To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn

THIRTEEN

Year of Our Lord 1531

York Place

Richmond Castle Greenwich Palace

My sister, Alice, was present at court and the day after my discussion I drew her aside in Anne’s chambers. “I’d like to speak with you.” I gave her a meaningful look. “Will you be at your rooms after dinner?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I will wait for you.”

Later that evening I made my way through the ravenish shadows of the ladies’ courtyard chambers where my sister was quartered. She was not nobility, as I was as the widow of a baron, nor even as tightly connected with Anne, so her rooms were comfortable but meager. She served willingly in spite of that fact. I knocked sharply on her door and she opened it and let me in. “My dearest,” she said, taking my shawl from me and patting the chair closest to the fire. “How fare you?”

I hugged her tightly before sitting down, the scent of her lightly perfumed hair evoking memories of my running into her arms when I’d been hurt or harrowed as a child. I wondered if I would ever outgrow the need for her comfort or have a child of my own to offer it to. “I have a favor to ask,” I began.

“Anything.” She drew near to me and offered a small platter of comfits.

After taking a bite of one as a courtesy I said, “I understand there are some reformer meetings going on at court. I’d like to attend one. Or more.”

She cocked her head warily. “For yourself?”

These times, perhaps, would bring much good and yet could still make a beloved sister question another. “For Anne.” I explained the situation briefly. She had, of course, heard about Bilney. “And mayhap for myself.” I did not mention that it was a man I sought and not his God.

She nodded. “Of course.” She let me know that the meetings were often held in rooms and chambers furthest out from the circle of courtiers, though not always; directed me to a few; and gave me a password to use if I should be questioned. “Romans eight,” she said. “Do not forget that.”

I had no idea what might be found at Romans 8, but of course I would remember it as if my life depended upon it, as well it might.

Nighttime at court was quiet. The halls echoed and amplified the softest of steps because most were safely behind doors. Some closed doors sheltered right and honest activities, sleep or reading; sewing; discussion or pleasant discourse of intimate sorts between husbands and wives. Some doors hid corrupt activities, thieving and plotting and horrors upon which one didn’t like to let the mind dwell. Some doors, like the one I crept toward, hid activities that were just but might not always be perceived thusly. I pulled my cape around me, left the hood up, and knocked lightly on the door. A young courtier I did not recognize opened it to me. “Romans eight,” I whispered, and he nodded and let me in.

I admit to it. I immediately scanned the room looking for Will and was unsure if I was disappointed or relieved not to find him present. A priest whose name I did not know but recognized as a friend of Matthew Parker, whom Anne had helped install as a chaplain at court, was speaking from the front. I did not listen to him at first but continued to look about me. Most people were courtiers I recognized but had few dealings with. Few held copies of what seemed to be Holy Writ. I leaned over and glanced at the copy of the woman next to me. I could just see that it was written in English before she glanced at my hooded form. She closed the book and slipped away. After all, it had been just the year before that Henry had decreed an injunction against anyone owning an English Bible and Bilney’s ashes were not yet cooled. Though there were a hundred or more people packed in the chamber, I only recognized one woman whom I knew to be a lady in the service of the Duchess of Norfolk, Anne’s highly placed aunt and sworn enemy.

She looked in my direction but could not recognize me, as my cloak was pulled tight about me and fell down from my forehead. Is she here as a spy for her mistress, as even I am? Or does she have questions she cannot voice to her mistress and seeks answers here?

It seemed I’d arrived late. The speaker was nearly done and I wanted to take my leave afore any could recognize me. “There are many good priests,” he said, drawing his hand down over his priestly vestments. The crowd laughed. “But sadly the best of them cannot read Latin nor Hebrew nor Greek. We love the Church and all who serve within it. Let us seek reform from within so we may provide those good, simple priests, and the gentle souls they serve, Holy Writ in their own tongue. They, too, may then hear the voice of the Lord speaking to them directly and sweetly.”

