In the Shadow of Lions (16 page)

She began the ascent up the stairs, the air growing thicker and warmer. Her Yeoman had motioned for her to step aside and let him lead her, but she had declined. He followed as she sneaked into a private box. She kept her back to the wall so no one would see her, but it afforded her a good view. There was a semicircle of chairs at the end of the church, and all pews had been moved along the sides to provide seating for the court members. Henry’s great throne sat at the top of the arch in the semicircle. It was the sun that all else radiated from, nestled just below the crucifix.

Anne saw that the court members were jostling for seats and there was much hushed conversation as the judges took their seats around Henry’s throne. Campeggio, the cardinal Rome had sent, looked uneasy. Wolsey was there, his red cardinal’s robes capped with fur, his face already red from the morning sun that found its way in through the stained glass. He would sweat himself to death by the end of the morning. She felt hot just looking at him and decided to remove her robe with the hood. No one would see her up here. The summer sun, the full court, and the lack of air promised to make this a difficult morning.

There was a stillness that began to grow as everyone waited for the king to appear. Anne studied the Christ resting over them all. His face looked so peaceful, and this gave Anne encouragement. Everything here was under His arms.

But blood ran hot here, a marked contrast to the men she had known in France. Every young man in England stood ready to defend the realm and destroy her enemies, grinding them into a fine dust that history herself would disdain and sweep away. The only enemy the English couldn’t conquer was death.
Christ, save us,
she prayed.
Save us from ourselves.

A trumpet startled her, making her heart leap as Henry entered the church in golden robes, layered over with a chain of stones as big as her fist set in thick claws of gold. The morning light came in from behind him, and he indeed looked like the sun. All bowed in reverence as he walked past to take his seat. As he did, he commanded them to rise and allow the proceedings to begin.

The queen entered, looking unwell, as if the weight of her robes was too much for her emaciated frame. She approached Henry’s throne with small, weak steps, finally throwing herself down before him, her arms outstretched as if he would catch her. He didn’t. Anne saw her back rise and fall, as if she was weeping, but no noise carried.

At last Catherine stood, and Anne saw no one bow. Catherine must have realized it, too, for she smiled sadly at the men circled around her. “You have no authority to read that book and make judgment on me. Death be on Hutchins’ home! As for you, husband, I was a true maid. The marriage is lawful under God’s eyes and the Pope’s.”

Henry called a witness.

“Aye, my king, on your brother Arthur’s wedding night, when he had taken this Spanish princess as his bride, I was his attendant. Arthur emerged from his chamber in the early morning hours looking pale and tired. He said he had been traveling in Spain and it was hot work.”

The court erupted into laughter, which most men corrected into fits of coughing.

Catherine glared at the witness. “This is not true! My marriage to Arthur was never consummated, as God is my witness. I put this to your conscience, Henry. The law of Leviticus does not apply to my marriage.”

“If I have no authority to read and make judgment by it, how can you?” he replied.

Something about his gaze troubled Anne … the absence of emotion, though his wife of twenty years fought for her life before him.

Catherine pulled herself up to stand board straight and looked around the court. “I do not recognize your right to try me. As Queen, I am subject only to the Pope’s laws, not yours. I have sent word to the Pope that he must try this case and render a just verdict. It is in his hands, God be praised.”

As she turned to leave, Anne saw Henry grip Wolsey with an intensity as if to break his arm. Wolsey was trying to wrench free, keeping his back to the court so no one would see his dishonour. He whispered something to the king, and Henry smiled and released him, looking at the doors Catherine had just exited, followed by Wolsey. It took several minutes of deep, shuddering breaths before Henry was able to sit and formally adjourn the court. Anne fled down the back steps, her Yeoman once again behind her, unable to protect her should she meet an enemy suddenly. Anne’s mind was racing—the Pope was no friend to Henry. The Pope catered to the Spanish for his own good reasons, to protect his own realm, and Catherine was unyieldingly Spanish. That she forced Henry to confront the Pope on this issue was a sign that she put more faith in Spanish power than in English law. Unless, of course, Catherine really believed the marriage was lawful in God’s eyes and was fighting for faith, which Anne doubted. Anne had heard too many rumours about Catherine to think anything good of her.

Lost in her swirling thoughts, Anne took no caution as she fled and ran full into Wolsey just as her Yeoman’s hand reached out and caught her. It was too late. Wolsey spun around, the cold smile of surprise on his face telling Anne that he had some reason to be glad she was here. It could not be a good one.

“Anne,” he said.

She did not like her name on his lips.

“What’s this I hear about you setting out a Hutchins book in your chambers for all to see? And you’ve been riddling Henry’s mind about it, tempting him to create these grievous errors? Did the French send us a devil to cause mischief in the English court?”

The humiliation made her face red, though she already had a blush from the heat.

