Page 19 of The Queen’s Witch

I knew he had not tired of Anne.

At one especially brilliant dinner in her reception hall, they sat on a dais, favored guests on either side. As the king talked to the lady on his left, his hand, unseen by any but me, crept to Anne’s knee. Without ceasing banter with Sir Henry Norris on her other side, she removed the king’s hand. He replaced it, now on her thigh.

Anne turned to him with a brilliant smile. A wave of her long, elegant fingers, one slightly bent to hide the tiny sixth finger, indicated the dishes in front of them. “What is your pleasure, Your Majesty?”

“You know my pleasure,” he said, pointing with his free hand to some dish I could not see from my crouch. A server sprang forward to put more on his plate.

She said, “Are you sure you want more of that? It has gone cold.”

“Then I will have it cold.” And when the servant stepped back, he said very low to Anne, “I will have it any way it comes, for it is my choice.”

“No—my choice,” she said.

His face darkened, and I caught my breath. But the next moment he smiled and the small blue eyes gleamed. He relished her defiance, relished the battle of wits. More—he reveled in the challenge. Now I understood her behavior. He was the hunter, she the nimble hare.

He said, smiling, “You would order your monarch?”

“I would never order a different monarch, could I have my choice of all those in the kitchens.”

He laughed, a great bellow that turned all heads toward them. Anne looked demurely at her plate, even as her hand removed his.

August, and the sacred day of Lughnasadh, the festival to celebrate the first fruits of harvest. It did not seem much celebrated here in London, and not acknowledged at all at court. But at home, where the older ways brought from the North still held, there would be feasting, dancing, offerings made by the Sisterhood to the Goddess and by the Church to the Christian gods, Jesus and Mary. Last year at Lughnasadh I had danced but not with Mark, who had not come to Tydd Saint Stephen until autumn.

The first time I saw him was in September, at the cottage of his Aunt Madge, with whom he was lodged for the winter until the sea calmed and another fishing ship sailed. Madge Smalacombe had a swelling in her leg that Grandmother arrived to treat, taking me with her to practice brewing the correct tisane and casting the correct spells. As soon as I saw Mark, his tall, strong body leaning against the rough wooden wall, I almost forgot the formula for the tisane. He straightened, as wide-eyed as I, and moved toward me. I no longer remembered what we said; words did not matter. Probably we merely mumbled commonplace remarks, even as the currents that flowed between us were so far from commonplace that, had I not known better, I would have thought he had spelled me. And so he had, but not with magick.

Had Mark returned yet from the sea? What did he think about my absence?

But it was not Mark I thought of after night fell.

I all but wore a path in the cobbled ground of the tiltyard, pacing endlessly and chewing waking roots to avoid sleep, lest I have again the dream of Grandmother’s fiery anguish. Over and over, I told myself that on Beltane, it had been only a dream. In the Otherworld, Grandmother had no body. She could not burn.

Then how was Joan tormenting her?

I would not think of it.

I could not stop thinking of it. Only now was I realizing how much hatred I was capable of. Only now did my capacity for hatred begin to frighten me.

During these first weeks at Greenwich, Anne had barely spoken to me. But then came a night when she sent for me on the pretext of a sudden hunger. I arrived in her bedchamber along with a page carrying an apple tart and spiced wine. Anne sat on a stool by the fire, dressed for bed, her shining black hair loose on her shoulders. The page was dismissed.

“You may go too,” she said to Emma.

“But my lady—”

“I said to leave me!” Anne snapped, and with the fury in her voice, so out of proportion to the serving woman’s courteous plea to stay, came my first realization of the strain that Anne must feel. The Great Matter held her entire future. Emma left hastily, closing the door. Anne pushed the tart toward me, said petulantly, “Take a bite,” and stared into the fire.

I took a bite. “It is clean. I detect no poison.”

“You never do, do you? You detect nothing. Of what use are you? Do you mean to tell me that there are no small magicks in this palace?”

I said cautiously, “None that I have discovered in these tower rooms.”

“You will have a wider field for detection tomorrow. The king wishes my presence at court, since he must be present. I wish you to cast a spell there.”

“What kind of spell?”

“What kind can you do? Can you sicken a person?”

I could, but I would not say so until I must. “It is difficult, my lady. Easier if I were joined with my Third.”