In the Shadow of Lions (19 page)

Rose shook her head. She suspected suffering caught the devil’s eye just as fast. Those who suffered were the first to drown in whiskey and live abused. They always tried first to purge their pain with evils; it was the only thing they knew intimately. They were all children, afraid that grace burned at first like medicine on a cut.

“But why must you suffer?” Margaret asked. “Is it punishment that you weren’t a priest? Do you regret having us?

Sir Thomas turned and took her hand. “Regret you? No. Suffering keeps my thoughts pure. I must be a good father, a holy example. You are the reason I wear the hair shirt, yes, but only that I may bear the punishment for sin in my body and spare you from it.”

“But I have sinned, Father,” Margaret said. Rose saw her chin trembling. “The book you seek, the man Hutchins? I …” She paused for a steadying breath. “I read it.”

“I know,” he replied. “A servant found it under your mattress and brought it to me. You are young, Margaret,” he comforted her, “and illicit ideas will sometimes sway the young. I have taken vengeance for your name, my dear. I have arrested the women who were responsible for spreading the books, encouraging you to folly. They will be racked, and perhaps burned if they cannot ask forgiveness. I will make sure the idea has no appeal to any other youth, and no other father will suffer the grief I felt.”

Rose was sick. The darkness forced itself down her throat, making her retch. She clasped a hand over her mouth.

“Are the dresses you have ordered ready?” Sir Thomas asked.

“Yes, Father,” Margaret replied. She did not look well, either.

“Most excellent. King Henry has invited us to a banquet. He has seized Hampton Court from Wolsey and will hold the banquet there. Anne Boleyn will be in attendance, I suppose, but you must not speak to her. I will not have you infected with her pratter. Stay with Rose and follow her good example, for she loves you.”

Rose clucked her teeth in sorrow, an involuntary tic that escaped without her willing it. Sir Thomas and Margaret glanced towards the door.

Rose crept quietly back, pressing into the wall so that the darkness hid her well. As soon as she was farther down the hall in safety, she turned and fled to her room.

I couldn’t stop laughing through my tears. David was still shaking from the accidental firing; he had blown a hole through his elderly neighbor’s ceiling three inches wide. She was cursing him in between puffs of oxygen.

“You’re nothing but a
scribbler!”
She wheezed the word like it was the very definition of filth. “I raised my sons to earn their bread! Not like your kind!”

He sat, the book in his lap. When his own breathing returned to a steady cadence, he noticed what was written. He read the words. And read them again. Looking around the room, he knew someone was with him.

I bent to kiss him but was swept away.

Chapter Nineteen

She walked slowly towards him. Her stomach was lurching and cramping; she had not held on to her breakfast that morning.

Last night she had dreamed again of a black crow, eyes cold and dead, flying to her. The bird alighted on the parched dry grass and craned its neck to peer at her. Anne stumbled back in her dream and fell far, far away, until she awoke sweating and sick. Her Yeoman replaced the dying torch outside her chamber, and she slept closer to the light after that.

Henry sat on a tall wooden chair, its back rising a few inches above his head, emphasizing his height over all the men in the room. They all were nervous around him and cast their glances down and away when she entered.

He wore a crested golden doublet with a golden embroidered robe over his shoulders. His legs were crossed and he sat at an angle, showing them to their advantage.

Anne bowed before him. Obedience came easily to her. It was not godliness. It was her weakness. It was her fear and her secret.

Henry rested his chin in his hands, one finger stroking his lips. His eyes were hungry and hard as he snapped his fingers. Anne heard a commotion behind her as a man’s hands wrapped around her neck. She met Henry’s eyes and sank, her knees giving way. The man behind her moved his hands to her waist, holding her up. Henry’s eyes went up at the corners; he might be laughing at her.

