In the Shadow of Lions (26 page)

A thrill shot through her limbs and heart; she had not left this chamber for a month. Today she would join the palace again and the world. She wore white, with a long white veil, so that no one would see her in her shame before the priest declared her clean. The women were reminding her of the instructions:

“Do not look at sky or earth until the priest places the host upon your tongue.”

“Do not lift your veil! It will protect you from all charms and spells, and from demons who wish to needle you.”

“The king will remove it as a sign that he has accepted you back into his bed.”

Her Yeoman opened the door, and Anne saw there were other men with him. They walked to either side of her, lifting her in the air and carrying her to the litter outside waiting to take her to the church. Her feet would not be allowed to curse the ground, unclean as she was, until she had partaken of communion again.

The sun was strong and warm and Anne lifted her face to it, wishing she could be free of this shroud with the sun on her skin. The church was within sight. Anne’s heart was pounding. Everyone would be inside. She would only be permitted to kneel at the church’s back door, like a beggar, until the priest bade her clean to enter.

The guards lifted her from the litter and carried her to the steps, rapping loudly upon the door.

Anne saw shards of broken glass at the far end of the church. She had heard the gossip, rumours that those immersed in Hutchins’s book were striking out at the church, desecrating the images and relics that had coloured their lives. Anne felt a stab of sadness, seeing the bits of brilliantly coloured glass still reflecting the sun, though lying in dirt. There was so much beauty in the church. She did not want that destroyed. She had only wanted more of it, more of what made God so beautiful to her, His very words. But they could touch nothing of human hands without upending it.

And here she was: a new mother, with a husband who may not want her back in his bed, with nothing to show for her striving in faith but a girl. Had she not prayed? Was there a Mass she had not said, if only in her heart? Why had His words done so little for her?

The door opened, and a priest tipped his head to acknowledge her.

Her hands were shaking as she lifted the white cloth to him. The cloth had been draped over baby Elizabeth at her baptism; giving it to the priest would protect the anointing on Elizabeth’s life.

He stared at it, not moving to accept it, and Anne’s heart raced. Henry had passed a law that protected Anne’s offspring, but the law did not change the heart. The priest could throw her out, leaving them both to the witches and angry crowds.

He swallowed and took it, his warm hand touching her own. It did not stop the sweat beading along her forehead and bodice.

The priest handed the cloth to another priest behind him, and Anne saw he was attended to by two such servants, one carrying candles and one a bowl of holy water.

He read the 121st Psalm in Latin. Anne closed her eyes in ecstasy, the words being balm to her body, wounded by birth, and her soul, wounded by things she had yet to name clearly. She felt so poor, so lost, that to lie here receiving the words of God was strengthening her very bones.

A stirring behind her reminded Anne she was not alone. She was attended to by servants, and behind her servants were the guards, including her own Yeoman.

She held up a hand and stopped the priest. “In English,” she commanded.

The priest reddened and did not speak.

“For the sake of my servants, who wish to hear the Word of God.”

“They do.” His voice was thin and sharply edged. “They cannot understand it.”

The priest fumbled with his robe, tucking his lips into his teeth. He turned to the two priests behind him, who were careful not to look him in the eye.

He cleared his throat and began.

“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His goodness to give you safe deliverance, and hath preserved you in the great danger of childbirth; you shall therefore give hearty thanks unto God, and say,

“I am well pleased: that the Lord hath heard the voice of my prayer; that He hath inclined His ear unto me: therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. The snares of death compassed me round about: and the pains of hell gat hold upon me. I found trouble and heaviness, and I called upon the Name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul.”

Anne repeated his words.

“Let us pray,” he said. “Christ, have mercy upon us.”

Anne, and her servants, repeated his words.

“O Lord, save this woman Thy servant,” he said, “who putteth her trust in Thee.”

They all replied. “Christ, have mercy upon us.”

“Be Thou to her a strong tower,” he said, not sprinkling her with holy water, “from the face of her enemy.”

They all replied. “Christ, have mercy upon us.”

He finished without passion:

“O Almighty God, we give Thee humble thanks for that Thou hast vouchsafed to deliver this woman Thy servant from the great pain and peril of childbirth; grant, we beseech thee, that she may faithfully live, in this life present, and also may be partaker of everlasting glory in the life to come: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Anne rose to enter the church, but he did not move aside. Hate filled his face, something evil swimming just below the surface of his features. Anne heard metal scrape against metal, and his eyes darted past her, behind her in the crowd. Anne closed her eyes in relief. Her Yeoman must have stepped forward. It was enough to frighten the priest into remembering his place.

