In the Shadow of Lions (6 page)

He pressed her into his muscular body to lower her down, and his warmth was a childish comfort to her. The confusions in her spirit calmed for a fleeting second.

His hands dug under her ribs as he lowered her, and she tried to readjust her weight. He winced as her legs brushed his.

“Mind the knees,” he whispered.

In the deepest hours of night, when everyone else staggered to their beds for sleep, the women returned from Catherine’s chambers bursting with activity. Anne did not know why they refused sleep before the moon disappeared and breakfast was served. Now their faces appeared grim and determined as they forced their way out of the tight, boned bodices that had been known to crack ribs, and above yards and yards of fabric that announced station and wealth. Everyone was changing into simpler gowns, whispering little instructions to each other.

Jane spoke softly to her as Anne expelled a hard breath and pushed herself out of the bodice. “We must go into the countryside tonight, before the sun rises on the May Day festivities. We go to collect branches of mountain ash.”

“Why?” Anne whispered back.

“A witch has been discovered in the castle. The branches will protect the queen.”

“What evidence of a witch?” Anne asked, straining to turn and see Jane’s face. Jane pressed her face nearer as she did up the laces of the new skirt and bodice. Her voice dropped lower again.

“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 protest, 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.”