In the Shadow of Lions by Ginger Garrett Page B

it?”
    “Of course,” he replied.
    “I want to be sent away from here. I want to marry Lord Percy. And I never want to see you again.”
    “You can’t return home, Anne. There are too many rumours circulating about you.” He moved a little closer, and Anne sat up straight. “We’ll have to repair that…. You don’t love Lord Percy.” He was only a few steps from her. “I didn’t even need to meddle in that, save for canceling the marriage contract because you were too weak to do it yourself.”
    “I certainly don’t love you,” she said.
    He turned to walk away.
    “Wait!” she called out. “You promised to give me what I asked for!”
    “No, Anne.” He smiled. “I promised to give you what you want. And I will.” He walked to the door, his hand on the frame when he looked back to her. “You are a true maid?”
    She scrambled to grab something else from the desk to throw at him. He ducked as he pushed the door open. Anne listened to it lock from the outside.

    The afternoon faded, and an unwelcome night spread around her. It was cold, the cold of a spring not fully resolved to allow summer to enter. Spring was inconstant in England, with all the charms and frustrations of pretty girls who flirt one day and play petulant the next. Still, all loved her and greedily awaited her favour.
    Wolsey had sent her a few books, knowing that her years in France had given her a man’s education, just one of the little scandals the French were known to cause. There was a book in the satchel from Sir Thomas More called Utopia . Anne found it a strange turn from a man well known for torturing men in his gatehouse when their ideologies conflicted with his own. One man had died before More could torture him properly, so More had dug him up and burned him, dead—yet still he publicly promoted his idea of a peaceable utopia.
    There was a tract, in Latin, on repentance and the miracles Christ performed when saints turned back to Him with their whole hearts. Anne wished the author had considered that sometimes Christ didn’t want the saint back. This, at least, was what she felt.
    Her own book, the forbidden Hutchins book, was not in her things. Someone had it. Someone knew her secret. The book would not forget her; she had a shadowy feeling the book was not done with her. She would see it again.
    She sighed; none of these dead books inspired tonight. She tried to sleep but could not get warm. She blew out the candle and listened, shivering in her bed, tears evaporating on her cheeks, leaving her cold and miserable. There was an owl nearby who hooted to her and the insects keening together. No human voice could be heard, and Anne was glad. She fell asleep, still shivering, murmuring the prayers she had been taught in France.
    Only once did she wake, when she had grown too warm under her blankets. In the darkness she heard the redwings singing as they flew away, the last of them leaving now that the weather was turning warmer. “See! See! See it!” they called, their tiny voices singing as they flew on.
    Anne reached down to pull a blanket off, wondering dully how she had come to be under such a blanket, when there had been nothing but a silk coverlet she remembered seeing on the bed. But her mind was occupied with matters greater than blankets, and she returned to these thoughts in her sleep.

    Three more days and nights passed. Every morning about five, when the sun was beginning to light the clouds that rested on the far horizon, Anne heard the horses and the men, saddling for a day of hunting. Henry was always among them. She could tell when he walked among them: their voices became soft, even as he thundered about. Every evening, near six, when the sun had made a start on its setting, she heard them return, the horses exhausted and breathing hard, Henry bellowing about what he shot or missed. He was escorted into the castle and all was quiet again. These glances through the glass windows with iron scrolls protecting