Page 94 of The Queen’s Witch

“Good. We will leave him there for now. There must be a back entrance to the church. Simon, find it and tell John to bring the horses somewhere they will not be stolen, then return here and take us to them.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Simon left. The remaining two guards, grim, stayed beside the pew, but no one disturbed us. Cecily’s lips moved, her eyes closed, her long, pale fingers moving on her prayer beads.

When Simon finally returned, he led us out of the church. It was full dark, and the mob had gone. We were fortunate in a nearly full moon and Sister Cecily, black skirts blowing behind her, and I rode clinging to the backs of the guards. At Gysbourne Manor, she went straight to her prie-dieu to pray for Roger’s safety.

Nothing more happened that night. But word spread that Legbourne Priory, a half dozen miles away, was to be dissolved. Over the next few days, a mob led by cobbler Nicholas Melton, the orator of the cathedral window ledge, marched to Bolingbroke, pulled Chancellor John Raynes from his sickbed, and beat him to death. They seized and burned the commissioner’s registers of taxes. One of Cromwell’s men, Thomas Wulcey, was hanged. The royal commissioners visiting the priory at Legbourne were taken hostage.

The Lincolnshire Rebellion against King Henry’s laws had begun.

33

Lincoln

The rebellion grew more quickly than I thought possible. Word spread through church bells rung in back rounds, ascending from tenor to treble, some sort of prearranged code. Beacon fires appeared on the hills. I could see them from the roof of Gysbourne Manor.

When Roger again rode home, he informed Cecily and me that the rebels were thousands strong, that the great landowners had joined the rebellion, that a council had formed to send demands to the king.

“Demands?” Cecily said, her face drained of all color.

“Yes. Do not fear, Mother. Have any of our men left you?”

“I am not sure . . .”

I said, “No. They have all stayed.”

“Good. They are all good men who otherwise might wish to join us, but I do not want you left unguarded. I will speak to them before I go.”

“Go where, Roger?”

“Lincoln. We hold the city.”

I said, “Master Ainley, has the crown taken any notice of the rebellion?”

“Yes.” Roger looked directly at me for the first time. “We have been told to disperse. We will not.”

I thought of Henry’s army, its well-equipped soldiers battle trained in actual wars. Of the army’s ruthless commanders. Of Henry’s rage and cruelty whenever defied.

Roger said quietly, “We have overwhelming numbers. The king will not wish to slaughter thousands of his own subjects. The rest of the North would rise, York and Westmorland, Durham and Northumberland.”

Would they? I did not know.

Cecily said, “Roger, please take all possible care.”

“I will.” He kissed her, did not look again at me, and picked up his leather gauntlets from the table. Cecily had embroidered them with her fine needlework, vines and flowers and tiny bees. I watched him draw the gloves over his strong hands, the hairs on their backs golden in the candlelight of the shuttered room. And then he was gone.

The gauntlets stayed with me. I kept picturing them torn and bloody, or ripped from lifeless hands by a royal soldier, or trampled in the mud of a battlefield. For two days, as I went about my duties and watched Cecily with her grandson or on her knees at her prie-dieu, Roger’s gauntlets filled my mind.

I left Cecily a note. I blotted the paper several times but managed to write Wil Return Sune Sarah.

Simon stood guard at the door. He believed me when I said I must pick more herbs in the garden before they blossomed in the rising sun. At the back of the hall, I crossed a dark field, slipped into a stand of trees, and shed the cloak covering my boy’s clothing. At dawn I left for Lincoln.

Cobbler Melton’s rebels were on the move. I walked behind them, listening, although there was little to hear that Roger had not already told me, except coarse threats that could never be carried out. None were against the king, and not only because such words were treason. These rebels did not blame Henry for their troubles. No, the king had been ill advised. Greedy Cromwell, false bishops, ambitious and evil courtiers were all to blame. The bad harvest they laid on Queen Anne. She had cursed the land through evil witchcraft. Even dead, Anne could not escape blame.

At Lincoln, I found turmoil and dissent. Men streamed from the town. Henry had sent an order for the rebels to disperse or else face a royal army led by the duke of Suffolk. Even here, men knew of Suffolk’s reputation for battlefield brutality. The once-huge force of rebels had dwindled to an uncounted but much smaller number, occupying Lincoln Cathedral and determined to fight on. Nicholas Melton, now styled “Captain Cobbler,” was in command.

I must find Roger, if he was still here, and somehow get him home, no matter how. Cecily, already fragile, had lost Elizabeth to the white plague. She could not lose her son to an ill-advised battle.