She found her knees could support her and stood, and the man behind her released his grip, returning to his assignment. His hands went round her neck again and cold metal was fastened, pulled tight across her neck. Next he came round and took her hand, slipping a fat egg of a ring on her finger. Her hand was so weighted that she raised it several times without thinking, testing the strange feeling. The man continued until the jewels rested on her body like pikes, driving her further in, making her smaller, pinning her in this body. Her splendour complete, the courtiers raised their eyes to see her, and all bowed.

Henry stood, offering his own hand, weighted with jewels, veined and warm. She took it. Her stomach came alive again, flipping and burning, her body responding with its own language at his touch. His skin was reassuring on hers; no one touched her here except by accident, she thought, or when she was being dressed or fed. He touched her with clear intention, and her body came alive. She clutched his hand tightly, wanting more, wishing it would find her in this dress, under these jewels, and release her from this bright, smothering world. Surely there was a man under those robes, those jewels. She had never known him. If only they could slip free.

“Your rival is gone.”

She did not understand his meaning. “My king, please tell me, who is my rival?”

Henry laughed, looking back at his servants and courtiers, who all laughed, too. They knew, Anne realized. How much happened in these walls—a universe that spun and changed while she was not present.

Henry rose and kissed her on the forehead. His doublet was scented with the thick spiciness of his clove perfume, and she sensed the warm flesh under the heavy robes, the strong beating heart just beyond the gold crest.

“To please you, Catherine has been banished to an old, forgotten estate where she will trouble you no more. She has surrendered the crown jewels to you, as the rightful queen.”

Anne opened her mouth to say something, pushing back from his embrace, and he caught her open mouth with a kiss.

He spoke. “Tonight there will be a banquet in your honour, where I will bestow not one, but two, earldoms upon your father. His name will be secure, and your brother will be the heir. Many will attend tonight to see the new queen and discover what justice God has wrought.”

He leaned to whisper in her ear, and his breath was hot on her neck. Her stomach flipped at the sensation. “See how I love you.”

She was hungry. That was the shame of it. There would be elderberry syrup, as the elderberries were at last ripe for picking. Those fall fruits encapsulated a perfect spring rain and lingering summer days and let you remember them both in one satisfying bite. She remembered picking them with her brother … how the juices stained her chin and made his teeth black. They had howled with laughter, careless in their joy.

The other fall fruit, hawthorns, would be turning orange, and the songbirds would eat those before flying away for the winter. Anne, too deep inside the palace to hear them, was suddenly sad because they would take something of herself with them and only leave the dread of winter. She closed her eyes and stopped, as if she could hear the beating of their wings.
God,
she prayed,
how I long to fly away with them. How different this would all look from a distance.

She opened her eyes in the cold air and realized she was crying. Her Yeoman stood at her side and nodded, once. Perhaps it was just as terrible to be a Yeoman, or any other servant in this palace—all of them witnessing events, none of them able to step outside of who they were, none of them able to act. Everyone’s livery served to announce their moves in advance—how far each may go, and what each may say. Only Henry was free.

Except for this: The Pope would not grant the annulment, and Anne would not grant her body. Both claimed to serve God’s interest, but Anne suspected, from His distance, there was no real interest at all. This was the growing fear in her heart, the reason she dreaded winter. She had once thought all things were under His control, and He would allow the bitter weather to claim only so much ground but no more. Maybe in the past, winter had claimed only what it had appetite for. Maybe it was hungrier now. Maybe many more would die.

She pushed the Hutchins book under her mattress, afraid to even touch it. She wanted any reason to never read it, but it called to her each day. If she listened, she could hear of sword striking sword, of metal shields and boots marching through darkness, the great iron heart of war, beating between its pages. It terrified her.

She was led to her table and seated. She searched the room and saw, with much relief, her father and brother seated at the table near Henry’s seat. The room had been arranged so that Henry’s table was at the top of the room, nearest the doors the servers used, which served two purposes. First, his food was the hottest and fresh, and second, that every other table could be turned to look upon him as they ate. The other tables were lined up, perpendicular to his, all in a row, with about sixteen people at each table, and eight tables all in a row across the room.

