In the Shadow of Lions: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (Chronicles of the Scribe #1)(8)
Margaret moved closer. “Father remarried. A nasty woman named Dame Alice. You probably won’t meet her for ages. She’s always away, spending money. She has furious fits, saying she must escape this prison and go into the city for some shopping. She comes home with enormous packages and shrieks about cheating merchants and scandalous prices.”
It made Rose laugh.
Margaret looked up and laughed too. “Father says money never makes anyone happy.” She stood and ran back off to play.
That surprised Rose. The chasm between the two worlds of London shrank.
Her monthly bleeding had begun again, and she felt her past fading. The other servants treated her as an equal, and the children made no distinction between her and the others, except that they loved her more because she never spat on her sleeves to tend to their faces. Perhaps the past could be forgotten, she thought, like a dream that terrorizes but is swept away by light and time … so one only remembers the dread of it, and later, not even that. At night she listened as the other servants dreamed. There was Manny, the pastry cook, a fluffy little woman with doughy cheeks and long white hair that she swirled on top of her head like a meringue, who dreamed aloud of missing ingredients and mice in the larder. And Candice, the tutor, who had nightmares of wrestling with letters that would not stand straight, her vowels running away on the page into a wild life of their own.
It was these murmurings, their nightmares, that finally broke open her heart to this place. If its terrors were no more than mice and ruined parchments, Rose would live here forever. She did not believe in God, or grace, but they were here, and she agreed to live among them. Rose knew pleasure for the first time, and the absence of shame. It was a wine that made her heart light, and it did not turn sour in the dark hours of the morning. With her baby saved, and her safely in Sir Thomas’s house, the past was a washed, clean thing that could trouble her no more.
Margaret, the oldest child, was stealing glances at Rose while they ate. Rose tried to ignore it. Margaret whispered something to the server, who set an extra bowl of porridge before Rose.
“Why do you give me this?”
“Margaret seeks to elevate your status in the house.”
“With porridge?”
“By law, you may not eat as many courses as the children, for they are children of Sir Thomas, a member of the king’s court,” he whispered, pushing to her the crockery filled with the porridge of oatmeal, beef, and thyme.
They saw Margaret watching them intensely, and Rose shook her head, pointing to her full bowl of pottage as evidence of the girl’s machinations.
Margaret giggled and went back to her own pottage.
“It’s useless,” the server told her. “She’s a wild one. Besides, you look very much like Sir Thomas’s first wife, when she was in the bloom of health. Goodness mercy, but he loved her.”
Just then the server’s face went white, and he hurried away from the table. Rose turned and saw that Sir Thomas was in the room. He cleared his throat, beginning to recite the morning psalters, but Margaret raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Father, Rose needs a hornbook.”
Sir Thomas did not reply.
“She must learn her letters so she can read to us in the garden,” Margaret said, her voice getting higher. “She desires this greatly.”
“Margaret!” Rose’s voice was too sharp. Everyone was staring at her, and she had to say more. “It is time to devote ourselves to prayer, not speak of earthly desires.”
Sir Thomas stroked his chin and did not draw his customary deep breath before beginning the prayers. “Margaret, I have stirred many nests by daring to educate my girls. I see you have inherited my bent for revolution.” Margaret grinned at him. “Rose will have a hornbook, and you yourself may tutor her.”
Rose tapped her foot and stuffed a spoonful of porridge into her mouth. She had never seen a real book until coming here and regarded them with a bit of suspicion. Only the wealthiest knew how to read, and their books were done in Latin. One book could cost four year’s wages for a common man, and there were no common men who could read.
Christ had held a book too. It beckoned them all to a cross. Why Sir Thomas brought books to his children she did not know. They smelled of leather cords binding down the washed linen, stretched tight across a wood frame to receive the dark ink. To her, it was the stench of death.
“Rose, you may kiss me in gratitude, but only once.”
Margaret beamed at her, a flicker of mischief in her eyes. Rose looked around the room, and everyone was staring at her.
“Come, hurry, let’s not miss our psalters,” Margaret said.
Rose pushed back from the table, feeling the air tingling on her arms, goosebumps rising on her skin. She walked between the tables of servants and children, and leaning down to Margaret, kissed her on the cheek. She clenched her jaw and returned to her seat.
Sir Thomas, pleased, was already beginning the psalters. Rose was too angry to listen, though she loved the way Latin sounded even if she couldn’t understand a word of it. She decided to give Margaret her most punishing of looks, a promise of a bitter scolding to come. Then she saw Margaret wipe a tear from her cheek and, embarrassed, stuff her hands back into her skirts. Rose shot the scowl down to her own shoes instead. She would not cause more tears. Children were indeed a mystery, she thought, but those maturing into adults were simply unfathomable.