In the Shadow of Lions: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (Chronicles of the Scribe #1)(31)
Rose’s joints went cold, fearing the queen’s gaze would linger on her.
“I have borne the king many children and God’s mercy has been to receive them. Am I to blame for God’s will? Do I stand in His place? No. I stand in my place, beside Henry, doing Henry’s will. I am a good wife and a good queen. Am I not a good queen?”
“Your Majesty,” Sir Thomas began, but she cut him off. Rose wondered how Sir Thomas thought that was a real question. For a man of learning, he was woefully ignorant in this subject.
“Henry was content to obey God and honour me as queen until he found this verse, this one verse, in Leviticus, and claims the marriage has been inalterably voided by God’s Word. The Pope himself validated our marriage, and Henry thinks to upturn it because of one sentence! He is a learned man, but he read without instruction and will not take counsel from the church on its meaning. He is like a crazed dog with a bone. No one can reach him on this.”
She was wandering about the room, looking at their lessons thrown into haphazard piles, turning vases and adjusting the decorations. She was setting the room in order with a vengeance.
“You were too gentle with that heretic. I want them burned alive with all their books. Find them and destroy them, every last one.”
“My queen!” Sir Thomas said.
She burst into tears and sat. “I am the daughter of Isabella, no less. I know what things must happen to preserve an empire. These books, most especially this book by Hutchins, do you not see? What has happened to my home will happen in every home, until the realm is destroyed from within! We are in such danger!” She cried for a few moments.
No one knew what protocol would allow to comfort her, so they all watched her cry but did not move.
“I have lost him. He has decided to send me away to a nunnery, to pretend he never loved me, to pretend we have not spent a thousand nights and more together. He wants a new wife, a wife young and able to give him sons. I am finished bearing children—this is what Dr. Butts has confirmed. I cannot compete with a young girl like that Boleyn witch.”
Sir Thomas waited a long moment before speaking. Rose thought it demonstrated wisdom.
“My queen,” he began, “you are a gentle and good monarch, well loved by the people. They have wept with you as you buried your sons and would never consent to be ruled by another woman in your place if they knew how cruelly you were handled. I cannot judge between you and our king in matters of marriage; it is not my place. But I can speak of this Boleyn girl and the mischief she is causing. My counsel to you is to find evidence that she is meddling in the royal marriage, evidence that her intention is to steal Henry from you and you from the people. Bring this to me. With the Pope’s decree that the marriage is lawful and the people’s outrage at Anne Boleyn, will you not be secured?”
Rose knew the servants would be straining outside to hear every word. His voice was so low they would hear none of it.
“And the heretics?” the queen whispered back. “This man … Hutchins?”
Sir Thomas began to speak, but she cut him off.
“Do not be weak. This is the work of an empire. You will burn them all and their poisonous books. I will leave you with a sum—” and here she removed a sack of coins from her skirts—“to begin. Pay anyone who can help us. I do not care if my money lines the pocket of a filthy tramp in Southwark if it buys me a heretic. I have set aside another sum of cash for you, which will be delivered by messenger every fortnight, until the country is cleansed. And for Hutchins, for his arrest and a very public death, I have set aside a sum that will stagger you.”
She whispered it to him and his eyes grew wide.
“Keep what you do not use,” she said, “and may it bless your family.”
“Am I Catherine’s heir?” I asked the Scribe. “Is that why you’re giving me this story? Because of what I did?”
“Let’s write your story together. David brought you his best work—”
“It wasn’t good enough. Not for David. He was brilliant. I loved him too much to let him settle.”
“So?”
“So I stole the galleys and sold them to a tabloid. They ran them, watered down, stripped clean, in monthly installments under someone else’s name. I thought if he saw his work watered down, stripped to the bone, he’d see its flaws. He’d write again—bigger, bolder. We’d both make a killing.”
“Oh, you did.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“What has happened to David?” I cried out.
But the story burst into play again, and my scream was lost.
Chapter Thirteen
She could hear church bells ringing as she studied the Exodus scene of the tapestry. Somewhere in the distance at noon Mass, a church was elevating the bread, and Christ was again present among them. She bowed her head and blessed His name, asking favour for this mission. She looked at Miriam and the dancing, free women one last time and moved up the stairs.
Hampton Court was so different from the other residences she had been in. In Greenwich, the staircases were narrow and canted at an angle, making you dizzy before you reached your room. Here, the stairs were straight, with every step wide and low, perfect for women in such skirts as hers. But of course, Anne thought, Wolsey wore great robes of office. He must have designed these stairs to suit himself, not others. Only Henry liked short robes, having broken with the tradition of long robes for monarchs, because no monarch had ever had legs as powerful and shapely as his own.