Chapter 11
Anne
They took their supper in Marguerite’s rooms, which were surprisingly plain, given the Frenchwoman’s penchant for finery.
Anne snorted into her wine. “If such a thing is possible.”
“Witch,” Marguerite retorted, the word said with such fondness that Anne could only grin.
Over a meal of spicy, garlicky soup and salty flatbread torta, Anne and Lina shared tales of their journey from England, while Marguerite answered their questions about the university, the hospital, and larger Hellebore Sisterhood workings.
“Back in Paris, we just funded a reprinting of Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames.”[*2] Marguerite glanced at Anne. “Oh, and Isabella d’Este wrote to express heartfelt condolences over your death,” she added.
Marguerite collected interesting, influential friends like most royals collected art or antiquities, and some of them were welcomed into the Sisterhood’s circle.
The sixty-two-year-old Marchioness of Mantua—a fashionable, forward-thinking woman—was one of the Sisterhood’s most active members in Italy and had met Anne on a long-ago visit to Paris.
They had bonded instantly over their love of dance.
God, Anne missed dancing. Henry had been an awkward, rhythmless partner, imbued with the false confidence of a king whose subjects praised him on the dance floor only so they could keep their heads. On any night, Anne would have much rather danced with the graceful Isabella d’Este.
“Please thank her for me,” Anne said, raising her glass in acknowledgment.
Marguerite laughed. “Believe me, I wish I could have told her you were alive and well.”
Beyond that mention, they didn’t speak of Anne’s flight from the Tower of London, or of Jane Seymour, or of Mary and Elizabeth.
Their moods were too high to be brought back down to the darkness of reality, and it was easier for Anne to let the conversation and the wine flow than to think of all she had left behind.
Later, she told herself, she would bring up England.
For even though she was countless miles away, a part of her remained tethered to the vow she’d made Lina that first night at St. Margaret’s.
She had every intention of making good on it, even if it meant training as an assassin for the next year so that she could kill Henry without leaving a single shred of evidence in her wake.
She knew the Sisterhood employed poisoners and other killers.
Surely one of them would be willing to take Anne under their wing.
“You will like it here,” Marguerite promised of Santa Cruz, oblivious to Anne’s plotting as she dipped her fork into a slice of almond cake. “It’s as safe a place as you could find with no shortage of interesting people. And, once you have your feet under you, we could use someone of your talents.”
“And what talents might those be?” Lina asked. She sat back in her chair, shoulders squared, instantly shifting into the focused and direct queen Anne had known her to be. “We are no longer of use in the political arena, not with our identities so well known.”
Marguerite conceded that with a nod. “Would that I could make you both queens once more. But short of that, I’d like you and Anne to help recruit witches for the university.”
Anne nearly spit out her mouthful of wine. “Pardon?”
“You two really ought to ask Dr. Al-Bashar to check your hearing,” Marguerite chided. “You know it’s a dangerous time to be a witch—to be a woman in Europe. Hundreds of women have been killed in these witch hunts, which only seem to be gaining popularity.”
“Women are the sole carriers of magick,” Anne acknowledged. The gift was rare—it could even skip generations in a bloodline—which meant those witch hunts were undoubtedly killing as many nonmagickal women as they were actual witches. Or more.
“Women are also the traditional knowledge-keepers of our health: menses, childbirth, aging, and death,” Marguerite pointed out.
She rapped a knuckle on the table for each item on her list. “Villages are sending their herbalists and healers to the pyre, and we’re losing centuries of training each time one of them thinks magick or medicine is the devil.
So I’d like to offer witches—real and accused—safe harbor and learn from their wisdom. ”
The table was silent for a few moments. It was a noble cause, Anne thought, but one that came with a thousand dangers.
How would they find these women? If they’d been accused by their villages, it was likely too late to save them.
And if someone—like the Holy Roman emperor—were to find out Marguerite not only had an illegal women’s college but one full of witches in his territory?
Anne looked to Lina, who appeared just as dumbstruck.
“I see you’re overthinking this,” Marguerite said before either of them could speak. “Stop thinking and start dreaming.”
Lina sighed. “When you say things like that, it’s awfully hard to argue with you.”
Anne realized that she was gripping her hands together tightly enough to hurt and forced herself to relax her grip.
“I’ve grown rather fond of being alive, now that I’m dead,” she hedged.
“This sounds like a mission that will more likely than not end up with me in a prison or on another executioner’s block. ”
“Everyone here is breaking the law in one way or another,” Marguerite replied archly. “Why should you be any different?”
The Frenchwoman leaned forward. “My dears, here’s the truth of it all: I cannot do this without you.
I could go to every court in the land and find clever, ambitious women to convert to our cause.
But as it is now, the Sisterhood would only be made up of ladies and princesses and questionably deceased queens.
The movement will never survive—never thrive—without women of every class involved. ”
Marguerite stood, sending her chair skidding backward, and began pacing the length of the room.
“We need bakers in Scotland and seamstresses in Germany and fisherwomen in Norway. We need nuns and teachers, artists and authors, midwives and courtesans. And yes, we need witches. Only together can we change the world.”
Anne couldn’t argue that point. She knew there were a handful of women outside the peerage active in England, but they were few and far between, often recruited directly by the noblewomen they worked for.
