I pity the woman who must warm you with her caresses, I thought. But I’d learnt to keep my tongue better disciplined.
After an hour or so they made their departure. I tried to get Thomas alone so I could speak with him privately but he stayed well out of my reach. Edmund ensured that Thomas left afore him and closed the door behind them both.
As soon as Anne’s serving man cleared the plate and left, Edithe came rushing out into the large chamber. She fell on her knees and clung to my dress.
“Mistress, I must repent. Can you forgive me?”
“Rise, Edithe. Whatever do you mean?” I’d never seen her distraught; rather, ’twas usually I who was distraught and she of a firm mind.
“He came today. He were asking questions, he were. About those letters from Master Will, to you.”
I sat her down in a chair by the fire and then pulled another one alongside her. “Who did? Who asked for my letters?”
“’Twas Master Simon, ’twas. He said Miss Rose, I mean, the countess, told him that there were letters betwixt you and her brother Will and that she herself had delivered many and found them to be…. indelicate.”
Indelicate? Hardly. Mayhap expressive. But not indelicate.
“The letters are long gone,” I reassured her. “’Tis nothing to worry about. They have been gone for years.”
She began to cry again. “He asked me if I knew where they was, lady. He said he’d hurt my Roger and see to it that he never worked again if ’n I didn’t confess exactly as it was.”
Now I was shaking. “But you don’t know where they are. Do you, Edithe?”
She nodded. “I do. I took them from you when you were a young girl and had to marry old Baron Blackston. Thought I was doing you a favor, putting Will out of your mind if not out of your heart. I brought the letters to Hever Castle and hid them ’hind a slat in the barn. Thought it not right to destroy them, they not being my property and all.”
I stood up. “Did you tell this to Simon?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, lady. But I was right vexed for my Roger.” I turned to gaze out the dark window and think. After a moment she added, quietly, “I didn’t tell him about your copy of Master Tyndale’s Bible, though. He didn’t ask.”
I turned to her. “You’ve found that?”
“I’m your lady maid, mistress. I know everything about you.”
Well, at least my calm, plainspoken Edithe was back. I sighed. “’Tis good.”
“I suppose now that I’ve, now that I’ve sinned awful against you I shan’t be able to read Holy Writ anymore. But ’twas in reading it for meself that I learnt to come and beg forgiveness. I canna understand Latin, course, so mostly I canna understand what ’tis the priest says at Mass.”
I tried to keep the look of shock off my face. “You can read?” As soon as I’d said it I was sorry I had. “I mean, you have read it?”
She smiled. “I can read, mistress. Once I found that you had that copy, well, I traded favors with one of the seamstresses who can read. I would work on her sleeves of an evening after you’d gone to bed and she’d teach me how to read. I learnt right quick! And oh, how I’ve loved hearing from our blessed Lord meself. Who could have thought it? ’Tis as if He’s here right aside me!”
The lightness of her face reminded me of Will’s when he’d given the Bible to me. I felt some shame for the carelessness with which I’d treated Tyndale’s work, God’s word, seeking my own comfort within its pages but not the writer Himself. Bilney could be burnt and Edithe spent from lack of sleep and yet I read not but selfishly for my own relief.
I reached my arm out to her. “You may, of course, read it at any time. But I will tell you now. ’Tis not my copy. Do you understand?”
She looked confused but agreed with me. “Yes, my lady, if you say so.”
“If I don’t own a copy, and someone should come looking for it, you can rightly tell them that I do not own one.”
She smiled then. “I understand. But…. what shall you do about Master Simon?”
“I do not know, Edithe. I do not know. I shall pray.”
I sent her to bed and then undressed myself in the chill and quickly crawled under my coverlet. I brought Master Tyndale’s translation with me and left one solitary candle lit in the wrought iron candelabra beside my bed. I paged through the Gospel According to Saint Matthew again and saw nothing to spark me. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t used to praying without a book of hours to guide me. I missed its reassuring direction.
I freely admit that I come seeking only an answer and comfort, though I wish ’twere not so. I am weak and I am sorry, but I need assistance. What shall I say when Simon asks me of the letters? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I crossed myself and then flipped back to the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, chapter 8, and lightly touched the daisy wreath, the one remaining symbol of my love for Will and his for me, the love, as it were, that placed me in this pinch.
I read, What shall we then say unto these things? If God be on our side: who can be against us?
I blew out the light and then, in the darkness, whispered, “Please be on my side.”
* * *
Now that Henry was married, and it had been consummated, he was ever in a festive mood. I did not understand why, but from mid-January on he grew even more benevolent in his manner and entertainment. A masque celebrating the seasons, though we were in the grip of icy January, was to be held that night. Anne went dressed as summer, her gown a becoming green and her rubies having been set as apples, a badge of fertility.
Henry went “disguised” as the sun.
I helped Anne dress, and as I did, I leaned over and whispered in her ear about the letters Simon had found. She dismissed her other ladies for a moment.
“Were they intimate?” she asked.
“Not unbecomingly so,” I answered. “But there would be no room for misunderstanding where our hearts lay.”
She nodded and took my hand. “Mayhap you tell him they were a childish infatuation?”
I looked down.
“I know you do not like to misspeak,” she said. “But you needn’t tell him that your affections persist. For your safety’s sake,” she said, and I nodded. All knew that women, as chattel, had as many rights as a horse or a plow. We were ever dependent upon the good graces of the men placed over us.
“Well spoken,” I said.
“Although Henry and court business take up more and more of my time, my concern and affections for you are ever constant,” she said, reaching out to squeeze my hand. She recalled the other ladies and we set about the finishing touches of her preparation.
I sat near Anne at a table with her other ladies-in-waiting, dressed in a gown of russet with layers of mauve, gowns slashed becomingly to reveal the gold kirtle underneath. Though it may have been more popular to appear as spring or summer I knew my looks did better with the warm colors of autumn. I saw Anthony; he met my gaze and looked at me appreciatively but spent the evening admirably concentrating on the wisp of a girl destined, I supposed, to be his wife. Shortly after the music began, Simon, in magnificent winter gray, swooped in and compelled me to dance.
“My bride,” he said, yet there was no softness in his voice. His cold hands had grown stronger since the last time I’d seen him, and his face harder. I suspected that the title, and the power and money that went with it, had given him courage. And conceit.
“Sir,” I said. “’Tis good to see you again. When did you arrive?”
“A few days hence,” he said. “With only a small retinue of servants to attend to my needs.” A volta was struck up, the most intimate of dances, and Simon took the occasion to hold me even closer, tighter, for certes, than was comfortable.