Father Gabriel helped me to my feet. “Then we ought to begin. Jean, extinguish the candle.” Turning in his flowing white robe, Father Gabriel disappeared into the tiny chapel. I followed as Jean’s hand trembled on the small of my back. Once inside, he pulled the door shut and snuffed out the candle.
Down a narrow staircase lined with a knotted tree branch banister, I had to feel my way through the thick blackness. Jean’s hand resumed its place on my back and gave me courage in the darkness. Still, my heart refused to slow.
A door creaked below, and soft candlelight flooded into the dank stairway. Father Gabriel disappeared into the quaint sanctuary that opened up before us. I hurried down the remaining steps and gasped at what lay before us.
Father Gabriel took his place behind a stone altar, a small silver cross before him. Our Lord and Savior was affixed there by our mortal sins. Candles glittered along the walls, highlighting small statues of the Holy Family. I did the sign of the cross before taking my knees in front of the altar.
In nominae Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
Jean lowered himself beside me, his head bowed in our shared reverence.
Father Gabriel did the sign of the cross over us and began the ancient Latin recitation that had joined souls together for centuries. Something broken and terrified within my spirit renewed with Father Gabriel’s healing words and soothing voice as the ceremony carried on. Peace, solid and strong in the knowledge of my future with Jean, be it for hours or decades, filled my skipping heart.
The thought of His Majesty’s absolute fury upon finding out what I’d done, with his executioner to boot, tried to niggle in during Father Gabriel’s final prayers.
The Iron Maiden. The Scavenger’s Daughter. The Pear. Tales of people locked in coffin-like cages with hungry rats and left to be eaten alive.
I shook my head. Madness could take its toll wondering what bone-breaking practices were being planned for you. Hellish tortures were exacted day and night in His Majesty’s dungeon at the practiced hands of Dudley and, should the King’s men capture us, the most nightmarish would be reserved for me—and Jean. We would be left begging for the merciful stroke of the headsman’s axe that would no doubt be late in coming, if ever it should.
“Bless you both.” Father Gabriel’s voice flowed like calm waters through a rushing river. “Wherever your journey takes you, go with God.”
Standing in the partially concealed doorway of the illicit chapel, I clutched Jean’s hand as though my very life depended on it.
Jean kept his voice low. “Thank you, Father. Our final destination is France. Calais.”
I listened attentively.
Jean had a plan of escape for us all along.
“But first we must reach the coast, then find a ferryman willing to smuggle us the 26 miles across the Strait of Dover.”
Before the bloodhounds reach us.
Father Gabriel reached into a decrepit wooden box affixed to the stone wall. “Take this. To help you and your wife on your journey to freedom.” Something jingled as he passed the gift to Jean.
“Father,” Jean exclaimed. “This is five crowns! We cannot accept—”
The old priest held up a hand. It shook with tremors. “That comes from the poor box. No one here now is poorer than the pair of you.” He offered a crooked smile.
Still, Jean protested. “But, should we be captured and the money traced back to you—”
“Stuff and nonsense. Should the King wish me dead, I would be so. But it will be my faith for which I die, as I give you this gift in Christian charity. It will not be your fault.”
Father Gabriel patted Jean, whose handsome face contorted into a look of worry. “You forget I know better than any how your conscience plagues you Jean St. Bromaine. Now go, before you too run out of time.” He paused at the doorway. “And please, take the pair of white horses that came to me only this evening. You must make Dover tonight.”
The Royal Forest
The Escape
“T
ell me Bridget my dear.” Jean spoke in low tones as the branches whipped across our faces in stinging swats. Night bugs buzzed about, some biting at our exposed flesh while others flickered harmlessly as they added what flashes of light they could to our nighttime escape. “When you were a girl, did you fancy fleeing merry ole England on the very night of your honeymoon?”
I thought back to when I was a girl at Throckenholt Priory. Skipping along the hand-laid stones, placed there by martyred monks. Burdened by a heavy guilt for being happy. For being alive. All simply by hiding my true faith—the faith of my mother—whilst living among Protestants.
Elizabeth and I had pondered often over love and marriage as young girls do, dreaming of royal weddings trimmed in purple and gold, a slave to our hearts as we gave them to only the most handsome and most rich of our suitors. All royal or of noble birth, of course.
Love? Lady Denny would scold us as though the very word was wretched on her tongue. There cannot be love in a marriage. Love thy King, your most sovereign prince, above all. As he is the head of the Church of England and the whole of this island.
Still, I dared to dream.
“Quite honestly Jean, no. I did no such thing.” My words were quick and breathless. Jean slowed our horses’ pace. “I never dreamt of a honeymoon at all, really. Lest my aunt, Lady Denny, were able to secure me to some fat, houndish groomsman for a handsome dowry price. However, that would leave me loveless, with 15 children and rotten with syphilis. All the while, my fat husband would be in the arms of his mistress, begetting bastards, and I alone with my royal misery.”
Jean glanced over his shoulder. The light of laughter brightened his eyes despite the deep darkness of the forest. “It appears to me that you know the goings on at Court far too intimately.”
The weight about my shoulders lightened. “Perhaps so.”
The sound of crashing waves met my ears, and heavy air, thick and fresh with salt, enveloped me. My eyes fluttered open. I must have fallen asleep. Still, darkness surrounded me and I was strangely disoriented. “Jean?”
I mustn’t have slept long.
“Jean?” My sleep-roughened voice croaked like a bullfrog.
A hand was on my knee in an instant. “I’m here, Bridget. Fear not.”
My horse whuffed and stomped his hooves. I stroked his pearlish neck. “Have we made it?”
“We will leave the horses here,” Jean instructed. He ignored my question as his hand skittered up my leg.
