In the Shadow of Lions (9 page)

She held her head straight ahead as she walked in the street and still wore a ribbon in her hair, even when she hadn’t eaten for days. But she was terrified. A seamstress admired her blue silk dress, mistaking her for a woman of quality, and had allowed her to sleep on the floor of her shop, but the miserable work piecing pearls on gowns could not feed two mouths, nor drive away the wet, fevered coughs that claimed so many children here.

The child needed a baptism and a doctor. The doctor could bring medicine, but she would not have the money for this and his baptism. Purgatory was a danger more real to her than death. She had lived in purgatory; she could not sentence her son to an eternity there.

She watched the baby breathe. His eyes were closed, the lashes dark little tendrils that nearly touched his cheeks. His fingers were impossibly small and perfect. She kissed him and held him against her breasts, rocking him as she draped her robe around them both. His flesh was so sweet and soft and new. She would not let him go even as death, a tender, shadowed nurse, came gently for him.

“Please,” she whispered, “a little more time. I must find a priest.” She sensed Death pause for her, and though it was near, she was not afraid. She called for a neighbour, and when the woman poked her head through the thin curtain sheltering Rose from the others, Rose told her to find the priest.

The baby’s movements grew less frequent. When the priest came, she held the baby firmly in her arms for the baptism. Then she had slept, feeling strong arms encircling them both, pressing them together so she could not separate the baby’s heart from hers. She never felt it cease, only that it joined hers and beat on and on. She had held him until their hearts and breath aligned, his growing fainter and freer. She knew the instant his soul had flown away like a little bird in winter. She did not know if she had dreamed this.

This is why Christ hung there and never came down, she thought. He hung in agony so that those in grief could not accuse Him of less. He hung, rent open, and men were comforted by the sight. In this bitter life, who could love a God who did not suffer?

She hoped she would never see Wolsey again, or Grimbald, or the inside of a church. She was done with men and their God.

Rose realized Sir Thomas’s foot was tapping. These memories fled, and she faced the men as if she had forgotten it all. “Madmen?” she answered. “Yes, there were madmen. And sinners and thieves. The church welcomed them all. This is what I saw.”

She didn’t know why she said it. Wolsey’s face, hard-set and ready to defend himself against the truth, softened into the face she had once glimpsed and dared to hope in. He smiled at her, and she knew, the way women who have given themselves do, that he desperately wanted a smile in return.

“Sir Thomas has given you a chance for a new life,” he said to her. “May his name be praised. I pray you, make good use of it.”

“Yes, but Rose,” More continued, his thoughts plainly too far away to see what was happening in his study. “Were there any heretics among you? Those who read Hutchins?”

Rose held Wolsey’s gaze.

“Yes.”

She didn’t know why she had done that. Was she a weak woman, or a fool? Later she wanted that moment back, wanted to crush Wolsey with her words, wanted to scream her truth and hear the words out loud.

But she knew the truth. She wanted this new life more than she wanted revenge for the old. She wanted another chance, and she feared her only way to get it was to give one to Wolsey, too. She prayed, the second surprise of the day.

Jesus.

It was the only word she knew, the only word not spoken in Latin in the Masses she had attended.
I cannot stop sinning,
she prayed
. I just sinned to buy grace. I let my son die to buy him grace. I let my brothers die to find them a cure. Everywhere, grace and redemption are soiled by my hands. Help me. Help me stop.

The next morning she sat on her bed looking out the window. It was late in the morning, but water still beaded on the panes, making her crane her neck to catch sight of the trees below. Though it was the end of April, winter and spring still wrestled for the trees. Green leaves had unfolded on all the trees, and only a few had dead brown branches—the stragglers that the last frost had bitten. There were several boulders placed below the trees in her view. She wondered how the men had moved them all into place, for they were large and rough-edged. Moss and green tendrils grew up all around them, content that the boulders would be unmovable features of their world.

A knock at Rose’s door made her jerk, and she grabbed her skirt to be sure she was modestly covered, with no calve or ankle showing.

“Margaret!” she exclaimed, opening her arms as the girl walked in. She was a sweet sight after a night of tears. Margaret rested in Rose’s arms for a moment as Rose inhaled the scent of her hair, powdered and perfumed with roses. Rose relaxed in the softness of the girl, her warm, steady breath, and was surprised love was again in her heart. It had been gone for years and its return made her laugh out loud.

Margaret pushed away, her face serious. “Who does Father whip at the gatehouse?”

“What?” Rose asked.

“I saw him. There is another man at the gatehouse. He was whipped last night, lashed to Father’s Tree of Truth. Did you not hear his cries to God?”

Rose shook her head. She had heard only her own. She wondered who God would answer first. “Has it happened before?” she asked.