It was a risk, of course, to spread the movement farther and increase their chances of discovery.
Especially if they were bringing witches into the fold.
And yet.
Marguerite stopped for a moment and braced her hands on the back of her chair.
“I should have gone looking for witches long ago, but I have no magick, as much as I think it would suit me. No witch would trust me if I came to them, nor should they.” She looked at Anne.
“Finding you and Mary was sheer luck. It would take someone with that same power, that same understanding of danger and secrecy and sacrifice, to help more of your kind find their way to the Sisterhood.”
“I’ll do it,” Anne blurted out.
Wasn’t this what she had always wanted? To lift her gender up and out into the light?
To offer some protection to those like her, who had magick running through their blood?
She had worked so hard back in England to promote education and opportunity for women, fighting Henry every step of the way.
And now here Marguerite was, handing her the chance to do just that, albeit with a rather high likelihood of danger.
But that had never stopped her before.
“I knew you would.” Marguerite sounded proud. “Lina?”
Not for the first time, Anne wished she knew what happened inside Lina’s head.
If she’d learned anything from her years with Lina in the English court and again these past few months, it was that she did not make decisions lightly.
No wonder she had held her place as Henry’s wife for a quarter of a century, while Anne had only lasted three short years.
Was she jealous of Lina’s rationality, her patience?
Yes. Did she also sometimes want to shake an answer out of her? Also yes.
“Why us?” Lina asked at last, folding her arms across her chest. “More specifically, why me? I can see why Anne would be a fit for this mission, but I am no witch.”
Marguerite sat back down and began ticking reasons off on her fingers.
“For one, you both have a clean slate, as it were. We can invent new identities and personas for you with no one being the wiser. You could walk among the commonfolk or in the highest courts of the land. Two, you’re some of the most intelligent women in all of England, which means you’ll puzzle your way out of trouble.
” She gave a wry smile. “There is sure to be trouble. And three—and this might be your greatest asset—you have no husbands to tie you down.”[*3]
At that, Anne chuckled. “That does make life a bit easier.”
“And as for you, Lina, I need someone to keep my darling Anne in check.”
“In check!” Anne repeated, stung. That hardly seemed fair.
Marguerite held up a hand. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t burn down every village that tried to send a woman to the pyre?”
“Not every village,” Anne grumbled.
She knew better than that; she didn’t need someone to mind her.
She was not the teenager Marguerite had first met in France, nor was she the hopeful young woman who had sailed home to England a decade ago.
In that time, she had survived the controversy of Henry’s courtship, been a queen, become a mother, and lived through her own execution, all in the name of the Sisterhood.
That Marguerite thought so little of her, after everything…Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She hadn’t cried since her imprisonment, and she certainly wouldn’t now.
“She does not need me,” Lina cut in, her voice firm.
Stunned, Anne looked up.
Lina had leveled her gaze at Marguerite. “You ought to have more faith in her.”
Anne was speechless. When was the last time someone had stood up for her?
She couldn’t remember. Certainly not at her trial.
Maybe not since she had been parted from her sister Mary when Henry sent her from court.
It was a strange feeling, this solidarity, especially coming from a woman she still expected to dislike her.
“Nevertheless,” Lina continued, “I will go. It would be unsafe for anyone to try this alone, and I didn’t save her life just to put it in jeopardy. But, Marguerite, I caution you not to underestimate this woman. You owe her more than you realize.”
Anne had never seen Marguerite d’Angoulême cowed before, but the princess appeared unable to find a witty retort.
While a few unkind words couldn’t undo decades of friendship, Anne couldn’t help but feel grateful to Lina for taking her side.
The moment felt pivotal, a shifting of power between the three of them that could result in an explosion and collapse or, perhaps, an even stronger bond.
Marguerite took a sharp breath through her nose, and Anne braced for the worst.
But then the Frenchwoman reached across the table and placed a hand on Anne’s arm, her expression going serious and sincere.
“I apologize. I should not have said that, and I do not mean it. You have given more than I ever asked, and I asked a great deal. I love your courage and your fire, and we need both. We also need Lina’s caution and steadiness.
I am asking you both to go looking for witches at a time when little could be more dangerous.
You two have just proved you’re stronger together than apart.
” A hint of a smile returned to her face.
“Which means I was right, even if I was wrong.”
“My God, she’s incorrigible,” Lina muttered, but there was warmth returning to her tone.
“Impossible,” Anne echoed. She lifted her eyes to meet Marguerite’s and inclined her head just enough to let her old friend know she was forgiven.
“Utterly hopeless,” Marguerite agreed, nodding back. “Now, let’s get to work.”
Skip Notes
*1 Lina’s own father once invaded Navarre—before I had married my second husband and taken on the title of queen. I never liked Ferdinand, and I am one to hold a grudge. Though I would never apply the sins of the father to the daughter.
*2 The Book of the City of Ladies is a century-old French text that advocates for women inhabiting every layer of society. Of course we should—what a dull, pointless world (full of poor decision-making) it would be without us.
*3 I do actually quite like my husband—and my lovers—but he is something of an impediment to my gallivanting across Europe in the name of the Sisterhood.