His back tensed under her first touch, then softened and his breathing grew strong. He began to sit up, his cloak falling over his face, and she lifted the wet cloth away from his bloodied knees. He wanted to cry out—she could tell by the way a breath was forced back down when she touched his leg—but he did not.
His knees were desperately in need of tending. They were cut at all angles, deep slices shooting out from the center like starbursts, the tiniest stones still embedded. Indeed, these stones were all that was stopping the bleeding in places. Anne looked around for anything she could use and saw a fountain not far from them. She ran and dipped the edges of her shift in it, running back and carefully dabbing at the wounds, hoping to expel the dirt and stones that polluted it. She made several trips, neither of them speaking as she worked, cleaning the wounds and tearing the hem away from her sleeping gown to bandage them.
His hand caught hers as she began to tear.
“You mustn’t do that,” he whispered. His voice was dead, numb from exhaustion. His touch was weak. It made Anne pity him even more and fear him even less. It opened up her heart as nothing else had in this palace of pageant and pretense. She would be glad when her service here was done.
She pressed her hand over his for a moment, then removed it and continued to tear.
“No one here will ever see it,” she whispered and thought of the voice she had heard from her bed. “I think I was sent to you.” She stood, pulling her torn shift close. “I am grieved for you, my friend. May God answer your prayers with swift mercy.”
“Wait!” He fumbled at his neck, removing a gold crucifix. “Wear this, for me.”
“I do not require payment.”
“It is not payment. It will keep you safe.”
She held out her hand to him, uncertain, and he poured the cold chain and cross into her palm. The moonlight made it flash, and she was afraid.
A cock crowed and they both started. He tried to stand, but the pain drove him back to sitting.
“You must return,” he urged. “The others will be waking.”
She ran towards the palace, her feet finding their way through the plots and gathered bushes, straining to find the certain path back to the entrance she had used. But in the growing light the garden’s paths made no sense. When she reached the doorway, she rested her head against the cold stone of the arched frame.
“Lord, I am a foolish woman to go wandering about at night. I should have obeyed the priests; I should not have brought that book with me. Please forgive me, and take me from this place.”
A guard met her there with a professional disinterest, which she knew would be responsible for a thousand rumours by dinner.
Chapter Six
She was right.
At dinner every woman at the court paid great attention to Anne without speaking to her. She felt their eyes on her, and they were cold. She was not used to being so scorned. Steadying her fork as she raised it to her mouth, she swallowed only once when she raised her cup. She missed her friends at the French court, she missed her brother, she missed being liked. She had not even been allowed to see her betrothed, Lord Percy, since her return.
It was a cold rain the day she got off the ship and it rained still—at least in her soul—a sour rain that could cause nothing to grow. Perhaps soon she would be finished here, the family’s name restored, and she would sleep beside Percy every night. Her small act of rebellion, bringing a forbidden book into the country, had gone unnoticed. Indeed, some of the nobles here already had it.
The servants set before her a bowl of steaming pottage and a plate of roasted venison. She sat at an enormous table with courtiers lined up according to rank and usefulness to the crown, servants and pages darting in among the diners to deliver food and messages. The cook’s politics involved the belly only, not books, so the servers spoke freely with Anne. She silently blessed them for it.
“How do you like the venison, my lady?”
“It is wonderful,” Anne said, throwing a bone on the floor, as was the custom. “Though I feel sympathy for it, having been hunted by this court. Everyone here relishes the suffering of the weak.”
The server, a boy of about thirteen, noted the women staring at Anne. He winked at her and set a plate of fine bread on the table.
“Anyone hunting in here would need mighty sharp arrows to pierce those old hides,” he remarked, and Anne laughed out loud.
Everyone stopped.
“Anne?” Queen Catherine spoke from the head of the table. King Henry was not beside her. He had not joined her at dinner since Anne had come to court. “What remark has pleased you?”