When the carriage slowed to its familiar crawl, Margaret lifted the curtain concealing them and protecting them from the debris and dirt flying up from the street. A group of men and women, stripped to rags, bearing unlit torches on their backs, walked slowly through the streets, their eyes on the ground. In front of them a soldier carried a sign that identified them as heretics. The few on the streets were spitting and cursing them.
One woman stumbled and could not catch herself. Her arm hung oddly at her side. She cried out and tried to stand again, but her limbs gave her difficulty; she only rose after heaving herself up against her thigh. A soldier behind the group hit her with the broad side of his sword, a fast, thick smack that sent her reeling again.
Margaret let the curtain fall back into place. “It won’t do any good, you know.”
“What?” Rose asked.
“They’ll persist in their sin. It’s the only thing they’ve truly ever owned.”
The estate was abandoned; only a dog ran out to greet the carriage. A few leaves, early fallen, swirled around the wood door framed by a white stone archway. Margaret and Rose alighted and pushed open the door.
Inside the main room was a bed, with candles burning on a night table and sun-bleached linens piled high around a shrunken figure. A servant, saying her beads over the bed, was startled by Rose and Margaret’s arrival. The figure in bed turned her head and looked at the women.
“Praise be to God,” she said, her voice high and thin.
“My queen,” Margaret said, not moving.
Rose breathed through her fear, the secret horror of seeing death eating away at a woman. She would not let Margaret run from this. This was the end of life, of passion and first kisses. She grabbed Margaret’s hand and forced her to the bed.
“What happened?” Margaret asked.
Rose winced at the girl’s cold fingers digging into her own for courage.
Catherine smiled. Her face was nothing but hollows and caverns, deep etchings of sorrow. Tiny popped veins were evident around her nose and eyes, from tears that had not ceased. Every bone on her face could be plainly made out.
“I am dying, child. It started when I was at court. I knew the signs, but Henry would not permit me treatment. He wanted a son.”
Margaret nodded as if she understood.
“But young girls do not go visiting without their fathers. These are remarkable times.” The queen exhaled and started to close her eyes. “I know why you’re here.” Her eyes snapped open. “Has the Hutchins book called you, Margaret?”
Margaret went red as Catherine’s eyes narrowed.
“It has. Margaret, mark my dying frame. Look what has become of me! I refused it, and it swept me from my home.” She turned as if to look out the window, but her face fell back against the pillow, eyes closed.
The servant stood to escort them from the room but Margaret came alive.
“My queen!” she said loudly.
Catherine opened her eyes.
Margaret reached into her robes and set a leather purse on the table before she leaned in and said something to Catherine. A shadow passed over the queen’s face.
“Your father approves?” Catherine asked.
“This is what he wants,” she answered.
Margaret laid her head on the queen’s chest, but Catherine had already slipped under, into one last dream.
“You didn’t save her.”
The Scribe shook his head. “I don’t save. What writer ever could?”
“Why are you telling me this story?”
“You could have sent me away. You wanted to write these words. I wanted to tell them.”
“But that’s it? I’m going to write the story down and die. I don’t get a second chance?”
“Second chances aren’t your forte, are they?”
“I have unfinished business!”
“More than you know.”
“What was David talking about? Why didn’t I get into the research study?”
“I do not have permission to tell you this story.”
“But there is a story.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone else who would tell it to me?”
I hated myself for asking, fearing another angel would appear. I suspected none of them would look like the imaginary angels I saw in gift shops, skinny women with flowing hair and harps. Real angels would terrify.
Crazy Betty started screaming—it was time for her vitals check. She always screamed when the nurses woke her in the dead of night. Sometimes Mariskka screamed back.
The Scribe nodded and I understood.
Chapter Twenty-one