I slipped out, my spirits dampened a bit. I had hoped for more. To see Will. Perhaps, though I would not willingly admit this to another, to see God. I believed in the priest’s good intentions, but I, who read Latin, and had read Holy Writ for myself, could not say that I’d ever heard from the Lord directly and sweetly, so it did not follow that making it available in English could help all.

I reported to Anne what I had seen and heard; naught to be of concern but perhaps the morsel about the Duchess of Norfolk.

I went back two nights hence and all was nearly the same as the first visit, except it were held in different chambers. In spite of my every attempt to locate those who might cause Anne some harm, there were no highly placed listeners other than those I knew to be her true friends. Some seemed to do nothing but grumble against all who kept to the old ways, and Rome, which impressed me not at all; many conservatives I knew to be good people with admirable motives. Some were there solely for political advancement. I’d seen them sidle up to Cromwell’s lackeys. Some were genuine seekers, thirst writ across their faces, and nearly ecstatic joy at hearing Scripture spoken in English. I envied them. None seemed dangerous. I’d determined not to visit again, but when I was about to take my leave I caught the scent of something in the room. I could not locate its wearer but I recognized its source. It was jasmine perfume.

I determined to return to the next meeting, for I knew that sooner or later I would meet with Jane Rochford, who professed to be against reformers one and all, her husband included, one presumed. I slipped along the dark hallway, skirts swishing in the rushes, and stood outside yet another, larger chamber, and held my hand up to the door to knock. Ere I did, though, I heard the voice of the speaker.

A sweet voice, a deep voice, a voice that made me wish for all things that could not be and mayhap a willingness to throw away all things that must be in order to gain them. My flesh won—or was it my spirit? In any event, I knocked on the door, gave the new password, and entered.

It was Will speaking, of course. I pulled my cloak about me, which drew no notice because many present sought to keep their identities secret either by cloak or by downcast gaze.

I dared not go into the great room. Instead, I stood behind a stone wall that still had a sword slit in it, just large enough to allow my ear to hear everything that was said whilst revealing nothing of myself. His voice was filled with both fiery rhetoric and soothing reassurance, with logic and with passion. For the first fifteen minutes I heard nothing of the meaning of the words, only drank in the voice that caressed my ears and my heart. I risked peeking through the slit and took my breath when I saw him. The sweet boy had grown into a powerful and striking man. He emanated moral, intellectual, spiritual, physical strength. The Latin came to me, unbidden.

Vires. Fortitudo.

I went back again the next night and dared to come a bit closer though I did not uncloak myself. I listened to the words this time as well as the man. Lord and Lady Carlyle recognized me, I know, as Lady Carlyle came up and bid me good evening. As the meeting was being held in her apartments I had no fear of her making me known. “’Tis because of your closeness with Anne that you must remain secret,” she suggested, and I agreed with her. She took special care to place me where I could best see and hear but not be seen nor heard.

I went back again for a fourth night and a fifth. The court was about to leave York Place and move to Hampton Court shortly, and the meetings would, of necessity, stop for a while. I saw not Jane Rochford but, on the last night, someone even more treacherous. He did not bother to cloak himself, so certain was he in his own powers and being in the protection of Cromwell, for whom he now kept close accounts.

Edmund. Edmund, certainly, was no religious seeker. He worshipped no one save himself.

I hid myself back in the corner a bit more and listened whilst Will finished reading from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans. “For we know not what to desire as we ought: but the spirit maketh intercession mightily for us with groanings which cannot be expressed with the tongue. And he that searchest the hearts, knoweth what is the meaning of the spirit.” He closed Tyndale’s English translation and finished from memory. “For we know that all things work for the best unto them that love God, which also are called of purpose.”

I watched as Edmund took note of Will’s English Bible and then snuck out of the room. The rest of the crowd began to disperse, and indeed, most of them did so in a quick manner. I did not wish to irritate the scar of a badly healed wound but I knew that I must. I slipped up to Will and, after he’d finished talking, Lady Carlyle.

