In the Shadow of Lions Page 5

  “Catherine miscarried a boy two nights ago, another boy. She always conceives but miscarries, except for Princess Mary. Henry has turned cold towards her and offers her no comfort. Catherine knows he has been seduced again. Tomorrow at dawn is the only moment of the year we may cast a witch out.”

  In silence they walked down to the garden and waited for the carriages to be brought round. Anne wondered if they would wait for an hour or more still. Catherine was old, Anne knew, at least forty, and always sleepy after banquets.

  But not today. Catherine came to the garden straightaway and was first in a carriage. Anne strained to see if she was frightened, but her closest ladies-in-waiting kept her shrouded from view.

  The horses took off with a great lurch and the ladies ran to clamber into their own carriages and follow. They went a short distance, about five or six miles, until the road became clogged with wet leaves and the trees were thick all around.

  Catherine alighted first and urged the women to work. The branches had to be gathered while still wet with dew, or they would not work. Anne had no idea what she was to look for and tried to watch the other girls as they worked, but each girl would spy a small tree and remove the choice branches, tucking them into her skirts and dashing to deliver them to Catherine. The creeping fog made it all worse, and the servants held the torches too far away to help Anne see clearly. She arrived at each tree late and gathered nothing. She began to panic, her inexperience marking her out again for ridicule. She wanted to be sent away with honour, Catherine spying some greater piety in her that her sister did not possess. She had never been thought of as the fool, and she panicked to see her plan sliding into some unforeseen pit.

  “Anne, quit thinking of yourself and help us!” one scolded her. “We won’t do your work for you!”

  But the only flowers she knew by sight here were the hawthorn, and they were not yet in bloom. Even then, she had brought nothing to offer the fairies, so it would not be wise to clip one.

  The sun was rising. Catherine called the women back to their carriages, fleeing back to the castle with the witch’s bane as the sun rose. The horses ran with great strength, but the roads were wet and rough, and Anne clung to the side of the carriage. She did not speak. All the words she could say were pooling in her eyes. It did not take the girls long to check and see that Anne had gathered nothing. She tried not to notice their stinging glee.

  God, she prayed silently, I thought I could serve You here, but I was wrong. I dishonour us both. Send me away!

  The horses were covered in sweat when they arrived, their earnest run under the drivers’ whips having exhausted them. The ladies stepped out of their carriages and ran to attend to Catherine as she stepped down. Every girl except Anne carried her branches like a baby in her arms. Witches frightened them as much as the plague; both could steal in, unseen. Witches could make a man fantasize about another woman until he was driven mad with desire and forced to break the bonds of matrimony. Witches lured women to commit foul acts of desire, which led to the birth of misshapen babies and barren wombs. A single witch could undo the work of a hundred saints. Witches were birthed in hell, and every good Christian prayed to send them back there as well.

  The morning sun was appearing over the white palace walls.

  “Ladies!” the queen shouted. “Cast them across every threshold, secure them above the doorposts! And pray the Lord to cast the witch out!”

  A page ran into the courtyard. “Anne Boleyn?” he called.

  Everyone froze, looking at her, their mouths upturned with a hunger for more gossip.

  The page followed their gaze and spoke to her directly. “Do not return to your quarters. You are commanded to submit yourself to Cardinal Wolsey. Forgive me, my queen, but she will not return.”

  “That’s why she didn’t collect any mountain ash,” a girl told another as Anne walked past. “She’s the witch.”

  “I belong to God!” Anne cried. With this, she touched the cross at her neck, still buried in the peeping layers of her bodice.

  Catherine walked to her, an eyebrow raised, and jerked the necklace off Anne’s neck. She lifted it so all the girls could see. “It is Henry’s!” she cried out, and the girls screamed.