He stepped aside.

Anne entered the church and inhaled sharply. She had not seen this many people for weeks. They all stared without blush or modesty, eager to see if her figure had been retained and her countenance proud. She had had a girl, after all.

Henry was kneeling at the altar, ready for Mass. Anne walked and knelt at his side. She was grateful to be forbidden to speak here, for she doubted she could say anything at all.

He looked just as she had kept him in her heart: regal, with ermine and scarlet and chains of gold hanging from his wide shoulders.

There was a commotion off to the side, the priests consulting one another. Anne knew the source of the disturbance. The priest conducting the service kept glancing from Anne to Henry to the room crowded with nobles and courtiers.

He approached Henry and whispered to him.

“You ask permission to conduct the service in Latin?” Henry asked. “Why?”

The priest waved his hands in an empty explanation. “I do not know it in English.”

Henry’s brow furrowed. Anne saw his appetite for mystery was awake.

“Do you not know what it means?” Henry asked.

“It is the tongue of angels, my king. It is sufficient that He alone understands.”

“It is sufficient for whom?” Henry asked.

“The words themselves have such meaning, such great power, that merely to hear them will produce the desired effect.”

“My words accomplish much the same effect,” Henry said. “Merely to hear them sets the world in motion around me. And I have a word for you, my priest.”

Henry waved his finger and the priest bent to hear the quiet command. “When you speak to me, you will speak in English, for this is the language of the realm. Latin is the tongue of the Pope and he speaks for Spain and France, not God.”

The priest stood and cleared his throat, again. He would be hoarse by nightfall, Anne thought. He faltered for words, and the hour-long Mass was reduced to a few simple prayers.

“Christ’s body!” he declared, lifting the veil to place the host on Anne’s tongue, as the church bells tolled. He placed the host on Henry’s tongue and gave them the wine to drink.

“Christ’s blood!”

They drank, and Henry leaned toward Anne, lifting the veil away from her face, kissing her on the mouth. Anne caressed his cheek before he pulled away.

Later that night, back in his bed, their bed, Henry loved her with the tenderness of a new husband.

Tucked into the shelter of his frame, rejoicing at his solid arms supporting her, he pulled her closer in.

“The next will be a boy,” she promised.

She shifted her neck to press more of his rough face against her skin, but he propped himself up.

“Anne, I asked you a question!”

“Yes! Yes!” Anne replied, disoriented, trying to pull herself back awake and focus on his form in the dark chamber. She reached out and stroked his hair.

“I asked if you were faithful in prayer,” he repeated.

“I pray, morning and night, that God would grant us a son.”

Henry lowered himself back down, saying nothing. Anne draped herself across him, and waited until at last his arm lifted and went round her again. As she listened to his heart, she remembered that she had left the Hutchins book in her lying-in chamber. She would get rid of it tomorrow; it had caused nothing but turmoil for her. She was ready for peace, and blessings, and sons. Sir Thomas was under arrest, proof that God was working on her behalf. She did not need this book any longer to assure her of His will.

“It can offer me no more than this.” She smiled to herself, feeling Henry’s gentle breaths, and drifted to sleep. A wind kicked up in the gardens below, and she heard animals scampering back into their dens before the storm.

Chapter Twenty-six

Margaret was vomiting, her head hanging over a brown hedge at the edge of the steps. The tutor, Candice, claimed to be suffering from vapors and fled inside, leaving Rose alone and trembling.

She handed the boy a silver groat and he fairly skipped back down to the steps at the bottom of the garden, back on the barge to return to the city. He had been thrilled to deliver the papers because it lined his pocket. His mother might eat well tonight, or his sister. Sir Thomas’s impending death was feeding the world, Rose thought bitterly. They were feasting upon him already.

The papers, signed with a seal from the Star Chamber of King Henry, read:

That he should be carried back to the Tower of London and from thence drawn on a hurdle through the City of London to Tyburn, there to be hanged till he should be half dead; that he should be cut down alive, his privy parts cut off, his belly ripped, his bowels burnt, his four quarters set up over four gates of the City, and his head upon London Bridge.

Rose braced herself and went inside.

“They will be coming! We must save what we can.” Candice was in the room, ghostlike, lifting a silver candlestick and setting it inside a pillowcase. She was taking the silver, leaving the portrait Holbein had done of the family, looking with an ashen face round the room.

“Who will be coming? Who will be coming?” Margaret demanded.

Candice didn’t respond.

Margaret grabbed her, shaking her until Candice’s face settled on hers.

“The king’s men. When your father is dead, all his property is forfeit. You will be turned out,” Candice said.