“When you stole into my library I knew why you were pursuing the king and seducing him at every turn. At least, this is what I tell the cardinals in Rome and those loyal to the church. You are either a treacherous reformer or a seducing witch, but your punishment will come regardless, and swiftly.”

“Why do you poison my name?” Anne asked. “Nothing you say is true!”

“Ah, but this is: I have prepared a bedchamber at an estate where Catherine has been sent to recover from her exertion in court today. I have instructed her maids to care for her most gently and lavish all care on her that she may be pleasing to a man in every way. Henry should be arriving there. I have arranged for them to dine in her bedchamber, and Henry will make every effort to calm her outrage. Perhaps we need not involve the Pope in the king’s great matter. Henry knows how to persuade a woman, does he not?”

Anne’s stomach went sour, her throat closing around tears. “Henry will have the annulment because it is the law of God,” she said, trying to speak without letting a tear escape. “As cardinal, this is your concern, yes? The law of God?”

“My concern as Chancellor of the Realm is Henry, and Henry needs an heir.” Wolsey leaned in closer. There was rank decay on his breath as he whispered his next words. “I know you will not sleep with him, Anne, because you are not yet his wife. As long as Catherine still wears the title, why not give her one more chance to provide what you will not?”

I saw David bent over his work. There was a glass of whiskey on the table: I could smell it, the musky sweetness of grain and the sting of alcohol. I found I could move in this vision, as if I were in the room too. The Scribe stood behind me, his back to the door, so that it would not open. I didn’t know if he was holding me in or something else out.

I craned over David’s shoulders to see the papers scattered all over his desk. They were letters. I craned my neck to read one. They were all addressed to me.

Dear Bridget,

All I ever wanted was to make you smile. I failed you, and when you were diagnosed, I tried to save you. I bribed every doctor I ever met at your cocktail parties until one of them came through. I got you into the best research study going for ovarian cancer. But it fell through because you can’t stop making enemies of everyone you meet.

But I never stopped loving you.

And if there’s an afterlife, I never will.

Yours, David

I gasped and David sat up, flicking something off his shoulders. Frowning, he looked around the room, looking through me. He must have felt my breath over his shoulder.

He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a gun.

“Stop him!” I screamed to the Scribe.

“No,” he replied.

I saw it, the most unlikely of books in the most unlikely of places. It was the Hutchins book and I knew it at once. It sat on his desk, a great thick black leather edition. He must have grabbed it for solace when he prepared for this moment. I shoved against it with all my might, trying to push it into his lap, startle him, stop him, but I couldn’t move it.

“Please!” I begged the Scribe.

David was checking the chamber one last time, snapping it back into place as he released the safety.

The Scribe nodded, and the book scooted to the edge of the desk. It tumbled to the floor with a resounding thud. The noise frightened David, who screamed just as he pulled the trigger.

Chapter Sixteen

Rose stared at the coat of arms, rising red above her, the great lion and the unicorn frozen forever in flight around a Tudor rose. There were dragons on the fence posts, and inside farther down the lane she could see busts of famous healers from centuries past. This, at least, was whom she assumed the lifeless cold heads to be. She had only heard praise of them from the other desperate women who had brought their dying here. All of them fled before morning, so the boys would be presumed abandoned to the king’s mercy.

Rose strained her head to see inside one of the windows, which were all firmly shut to prevent foul humours from the street to enter the hospital. The patients inside were sick enough without the dread diseases of her world being carried in on some chance breeze.

When she wondered which room her brothers had died in, drops on her eyelashes escaped down her cheeks. But they were disguised by the morning rain and Margaret’s grabbing of her hand in fear. Rose’s secret was kept another day.

Wolsey stood on the platform set in the field before St. Bartholomew’s. A crowd pressed in on them from all sides. The vulgar cheers and jostling made the morning unpleasant. But Rose knew the late August sun would reveal itself soon enough from behind the clouds and they would all suffer. The mood would turn. She hoped the prisoners died before that happened. Margaret was trembling like one about to die herself, and Rose lifted her own clammy hand to place it over Margaret’s. She held Margaret’s jerking hand sandwiched between both of hers and took a deep breath.

It had been so long since Rose had experienced the spirits of the street, the meanness that lived here, the desperation. From the carriages and litters, the early morning London streets were beautiful, the grey stones wrapped round with white fog, the spires rising far above them into the heavens, the dragons and unicorns that appointed every post from a child’s happy dream. But when humanity stirred and awoke, the fog became suffering and the dream was far away.

Sir Thomas sat to Wolsey’s left, looking regal in his chancellor’s robes and fur, watching his daughter and her servant with pleasure. Rose knew he expected this to be a great lesson for them. Seeing sin purged violently from another was the surest defence against allowing it to creep into one’s own life. The public burnings, he said, were not only good for the condemned’s soul but for the soul of England herself. Much mischief would be cut short here today.