  Cardinal Wolsey’s study was a sunlit room on a floor above the women’s quarters. Spread with braided rushes, the floor was littered over again with herbs, including fat fresh buds of cloves that crushed under her footfall, spreading a warm fragrance around her as she entered. The room smelled like a French perfumery and was decorated with so much gold and paint that it would rival any French woman. It comforted Anne to be in a room so familiar, even if she knew the man only by reputation.

  Everyone in the French court knew of Cardinal Wolsey, who was the scorn of Martin Luther and the salvation of Henry’s reign. Wolsey taught Henry to rule England and restrained Henry’s appetites but then stamped Henry’s thick wax seal on his own secret pleasures. Wolsey was one step away from becoming the Pope. Anne wondered what he would do with his mistresses and children when the appointment was announced. Men could forgive other men so easily. She sighed. Power was its own righteousness.

  Cardinal Wolsey was working on his papers as she entered and did not look up until she stood before him. He rose and she knelt, biting her lip and pressing her eyes closed for one last prayer for mercy. Had he found the forbidden Hutchins book? It was outlawed here, but surely these laws did not apply to the court. She had not meant to offend these men. She had hoped she would be the friend whose company was sought after midnight, when girls with candles told stories and read aloud from books kept under mattresses. She had not known what powers it had, so she was afraid to throw it away, lest it mark her for vengeance and return. Her brother, George, was afraid of it. She should have listened.

  “Anne Boleyn.” He spoke it plainly, without question or accusation.

  She felt it safe to reply and agree to it. “Yes.”

  “You have been in our court only a few weeks, returned from several years at court in France, is it?”

  Anne nodded. So far there was no hint of her fate.

  “Yet you have made a distinct impression on everyone you have met.” His words were sour.

  Anne could not help it. She tried to keep her face down so he would not see her cry, but her shoulders were shaking.

  His heavy hand rested on her shoulder. He was a portly man, with jowls that began back behind his ears and fulminated in a point just under his chin that wobbled as he gestured. She looked up into his eyes, deeply etched with wrinkles and sagging skin, and saw they had a luminous, sweet quality she did not expect.

  “My child.” He patted her. “There is still time to repent.” He gestured to a chair. “Sit down.”

  She sat in the chair pushed closest to his desk, and he paced as he continued. How could she repent? Anne thought to herself. Even her innocence must stink to God for Him to continually punish her for it. She wanted to unburden everything to the cardinal, to take confession and know forgiveness. She trusted his kind face. He was a man who could make anything right.

  “I know your father. He has supported the church in every hour of need and has suffered under the indifferent treatment of this king.”

  Anne understood him to mean her sister, unworthy of a good match and financially dependent on a king who had grown completely tired of her after the first few nights.

  “Anne, use your wits. Your family will be ruined by this.” His voice was tender.

  She started to declare a vow of repentance, but a page entered.

  Wolsey rested his face in his hands before he spoke, rubbing his eyes before assuming a cold demeanor. “You are to inform Lord Percy that his betrothal to Anne Boleyn will not be recognized by King Henry. Percy must return the dowry. Next time, he should consult his monarch before making a match that would affect the alliances of the nobles.”

  The page nodded and scampered to his errand.

  Before Anne could utter more than a strangled pr
otest, Wolsey continued, to her, “You will no longer be housed with Catherine’s ladies. You can thank me for this, for though Henry desires you, he does not consider how you must live. I have arranged private apartments on these grounds where you will be comfortable. Henry will allow you no visitors. Still, this is better than what the women will do to you when they find out.”

  “Find out what?” Anne asked.

  “That you’re Henry’s mistress.”

  I ground my teeth in frustration. Two-thousand dollars for retainers and hypnosis treatments had not cured me of that. “What an arrogant man! Claiming her like that and ruining her reputation. I’m glad I didn’t live back then.”

  “It’s much better to live today, to be the one who steals and ruins?” the Scribe asked. “You have done so well with your liberty.”

  “I’m not going to talk about that.”

