master.
Blanche said, ‘In your garden… your orchard… what did the Queen see?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I think you do. Before I came to you.’ Leaning toward me. ‘John, I’ve seen it before, the way she stiffens, the way her eyes… What did she say to you?’
I was remembering how quickly she’d appeared on the orchard path, wrinkling her nose against the pervading smell of hops as if it were the sulphurs of hell.
‘What did she say to you, John?’
‘She asked if there were…’
Hares in our orchard. I said nothing.
Blanche waited.
I said, ‘I’ll take this no further.’
Could almost see my world curling at its corners, like parchment touched with flame. Blanche Parry sat quite still, as if her spirit temporarily had left her body. How long we remained in this awful silence I do not know.
Finally, I said, ‘What did you mean you’d seen it before? What happens to her eyes?’
‘They see more than they should,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’
Blanche’s hands seized one another in her lap, as if in a spasm, and I turned away.
‘And what, at such times –’ so breathless it didn’t sound to me like my voice – ‘do they see?’
Outside, night’s tapestry was already unrolling ’twixt the trees above the river. There was a crocus-bloom of light on the water, the lamp on a wherry.
‘I’ve stayed too long,’ Blanche said. ‘Send messengers to me, and I’ll send them to you, if there’s anything…’
‘What does she see, Blanche?’
Holding on to the arms of my chair, the darkness at my back, as Blanche whispered it to the wall: how the Queen had said she saw the sanguinous shade of Anne Boleyn at her bedside, that small smile all twisted with spoiled ambition.
PART TWO
It is hardly credible what a harvest, or rather what a wilderness of superstition had sprung up in the darkness of the Marian times. We found in all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people dreamed that Christ had been pierced… small fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses had everywhere become enormous.
John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, after a journey
through the west of England, 1559.
Relics
O N THE RIM of nightfall, sudden sleet had tossed us, with a stinging contempt, back into the worst of winter. Still some miles to go, and my cloak was a sodden rag.
Dudley, riding ahead, looked out toward middle-distant trees as bare as fishbones and hills still ermine-furred with snow. Then up at the spattering sky and back at me, over his shoulder.
‘Can’t you
do
anything about this, John? Change the weather? Shift the skies to France?’
He was rearing up from his saddle, and my horse took fright and I leaned forward to calm her. I was better with horses than with women, just about, but Dudley, as usual, made me feel a feeble creature.
Still, I was glad he’d spoken so – a hint of the old Dudley in a man who, since we’d left London, had been uncharacteristically silent, almost reserved. Something on his mind.
There were six of us, including the big northerner Martin Lythgoe. Lythgoe was Dudley’s chief groom, a man he’d known all his life, whom he’d taken with him to court.
‘Call yourself a magician,’ Dudley said.
‘I don’t.’ Bending my head into the blizzard. ‘As you know. Can we not find an inn?’
‘There isn’t an inn. Can
you
see an inn?’
‘I can see very little.’
‘Is there an inn near here, Carew?’ Dudley shouted.
‘There
is.
’ Sir Peter Carew riding up alongside him. ‘But spend the night there and by morning you’d have scratched off your balls. As for this poor fellow…’
Carew glancing back at me, as if unsure whether I possessed balls. Hewas a stocky and muscular man, older than Dudley by a good twenty years, but his long beard was still as dark and thick as tarred rope.
‘Well, perchance we could rest there at least until the sky shows some mercy,’ Dudley said. ‘Is the
Blanche said, ‘In your garden… your orchard… what did the Queen see?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I think you do. Before I came to you.’ Leaning toward me. ‘John, I’ve seen it before, the way she stiffens, the way her eyes… What did she say to you?’
I was remembering how quickly she’d appeared on the orchard path, wrinkling her nose against the pervading smell of hops as if it were the sulphurs of hell.
‘What did she say to you, John?’
‘She asked if there were…’
Hares in our orchard. I said nothing.
Blanche waited.
I said, ‘I’ll take this no further.’
Could almost see my world curling at its corners, like parchment touched with flame. Blanche Parry sat quite still, as if her spirit temporarily had left her body. How long we remained in this awful silence I do not know.
Finally, I said, ‘What did you mean you’d seen it before? What happens to her eyes?’
‘They see more than they should,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’
Blanche’s hands seized one another in her lap, as if in a spasm, and I turned away.
‘And what, at such times –’ so breathless it didn’t sound to me like my voice – ‘do they see?’
Outside, night’s tapestry was already unrolling ’twixt the trees above the river. There was a crocus-bloom of light on the water, the lamp on a wherry.
‘I’ve stayed too long,’ Blanche said. ‘Send messengers to me, and I’ll send them to you, if there’s anything…’
‘What does she see, Blanche?’
Holding on to the arms of my chair, the darkness at my back, as Blanche whispered it to the wall: how the Queen had said she saw the sanguinous shade of Anne Boleyn at her bedside, that small smile all twisted with spoiled ambition.
PART TWO
It is hardly credible what a harvest, or rather what a wilderness of superstition had sprung up in the darkness of the Marian times. We found in all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people dreamed that Christ had been pierced… small fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorceresses had everywhere become enormous.
John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, after a journey
through the west of England, 1559.
Relics
O N THE RIM of nightfall, sudden sleet had tossed us, with a stinging contempt, back into the worst of winter. Still some miles to go, and my cloak was a sodden rag.
Dudley, riding ahead, looked out toward middle-distant trees as bare as fishbones and hills still ermine-furred with snow. Then up at the spattering sky and back at me, over his shoulder.
‘Can’t you
do
anything about this, John? Change the weather? Shift the skies to France?’
He was rearing up from his saddle, and my horse took fright and I leaned forward to calm her. I was better with horses than with women, just about, but Dudley, as usual, made me feel a feeble creature.
Still, I was glad he’d spoken so – a hint of the old Dudley in a man who, since we’d left London, had been uncharacteristically silent, almost reserved. Something on his mind.
There were six of us, including the big northerner Martin Lythgoe. Lythgoe was Dudley’s chief groom, a man he’d known all his life, whom he’d taken with him to court.
‘Call yourself a magician,’ Dudley said.
‘I don’t.’ Bending my head into the blizzard. ‘As you know. Can we not find an inn?’
‘There isn’t an inn. Can
you
see an inn?’
‘I can see very little.’
‘Is there an inn near here, Carew?’ Dudley shouted.
‘There
is.
’ Sir Peter Carew riding up alongside him. ‘But spend the night there and by morning you’d have scratched off your balls. As for this poor fellow…’
Carew glancing back at me, as if unsure whether I possessed balls. Hewas a stocky and muscular man, older than Dudley by a good twenty years, but his long beard was still as dark and thick as tarred rope.
‘Well, perchance we could rest there at least until the sky shows some mercy,’ Dudley said. ‘Is the
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