“Sometimes. Father says it is a great mercy, for if he turned the men over to Wolsey, they’d be racked. At least here their punishment is over swiftly, and they have much time to recant. Father thinks everyone will worship properly again if they can be broken first.”

The prisons she had seen in Southwark were visions of hell. A whipping here would end; those who entered the gates of a prison were lost forever. Only a gravecloth was ever returned, and this went to the priest as payment for his final services. Guards stole the boots and cloaks.

“I don’t understand, Margaret. What is their crime?”

Margaret sat next to her on the bed. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes,” Rose replied.

“They are guilty of reading a book, that’s all. A book by a man named Hutchins. Father knew him. He even visited us the summer that Mother died. Hutchins believed every person could approach God and know Him intimately. Father said God could make no sense to the average man. We must be led by wiser men.”

“If they are being whipped for reading it, it is no secret,” Rose replied.

Margaret squirmed, biting at her cheek.

Rose frowned and reached to assure Margaret, but Margaret pulled away. “Margaret, what is the real secret?”

Margaret grew still and set her face in a cold frown. “I am a little bit afraid, although he promises to keep me safe.”

“Margaret!” Rose shook her. “What is your secret?”

“He is like Father in many ways, you know. Father hates him, but he does not know him like I do. The book is superb, Rose. It will open your eyes. You’ll never think of God the same way again.”

Rose’s stomach turned. She had smelled death when she had first cracked open the spine of a book. She wondered what man would be so bold—or so careless—as to leave such a record of his thoughts and heart so that any man, anywhere, could know them. To see a book open was to see a shield laid down. It made no sense to Rose why anyone would wish to be exposed to their enemies this way. If men could see what was in the heart of the world, they would leave the books closed and the inkwells dry.

Rose jumped from the bed and grabbed the hornbook from her table. Racing into Margaret’s room, she began pulling as many books from the shelves as she could, lifting her skirts to carry them in. She ran to the family room, throwing them into the fireplace, which roared and sprang up, nearly catching the edge of her skirts as she worked. Margaret screamed when she saw what Rose was doing, and the children came running, Sir Thomas just behind them. The fire was blazing out, high and hungry, when Sir Thomas pinned Rose’s arms to her sides, dragging her back from the flames. A book fell from the fire, its pages lined in burning red, sparks biting along its edges as it smoked.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

Margaret was crying. Rose looked around at the children and the other servants, all staring at her with furrowed brows and deep, angry frowns.

“All of you, to your rooms,” he ordered.

Alone, he stared at her but did not release his grip. She didn’t want him to; she wanted to be shaken from her fear, her dread broken by his hands.

“It is the books, Sir Thomas,” Rose began. “A man in your gatehouse is paying in blood for this man Hutchins, and your own children are curious about the book! I burned these books, and I would burn more, if it can save the children from their influence! They must not be tempted by the world beyond this one.”

She didn’t notice his crushing grip on her arms; it would be only later she would see the bruising. His face was so near hers that his breath washed over her neck and bodice. She had been overpowered by men in a life that was far away. She had never been forced to stillness at that moment so that a man could see what was in her eyes.

“You are salvation to me,” she whispered.

For a long moment they stared at each other, his heart beating through his doublet, the heat of his body touching hers. He was pulling her closer in so that she was pressed against him, the distances between them being sealed off and forgotten.

Her knees were weak, but she did not fall; his grip on her was too tight. She stopped trying to stand on her own and let him take her weight, lifting her face to kiss him on the mouth. She needed this kiss, needed to be taken hold of and firmly fixed in his world of grace. She could see his lips parting as he leaned down, and she closed her eyes.

Then Sir Thomas shoved her away, a push so fierce it landed her on the floor. He did not look down as he left the room.

Rose didn’t move from her bed, not for supper or evening prayers. No one came to fetch her. She watched as the red sunset faded through the garden and she could no longer see the trees that danced in the night breeze. Only the birds, still singing, were oblivious to the boundaries of More’s home. She wondered what they had seen today in London. Had they seen madmen and lost women, or mothers whose arms were as empty as their stomachs? Where would they go when they left here? She hoped they would fly to the bosom of God and tell. She wished she could follow, but she saw the world and doubted God would receive her. She stank of it.

How long she lay in this position, curled into a ball, her face towards the garden, she did not know. In total darkness a noise had stirred her mind and she awoke.

It was a dull keening, the soft groaning of a man. The hairs on her arm lifted, and Rose closed her eyes, listening hard to know where the sound came from. It was somewhere beyond her room, beyond perhaps the walls of the house. She eased her feet off the bed and pried the door back, careful to make no noise. As she crept down the hall, she saw that everyone was asleep and in several rooms the candles had burned out. The servants snored like drunks; Rose did not doubt a few of them kept refreshments under their mattresses for lonely nights such as this.