In the Shadow of Lions (27 page)

Chaper Twenty-seven

Anne looked away as her servants emptied the bowl. She could not stop retching. The river winds rocking the boat were a curse to her.

Her servants fanned her religiously though it was cold. Anne should have been shivering, but she was hot. Nothing comforted her or calmed her stomach. When they pulled into the dock of Hampton Court and the guards rushed to help the women out, Anne exhaled her sigh of relief.

She was out of the barge before the men could open the door to her litter. She slipped on the wet grass, but another boy caught her, blushing with shame. Anne wondered if it was modesty or if he, too, had heard the rumours.

Anne would not allow these thoughts. They would be treason, punishable by death. To accuse Anne of infidelity put Henry’s line of succession in question. It could unseat him and plunge the realm into civil war. Anne kept a close ear to the rumours, trying to ferret out the source, but she could not. It was as if the devil himself were at court whispering in people’s ears.

The sun broke through the heavy clouds, touching her face. Anne stopped and inhaled, letting the breath go deep within, like a draught of crisp spring water. All would be well yet.

The litter whisked her through the entrance into base court, shielding her from the awful odours that could waft up from the Great Hall of Easement. Anne stepped out, her mind and stomach swimming as she was assaulted by the vast number of turrets, windows, and chimneys all around. The faces of dead Roman emperors glared at her from high above as the water clock struck the hour, telling her the tide was turning. Anne was glad to be done with the trip.

The cobbled courtyard made her unsteady on her feet; her pattens dug into her soft soles and she minced her steps, reaching out for her Yeoman. His arm was like an iron bar, and she clung to it.

From a dark staircase a throng of people burst forth, Henry and Jane in the center.

Anne tried to smile, but the skin was stretched thin across her lips.

The two groups stopped, and neither side of courtiers knew the protocol for the moment. It was Henry who moved first. He dropped the hand of Jane, who receded into the shadows, fleeing with soft giggles among her maids.

“Anne. Are you well? I heard rumours of measles at the palace.”

“I couldn’t stay there.”

He circled, cocking his head as he studied her. “Why? Why would you follow me here?”

“Come and kiss your wife, Henry.” She extended her arms to him.

“How does Elizabeth fare?” he asked. “Is she well?”

“Her nursemaid says she’s grown with great vigor!” she replied, waiting.

Henry took her arms, pulling her in, kissing her on the mouth in full view of her court and the women who giggled in the windows above. Anne could see their white faces, set on either side of Wolsey’s coat of arms, little fat cherubs hoisting his name above her. She turned her body a bit to the side so none of them would miss what she did next.

She moved Henry’s hand to her belly, just beginning to swell. She tried a bright smile, hoping it would distract her from being sick. Jane’s perfume was nauseating.

The sky in winter could be so impossibly blue that she was sure England was the only jewel in Christ’s crown. The sun was high, warming her cold arms and face, and her heart.

“Winter is ending—can you feel it?” she asked, reaching out and touching the barren twigs of the garden. “There is life within.”

Henry cast a glance behind them, up at the windows.

“I want that girl gone, and any like her, Henry.”

“Which girl?”

“It makes me unwell to see all these bosoms and pursed lips around you. We must be more careful this time. And you must join me, my good king, at night. We can read to each other and play cards. Your company is good medicine.”

“I have things to tend to.”

“What greater matter is there than your heir?” She slipped her arm through his. “It will be a glorious spring.”

The nausea began to stop. The baby was kicking every hour, and she loved the first swishes of its limbs in her womb. Her maids slept well but she did not, exhausting herself in her prayers, praying for the movements to tell her if the child was a boy.

Henry often slipped from the bed early in the evening. She did not ask where he went, for she had rid the court of the seducing women that plagued her. Instead she would steal his pillow, inhaling his scent, and return to sleep.

In the early hours of dawn, just before the turtledoves returned to the garden, she dreamed.

She was floating in the Thames, trying desperately to reach an empty barge. Others were in the water, and she heard their cries, but she cared only about the barge, about securing herself in it. Ahead of her was London Bridge, black and monstrous, its limbs plunging deep into the swirling water, lording its might over those in the river. It would not raise to let the ships through, and they scraped its belly as they crumpled under it, with sparks and groans littering the air ahead.