“But he is not dead yet! There is still hope!” Rose cried.

“Children, go through the house. Bring me everything Father has written to you. All our books too.” Margaret commanded.

Margaret herself ran into his office, bringing out papers and banned books he had hunted. She threw them into a pile in the garden and set it on fire. She grabbed a Hutchins book to throw in, but Rose stopped her.

“What else do we have left to cling to but these words?”

“Look what they have done, Rose! Everything my father did was to prevent these words from being in the hands of little fools like you! And look what mischief they have done! Laws overturned, churches desecrated, priests treated like criminals!”

“But I have read this book, Margaret. It says none of those things. It gives life to those who read it, not death!”

Margaret began to laugh.

“What is amusing?” Rose asked, confused.

Margaret refused to answer. Instead she turned to the children gathered around her, their chins trembling, fingers in their mouths. “I will encourage Father to sign the Act of Supremacy. He was once Henry’s favoured servant, and his life will be spared if he agrees to this. Do not give up hope!”

Rose waited at the edge of the garden. Everything was lifeless. Winter’s rains and winds had stripped the leaves from every plant. Those that remained were curled and brown. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders, waiting for her mistress.

Margaret was looking out over the black water, watching the barge move away into the grey fog. She had received a letter, written in coarse charcoal, from her father. As Margaret read it aloud, Rose came to understood its content in just a few sentences.

He was unwell, dying from the imprisonment. He did not know if he would be well enough to walk to his own execution. They had beheaded Cardinal Fisher this week. The letter said that cannons were fired to alert the king his enemy was dead. That was how Sir Thomas knew his own time was close. At least these were the words that Margaret shared aloud.

Weeks had passed since he had arrived in the Tower, each cold winter week falling upon the next, a stinking pile of frustrations. Margaret was at the end of her third month of helplessness. Sir Thomas still refused to sign the Act. He refused to comment at all on Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn or the break with the church. He found death preferable to a life with his children—this was how Margaret put it to Rose.

Margaret had not yet sent Rose away. Rose did not know why. Rose preferred life on the street, the freedom she had once known, to this prison. There were other women, she knew, women who had lost sons and husbands, who read these same words. Many were in the Tower themselves, dying slow, shameful deaths. If their families had no money, they would not be able to pay the guards for food, or a shawl to keep warm, or even clean straw for a toilet. Rose could help them. She knew how to earn money. Anything could be forgiven to save these martyrs. She would not let these people die the same lonely, unloved, uncertain deaths of her brothers.

Margaret refused to release her. She only smiled, seeing something in Rose’s future that was secret and delicious, wanting to wait for it to spring up.

Rose had kept the Bible, seared at the edges. She read it alone, at night, seeing Margaret’s sneer through the dim candlelight as she glided past.

Now Margaret broke the silence. “There is other news, the boy bringing the letter told me. Servants are falling ill at the palace all around Anne. It begins with a red spotted rash, red eyes, and spots even inside their mouths. It’s from the devil, they say, the stinking pits of hell. They’re afraid of the light, say it hurts their eyes. My only comfort is that Anne Boleyn can no longer hide who or what she is. She is a witch. She has no more victims in the court, so she turns on her servants. She’s already gotten rid of the men who opposed her: Are they not all dead? Cardinal Fisher is dead, Cardinal Wolsey is dead, my father in the Tower, a condemned man. Can you not see her whole and only goal has been to exterminate the church? Father is a good man, a strong man, to resist her to the end.”

Margaret had that faraway sound in her voice, but a new pride in her father was seeping into it.

“What news of the king?” Rose asked. “Has he received your petition for your father’s life?”

“I do not know. Henry has fled to Hampton Court. He wants no part of this new sickness.”

“Margaret, you must release me! I can do no good here! Let me return to the city, where at least I can tend to my people!”

“Your people?” Margaret laughed. “The only family you have are those pock-faced wenches, selling their bodies for a bowl of soup. Your brothers are dead, your son is dead—there is no one left who loves you, Rose.”

“How did you know?”

“Father knew everything about you when you came here. You were his little experiment in social justice, to show those at court that even the basest person could be elevated through education. He used you to gain acceptance for his ideas, his methods. The more nobles paraded through our living room and saw you at your embroidery, or reading your hornbook, the higher father moved through the ranks of court. You served him well, Rose. Or didn’t you?”

Rose slapped her.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve done more for him than you know.” She was smiling. “But if you want to run away, I will take you to the city myself. We have an engagement.”

She shoved the letter to Rose and walked away. Rose read it for herself, stopping with a sharp breath at the end.

The execution date was set.