“Mistress, I must repent. Can you forgive me?”

“Rise, Edithe. Whatever do you mean?” I’d never seen her distraught; rather, ’twas usually I who was distraught and she of a firm mind.

“He came today. He were asking questions, he were. About those letters from Master Will, to you.”

I sat her down in a chair by the fire and then pulled another one alongside her. “Who did? Who asked for my letters?”

“’Twas Master Simon, ’twas. He said Miss Rose, I mean, the countess, told him that there were letters betwixt you and her brother Will and that she herself had delivered many and found them to be…. indelicate.”

Indelicate? Hardly. Mayhap expressive. But not indelicate.

“The letters are long gone,” I reassured her. “’Tis nothing to worry about. They have been gone for years.”

She began to cry again. “He asked me if I knew where they was, lady. He said he’d hurt my Roger and see to it that he never worked again if ’n I didn’t confess exactly as it was.”

Now I was shaking. “But you don’t know where they are. Do you, Edithe?”

She nodded. “I do. I took them from you when you were a young girl and had to marry old Baron Blackston. Thought I was doing you a favor, putting Will out of your mind if not out of your heart. I brought the letters to Hever Castle and hid them ’hind a slat in the barn. Thought it not right to destroy them, they not being my property and all.”

I stood up. “Did you tell this to Simon?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, lady. But I was right vexed for my Roger.” I turned to gaze out the dark window and think. After a moment she added, quietly, “I didn’t tell him about your copy of Master Tyndale’s Bible, though. He didn’t ask.”

I turned to her. “You’ve found that?”

“I’m your lady maid, mistress. I know everything about you.”

Well, at least my calm, plainspoken Edithe was back. I sighed. “’Tis good.”

“I suppose now that I’ve, now that I’ve sinned awful against you I shan’t be able to read Holy Writ anymore. But ’twas in reading it for meself that I learnt to come and beg forgiveness. I canna understand Latin, course, so mostly I canna understand what ’tis the priest says at Mass.”

I tried to keep the look of shock off my face. “You can read?” As soon as I’d said it I was sorry I had. “I mean, you have read it?”

She smiled. “I can read, mistress. Once I found that you had that copy, well, I traded favors with one of the seamstresses who can read. I would work on her sleeves of an evening after you’d gone to bed and she’d teach me how to read. I learnt right quick! And oh, how I’ve loved hearing from our blessed Lord meself. Who could have thought it? ’Tis as if He’s here right aside me!”

The lightness of her face reminded me of Will’s when he’d given the Bible to me. I felt some shame for the carelessness with which I’d treated Tyndale’s work, God’s word, seeking my own comfort within its pages but not the writer Himself. Bilney could be burnt and Edithe spent from lack of sleep and yet I read not but selfishly for my own relief.

I reached my arm out to her. “You may, of course, read it at any time. But I will tell you now. ’Tis not my copy. Do you understand?”

She looked confused but agreed with me. “Yes, my lady, if you say so.”

“If I don’t own a copy, and someone should come looking for it, you can rightly tell them that I do not own one.”

She smiled then. “I understand. But…. what shall you do about Master Simon?”

“I do not know, Edithe. I do not know. I shall pray.”

I sent her to bed and then undressed myself in the chill and quickly crawled under my coverlet. I brought Master Tyndale’s translation with me and left one solitary candle lit in the wrought iron candelabra beside my bed. I paged through the Gospel According to Saint Matthew again and saw nothing to spark me. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t used to praying without a book of hours to guide me. I missed its reassuring direction.

I freely admit that I come seeking only an answer and comfort, though I wish ’twere not so. I am weak and I am sorry, but I need assistance. What shall I say when Simon asks me of the letters? In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I crossed myself and then flipped back to the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, chapter 8, and lightly touched the daisy wreath, the one remaining symbol of my love for Will and his for me, the love, as it were, that placed me in this pinch.

I read, What shall we then say unto these things? If God be on our side: who can be against us?

I blew out the light and then, in the darkness, whispered, “Please be on my side.”

* * *

Now that Henry was married, and it had been consummated, he was ever in a festive mood. I did not understand why, but from mid-January on he grew even more benevolent in his manner and entertainment. A masque celebrating the seasons, though we were in the grip of icy January, was to be held that night. Anne went dressed as summer, her gown a becoming green and her rubies having been set as apples, a badge of fertility.

