Chapter Five
The pages of the book fluttered in the midnight breeze. The noise, like the snapping of a flag in the wind, startled her from her dreams of her wedding night soon to come, imagining Percy’s face as her shift fell away from her shoulders, imagining his child growing within her and the pleased expression Percy would wear every day among the men of law. Never again would she spend her days flattering strangers; she would at last have an honest life. It would be the end of her secrets.
The other ladies-in-waiting were sleeping heavily in the dark room. Some of them snored, and Anne often wished for a light to know who it was. But this was not what had awakened her. From her dream, she had heard the words spoken.
Sitting up, she saw the book was open and near her feet on the bed. She reached down and shut it but heard them whispered again. It was a language she had never known, except perhaps in childhood, when she could read the moods of the sun and hear the dialect of rain. Those were the days she could laugh with George and play wicked pranks on their father, and they had nothing to fear in the world but scoldings and early bedtimes.
She remembered nothing of the whispered words, but their effect remained. Her heart pounded with an urgency that made her thoughts race. Anne fled from the chamber, something drawing her away from the sleeping court into the gardens below.
The garden was alive and rejoicing in its dark seclusion. Dew fed the roses and hawthorn, each with great tight buds ready to burst open. Crickets sang the same note, over and over, like a needle and thread bobbing in and out of the dark blanket of the night sky. She had worn no wooden pattens on her soft shoes, which she regretted immediately once her feet set upon the garden path. Thousands of small stones were unkind to her soles. She walked down the path, weaving between clusters of sleeping buds and cool vines, moving farther and farther from the palace, watching her linen shift float about her, lit only by stars. Something was drawing her.
Anne saw there was a small chapel at the end of the path she had followed. Despite the hour, a lamp burned within. The chapel was made of stone, with plain windows instead of elaborate scenes of glass. There would be only enough room in such a place for a handful of people and its altar. This chapel was for earnest prayer, surely, and not ceremony. This thought comforted her and pulled her farther in, until she was about to step out from the path and open the door. She would wait here for the voice to return.
She heard a noise that made her throat seize even as her arms jerked. It was a scraping, a thick scraping of stone against something soft, with a gutted moan upon that.
“Deus meus, ex toto corde p?nitet me ómnium meórum peccatórum, éaque detéstor, quia peccándo, non solum p?nas a te iuste statútas proméritus sum, sed pr?sértim quia offéndi te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super ómnia diligáris!”
She was too frightened to peer out from behind the plantings. The dragging continued, and the moans changed to weeping. Something heavy dragged itself along the path, or was being dragged. She strained to hear if there were any more words, until in a wail she understood its pain, ground up and spat out in one word.
“Why?”
When it became visible to her, her fear changed to wrenching pity. A man, clothed in a rough brown cloak, edged his way along to the chapel on bare knees. The stones had bit and cut into his flesh, and she could see he left a glistening black trail behind him.
He collapsed on the steps, crying out. “I have repented, my Lord! God, in Your mercy, give me a way to repair my great sin, so that no more may die!”
His face sank into his arms, and he did not move again. Anne stood in her dark shelter, unsure what she should do. Christian charity would have her comfort him and see to his wounds, but she was alone and unprotected. She looked at the fallen man and feared him for his size and great distress; he might do anything to her if he caught her witnessing this.
She saw the glistening stain spreading out from under his cloak, and the way the cloak moved with his breath. She couldn’t be sure if he was conscious. She bit her lip and looked around, but there was no one in the garden or approaching the chapel. Exhaling hard, she pulled her shift tightly about her and went to him. Kneeling, she stroked his back and whispered what words of comfort she knew.
“Et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Amen.”