an emptiness inside her.
But once Henry has promised her a throne of her own, she finds she must know precisely how he is planning on securing it for her. And that means spending time with the man who has her heart, and who she no longer seems to know at all.
“Your knees will be ground to dust,” she says, as she strides into the sanctuary and finds More, predictably, praying before Cernunnos’s altar.
She holds her chin high, daring the god to strike her down.
You hold no fear for me any longer, upstart and interloper.
She thrills at even thinking the blasphemy.
More tilts his head so she can see him smiling. “We all return to dust eventually.”
“That is cheery,” she says, sitting beside him, her back to the altar. She sees the disapproval flickering in More’s eyes and grins.
“You do not have to always be so contrary, my dear,” he says. “We will admire your spirit even if you occasionally behave properly.”
“But then how shall I needle you all?”
More allows Cecilia to lift him to his feet. If he were not so stoic, he would be groaning in discomfort.
“What is wrong with you?” she asks.
“Do not worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you; I’m impatient,” she lies. “What is going on in this palace? Henry says Cromwell has found something in your library, something that will win him an empire, but everyone is keeping tight-lipped about what that entails.”
“They say nothing because it does not concern you,” More says, leaning on Cecilia as he lowers himself into a pew.
Cecilia prods him. “If it concerns my family, it concerns me. What are all of you boring old men doing?”
More raises an eyebrow. “I thought I was not such an old man.”
“Answer me.”
More squeezes her hand. “Lord Highfather, Mistress Boleyn did not cause me so much trouble.”
Cecilia lets that statement hang in the air, not because she is shocked or offended, but because both of them know that it is dangerous to utter such words.
Boleyn, though Cecilia barely remembers her from her court in Capetia, can never be spoken of unless it is to condemn her as a traitor and witch.
“You liked her,” Cecilia says.
“No,” More replies quickly.
“Admired her, then.”
“She was difficult.”
“You like difficult women.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“You like me.”
“You are different.”
Cecilia feels a sudden rush of affection for this old man. She grasps his hand, the skin paper-thin and flaking like dandruff. Normally, she would never deign to touch such skin, but More is right – she and he have always held special places in each other’s regard.
“You were always very patient with me,” she says.
“Well, you had plenty of impatience from other areas.”
They do not speak of her father. They do not speak of Arthur.
“What is happening here?” Cecilia says. Her voice is quiet but she uses the words like little needles, each one a stab, telling More that she is not going to give up until she has answers.
“My dear …” he says, his eyes closing. She is going to press her point further until she realises he is shaking. The movement is so slight at first that she barely notices it, assuming it is some part of his ageing condition.
“My lord?” she says, her hand tightening around his.
The shaking intensifies, until his entire arm is shuddering and the only fixed point is her grip. His eyes are closed, his mouth stretched open in a grimace of pain.
“What is happening?” she says, louder.
“Leave me, Cecilia,” he manages to whisper through clenched teeth.
With anyone else, she would have been out of the door already, but she feels a foreign flare of panic for someone other than herself.
“Help!” she shouts. “Someone fetch help!”
More’s grip on her hand is now so strong that her bones crack beneath the pressure, but she does not cry out for herself.
His free hand claws at the back of his neck, and at the exposed skin on his arm which is already red-raw and covered in scars, barely healed.
She tries to block him with her body. “No, no, stop that, you imbecile,” she says.
Inside she is a drowning child in a frothing sea. “Help!” she shouts again.
There is a commotion beyond the narrow world of her existence, which features only her and the agony of this dear man.
Then strong arms are pulling her away. Someone else – Cromwell and one of his men – work to prise More’s hand from her grip, and she shrieks, unsure if she is shrieking because of the pain from her broken hand or from the fury of being manhandled.
“Leave him be,” a voice says close to her ear. “My lady, leave him be. Cromwell will take care of him.”
“Cromwell hates him. Cromwell will kill him!” she shouts, not caring that the man can hear her.
Brandon’s arms are still pulling her away, gripped around her waist as she struggles against them like a feral cat.
Cromwell does not look up from his ministrations of More when he says, “I can assure Your Majesty that I mean your tutor no harm. I will ensure he receives the help he needs.”
“What is wrong with him? You will tell me, sir,” she says, as Brandon drags her out of the sanctuary and into the quiet chamber beyond.
Usually this space is filled with supplicants, waiting their turn to make confession, but now it is empty but for Cecilia and her captor.
She finally breaks free and whirls round to face him.
Charles Brandon looks, for the first time in her memory, earnest.
“What is wrong with the bishop?” she says again, battling to control her panic.
“You need not worry about him,” he tells her, hands splayed.
“Does my brother know he is ill?” she says.
“Of course he does. As I said, it is all in hand. Please, Cecilia. He is not ill. He is on … a journey.”
Brandon guides her to a seat at the corner of the room. She would not usually follow him, except her legs are unaccountably unstable. She sinks onto the bench and gathers herself, the muscles and bones in her neck tightening and straining. Brandon sits beside her.
“What kind of journey?” she says.
“Ah, princess …”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Are you not a princess, princess?”
“I am a dowager queen, and I will hurt you.”
“I would enjoy that.”
She springs from the seat, pinching herself to stop the tears. She will never allow anyone to see her weep. Brandon places a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
“I am sorry you witnessed one of Bishop More’s episodes. They can be alarming at first, but I assure you that they have been occurring for some time, and we have them under control.”
“It is something divine, is it not?” she says. She cannot comprehend any other reason More would allow his body to change thus. When it comes to Cernunnos, he has never known anything but martyrdom.
“You always were sharp as a pin.”
“I am right, then.”
“Your brother cannot know I’ve told you.”
“You’ve told me nothing. I guessed.”
He squeezes her shoulder. “You understand the divine power better than most, don’t you? Strange, given you’re a rather heathen woman. Well, you know that it always costs mortals to meddle with divinity. The bishop is willing to pay that cost.”
She must return to her rooms then, although she does not remember the journey, only that she is staring out of the window at the hunting grounds and, beyond that, the Tower.
It always costs mortals to meddle with divinity.
More is willing to pay that price. She knows from her conversations with Seymour that the queens, too, are paying the price, willingly or otherwise.
What cost did it extract from her cold-eyed father?
And what cost does it extract from the brother who once saved her?
Would he save her still?