“Where is my son?” he screamed.
“I don’t know!” she screamed back. “I obeyed God in everything! I never prompted you to do those things! I only said love God and honour His Word!”
“But do you, Anne? Jane tells me you flirt with the Hutchins book but have never read it, not all the way through. You are not who you seem.”
“What does Jane know?” Anne said.
“She knows how to please a king, I tell you. Her body is ripe with heirs. I knew it every time I caressed her in my chamber, while you were in here gulping down dainties, cataloguing my treasures, instead of doing your duty as my wife!”
Anne felt her chin trembling. She was terrified to break in front of him. She didn’t trust him now, as a husband or a king. “I alone am loyal to you. It is God who has betrayed us!”
“You do not even know Him,” he said with disgust.
The baby cried, breaking their locked stares.
Henry grunted and left.
Anne called for a nursemaid. “Nurse her, and leave her here with me to sleep. She must never be left alone. Perhaps she will not be king, but she will be loved.”
Jane did not attend her again. She was moved to private chambers, a pleasant little apartment where she was kept under guard, with fresh flowers brought to her bedside. She could spend the time in warm, sweet walks with Henry through the sleeping winter garden. This was what Anne learned from the servants still attending her, though it took days to pry each piece from them.
Anne devoted herself to being ready for her churching. All of Henry’s accusations would be upturned in a single day. Except perhaps for the reading of the entire book Hutchins had sent; it was a thick book with so many words. She could not simply choke through it in one afternoon. She would set this task aside for another month in which she had more leisure. This was a time for alarm and strategy, she reasoned, not leisurely reading.
A thrill shot through her limbs and heart; she had not left this chamber for a month. Today she would join the palace again and the world. She wore white, with a long white veil, so that no one would see her in her shame before the priest declared her clean. The women were reminding her of the instructions:
“Do not look at sky or earth until the priest places the host upon your tongue.”
“Do not lift your veil! It will protect you from all charms and spells, and from demons who wish to needle you.”
“The king will remove it as a sign that he has accepted you back into his bed.”
Her Yeoman opened the door, and Anne saw there were other men with him. They walked to either side of her, lifting her in the air and carrying her to the litter outside waiting to take her to the church. Her feet would not be allowed to curse the ground, unclean as she was, until she had partaken of communion again.
The sun was strong and warm and Anne lifted her face to it, wishing she could be free of this shroud with the sun on her skin. The church was within sight. Anne’s heart was pounding. Everyone would be inside. She would only be permitted to kneel at the church’s back door, like a beggar, until the priest bade her clean to enter.
The guards lifted her from the litter and carried her to the steps, rapping loudly upon the door.
Anne saw shards of broken glass at the far end of the church. She had heard the gossip, rumours that those immersed in Hutchins’s book were striking out at the church, desecrating the images and relics that had coloured their lives. Anne felt a stab of sadness, seeing the bits of brilliantly coloured glass still reflecting the sun, though lying in dirt. There was so much beauty in the church. She did not want that destroyed. She had only wanted more of it, more of what made God so beautiful to her, His very words. But they could touch nothing of human hands without upending it.
And here she was: a new mother, with a husband who may not want her back in his bed, with nothing to show for her striving in faith but a girl. Had she not prayed? Was there a Mass she had not said, if only in her heart? Why had His words done so little for her?
The door opened, and a priest tipped his head to acknowledge her.
Her hands were shaking as she lifted the white cloth to him. The cloth had been draped over baby Elizabeth at her baptism; giving it to the priest would protect the anointing on Elizabeth’s life.
He stared at it, not moving to accept it, and Anne’s heart raced. Henry had passed a law that protected Anne’s offspring, but the law did not change the heart. The priest could throw her out, leaving them both to the witches and angry crowds.
He swallowed and took it, his warm hand touching her own. It did not stop the sweat beading along her forehead and bodice.