She grasped the barge, heaving herself in, and saw that Elizabeth was holding onto its edge. She reached to save her, but Elizabeth slipped away, under the black waters, and was lost to her.

“Oh, God!” she cried out, awakened. Her heart was beating too fast. She tried to steady herself, lest she harm the baby, and began to cry.

“I do not know what it means!” she said to the dark room.

Nothing stirred.

“Do not show me this, and give me no hope! Tell me what it means!”

Something stirred in the darkness beside her bed, and as an enormous hand passed over her face, Anne fell into a deep sleep.

He spoke.
“It is a dream of Noah, Anne. Have you not read? ‘By faith Noah honoured God, after that he was warned of things which were not seen, and prepared the ark to the saving of his household, through which ark, he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which cometh by faith.’”

She knew his voice, and it comforted her. He continued.

“‘Wherefore let us also (seeing that we are compassed with so great a multitude of witnesses) lay away all that presseth down, and the sin that hangeth on, and let us run with patience unto the battle that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, which for the joy that was set before him, abode the cross, and despised its shame, and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God. Consider therefore how that he endured such speaking against him of sinners, lest ye should be wearied and faint in your minds. For ye have not resisted unto blood-shedding, striving against sin.’”

He said nothing more, and Anne remained in her sleep until morning, the words replaying in her mind, with no dreams to interrupt them.

When she awoke, she refused breakfast until her servants had found and delivered the book. She began reading, determined to unlock its secrets. She had flirted around it for too long, embraced the fashion and form of the new learning and the men of the book, without becoming one of them herself.

She had not gotten deep into the book when her Yeoman opened the door to her chamber, and Henry entered. His face told her the news was not good, and her hand instinctively went to her belly. That was silly, she knew, for if anything had happened to the child, she would have known first. But she feared he had heard an omen or dreamed vividly, as she had.

He stopped when he saw she was reading the Hutchins book and exhaled.

“What is it, Henry?”

“It is nothing. Matters of state.”

“Why don’t we take a walk in the gardens?”

“It is not warm enough yet. Perhaps later in the day. Would you like for me to read to you?”

“No, no,” she said.

He rose to leave but Anne caught his hand. “Henry.”

“Let me be!” He left with a hurried stride.

She walked to her window, pausing to let a bit of sickness sweep over her and pass. There were men outside in the courtyard, and she could not decide who they were. By their livery, they served Henry, but she did not recognize their voices.

“It happened last week. Every petition of Henry’s failed.”

“They will declare war on us.”

“No, no, they won’t. They did this to spite him. And her.”

“They say an Englishman paid for it. Henry will be looking for him.”

“Nay. Henry knows exactly where this man is. He just doesn’t know how he did it.”

Something or someone must have alerted the men and they stopped talking. When Anne leaned out further, to hear any last bit, they looked up and saw her. One man crossed himself and fled. The others froze, staring in horror at her pale face in the window.

A servant came in, carrying a tray of breakfast. He saw the book laying on Anne’s bed, and the tray shook in his hands, the crockery bumping against each other. A bit of wine spilled from her pewter cup and onto her linens.

He looked up at Anne in fear. “Begging your pardon, my queen! Forgive me!”

Anne saw her chance. “You’ve ruined my linens.”

“I’m so very sorry, my queen!”

“What’s your name?”

“John, and it please you.”

“Well, John, I can have you thrown in the Tower or cast outside naked, depending on my mood. Which would you prefer?”

His answer stuck in his throat.

“Or you can tell me a little news, to amuse your queen after disturbing her so greatly.”

“I, I could tell news! Um, the cooks have ordered new pewter goblets for Hampton Court that—”

She cut him off. “No. What has happened that has the court talking in whispers? Last week, something was done that made Henry mad. It was done in another country. Some say it was to spite me.”

He shook his head, but Anne could see it was from fear, not because he had no reply.

“I have always been a merciful queen. You have nothing to fear by telling me the truth.”

He looked at his feet, and Anne could see the colour rising in his face. She waited.

With a quick glance at the door and back to her, he confessed it.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The early spring air was chilly, but beads of sweat dotted Rose’s upper lip. No one stirring in the house had the stomach for breakfast. The servants had set the table anyway, and bowls of porridge steamed, their vapors dispersing into the air above them. Rose could not look at them.

