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.
FOURTEEN
Year of Our Lord 1532
Greenwich Palace
Richmond Castle
Woodstock
We were back at Greenwich for Christmas that year and in every way save name and body, Anne reigned over the celebrations as queen. Court etiquette demanded that courtiers give gifts to one another and, of course, to the sovereign. The boundaries of many relationships were narrowed or expanded by the value of the gifts given, the placement of the person understood by the significance of the gifts received.
That year Henry decided, as Katherine was no longer queen and also, because of her unwillingness to cooperate with his plans, no longer his friend, to give Katherine of Aragon nothing at all. Furthermore, he decreed that all were to follow suit and that no presents were to be sent to her at Enfield, where she moldered. The whispers grew strident among the ladies that Anne had been behind this indignity. I failed to understand how any person with more than a Whitsunday’s experience at court could imagine that Anne, or anyone, could steer Henry in a course not of his own plotting. His sailed by his own star alone.