Within seconds, she slipped away. I took the head into the smallest and finest of the linens and carefully wrapped it, her blood running thickly between my fingers, under my nails, and staining my forearms as I sought to save her from any indignity. Gorge rose in my throat but I swallowed it back every few seconds and tried not to feel the spidery trickle of blood running down my arms. Nan and Alice quickly wrapped the body and, while the guards held back the crowds, we made our way the hundred or so feet toward the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. On the way we passed the freshly dug graves of the men of the privy chamber, so recently laid to rest.

Do not waver. Do not stumble. Do not faint. Keep walking.

Once inside the church we removed her outer garments: much like the Roman soldiers casting lots for Christ’s clothing, Anne’s clothing were required to be parceled out to those who worked in the Tower keep, though she was allowed to keep her shift for modesty. We placed head and body together in a hastily emptied elm chest. It would be buried, and guarded, immediately.

“Good-bye, dearest,” I whispered afore they closed the lid. “Till we meet again.”

Sir William’s men escorted us back to the Queen’s Lodging. Nan Zouche was sick on the green along the way. “Get moving, and get your things,” one guard roughly commanded.

“Where are we to go?” Alice asked. She looked wan and ill.

“You”—he pointed at her—“will go to the household of your son. You”—he pointed at Lady Zouche—“will go to the keep of your husband. And you”—he pointed at me—“will be escorted back to Greenwich Palace, where you shall await your brother, who is now your guardian. He shall come to collect you shortly.”

We were to keep our lives. But mine would be enslaved to Edmund. I looked up to where my brother Thomas was still imprisoned and sent a prayer his way. I had no strength to do more.

Before we left Anne’s quarters I was sick over and over again in her privy basin.

As we left the Tower my anger grew. The man charged with delivering us back to our quarters carried on, either out of ill will or stupidity, about how the king was now free to marry Jane Seymour, and he would do so, anon, at York Place, and then present her as queen after Mass at Greenwich on Whitsunday, June 4. She was, I’d heard, at that moment being fitted for her wedding gown! Have a care, Mistress Seymour, I thought. You know not whom you marry. Or mayhap you do.

I knew Anne had been required by our times, by our God, and by her hopes for her daughter to speak well of the king. And I knew she was at peace. But it did not seem right that His Grace—the man who had not a sense of the meaning of the word yet carried the title—should be frolicking with Jane Seymour.

“Commend me to His Grace….” Anne’s words came floating back to me.

I would. I would do exactly that. I knew not how but afore I was banished from the palace I would do it. With a life with Edmund ahead of me I risked little, if anything at all.

Once at the castle, I packed my items and sat in my small quarters, wondering when Edmund would arrive. I did not leave my room at first. I closed my eyes and I saw Anne—her eyes staring at me, last bits of life being snuffed out. They had looked at peace and yet I was not. The next time I closed my eyes I saw the two of us dancing together as girls, learning under the steady gaze of the dance master. I willed myself to read Scripture till I was tired, and then I tried to sleep again. This time, I saw Anne as she was on her Calais wedding night, the air crackling between her and Henry. She was so happy. I saw her snapping her fingers at a servant. She was certainly born to be royal. I heard her witty ripostes to Suffolk, unmanning her lifelong enemy to the bemusement of the king. I opened my eyes to stop the pictures and words.

Mayhap sleep would elude me. I wandered the hallway, toward the kitchen, and as I passed the great hall I could see her, dancing, for many years past. Unwell now, I returned to my room without eating. I felt my own head; ’twas feverish, and yet I had no lady servant to assist me.

That night I put my own dressing gown on afore bed. Hours later, I woke up screaming and clawing at my arms. I’d been dreaming that her blood was still running down my arms and I could not get it off. When I awoke I saw that I had scratched deep streaks into each forearm. They bled now, with my blood, along the same rivulets that Anne’s had. I wiped them off with a linen.