George and their father looked well. Anne bit her cheek as she smiled and nodded. She would not let them see her distress. She would not spoil tonight for them.

All rose when Henry entered and took the seat above her, just on her right. The jewels of the queen dug into her green silk dress, and she waited as the guests murmured their comments on her placement, her dress, her jewels, and her demeanour. What stories they would weave out of the thinnest material, the way she reached for the butter dish, the way she ate with pleasure or disinterest, the way she held a fork or smiled at a server.

Henry lifted his goblet, and it commenced.

As they ate, Henry singled one man out. “Anne, you have heard stories of the man, but have not met him. This is Sir Thomas More, and his daughter is seated at the table just beyond us.”

Henry pointed to the table facing hers on the left. A girl who looked to be no more than sixteen stood, her eyes not meeting Anne’s, her body rigid as she bowed. It was not so hard, between women, to understand that the girl hated her. It would be lost on Henry, of course, and impossible to explain. The daughter had a servant, though, and this girl smiled and met Anne’s eyes for a second before she bowed her head in respect. Anne tried to keep her face still and composed. There was no sense giving the servant away and causing her a beating later tonight.

Sir Thomas was asking a question, and Anne returned her attention to him.

“How do you find the English court? Do you mark it well as compared to the French?”

“Aye.”

Anne would not follow a snake back into its den. She would stay here, in the plain sun of easy conversation. It was curious, though, how unremarkable his face was. Perhaps another woman could find it compelling and wish to kiss those lips, but Anne could not imagine how a woman would blind herself to the evil he did, and allow herself to be swept into his bed. While they dined, were not a dozen or more poor souls in the Tower? She had the book herself, in her bedroom not far from here. The servants rushing in and out of the doors at the end of the hall—they had stolen glances at it. Some had even read a page or so … those who had learned to read in their time here. Anne looked over the room and wondered how many of them More would like killed tonight.

She raised her goblet to her lips, keeping her face turned from him, and drank. More’s daughter gasped. Anne froze, Catherine’s ring before her face as she held the pewter goblet.

Henry continued eating.

“Forgive my poor mind, for I do not know what has happened at court today,” Sir Thomas said. “You wear the queen’s ring. Are you made queen?”

Henry dug his spoon into a terrine set before him. “She will be queen soon enough,” he commented, and the dish was passed to Anne. “The marriage is a formality.”

It was her favourite, brawn, and she had no appetite.

Henry followed her to her bedroom. He was brushing her hair away from her shoulders, and his hands were moving along her back, finding the buttons on her bodice. He was pleased with the evening. Anne saw her hand and knew she had what she had asked for. She had honour and a secured good name.

She grabbed his hand and kissed it, praying if she held it so, it would not strike her when she spoke. “Henry, we are not free yet. I thank you for the earldoms of my father. You have given me what I asked.”

He pulled his hands back, but she would not release them.

“You have her jewels and her bed. Why are you not content?” he asked.

“You have not given me God’s blessing of marriage.”

Henry sighed, and Anne released his hands. He walked a pace away, turned back to her, coming and wrapping his arms around her waist, brushing his face against her hair.

“Anne, you are too new to court to see this well. There are two questions here, are there not? What is the will of God? And what is the will of man? The will of God has been made plain. Catherine is cast off, and you will bear a son. This I have done, and this you will do, but you must silence your inexperienced mind and let me be king in all matters.”

The pleasure that swept over her at his touch was the rush of fools. Her mind was opposed to her desire.

“And for the will of man?” he continued. “The will of man is power. The Pope wants power over my realm, my enemies want power over me, and I want the power of a great name.”

“Aye,” she replied. It was safe to agree to this much.

“But, Anne, who must you please: God or man?”

“Henry, I am but a woman. It is you I must please.”

“Why will you not have me?”

“Because you are a man who is king. Once there was a woman who found what was pleasing to the eye and good to her taste, and when she offered it to the man, death entered the world. I will not make her mistake.”