  “But why? You want people to know. You want them to understand what you felt, because it means so much to you. Emotion is law to this generation. I feel, therefore I act. I do not feel pain, therefore it must be okay. Tell me what you felt, Bridget. It matters so very much now, doesn’t it?”

  Hearing my name startled me.

  “Not at all,” I lied. “This is your story, not mine. Continue.”

  Chapter Seven

  “I need fresh air,” she pleaded. “This is a catacomb.”

  A Yeoman shut the door behind him as he left. He had appeared when Wolsey escorted her from his office and had not left her side yet. He was a man of considerable height, with a face red from the sun and white whiskers around his chin. His hair peeked out from his hat, and she could tell it was a reddish colour, though flecked also with white. His face was familiar to her, with deep lines under his eyes and around his mouth, a face made gentle by years of harsh treatment and bitter weather. He was, she decided, a true son of England, as content to serve others as to rule them.

  The apartment was gilded in every possible way: Gold bullions ran along the ceiling, woods carved with delicate patterns set off by the gild. The chairs were set off in gold, with green silk cushions and tassels. The bed was monstrous, crafted of dark wood, with starbursts carved into the top finials and lions’ feet resting on the floor at each corner. Anne pulled back the sheer curtains that ran along all four sides of the bed to peer in. Along the headboard, running along the highest beam, were the words Dread God. Love God. Blessed be God!

  There were silk tapestries hung from the walls showing the great miracles of Christ and embroidered rugs at her feet showing Hercules’ great deeds. In any direction she was wooed by the money fairly dripping from the place, and the first bloomed roses cut and displayed at her bedside and table and on perches throughout the apartment. She did not know where these had come from; someone must have ridden a distance to find a warmer garden in bloom. Anne breathed in deeply as she tried to steady her mind from this rapid turning of events.

  Their fragrance was thick—and the first sweet thing she had found in England. She walked to the vase at the bedside and touched the cool petals. They were softer than any linen on her bed. Working only with mud and storms and heat, God crafted such wonder that no craftsman could duplicate, though he had all the materials in the world. Anne smiled and thought her life was misspent; she should have been a butterfly. Contented to fly for a few days, with nectar for wine and blossoms for blankets, she would not protest a short life. And she would not make so many mistakes.

  “Anne,” a deep voice said.

  The voice startled her and she screamed, bumping against the table she leaned on so that the roses spilled onto the floor.

  Henry entered, taking slow, circling, deliberate steps, like a hunter watching a fallen deer to know how deep the arrow had gone. Anne grabbed the vase, lying on its side on the table, and hurled it at him.

  He edged closer.

  “Get away from me!” Anne screamed.

  Other guards looked in, smiled at each other, and resumed their posts beside her Yeoman.

  “I will have nothing to do with you!” she yelled.

  “Sit down, Anne.” Henry stopped and motioned for her to sit. The gesture carried the command of his office. She sat on the edge of the bed and cursed the table chair for being too far away. She didn’t like even sitting on a bed in front of him. She wished there were no bed in the room at all, no suggestion of the things he must be thinking.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked her.

  She gasped without meaning to. “I don’t want anything from you,” she spat.

  He waited. “Everyone wants something, Anne.”

  Anne’s mouth twisted. “If I tell you what I want, will you let me have it?”

  “Of course,” he replied.

  “I want to be sent away from here. I want to marry Lord Percy. And I never want to see you again.”

  “You can’t return home, Anne. There are too many rumours circulating about you.” He moved a little closer, and Anne sat up straight. “We’ll have to repair that…. You don’t love Lord Percy.” He was only a few steps from her. “I didn’t even need to meddle in that, save for canceling the marriage contract because you were too weak to do it yourself.”

  “I certainly don’t love you,” she said.

  He turned to walk away.

  “Wait!” she called out. “You promised to give me what I asked for!”

  “No, Anne.” He smiled. “I promised to give you what you want. And I will.” He walked to the door, his hand on the frame when he looked back to her. “You are a true maid?”