Wolsey did not wait long for the crowd to silence so he could speak. Rose heard the murmurings around her; this waxy, fat cardinal lived in great luxury while they suffered to pay his men. Wolsey traveled through their streets upon a white horse, with two men carrying gilded crosses before him, lest anyone forget whose business Wolsey arrived on. The crosses, Rose thought, were a wise touch, as they were all that checked the wagging tongues around her. But it had always been this way, she knew. Nothing contented the people of the streets except money, and money was never enough. Poverty infected the blood with a painful hunger that nothing would ever fill. Justice herself was consumed and spat out in little shards; there were always rumours of a great Judge to set all things right someday. The rumours had not enough meat to sustain a child on, but they kept the half-truths with them always.

Wolsey held up a copy of a book, only slightly bigger than his own hand. “I have here a book of heresy!” he proclaimed.

The crowd listened.

“A man named Hutchins has translated the Holy Scriptures into the English language. This is his New Book, the words of Christ torn from their beautiful perch of Latin and discarded at your feet in a base language.”

Not many spoke or moved. Rose knew most did not read anyway—what was a book to them?

“I offer a cash reward—five silver groats—to anyone who turns in this book today, or gives information about those who read it or sell it. It contains grievous, poisonous errors, great heresies against the Church, and it must be destroyed! If you want truth, come into the churches, good brethren! Do not be tempted to destruction by reading the Scriptures alone, without aid and instruction. Indeed, to our shame, even women and simple idiots gobble this book up, as if it were the fount of all truth!”

The crowd laughed and Margaret tried to jerk her hand away, growing so nervous she was shaking all over. Rose held her hand with more force, turning to catch her eye and steady her with a cold gaze. Margaret stopped fluttering and rested against Rose, like a stunned animal.

Wolsey continued, waving the book over them all. “It is a door to hell, leading these prisoners to a most pitiful death, which by God’s infinite mercy may purge them of His wrath before they encounter Him face-to-face today!”

Guards parted the crowd, leading a woman covered in blood and feces through. She stank, her greasy hair hung like ribbons around her face, and her body was broken in so many hidden places that the guards had to drag her, supporting her under her arms. The woman lifted her head to catch the drizzling rain on her tongue, and Rose cried out. It was Anne Askew. The crowd began taunting her, pelting her with soiled rags and withered apples. As the crowd parted before the guards, Rose saw that a stake had been set at Wolsey’s feet, not far from the pulpit, with iron chains attached and bundles of wood laid all around it, several feet high.

Sir Thomas stood. “Anne Askew, you are guilty of reading the Scriptures in English to other women. Do ye name them?”

Rose gripped Margaret’s hand for strength.

Anne’s head hung limp, and Rose did not knew if she was still alive. “Oh, God save us, she’s been racked!” Margaret whispered.

“Anne Askew, profess to the truth and receive God’s mercy. Do you believe in the sacraments of the Holy Church?”

Anne lifted her head and the crowd gasped.

“The Bible speaks only of baptism and the Lord’s supper, my lord. I cannot find the others there.”

A few giggled under their breath. It meant nothing to them to see this; they wouldn’t burn when the fires were lit. Rose began praying under her breath. It was all she could think of to do, but the prayers she knew were in Latin and she did not know what they meant. She whispered them anyway, the words in her mouth like a talisman, gone over and over again. She hoped God accepted them.

“What say ye about the sacrament of the host? Do ye receive the very body, bone, and blood of Christ when ye take communion?”

“I receive the spirit of His sacrifice. It is a great sin to push me to say more.” Anne shook her head at More, and droplets of blood flung out, landing on her guards. They grimaced, and she drew a deep breath.

“I will ask you a question, Sir Thomas,” she said. “If a mouse steals a bit of the bread, does he in fact nibble away the very body of Christ? Is it the bread or the spirit at work in communion?”

Many in the crowd laughed. Sir Thomas’s lips set in a thin line and he shook a finger at her. “Saint Paul commanded that women must ever be silent, never to speak or talk about the Word of God!”

“Nay, this is not what Paul said,” Anne replied, “for I have read the passage. Women are not to speak in church to disrupt the teaching of Christ’s words. I have not hindered the words of Christ! Have you read the Bible, sir? I do not think you understand the charges, so how can you prove my guilt?”

Sir Thomas grabbed the book from Wolsey and slammed it to the ground. No one moved.

“God’s mercy upon me for my weakness!” he screamed. “If I was about my own business, I would see you burnt slowly today. But I am God’s man, and I will offer you your life if you name the women of your sect.”

Rose’s blood rushed through her heartbeat, the violent beating rocking her off her feet. She clung to Margaret, who was staring at her father in a trance.

Anne’s head dropped back down. She said nothing.

