Free The Tutor by Andrea Chapin Page A

dangling between her ample breasts.
    “Ho, there, lass, what have you round your neck?” she asked, pointing to the small discs.
    “I . . . I . . .” the girl stuttered.
    “What?”
    “I found ’em on the floor ’neath the birds, my lady, yonder,” she said, nodding in the direction of the mews.
    Katharine couldn’t help but notice how Mercy had grown from a girl to a young woman. She had curves now, her broad hips filling her skirt.
    “Give them to me,” said Katharine.
    Mercy hurriedly pulled off the cord with the wax discs. “I didna mean no harm, my lady. They were in the hay.”
    “Do you know what these are?”
    “No’m.”
    “They are what priests wear. They have been blessed by the Pope. What were you doing there?” She did not question her further. She could imagine what Mercy might be doing in the hay in the hawk house. No doubt some lad had taken her in there for a doddle.
    “Get along, now,” Katharine said to the girl, who curtsied low again before she fled.
    Father Daulton had said the priests from Rome rarely carried Agnus Deis anymore, for they broke any disguise the instant they were discovered. The wax discs impressed with the Paschal Lamb had been outlawedby the Parliament close to twenty years before as “popish trumperies,” and the punishment for wearing them was death.
    Katharine had heard tales of the miracles worked by Agnus Deis. Once, during Lent, an elderly lady was at death’s door. An Agnus Dei was hung around her neck, and that instant she recovered her voice and memory, and the following day she was perfectly cured—to the great confusion of her heirs, who, having prematurely taken away her possessions, were forced to bring them back.
    Whose Agnus Deis were these, and why were they on the floor of the hawk house? They had to belong to a priest. Were they Father Daulton’s? Perhaps one of the birds had found them and brought them in its beak. Or Richard had taken the wax discs from Father Daulton’s neck when he found him dead? If so, why leave them in the hawk house? Katharine would have taken the blessed medallions directly to Sir Edward, but his chair was still empty. On her way up the stairs, she met Mary going down.
    “I met one of the milkmaids outside, and she was wearing these around her neck.” Katharine held the Agnus Deis up to Mary. “She found them in the hay.”
    Mary’s eyes widened. “I wonder why Richard would hide these in the hay.”
    “I don’t know that they were hidden,” Katharine said, thinking it odd that Mary had assumed Richard had hidden the Agnus Deis.
    “Next thing, someone will find a bloody dagger in there, and then the tongues will surely wag! Get rid of them with haste. Throw them in the river.”
    Katharine continued to her chamber, resolved to lock the discs in a chest under her bed.

8

    rsula was dancing. There was no music.
    The other women sewed in front of the fire, while Ursula pranced across the wooden planks, her little dog nipping at her heels. What song was Ursula listening to in her head while she dipped, turned and curtsied? A flush on her cheeks made Katharine wonder if she might be with child again, but her girth was no thicker.
    “I must perfect this,” Ursula said.
    Katharine waited for someone to give Ursula what she wanted : What dance is this you’re worrying over, Ursula? But no one looked up.
    “’Tis new, from the Continent, called the courante,” said Ursula, answering the unasked question.
    Ursula had never completed a tapestry or even one small piece of embroidery—no threaded stories of her handiwork seated a chair or covered a bed or hung on a wall. Sad piles of her half-finished cloths sat dejected and dusty in baskets throughout the house.
    “Monsieur LeBlanc, my new dancing master, taught me. I will dance with the duke, and he will surely know the steps. Oh, I do hope Nedreturns in time to welcome the duke and his men. Ned is so skilled at dancing,” Ursula said.
    “We do not know