Page 27 of The Queen’s Witch

If Anne believed I had learned of this spy’s identity through magick, I would not say different. It was not that which made me almost ill with apprehension. It was that I knew—without any reading of minds—what Anne would ask of me next.

If I had expected gratitude for my prompt “discovery,” I would have been disappointed. Anne sent for me as soon as she returned from the royal hunt, claiming to need wine as she washed and dressed.

“Well, Elyn?”

“Mistress Sedlow spies on you and reports your movements and conversations to Sir William Eyston.”

“Who is cousin to Katherine’s chaplain. How do you know this?”

I said nothing. I did not need to speak.

“No, do not tell me. I do not want to know. Are there other spies among my ladies?”

“Not that I know of,” I said, truthfully. “I cannot answer for the gentlemen.”

“No one can answer for gentlemen,” she said scornfully. “All but a few wait to see who will end by wearing the crown. Until the decision from Rome, I can do nothing directly. But you can. I wish you to curse Elinor Sedlow with a terrible accident that will send her from court. Cripple her, or disfigure her, and in some fashion that cannot be traced to you.”

“I have told you,” I said carefully, “that I have not the power to do that since I have not tied the thrice-braided cord.”

Anne’s eyes glittered. “Are you trying to coerce me?”

“No, my lady. I am but telling you truth. And here is another truth: Sir William Eyston saw me talking to Mistress Sedlow. If she were to suffer grave bodily harm now, he might declare it connected to me, and so to you. Not because there would be any proof, but because if he truly is a supporter of . . . of the princess dowager, then even unfounded rumor might help their cause, since . . .”

“Since many already suspect me of witchcraft. That is what you mean, is it not? Oh, God’s blood, how does such deceit come to be? It is not fair!”

It is not fair. This from a person attempting to cause the crippling or disfigurement of one woman, to wrest the crown from another, to defy the Church even if it plunged England into chaos. And yet, in a perverse way, I understood. Anne believed she was in the right—that Katherine’s marriage had never been legitimate, that Elinor Sedlow deserved a traitor’s fate, and that God intended her to be Henry’s queen. Her steadfastness to a seemingly impossible quest, seen in that light, seemed almost admirable.

For an unwelcome moment, I glimpsed similarity between us.

“Then this is what you shall do,” she said. “Sicken Elinor, as you sickened my brother’s wife, as severely as you can. She will recover, but for a while I will be free of her spying. Do it tomorrow, Elyn.”

Her tone was a challenge. There was but one acceptable answer. “Yes, my lady.”

“And sicken my mother, but only lightly.”

“Your mother?”

“Lightly. The king dines here tomorrow, and I wish us to dine alone.”

“Should I . . . absent myself?”

“Of course not,” she said impatiently. “Your presence does not count. Now do as you are bid.”

Mistress Sedlow was suddenly afflicted with unpleasant evacuations from both ends, lasting several days. Lady Rochford had a headache that prevented her from dining with her daughter and the king.

Two more acts of malefic magick. Be warned, Mother Redcap had said, those whose thrice-braided cord be tied by the Goddess can still fall prey to the joy of malefic magick. I was not thrice braided. Nonetheless, pleasant warmth filled me at the report of Elinor Sedlow’s illness, who in the gardens had called me a “greedy little harlot”—not because I was, but because she could call me any insults that came to her mind, true or not, knowing I could not fight back.

“Good,” Anne said. “I will tell you when I wish you to do this again.”

Again. How many more times? And to whom?

At least she had not told me to sicken Wolsey, whom she had raved against back when she lay ill with the Sweat. Perhaps she understood that I was never near enough to him, or perhaps she worked against him in other ways, through her influence with Henry. I quailed at the thought of cursing the lord chancellor of England.

Samhain finally came, the sacred night when the boundary between this and the Otherworld most thins and blurs. If Grandmother could reach me at all, it would be this night. I stayed awake with the aid of a tisane of my own brewing, but she did not come. Nor did the Goddess, nor the Dark One. I sat alone, wrapped in a blanket, in a sheltered niche on the roof of the great house by the river, sipping my tisane, reaping only a headache more severe than the one I had given Anne’s mother.

At Tydd Saint Stephen the bonfire would be lit on the hilltop and harvest offerings made in thanks to the Goddess. Cottage hearth fires would be doused so they could be relit from the sacred bonfire. Fishermen would wade waist deep into the sea to make their offerings of ale to Her. And in the Christian church, Father Redmond would chant Mass for the start of Hallowtide. I knew of many villagers who attended both rites. I used to love Samhain.

Despite my tisane, I fell asleep before dawn, and the monstrous dream came again. Grandmother writhing in midair, her face distorted with pain, the white lappets of her cap twisting around her anguished face. And then the agony of flames scorching her flesh until it turned black and peeled.