“I sentence you to burning!” Sir Thomas screamed again.

Anne’s head lifted, and Rose saw white trails on her face, where a river of tears had washed away black filth. “I have read the Scriptures,” Anne said. “Christ and His apostles ne’er put one soul to death.”

Sir Thomas did not reply. He swept his hand to the back of the crowd. “Bring out Bilney!”

A man was dragged through the center of the crowd, but this man Rose did not know. She was relieved, as if his death would be less terrible to her, and was ashamed. Bilney was a tall, emaciated creature with a shaved head and burn marks evident all over his arms. Some were white and blistered, some red and oozing. He was draped in a thin linen shift that barely covered him down to his thighs.

“He’s been practicing,” a woman whispered near Rose. “Practicing over a candle, willing himself to be strong when he is burnt whole.”

Wolsey stood and took over the prosecution as More collected himself.

“Thomas Bilney, you are charged with reading the work of heretics, this foul book in English. You have read this work and given it to others, including women. Will you repent?”

Bilney did not answer. Rose saw a thin treadle of spit hitting the grass at his feet as his head hung. Whatever tortures had been spared Anne for being a woman were surely visited on this man.

“Do you believe the church has authority to forgive sins?” Wolsey asked. The people strained to hear if there was an answer. Attending a bear-baiting was not nearly such sport. These matches provided great wit. Rose did not know how many in the crowd were swallowing back tears.

“No man, no thing, takes away sin but the blood of Christ.”

The crowd gasped to hear Bilney’s strong reply. There was no strength left in his weak frame for this.

“It is a sin for you to sell forgiveness.”

“You are a heretic. I alone judge all matters of religion in this realm,” Wolsey replied easily, as if he was brushing away a fly. “I am the Pope to you, and I say that the church offers cleansing through repentance and taking of the sacraments.”

“What is the Pope to me? I do not find him in the Scriptures. I only find Jesus,” Bilney answered, holding his head steady as his guards held him up under his arms.

“Oh, we have a true apostle!” Wolsey cried out, and the crowd snickered. “What say ye about Masses for the dead? Do they minister to those departed?”

“Nay! I must consider but one death, and that is Christ’s. No one can help those who are already gone.”

This was the reply Wolsey had hoped for. An angry spirit swept over the people, those who had lost children and lovers and sold everything they had to provide release for them from purgatory.

Rose threw her hand over her mouth, trying to stop herself from being sick. She did not know what Bilney was talking about, and prayed he was not right, and prayed he was not wrong. She had spent her money on a baptism for her baby and not medicine. She had spent what little she had to secure God’s welcome for him into eternity. If Bilney was right, she had let him die, and would God forgive her that? Would the child, or her heart?

The crowd’s faces swirled, and Rose’s knees gave way. She heard Bilney yell out that Wolsey was the wolf who would not feed the flock but instead would eat them. As a man caught Rose and cradled her in his arms, she saw Sir Thomas trying to catch a glimpse of her over the crowd. She was dizzy and sick, but his kind eyes kept finding her, and she tried to focus on them, to give herself a center to steady the spinning world.

Anne and Bilney were led to separate iron stakes and secured to them by chains, a pile of wood all around them up to their thighs. No one in the crowd talked. The sheriff stepped forward and lit the fire, his back to the wind to give the flames a good start. Neither of the condemned spoke, their pale faces looking white against the blackened chains pinning them to the stake. The flames snaked through the wood, scorching their feet. Anne screamed. The wind gusted past the sheriff, extinguishing the flames. Rose looked to the sky, to see if a strange deliverance was at hand, but the clouds were gone. There would be no rain, and the wind would not hold.

The sheriff tried to light the fire again, but the wind snuffed out his bundle of wood. Again he dipped his faggot in a torch burning on the lawn of the hospital, and this time the flames roared ahead of the wind, consuming the dry wood, the flames going as high as their thighs. Anne’s shift, being longer, caught fire, and she was lost behind a veil of flames. Rose tried to stop herself from hearing her screams, but the effort of putting her hands to her ears swept her off balance again, and her rescuer pulled her from the crowd to Sir Thomas’s carriage.

The stallions ran with great speed. The bumps and dips clacked her teeth together. Margaret sat, her eyes too bright, a doll’s smile on her mouth.

“Why such haste, Father?”

More was looking at Rose but turned his attention to Margaret. “I learned today how deep the heresy is rooting here. Hutchins has been delayed finishing his translation of the Old Book into English, because the plague is moving again through Europe this summer. I must finish my public reply to his poisonous book and get it to the people to read.”

Margaret’s eyes were brimming, Rose saw.

“It’s only a book, Father—little words on a page! Why did they have to be burnt?” she asked. “Perhaps Anne thought she was doing the right thing, letting women hear the words in English, so they could more correctly live by them.”