“And Bishop Fisher? Was he poisoned?” Anne asked, thinking—God forgive her—that it would be convenient to have the saintly prelate confined to his bed, mute, for a space.
“No, I thank God. He had decided to fast. But there’s no doubt that the poison was meant for him. Rouse said at first that he thought the powders were laxatives, and that he’d done it for a joke, but then he changed his story and said he had been given to understand that they would do no more than make people sick and would not cause any real harm. What he won’t say is who told him that. Someone gave those powders to him.”
Anne had a chilling thought. They will point the finger at me! The Bishop is known to be against the divorce. People will say I tried to have him murdered.
“Have you pressed this Rouse to name who sent him?” she asked aloud.
“Yes, he has been interrogated. He is to be examined again today, a little more rigorously.” Henry’s eyes narrowed. “I think he will talk.”
—
After Henry had left for the Council chamber, Anne hastened to confide her anxieties to George. He listened with increasing anger.
“Rouse is being questioned again as we speak,” she told him. “So far he has taken all the blame upon himself.”
“Maybe he’s telling the truth. He could have bought those powders and been told about their effects by the apothecary, or used too much.”
“Or maybe he was warned that, if he talked, it would go worse for his family. George, this was a deliberate attempt on the Bishop’s life—it must have been, for it is so timely. And I can’t help but think that one of our friends was behind it—someone powerful enough to frighten this Rouse into silence.”
George slid an arm around her. “Sister, I think you are letting your imagination run away with you.”
“But what motive did Rouse have to do such a thing?”
“A grudge against someone?”
Anne stood up. “I wish I believed that.” A bell sounded in the courtyard outside. “I must go. Henry will be out of Council soon.”
“Let me know if Rouse talks,” George said.
A horrible germ of a suspicion crept into Anne’s mind. Father had waxed hot against Fisher. He had exploded later, after the reception, calling the Bishop all manner of nasty names. And she had confided to George her fears that Fisher was dangerous. Henry himself had said he should be stopped. But not like this! And really, she could not credit that Father would have stooped so low as to commit murder—and by poison, too, a woman’s weapon, given that no brute force was needed. Of course he would not!
Surely George had not done this dreadful thing. Did he love her so much that he would commit murder for her? Was he so stupid not to think of the consequences?
George was a mercurial character, a law unto himself. By his own admission, he had committed rape. And, of all her family, he was the one whom fame and advancement had touched the most. He had grown more ambitious even than she and Father were. Had he done this in the mistaken belief that it would smooth her path? No, she could not believe it.
Rouse did not talk. He still would not name the person who had given him the powders.
—
Henry came to Anne a few days later. He spoke reluctantly, as if dragging the words out. “Lord Chancellor More has told me that there are seditious rumors that you, sweetheart, your father, and your brother were involved in that poisoning attempt.” His tone was contemptuous.
“It’s all wicked lies!” Anne cried, alarmed. “I would never—”
“Darling, I know that,” Henry comforted her. “By God, I’ll still their tongues if I have to cut them out! None shall slander you. I told More—I said you were being blamed unfairly for everything, even the weather.”
Someone, Anne was sure, was trying to frame her. The very use of poison had been intended to put her, a woman, in the picture. For which other woman had a motive to want Fisher silenced?
—
“There will be no trial,” Henry told Anne, after Rouse had been interrogated for the fourth time.
“But you said—”
“Anne, I must divert suspicion from you and yours.”
“I would see Rouse questioned in open court, to have my name cleared,” Anne demanded. “He must admit his guilt.”
Henry sat there, immovable. He would not look at her.
“What did he say today?” she demanded to know.
“He said little more, despite being pressed. He is adamant that he was acting alone.” Still Henry would not meet her gaze, but sat there toying with the bases of his doublet. “Darling, the rumors proliferate. Parliament, the supreme court in this realm, will pass an Act of Attainder against this wretch, demonstrating how seriously I regard his crime. And because I utterly abhor such an abominable offense, I am having Parliament pass a new law, making willful murder by poison high treason, for to me it is equal to it, and should attract similar odium. Those who offend will be boiled to death—a dreadful punishment for a dreadful crime.”
Anne’s hand flew to her mouth. It was barbarous. The agony was unimaginable. And that Henry could sanction it! But she could see why he was being so ruthless. The punishment must be a deterrent to others. She hoped, how she hoped, that Rouse was not to suffer it as a scapegoat for someone else.
Sir Francis Bryan went to Smithfield to witness Rouse’s execution, and came back sickened. “They hung him up in chains from a pulley and dipped him in and out of a cauldron,” he related. “He roared mighty loud, and some women who were big with child fainted. It took him a long time to die.”
Anne shuddered. Her eyes met George’s. He was as horrified as she was.
—
At last the universities of Europe had all spoken. The final determination arrived as Henry and Anne were playing cards in her chamber.
“That makes twelve for me, and four for the Queen,” Henry said, jubilant. “It’s cost me a fortune, but it was worth it.”
Anne hoped they had not all been susceptible to bribes, and that their determinations were honest, but really it did not matter. The outcome was what they had both desired.
“Darling, think on it,” Henry was saying. “The finest and most learned minds in Europe have pronounced my marriage to be incestuous and against the law of God—and so it must be null and void. Pope Julius had no business in the first place to dispense with it.”
“So our marriage can go ahead?” she asked.
“In a little space,” Henry said. “I’m hoping that Clement will pay heed to these verdicts and grant my annulment, so that this breach can be healed.”
Anne wondered if she had understood him correctly. Was he, even now, ready to be reconciled to Rome? He had made himself head of the English Church! Did he really think that the Pope would welcome him back into the fold with open arms now? She despaired of him, she truly did. At heart, he was still a good son of the Roman Church.
—