Page 80 of The Queen’s Witch

“Yes. But you detected the poison by smell alone.”

Again, I said nothing. However much Emma Colmer suspected me, she had no evidence. Also, her beloved queen had been fortunate that I was there. I, too, had been fortunate, for Anne had received fresh proof of my powers. Perhaps that would move her toward what I needed.

In March, war began between France and Spain. The king, absorbed in official business, was near Anne even less often.

In April, Nicholas Carew received advancement to knight of the garter, an honor that George Boleyn had expected, a significant shift well noted in court.

In April, too, Cromwell’s men asked many questions of many people at the palace. The sessions occurred behind closed doors. Servants and courtiers alike emerged shaken and tight lipped and kept quiet even among close friends. Not even a spell to enhance hearing aided my knowledge. Wild rumors flew—of invasion, treason, exiling all bishops and replacing them with pimps and whores.

Abruptly Jane Seymour and her kin left Greenwich for her home in Wiltshire, Wolfe Hall. When Anne heard, her thin, drawn face lit up with a semblance of her old animation. Henry spoke more warmly to Anne when chance or official occasions brought them together, although he never touched her nor even stood very close. Rumors flew around two palaces that the king had tired of Jane Seymour.

The rumor took strength from an occurrence at court. Although not present, I overheard whispered accounts from several servants. Imperial Ambassador Chapuys, always a champion of Katherine’s daughter Lady Mary, had the poor sense to suggest that God had denied the king male children because He intended a female succession for England.

Henry turned purple. “Am I not a man like other men?” he shouted. “Am I not? You do not know all my secrets!”

“It must mean,” whispered a young courtier to another, both a distance down a passageway from me and unaware that I had no trouble hearing them, “that Her Majesty carries a secret pregnancy.”

Or that Jane carries a child. Or will, if he can marry her.

The courtier, swollen with his powers of reasoning, added, “Why else would His Majesty have sent Mistress Seymour from court? He has sworn off her for the sake of Queen Anne.”

Or to protect Jane’s reputation from further damage. On trips to hunt natterjack toads and gauge the temper of common folk, I had heard at least two lewd ballads about Jane and the king. Barred on pain of death from any scurrilous word about the queen, the balladeers had moved on to the king’s supposed mistress.

In April, Anne finally gave me a direct command. She ordered me to murder Jane Seymour.

The court had moved back to Greenwich, newly cleaned of winter grime. Fresh rushes covered the stone floors; fresh candles stood in candelabras and wall sconces. The queen presided in her apartments and at official occasions. Flowers bloomed in the gardens where Anne walked with her ladies. Often she looked up at the windows of the palace. The men within—King Henry, Lord Cromwell, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk—were closeted in conference more often than usual.

On a soft evening, Anne stood alone in the window embrasure of her privy chamber, even Emma banished. She held a letter, its wax seal—bearing the imprint of Henry’s signet ring—broken. Anne’s dark eyes looked like a wolf’s I had once seen in a trap: calm, deadly, prepared to do anything required to escape.

“The king wishes to marry her,” she said. The letter was not from Henry to Anne, but from Henry to Jane. Recklessly, Anne had it intercepted by one of her spies. How? Did a rider lie dead somewhere on the road to Wolfe Hall?

“He promises to set me aside and put that whey-faced strumpet in my place.”

I said nothing. If Henry wished to have his marriage to Anne annulled by his English Church, he would. If Anne, like Katherine, did not go quietly, she too would be imprisoned.

She said, “You will travel to Wolfe Hall before that trollop returns to court, and you will contrive to kill her. Use poison, magick, curses. I do not care. You will go today.”

I said carefully, “I can sicken her.”

“Sicken unto death. Nothing less.”

“Your Grace, please consider carefully. The common people already cry against you as a witch. If Mistress Seymour dies mysteriously, that cry will only grow. The king, if he really does wish to put you aside, will have pretext to accuse you of witchcraft.”

“No. If he does that, he will look a fool who spent over a decade courting and marrying a witch without realizing what she was. He will not accuse me.”

No, he will not. Because you will blame me.

We stared at each other. Did she guess my thoughts? She was quick, and her natural ability created an affinity between us.

She said, “As soon as I receive word that Jane Seymour is dead, I will do your mysterious ceremony, here, that very hour, in this very room, and then we will truly be done with each other. You have my word as anointed queen. I will swear it on the holy cross.”

And if I do not agree . . .

“If you do not agree, I will call the guards to arrest you for attacking my royal person. I no longer believe your nonsense about turning people into toads. Do this, Alysoun, daughter of Joan, or burn to death over a slow fire.”

I could not murder a woman guilty only of husband-snatching, just as Anne herself had done. Nor could I abandon Grandmother to years, decades, perhaps an eternity of fiery pain every sacred day, pain as horrific as the burning death that, in this realm, could come only once.

The queen of England was forcing me to choose.