“Meg,” he said roughly. Lady Carlyle looked from him to me and back again. Then, in the way of women since the beginning of time, she nodded knowingly. “Mayhap you’d prefer to talk in my closet?” She indicated the small private room off to the side of the public chamber.

Will took my hand and I followed him in. “May I take your cloak?” he asked, and I nodded and shrugged it off. I was glad that I had taken a care to dress well that night; my dark blue gown showed off my russet hair to its best advantage, though some curls slipped disobediently from the hood casually holding it back. Though I could say in honesty that I hadn’t dressed for the man, I must also be honest in admitting that I was glad that I still had an effect on him. He kept a modest distance from me as he pulled his chair alongside but never took his eyes from my face. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” I said. “All goes well for Anne for the moment, and therefore for me.”

“I’m sorry to hear of your husband,” he said.

I looked up, startled. “Lord Blackston passed away some time ago,” I said. “But he was ready to meet his Maker.”

“I hear from my sister that your brother Edmund is negotiating to have you marry the baron’s nephew and heir.”

“Your sister is particularly well informed for someone who spends her time with child or languishing in a large household in Kent,” I replied somewhat tartly.

He laughed. “She was always the one that heard everything. We called her ‘hare-ears’ as a child. Always twitching to listen to others.”

I laughed with him. “And how do you?”

His face became infused with light. “I do well. I have been in Antwerp helping with translations, with printing. We have now moved some printing here, to England, and I am come to assist with the setup. I am passionate about my work. And about sharing it with others. It has the power to transform the mind, you know.” He looked sheepish. “Epistle to the Romans. Chapter twelve. I’ve been studying it quite a bit.”

I envied his study and his transformed mind. “Your rhetoric is as sharp as ever,” I said. “I heard you speak from the Gospel of Saint Matthew last night, about our being the bride of Christ and He our bridegroom.”

He blushed at the mention of the topic of brides and bridegrooms, as I’d intended him to do. I felt pleased, not in an unkind manner, that I could still provoke him thus.

“How many nights have you come?” he asked.

“All,” I replied simply. I would not lie to save my pride.

“The test of a speaker is not in carefully chosen words nor in the fine rhetoric of delivery, but in the effect he has upon the hearts and minds of those listening.”

I offered nothing, not willing to admit that there had been a tiny unclenching of my heart the past few nights. The irony of God in using Will thusly had not gone unrecognized. “I come to warn you,” I said. “My brother Edmund was here. He paid particular attention to your English Bible and he knows you are no low-level simpleton. He works for Cromwell now. All know that Cromwell is a reformer, but also the king’s man. The king’s law decrees that no one shall own an English Bible. I urge you to have a care; do not let my brother see you, nor warm you with false words about his desire for church reform.”

Will stood up, ran a hand through his dark hair, and sat down again. “He’s already been to see me—to claim friendship and brotherhood. Knowing his facility with money, I was about to see if he could arrange funds here in England for printing. I am aware, of course, of Alice’s inclinations, and your brother Thomas’s. I thought maybe Edmund had grown kinder with time.”

“Mortar sets with age,” I said, “afore it crumbles. Be wary. Do not let your Bibles remain in your quarters.”

He glanced down at the copy in his hands. “This is the only one I brought with me. Have you read it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even read the book by Father Erasmus any longer. The one you’d given me. ’Tis written in Latin.”

He laughed. “You should still read Handbook of a Christian Knight, of course. Erasmus remains a scholar par excellence. But this.” He tapped the cover. “’Tis in English,” he teased. “Hence, allowable.”

I grinned. He reached out, took my hand in his own, and loosened my fingers from their self-protective fist. He placed his copy of Tyndale’s Bible in my palm and closed my fingers around it. He held his hand over mine for a long while, longer than was necessary, longer than was wise as well. He seemed unwilling to remove it and I wished that he wouldn’t. But of course, he did.