  She scrambled to grab something else from the desk to throw at him. He ducked as he pushed the door open. Anne listened to it lock from the outside.

  The afternoon faded, and an unwelcome night spread around her. It was cold, the cold of a spring not fully resolved to allow summer to enter. Spring was inconstant in England, with all the charms and frustrations of pretty girls who flirt one day and play petulant the next. Still, all loved her and greedily awaited her favour.

  Wolsey had sent her a few books, knowing that her years in France had given her a man’s education, just one of the little scandals the French were known to cause. There was a book in the satchel from Sir Thomas More called Utopia. Anne found it a strange turn from a man well known for torturing men in his gatehouse when their ideologies conflicted with his own. One man had died before More could torture him properly, so More had dug him up and burned him, dead—yet still he publicly promoted his idea of a peaceable utopia.

  There was a tract, in Latin, on repentance and the miracles Christ performed when saints turned back to Him with their whole hearts. Anne wished the author had considered that sometimes Christ didn’t want the saint back. This, at least, was what she felt.

  Her own book, the forbidden Hutchins book, was not in her things. Someone had it. Someone knew her secret. The book would not forget her; she had a shadowy feeling the book was not done with her. She would see it again.

  She sighed; none of these dead books inspired tonight. She tried to sleep but could not get warm. She blew out the candle and listened, shivering in her bed, tears evaporating on her cheeks, leaving her cold and miserable. There was an owl nearby who hooted to her and the insects keening together. No human voice could be heard, and Anne was glad. She fell asleep, still shivering, murmuring the prayers she had been taught in France.

  Only once did she wake, when she had grown too warm under her blankets. In the darkness she heard the redwings singing as they flew away, the last of them leaving now that the weather was turning warmer. “See! See! See it!” they called, their tiny voices singing as they flew on.

  Anne reached down to pull a blanket off, wondering dully how she had come to be under such a blanket, when there had been nothing but a silk coverlet she remembered seeing on the bed. But her mind was occupied with matters greater than blankets, and she returned to these thoughts in her sleep.

  Three more days and nights passed. Every morning about five, when the sun was beginning t
o light the clouds that rested on the far horizon, Anne heard the horses and the men, saddling for a day of hunting. Henry was always among them. She could tell when he walked among them: their voices became soft, even as he thundered about. Every evening, near six, when the sun had made a start on its setting, she heard them return, the horses exhausted and breathing hard, Henry bellowing about what he shot or missed. He was escorted into the castle and all was quiet again. These glances through the glass windows with iron scrolls protecting her were her only glimpses of the world.

  The eighth morning she sat at the table, brushing her black hair out, studying her face in the mirror. She didn’t care much for the proportions or effect. The ladies of fashion had pale, powdered skin and fair hair, just as Queen Catherine had. Anne could not undo everything God had set in her, so she regarded herself with only fleeting care. She found greater pleasure in reading and sports, and neither activity required her to be beautiful.

  She was still in her thin shift and had no time to cover herself when the door opened. He stood there.

  “Anne.”

  She glared at him, once, before the view behind him drew her eye. She saw the sun was not yet too high, and the roses were all in bloom. The breeze entered, dancing past him and parading around her chamber.

  “Come with me on a walk,” he said.

  She stood, shoving the chair back in her hurry.

  He held up a hand. “You really should dress.”

  She ground her teeth in humiliation, keeping her eyes away from his. In court, no one was ever to look a king in the eyes, but Henry was known for his bald staring. He kept control this way, the servants said, for he watched every courtier to know their mind even before they spoke.

  “Turn around,” she said, meeting his eyes as she delivered the command.

  He turned.

  Anne slipped a petticoat on, crushing it between her knees so she could pull up the farthingale next. She yanked her bodice down after that, and noticed it was not as tight as last week. Days of anxiety in this prison had left her weak and thin. But she could walk. She would not have to talk, or listen, but she could walk in the open air. She was not altogether dressed, but there was no need to present her best self.