“Don’t quit,” the leader urged, as an owl began calling in the darkness around them. “All the women on our side will do this.”
No one spoke as they retreated into the trees, each woman heading in her own direction, each woman keeping to her own thoughts, none of them wearing underwear.
Chapter Fifteen
Anne held her breath and listened. Her Yeoman raised an eyebrow, but she paid no mind, pressing her body against the wall, leaning her upper body in, inch by inch, until she could catch a little glimpse.
Henry sat on a rather plain wooden chair, surrounded as usual by fanning, doting servants, including his Ward of the Chamber, always ready to follow Henry to the privy and dump the esteemed products with much solemnity. Anne thought her job here was not so different, receiving publicly the favour of Henry that amounted to nothing more in private than rank stench.
But before Henry knelt, Sir Thomas More, easy enough to pick out for his hook nose and ermine collar, his red robes of the Star Chamber making him stand out in a room of servants in plainer livery. Wolsey stood, either having paid honour to Henry already or feeling no need to do it.
Anne missed some of what was said; with so many people in the room, the men’s voices were muffled by the simplest movements or deep breaths of others. Anne held her breath more tightly and leaned in, pressing her whole side against the wall, straining her neck to get her ear as close to the door’s opening as she could without being detected.
More spoke first. “I cannot reply to this.”
Henry was not pleased with the answer. His hushed tone carried barbs.
More’s tone did not change. “I do not know how he came into possession of the letters. The Pope is scattering them abroad, though, and by now every foreign power has read them. This is why they came to my attention first, from the diplomatic channels I maintain.”
Henry screamed at him, and Anne heard a violent smashing, probably the chair meeting its unhappy fate. She jumped but did not cry out.
“Who is responsible for this?”
“Good king, this is why I have brought the matter to your attention. The people are angry with Mistress Boleyn. Everyone in the realm knows she desires the crown, though you are still married. They know she has brought the Hutchins book into the court, a court that will not let the public read it. The unrest grows by the hour. Corn prices have not resolved, and families are going hungry. August promises more of the drought’s vengeance. And their fury is not directed at you alone. Wolsey is a target as well. No one in your house is safe from accusation. I am simply advising you how best to correct the course.”
“Burning? It hasn’t been done in a hundred years or more.”
“It must be done. There is a plot stirring that will provoke the king’s good patience with these people and this book.”
“What of me?” Anne heard Wolsey’s thin voice. It was a mistake to ask in front of Henry—even Anne recognized this. Sweat had broken out upon her upper lip from the mention of her name in there.
“The people are angry at paying the high taxes to the Church, Wolsey. They blame you for their poor state, for everything that they cannot trace back to the king, even the new bouts of sweating sickness plaguing the country. I have this week arrested a group of men in Rochester who were plotting your death.”
“They were going to kill me?” His voice was not steady.
“No, this would be a great crime, which even they knew,” More continued. “Your office is held in esteem although they are angry with the man. They were determined not to lay a hand on you, but they were going to drill holes in the bottom of a boat, and set you in it, far out at sea. They would leave it to God’s good pleasure to determine what to do with you.”
Anne could hear Henry’s laughter. No one else joined in.
Wolsey spoke next, but his voice was better. Anne imagined him taking a deep breath as he looked round the room, sizing up how best to extinguish the threat. These men were but errant children to him, and he was going to roundly scold them back into place.
Henry spoke. “It is an English marriage, so it will be decided in an English court. We will convene at Blackfriars’ Church and be done with this. Sir Thomas, see to it that Catherine knows nothing in advance of this, though make sure she is appointed proctors to speak for her. And prevent any of her letters from leaving England. I do not want her playing to the Pope’s sympathies, especially since the Pope is at the mercy of her nephew, King Charles. Can you keep my secrets?”
“Yes, your majesty,” she heard More reply.
Anne was knocked off balance by the door slamming back. Wolsey, his billowing red robes riding unevenly across his bulging stomach, stood over her.