Someone kindly sent a servant with food the next day; I knew not whom, but I suspected it was someone sympathetic to Anne, of course. Afraid to sleep, I spent the second night trying to think of a way to speak with the king, but of course, he was already at York Place with Mistress Seymour. Late that night I left my things in my traveling chest and made my way in the blackness down the hall to the chapel. I pushed open the door—it squeaked but a little—and made my way to a pew, wherein I looked up at the Lord on the cross and prayed. After an hour or so I began to make my way back toward the door out of the chapel and stopped, of a moment, at the royal box. In a feverish moment, I knew how to convey Anne’s final message to Henry, to superstitious Henry, in a way he would never forget and would, I hoped, haunt him forever.

I crept back to my chambers and dug through my chest till I found what I was looking for—a quill and ink. I pulled a plain cloak about me so that if I should be seen in the hallway I should not be recognized. As the court was mainly with Henry at York Place there was little likelihood of being found out. And then I snuck back into the royal box at the chapel and opened the Scriptures to Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, which should surely be read at the celebration of Pentecost, Whitsunday, when His Grace should be in this very place with his new bride.

In the margins next to the Scripture I disguised my hand as best I could and wrote, You hath ever been constant in your career of advancing me; from private gentlewoman you made me marquess, from marquess a queen, and now that you hath left no higher degree of honor you give my innocence the crown of martyrdom. Your beloved wife, Anne.

Once done, hand shaking, I blew on it till ’twere dry and then raced back to my rooms and finally, in the dead of night, allowed myself to sob aloud and collapse into fevered sleep.

When I awoke, it was not Edmund come to collect me.

“Thomas!” I leapt up and hugged him. “You are freed!”

He smiled at me. “I am freed. Father had written to Cromwell and Cromwell had me let go. The king is too distracted with Mistress Seymour of a moment to have a care for those he’d worried had once dallied with Anne.”

I let the tears slide again. “I know not what to do.” I gulped back my sobs. “Am I to remain with Edmund, who may not have me? Or burden Alice on her widow’s portion? Or you?”

He sent his manservant to take my case. “I have not always been the brother you needed, but as your appointed guardian, I believe that I can be of assistance now.”

He led me to the litter and I, still in a fever and exhausted, stumbled along behind him. Once in the litter I let it jostle me to sleep till Thomas put his hand on my leg. “Meg. We arrive.”

I woke myself and looked out the window.

“’Tis not Allington,” I said.

He smiled broadly. “No indeed, Mistress Wyatt, ’tis not.”

I watched in wonder as Will Ogilvy came forth from the door of the great hunting lodge and strode toward the litter and I stepped out into his arms. My legs, still weak from the events just passed as well as from the ride, buckled and he scooped me up into his arms and carried me into the lodge. He set me down on a long seat and when I made as if to speak he put his finger on my lips.

“Hush, it will be time for talking later. You are safe now, and you must eat and sleep and become well.”

He leaned over and kissed my brow. When I next awoke I found Edithe standing over me.

“You were right, lady, Master Will found employment for me and for my Roger. Come now”—she helped me to my feet—“I will take you into your chamber and I will help you bathe and bring you some broth and meat.”

I slept on and off for a day or two, and when my fever abated I let Edithe dress me in one of the fine dresses Anne had given me and pull back my still-thick hair into a twist, and then I joined Will for dinner. My brother Thomas had ridden off to hunt nearby, cleansing himself of memories, I supposed, and would shortly rejoin us.

I sat across from Will at a small wooden table. “Thank you for bringing me here, and allowing me to regain my senses and health,” I said after we’d eaten.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he said.

I nodded and told the whole story—with the exception of my writing in His Grace’s copy of Holy Writ. That secret would remain with me as it would risk the hearer as well as myself should it become known. “You will have to thank your wife for your kind hospitality,” I said. He moved his chair uncomfortably close to me for a married man.

“You shall thank her yourself,” he said.

“Is she here?” I looked about me and caught a smile on Edithe’s face afore she disappeared into the kitchens.

“A man can hope, for certes,” he said. “My father was required to call off my engagement with Lady Jamison. I am not a married man. Mayhap you can remedy that.”

I let my look express my shock, certain I had misheard in my fever. “Call it off? Upon what grounds?”

He reached out and took my hand and then laced his fingers through mine. “Precontract.”

“Precontract? With…. oh…,” I said. “You told him you and I were precontracted.”