No one had slept; this was plain on their pinched, tear-stained faces. But a noise from the back bedroom caught her ear. Dame Alice, back from her travels, was snoring loudly. She must have drunk much wine and exhausted herself from packing. Rose did not expect the woman to be there when she returned today.

Sir Thomas had been held at Lambeth palace. Rose heard much news of him through the messengers that ran continually up and down the river below the gardens. All of London was picking and piecing together the story of their favoured scholar being treated as a criminal. Some told it differently. The fiend of London, who scourged the innocent and broke the weak, was at last suffering too.

Rose closed her mind to their interpretations; what did they know of him? Indeed, what did she know of him? His secrets clung too closely about him, and she had never been able to draw near. But she knew some facts of these recent weeks: Henry had given him space and reason to reconsider his rejection of Henry’s supremacy over the church. Sir Thomas did not have to reject the church or reject Henry as monarch; he could have both, if only he would admit that Henry had the right to reign unfettered in the realm. The law of the land would begin and end in the king, not priests.

Rose could not understand the refusal. Sir Thomas could still have his church, so why deny the king his realm? More believed the Scriptures were the only ultimate law, yet he forbade people to read them. He believed harmony was the essential element of utopia, yet he rejected offers to reconcile. He educated his daughters and showed mercy to the orphan, yet drew his own blood every night and tortured those who sought a new world. Rose was sick in her stomach. More had made everyone, and everything, to conform to his own image, but he had never seen himself clearly.

She had seen a glimpse of the man and he had stirred her heart. His passion and appetite was tempered severely by his mind and will. If only he had allowed himself to love, Rose thought, a new man would have emerged. But appetite and passion were lawlessness to him, so he struggled to scourge them from his heart.

He loved law above all else. Henry wanted law and order kept too, and kept under one rule. Why did it matter who administered the Scripture? Would it not be the same? Why did More predict such death if the Book that gives life was given to the people? Rose shook her head to clear herself of the questions without answers. The only answer was that this story of free salvation had condemned More to his imprisonment and death.

Last night a boy had run up the steps from the dock, shouting that he had news of good report. He made sure he was paid before he gave them the news, eyeing the half-angel, glancing back to see if there would be more. Rose still knew how to frighten a greedy urchin, and she drew herself up, pushing her face into his with a glare. He dispensed the news and fled.

“In recognition of his good service, Sir Thomas will be beheaded. What great mercy from the king! He is spared the death of lesser men! It will happen tomorrow; he will be brought to the Tower by barge. His family is not allowed to attend.”

And so this morning had come, with the children sitting in the parlour looking like ghosts, and Dame Alice stinking drunk and snoring.

Margaret did not speak to Rose but dressed quietly. When Rose went down the steps to the dock, Margaret was behind her. There was nothing Rose could say. She had learned her letters, and even learned to form words from them, but there were none in her learning that could comfort. What word had she missed? What should she have been taught, or what lesson did she miss? It was wrong to sit in the barge in this freezing silence. There must be words for this. But none came.

It was raining, an annoying drizzle that pelted her cheeks despite the covering over the barge. The drops found their way in, swatted by the winds, landing on her face and hands, soaking through her cloak little by little. She drew her legs in and tucked her hands under her arms. The sky was a brilliant grey that made the winter limbs of the trees, budding in green, glow against its palette. Birds circled over the river, pecking among the floating debris for their breakfast. She tried not to imagine it, but she knew by lunch his blood would be washed away into this same river. Guards would be washing their boots of him, stones would be covered with fresh straw, and Sir Thomas—the man who had lived for a vision of the future—would fade into London’s past.

Now the Tower was ahead, its white stones looking like the weathered bones of a giant stacked neatly one upon the other. It looked immense to her as she sat perched in a tiny barge, and her stomach began to flip. She couldn’t keep her balance easily as she stepped off onto the slippery dock. The world seemed to be turning too fast under her, her legs unable to hold onto firm ground. Margaret was behind her and accepted Rose’s hand with a hard grip as she stepped onto shore.

