The crowd’s faces swirled, and Rose’s knees gave way. She heard Bilney yell out that Wolsey was the wolf who would not feed the flock but instead would eat them. As a man caught Rose and cradled her in his arms, she saw Sir Thomas trying to catch a glimpse of her over the crowd. She was dizzy and sick, but his kind eyes kept finding her, and she tried to focus on them, to give herself a center to steady the spinning world.
Anne and Bilney were led to separate iron stakes and secured to them by chains, a pile of wood all around them up to their thighs. No one in the crowd talked. The sheriff stepped forward and lit the fire, his back to the wind to give the flames a good start. Neither of the condemned spoke, their pale faces looking white against the blackened chains pinning them to the stake. The flames snaked through the wood, scorching their feet. Anne screamed. The wind gusted past the sheriff, extinguishing the flames. Rose looked to the sky, to see if a strange deliverance was at hand, but the clouds were gone. There would be no rain, and the wind would not hold.
The sheriff tried to light the fire again, but the wind snuffed out his bundle of wood. Again he dipped his faggot in a torch burning on the lawn of the hospital, and this time the flames roared ahead of the wind, consuming the dry wood, the flames going as high as their thighs. Anne’s shift, being longer, caught fire, and she was lost behind a veil of flames. Rose tried to stop herself from hearing her screams, but the effort of putting her hands to her ears swept her off balance again, and her rescuer pulled her from the crowd to Sir Thomas’s carriage.
The stallions ran with great speed. The bumps and dips clacked her teeth together. Margaret sat, her eyes too bright, a doll’s smile on her mouth.
“Why such haste, Father?”
More was looking at Rose but turned his attention to Margaret. “I learned today how deep the heresy is rooting here. Hutchins has been delayed finishing his translation of the Old Book into English, because the plague is moving again through Europe this summer. I must finish my public reply to his poisonous book and get it to the people to read.”
Margaret’s eyes were brimming, Rose saw.
“It’s only a book, Father—little words on a page! Why did they have to be burnt?” she asked. “Perhaps Anne thought she was doing the right thing, letting women hear the words in English, so they could more correctly live by them.”
“There are priests to teach women how to live, Margaret. Women cannot understand the whole of the gospel and render just opinions on its meaning. The Bible is law, and laws are administered by those with training. If every man tried to judge the meaning of the law for himself, would not chaos be the result?”
“But you taught us to search for truth!”
“Oh, Margaret, did I not teach you first to trust?”
Margaret wept, burying her face in her hands. Sir Thomas leaned across his seat and took her in his arms, patting her back. Rose cast her glance away, ashamed to witness this. It was her curse, wasn’t it, to condemn those people who were to her the blessings of God, even as she fumbled in service to Him? She looked away from the pair and did not look back, even when Margaret spoke.
“I am sorry I doubted you, Father. I pray that book will be destroyed, and all who read it will fall under your just and merciful hand.”
Chapter Seventeen
The first burning was in the city today; she had heard news from the servants. Closing her eyes, Anne saw the Pope’s reedy, grim fingers encircling the city, choking believers, weighing purses and loyalties. Reformers wanted nothing but God’s law taught plainly; the Church taught that this would lead only to chaos, if every man judged the law for himself.
Anne looked out over the Thames and knew she was the only woman with such a close view of this truth. She watched Henry, day by day, choosing whom to believe and when. He kept the Church close, despising its passions and coveting its power. He gave free reign to Sir Thomas to scourge and burn believers who presented inconvenient arguments of reason. More and Wolsey, who mocked grace and mercy, were destroying the city. She had heard such rumours about Sir Thomas that they set her teeth on edge. He persecuted heretics and scooped beggars and lost souls from the streets, forcing them to work in terrible conditions, living as slaves in his house. His wife had died under mysterious conditions, she had heard, no doubt driven to her death by his violent manner. Any man who was so cruel to heretics in public could only be a monster in private. Anne was sorry for his children and their certain suffering.
Henry would give him free reign to murder as it pleased the Pope, until the Pope gave him the annulment so he could marry Anne. She shuddered and was glad she had only peeked at the Hutchins book in her rooms, never submerging herself completely in the pages. She would not be drawn further in.
She inhaled and caught a whiff of fire. Probably a fire from the kitchens behind her in Greenwich Castle, but the smell of the roasting spits turned her stomach. She had business with the cook, however. She needed to speak to him.