Tentatio.

“I have been directed back to Antwerp. I shall not share my plans with your brother Edmund, nor the names of those working here in England. But I will certainly return.” He stood up and moved back to a safe distance. “Shall you…. remain at court?”

I nodded. “I shall be where Anne is, till I am married, and perhaps even after.”

“Mayhap I shall see you, then,” he said. He took my hand, the one with the Bible clutched in it, and kissed the back of it before taking his leave.

The imprint of his lips burnt into my skin, and I held it near my cheek as I made my way back to my chamber. When I arrived, I set the Bible next to my bed, considering where to hide it, even from Edithe. I touched the cover, knowing that his hand had done so as well. And then, as I turned the pages, I came upon something. A fragile dried wreath of daisies. The one I’d made Will so many years before in the garden at Hever and that he had claimed as a keepsake. I pressed it to my lips, returned it to the Scriptures, and hid the book away next to my neglected, well-loved copy of Erasmus.

The next day Anne drew me into her sleeping chamber, the one place we could be certain to have privacy. We sat on the foot of her bed, cross-legged, and I recounted to her my entire evening. After telling her everything about Will I said, “Have a care with Jane Roch-ford. She will not be loyal to you, nor even George, I believe. She is only ever after loyalty to herself.”

Anne nodded. “Yes. And you have a care with Edmund. Has he brought word of the new baron?”

“Yes. He says negotiations go well. Enough time is elapsing that as soon as they settle the financial matters, I can expect the baron to come to collect me. They seem to be at odds over the money, no surprise with Edmund, but I expect them to come to terms very soon.” I did not say, Because I grow older and it becomes more difficult to be assured of conceiving a child. Anne and I were of an age and that was something, in her precarious position, she did not need to be reminded of.

I finished dressing her in layers of silk and cloth of silver and fastened about her graceful neck her finest pearls, which she loved. Anne and the king were entertaining diplomats that night at a quiet dinner in Henry’s quarters. After she left, I straightened her wardrobe and dismissed the rest of the ladies. When I was certain that the last one was gone I went to the cabinet where Anne kept the reformist books she often read aloud from or loaned to her closest ladies. I opened the cabinet and saw the book of hours that I’d seen her writing in with Henry.

I took the book out and opened it, thumbing through the pages till I came upon some that had been written upon.

There it was. Henry had written, If you remember my love in your prayers as strongly as I adore you, I shall hardly be forgotten, for I am yours. Henry R. forever. He’d written it on the page under the Man of Sorrows, presumably representative of himself, a rather unsuitable comparison.

Anne had written back, By daily proof you shall me find, To be to you both loving and kind. She’d written it under an illustration of the angel telling the Virgin Mary she was about to have a son.

I closed the book. By this I knew, and Henry would too, that Anne was promising him a son.

Oh, Anne.

I was compelled to open the book back up again and when I did I stared at the Man of Sorrows. His skin was slashed from the top of his head to the bloody wounds on his feet. His face was writ with anguish. Blood dripped or ran across his entire body. And yet He still knelt in prayer and obedience. Underneath Him were written words from Isaiah: He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

I sank into a chair, the book still in my hand, and I gave free rein to the memories and feelings flooding forward. I felt anew the beatings at the hands of my father, whence blood had coursed down my face, too; recalled the unjust hardship of my mother’s lifelong illness; anguished at the powerlessness of being chattel—sold in marriage for a price. I allowed myself to truly recognize the fears I felt for Anne, who had given herself wholly to a man I suspected would be true to none but himself. Finally, I grieved the utter despair of my relinquishment of Will, who remained, as our Lord must know, my heart of hearts.

And then, that for which I had yearned happened. Christ spoke to me in our common language, one I could understand. Not Latin. Not English. Distress.

I am a man of sorrows. I am acquainted with grief.

He understood and, therefore, could be trusted. I let Him wrap His arms around me and for the first time since my lady mother died, I cried myself dry.