Henry went “disguised” as the sun.

I helped Anne dress, and as I did, I leaned over and whispered in her ear about the letters Simon had found. She dismissed her other ladies for a moment.

“Were they intimate?” she asked.

“Not unbecomingly so,” I answered. “But there would be no room for misunderstanding where our hearts lay.”

She nodded and took my hand. “Mayhap you tell him they were a childish infatuation?”

I looked down.

“I know you do not like to misspeak,” she said. “But you needn’t tell him that your affections persist. For your safety’s sake,” she said, and I nodded. All knew that women, as chattel, had as many rights as a horse or a plow. We were ever dependent upon the good graces of the men placed over us.

“Well spoken,” I said.

“Although Henry and court business take up more and more of my time, my concern and affections for you are ever constant,” she said, reaching out to squeeze my hand. She recalled the other ladies and we set about the finishing touches of her preparation.

I sat near Anne at a table with her other ladies-in-waiting, dressed in a gown of russet with layers of mauve, gowns slashed becomingly to reveal the gold kirtle underneath. Though it may have been more popular to appear as spring or summer I knew my looks did better with the warm colors of autumn. I saw Anthony; he met my gaze and looked at me appreciatively but spent the evening admirably concentrating on the wisp of a girl destined, I supposed, to be his wife. Shortly after the music began, Simon, in magnificent winter gray, swooped in and compelled me to dance.

“My bride,” he said, yet there was no softness in his voice. His cold hands had grown stronger since the last time I’d seen him, and his face harder. I suspected that the title, and the power and money that went with it, had given him courage. And conceit.

“Sir,” I said. “’Tis good to see you again. When did you arrive?”

“A few days hence,” he said. “With only a small retinue of servants to attend to my needs.” A volta was struck up, the most intimate of dances, and Simon took the occasion to hold me even closer, tighter, for certes, than was comfortable.

“Not Meredith?” It had seemed to me that, though she had formally been Baron Blackston’s maid, she had spent much of her time abiding with Simon.

He fairly spat on the dance floor. “Harlot. She became with child from, who knows, some stable boy, I suppose. I turned her out in her shift. No, I’ll leave it to the next baroness to choose the women servants from now on.”

I noticed that he hadn’t said he’d leave it to me. The music changed to something softer, slower. He drew me near as a lover and nestled his mouth near my neck. I felt near to suffocation but pressed forward. “Since we speak of serving maids, my own lady maid, Edithe, said you had come to pay her a call.”

He pulled away, angry, I saw, that I had raised the topic afore he could. “Shall we sit and talk, my lady?”

I nodded and he led me to a vacant table. After sipping some small beer he began the conversation. “The future Countess of Blenheim had suggested to me, upon my arrival, that there were some correspondence I may want to be aware of. She has deep-seated feelings of family loyalty but felt compelled by her noble sense of honor to share with me that you and her brother, the priest, William, had been writing to one another. I went to inquire of you and, as you were out, asked your lady maid for her assistance.”

“Edithe indicated to me that you threatened her, not asked for her help,” I responded.

He snorted contemptuously. “You believe a lowborn serving girl over the titled man you hope to marry?”

I did not respond.

“I had my man ride out to Hever and, ah, acquire the letters. I’ve read them. They please me not.”

“Your man must have had to race to Kent and back without stopping. And ’tis not often pleasing to read mail intended for another. Thievery begets bad sentiments all round,” I said.

“’Tis not thievery for a man to investigate whether or not his bride has been compromised. So, here is my thought, my love. There are no dates on the letters. Mayhap they were written when you were a child, a child who had been wayward and mayhap not well disciplined or brought up to know that this kind of discourse between a man and a maid is unseemly. Or mayhap, as the countess has intimated to me, some of these letters are more recent, between a priest and a woman who is intended for another.”

He grew quiet as a servant came to refill his mug and mine. I glanced up and saw Rose’s gaze fixed upon me. Her brother Walter had not come, but their ward, Charlotte, danced in the arms of my brother Edmund. The servant left and Simon picked up the malevolent thought he’d left off with.