Rose held it for a moment longer than she needed to. She held onto Margaret’s hand, wanting to hold her here, before the day made her coarse. Margaret would not return to these steps as she was. She would return as an orphan, fury being her constant companion. The bile of bitterness would constantly rise in her throat, giving her a frozen, mean look. Rose knew. She had seen these women. She had been one when More found her.

They pushed their way from the Old Swan Stairs to a platform above which they could watch for More to be brought here. A crowd was already gathered, mainly boys who shifted from odd jobs and found themselves with leisure when they cared for it. Today would be too juicy to miss. How many of them had been clapped into irons by More when they stole bread or robbed an old mother? He lectured in the courts about the need for law and justice, and today he would get a good taste of its blade.

More’s barge came into view, and the boys went wild, catcalling and hurling insults. Other people came, hearing the noise, waiting for a sign that More had at last come to the Tower. Sir Thomas held his head high, looking them all in the eye, one by one, until his gaze fell onto Margaret and Rose. Rose saw his chin tremble and he looked away.

The constable of the Tower led More off the barge. Rose saw More had not faired well in his captivity. His frame was much thinner, and he walked with great effort. His shift was thin and a cheap-looking wool, not thick enough for the cold nights he had spent sleeping on soiled straw.

The constable led him through Old Swan Lane to Thames Street, the crowd growing with every step. One man brandished an unlit torch, his face contorted in hatred. She drew in a sharp breath. The man’s other arm hung limp at his side. He was surely one of the heretics who had walked this path himself, scorned and carrying the torch More threatened to light under his feet someday.

The entrance to the Tower was upon them. Margaret broke through guards and knelt at her father’s feet. The crowd was pushing and screaming, and Rose fought to get near to hear his words. He placed his hand on Margaret’s head as if to pronounce a blessing over her. She rose and kissed him on the cheek.

“Be off! No family is permitted to watch!” the constable ordered.

“This woman,” More said, “this woman is not family. Pray allow her to attend me in my final moments.” He was pointing to Rose. The constable looked between More and Rose, chewing his lip. He grunted and nodded an agreement.

More motioned for Rose to draw near. Trembling, she started to kneel before him as well, but he grasped her, hard, and drew her face to his—he stank of rot and sour decay—and put his mouth over her ear.

“My Rose.” His voice was breaking.

Rose threw her arms around him, supporting him as he leaned further in, his thin frame rattled by a wet, bubbling cough. There was still something of the old man there, the man always at the edge of revealing himself, the one whose hunger for life was not restrained by order. It was this man she held.

He took another breath and spoke in her ear again. “Hutchins is dead, Rose. You paid for his betrayal and burning. It was my last wish, for I could not leave this world to meet God if this man were still alive. Everyone knows it was you, Rose. You will never be safe among the heretics. I saved you from yourself.”

She tried to push him off her, her mouth open for a scream, but his bony hands dug into her skin, forcing her to hear every last word, forcing them to resonate in her ear.

The constable, seeing More falling onto Rose, and Rose unable to bear the weight, pulled More up and off her, and began the final procession to the scaffold.

“Pray for me in this world, good men,” More called out, his words taking what life he had left. “I will pray for you in the next. I die the king’s good servant, and God’s first.”

He knelt at the stained block and began murmuring in Latin. If he was repeating Scripture, he alone knew what it meant.

The executioner was receiving final instruction from the constable, and More stood on his feet, rising fast. The crowd screamed, thinking he would run. The constable lurched and grabbed him, but More spoke something that calmed him, and he released More, who kissed the executioner on his cheek.

The executioner was wearing a red robe, spattered and stained. He was a local man, rumoured to be a barber in his other hours, who did not waste his fees on washing. Henry despised More in this, that he would give a common man the task of taking off his head.

“Be not afraid to do thine office,” More said to the man.

He knelt again, laying his head on the block, looking at Rose. She froze, her heart stopping its rhythm, everything in her perched to watch the end of his days.

With one swing, More’s head was off and in a basket.

A wind swept over the crowd, like the beating of the wings of a great bird, and a wave of peace rippled over them all, who did not know its taste. All were dumbfounded at that moment.

The executioner above them looked confused but grabbed the head to finish his job and get home. “Here be a traitor!” he pronounced.

This shook free the crowd from their pause. Their bloody appetites awakened, they forgot the sudden, fleeting taste of grace.