In the Shadow of Lions: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (Chronicles of the Scribe #1)(4)
He sighed and touched the page. “These words die. They have not been spoken for so long.”
“Long ago, in the kingdom you call England, under the reign of King Henry VIII, there lived two women. One loved God, one hated Him, and neither knew Him. Both women, however, heard tell of a book, a dangerous book. When it touched the world around them, it burned all to the ground. When it touched the women, it consumed everything they had built their lives around, until all that is left of them today is rumor and innuendo. For this reason you are brought to this story, for the women of your past have seen this book and its great power. They bought it for you with their lives and know that it is watching you, listening, waiting….”
The ink of the words grew darker, and the page began to turn brighter. He smiled and stroked the words.
I continued to type as he closed his eyes and began. His voice moved all around me and multiplied, changing. I began to see as he saw, the people and voices coming together as my fingers stayed on the keyboard, flying to keep up with the vision as it unfolded….
Chapter Three
The rain made the April air cold. Water ran in ripples down the path that led to the church with a crucifix hoisted above the door, Christ’s bleeding arms outstretched as thunder punctuated the voices of men digging with shovels. The despised Grimbald stood to their right, his candlebox giving them a palsied light as they worked. The rain had let up enough that the flame was in no danger.
She saw they had kicked over the headstone, dragging it away and throwing the dirt over it as they worked. She heard the shovel strike wood and the men growl with pleasure. They dropped ropes to a boy, who shimmied through the mud to the coffin and worked to secure the ropes around each end.
She crept closer to watch, careful to let the trees shield her in her shame. Blood had clotted on the underside of her dress, soaking through to the final outer layer of the skirt. The rain had dispensed with it well enough, but he would get no further remembrance of her body. She cursed her body, and the rain, for soiling the last thing on earth she had. The dress was blue silk, an illicit treasure she had found in an untended parcel outside a gentleman’s house. Silk was forbidden for her class to wear, so she found the courage to wear it only on her worst days. Some woman had a beautiful life; this dress was its proof. As she slid into a stranger’s dress, she willed that woman’s good fortune to befall her.
One man wore the robes of a statesman: golden damask and linen, with an ermine collar around his cloak that she could smell from where she was. The rain was unkind to the rich and poor alike, for it made the poor cold and the rich stink.
Another man wore scarlet robes of a thickly done fabric, with a gold chain looping at his neck and a cross swinging from his breast—a cardinal from the church. She recognized him, her knees going soft, sinking her into the buried memories. She remembered the last time she saw him as he proceeded down the London streets, boys carrying gilded silver crosses running ahead and children begging alms running behind. He would always stare straight ahead, oblivious to both cross and hunger. But she knew his secret.
He commanded the men at their work, simple men from nearby, probably Southwark, who had no qualms about raising a man if it meant they drank well later. One man jammed an iron into the casket, prying it open. The cardinal peered into it, shoulder to shoulder with the statesman. They looked at each other and conversed.
“Set a stake.”
The boy ran to fetch the stake as the diggers pierced the earth, rending a deep hole to set the stake in, filling it back with dirt and rocks, testing the stake to see if it would hold the body. Grimbald hauled chains to the foot of the stake and waited while the men lifted the man from the coffin. She watched in horror as a priest, dead and limp, rose in front of her from the dark pit where death’s seal had been broken. His priestly robes were rotted, hanging in loose shreds, some staining making the holy inscriptions unreadable. His eye sockets were sunken and black, and his mouth hung open stiffly, as if he had one last word to preach.
The statesman and cardinal motioned for them to stop, and approached.
“The knife,” the statesman said, his palm extended to the cardinal.
The cardinal hesitated, then produced a knife from his cloak and laid it across the open palm. “Sir Thomas,” he replied, looking as if the knife was as foul as the corpse.
He obviously had no appetite for this work. But Sir Thomas did. He licked his lips and breathed on the knife, rubbing it on his robes so it flashed like lightning before it struck.
“Ecclesia non novit sanguinem,” More said. He walked to the body, kneeling before it, stroking the face with the blade. “‘Now also is the axe laid unto the root of the trees: so that every tree which bringeth forth not good fruit, shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire.’”
He plunged the knife parallel to the body and up, slicing the holy robes off, tossing them into a pile behind him. He grabbed the hat that had identified the man as a priest of God and jerked it away with such force that the head turned almost backward.
The corpse’s open mouth faced her, as if his last words were for her. She narrowed her eyes and felt hate. She would not forgive a priest.
He took the knife and lifted the head closer. Cradling the head in one of his arms as if the man were a fallen friend, he dragged the knife across the rotting flesh of the skull, scraping clean hair and bits of skin. He dropped the head, and it made a sucking thud as it hit the wet earth. Next he lifted the dead man’s fingers, scraping the knife against each one.