Page 74 of The Queen’s Witch

I could not attempt to free Grandmother until next Samhain. Even then, Anne must agree to be present, and I did not see how I could persuade or compel her. The same native ability that had given me such strong magick had also given me a strong Third, my own distant kin. Anne Boleyn was not, contrary to rumor, a witch, but she was a queen, and one of the most stubborn, determined women who ever lived.

My determination would need to be stronger than hers. My determination, my cunning, and, if necessary, my recklessness.

I traveled slowly to the Palace of Eltham in Kent, where the king intended to keep Christmas, but I did not journey as a hare. Too unpleasant, and increasingly risky to repeat in this suddenly cold winter of hunters and poachers desperate for game. Nor would I look for cunning folk to lodge me; all had fled or hidden themselves. I now possessed only the clothes I wore and the items in my pockets and girdle purse. However, I had no difficulty keeping myself and Pipkin fed, easily stealing food from the larders of cottages whose inhabitants I spelled into immobility. Both spells and rage warmed me.

Eltham, as large as Greenwich or Hampton Court but much older, was surrounded by a very wide moat crossed by a long stone bridge. A vaguely familiar guard waved me through—maybe he did not even realize I had been gone—and I requested an audience with the queen.

She made me wait two days in the kitchens, where I made myself useful. I was given a pallet in an alcove, and Pipkin, as he did in each palace, found a nearby hole in a wall. Finally a page led me to Anne’s privy apartments. They were lavish, the walls hung with yellow ocher, but nearly empty. The court had gone hunting. Only a few of Anne’s most faithful ladies sat with her, stitching baby gowns and caps in the winter light from a window.

“Leave us,” Anne told Lady Lee and the others. “I must reprimand an errant servant, and you do not want to see me in a temper.”

Feeble smiles at the feeble joke. The stitchers left, carrying away cloth and thread and needles. Anne said, “You, too, Emma.”

Emma had been fixing me with a look that could melt rocks. She banged the privy door behind her.

“So?” Anne said.

“So I have returned,” I said, kneeling with bowed head. “My sister is indeed dead.”

“And those children you were to take charge of?”

“They also died, just last week, of the bloody flux. I could find no one to nurse them, so I stayed there myself.”

If I expected this tale of family woe to soften her, I was mistaken. She said, “You left without permission. You sent no word. You—”

“I cannot write and—”

“Silence! You defied me. What do you think should be the price for that?”

I said nothing. I did not need to. After indulging her temper long enough, she would come around to what we both already knew.

It took several minutes, with words like desertion and faithlessness and even treason. She ended with “I am astonished to see you here at all. You have had of me what you wanted, that unspeakable ceremony. I have had of you what I wanted. Of what further use are you to me?”

I raised my gaze to hers. “The same as before, Your Grace. I can detect poison in your food and drink. I can protect you in other, more powerful ways, now that I am thrice braided.”

“I do not need your unholy protection, not against poison or anything else. No one would dare touch me now that I carry the heir to the throne.”

Tread carefully. “Yes. And all the kingdom hopes for a prince.”

Her fury flared at the veiled suggestion she might again be daughtered. Flared and then, all at once, was gone. She said softly, “It must be a boy. Can you ensure that?”

“No. That is already determined. But if your child is not a prince, I can aid you again as I did once before, with amatory magick on the king.”

Anne studied me, trying to decide whether I knew about Mark Smeaton. But since not even she could be completely sure whose child she carried, she did not pursue the idea of amatory magick. Instead, her whole manner changed, became that of a person finally speaking frankly to the only other person who knew everything she had done.

“I must have a healthy boy. I have borne one girl. Perhaps the king cannot sire a living boy.”

The words were in my mouth to throw at her: We know he has done so already. But prudence stayed my tongue long enough for her to add quietly, “Not on me, at least.”

It was as if I saw her for the first time. Not merely her demands and arrogance and unchecked ambition, but her deep sadness. Sorrow that Henry Fitzroy, the king’s bastard by Bessie Blount, was not hers. Sorrow that the Princess Elizabeth, although so deeply loved, could not be enough. Sorrow that this failure, this one arena in which her courage and will could not triumph, was what must shape her destiny.

And mine.

Just as suddenly, the imperious queen replaced the sorrowing woman. “You will remain at court as my taster. If I need anything further from your talents, you will supply it. Do not cross me again, Elyn. Do you think I cannot have you arrested on any charge at all? Do you think I would not, if necessary? Men and women both have gone to the gallows for as little as ill-wishing the king.”

I could not contradict her. Neither could I leave all advantage with her. Not any longer. “I am thrice braided now, Your Grace. My abilities are much increased, and I humbly desire to place them in your service. Perhaps you have heard tales of what the strongest witches can do. Many are true.”

The stories were preposterous, of course: witches flying through the air, vanishing completely, condemning enemies to Hell. Anne made the sign of the cross; I think she did not even know she was doing it. Her dark eyes were uncertain. I spoke before she could rally.