Page 20 of The Queen’s Witch

“Me, you mean. This again. I wonder now if you can do any magick at all. Have you been tricking me? Playing me for a fool?”

“No, my lady!”

She rose from her stool to face me. “Show me proof that you are indeed a cunning woman. If you can.”

What to do? Nothing that would lead me to harm anyone. Nothing too large, lest she assume I could do even greater feats. Nothing too small, lest I not convince her I possessed any power at all.

So . . . what?

“There is a nun named Elizabeth Barton,” Anne said, “who calls herself the Holy Maid of Kent. She prophesies that if the king sets aside his false wife and marries me, he will die soon after. Is she a witch?”

“I do not know. I have never seen her.” So that was why Anne was in such a rage. I had heard the gossip about Dame Barton. Some said she was a harmless lunatic and her prophecies deranged nonsense. Others said no, she was actually holy, transmitting the will of God that the king honor his marriage.

Anne, hands on hips, demanded, “If she is what you people call ‘thrice braided,’ could she prophesy the future with accuracy? Or is she a charlatan?”

Divination was the most difficult of the great magicks, the rarest, and the most dangerous. If Elizabeth Barton was indeed a thrice-braided Sister in league with the Dark One, she might be able to prophesy, although Mother Redcap had once told me that true divination of the future required a circle of thrice-braided Sisters. Elizabeth Barton would certainly be able to curse Henry, if she ever got close enough. But I needed no divination to foresee that telling such to Anne would be the end of me.

“She is a charlatan, my lady.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.” I had had time to think. “And to convince you that I am not a charlatan, I will show you a small magick.”

Her dark eyes sharpened. “Do so.”

“Let me have your wine.”

She handed me the goblet, silver latticed with gold filagree. I stared into its depths, my lips silently forming the spell. Long moments passed. Slowly, a murky shape formed in the wine, wavered, came together, even as the answer began to form in my mind.

“The pearl from the neckline of your gown. Yesterday you noticed it had fallen loose from its threads and disappeared, and everyone searched your chambers here but could not find it. It is . . . it is . . .”

Please, Goddess of Light, help me . . .

“. . . in the king’s keeping. He found it.”

“Where?” she demanded.

“I do not know.”

“You could have seen him pluck it off the floor in these very chambers.”

“No. He found it somewhere else. When you visited the court.” I held my breath; I did not know where the king had found the pearl. The blurry image I had seen in the wine was of a pearl in a hand adorned with the square ruby ring I had seen on Henry’s finger.

Anne said, “I will ask him tomorrow. And mark me well, Elyn—if you are lying, if your curing me of the Sweat was a mere coincidence, you will not leave Greenwich alive. I will expose you as a witch. London is not Norfolk, where your kind is tolerated. Here, in the presence of the true Church, witchcraft is both heresy and sin—malice prepense. You will burn or hang. Nothing you could say would weigh in your favor with the king, not against my wishes. Do you understand?”

“I know that, my lady. Even as I know how much more I could help you if I was thrice braided.”

My insistence had gone too far; she slapped me across the face for my impudence. And then, in one of the swift changes of mood that marked her tangled character, she said gently, “Just remember what I have said. I go to court again tomorrow, and you with me. Try to remain invisible.”

This must have struck her as funny, for she laughed softly. “That is a magick I would like to have. If you were ‘thrice braided,’ could you make me invisible?”

“No, my lady.”

“A pity. Now leave me.”

I backed from the room, bowing, and opened the door. Emma stood just beyond. Had she heard? No way to tell from that stony countenance. But the wooden door was thick.

Malice prepense. I had no Latin, but the meaning was clear. Anne knew more about the Sisterhood than I had suspected. Did she know that the church at Salle, near where she was born and most likely baptized, bore carvings of the Green Man and etchings of the Dagaz rune? That the people of Norfolk did not just “tolerate” cunning folk but openly celebrated them, seeking the aid and solace that was part of my vow?