sorry for it, but…’ I hesitated. ‘Anna, we were on opposing sides. It is the fortunes of war. Your husband got Mary to safety and later he was rewarded for it.’ I waited but she said nothing. ‘It was a long time ago,’ I said lamely, ‘and no one died. Time has passed. We have a different queen now. Surely all can be forgotten?’
‘I have not forgotten,’ Anna said. ‘I never forgot.’
I hesitated. I did not know what else to say. ‘I had not realised you were at Sawston at the time,’ I said weakly. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been very distressing for you.’
A bitter smile touched Anna’s mouth, no warmth in it. ‘The whole of Antony’s family was at Sawston that night. We were celebrating because I was expecting another child after three miscarriages. The babe was healthy and I felt well. It was a miracle.’
Horror and confusion made my brain run slow. ‘But you have no children,’ I said, stupidly. ‘You are childless like me.’
Anna’s chin came up. ‘I am not like you, Amy,’ she said scornfully. ‘I conceived, more than once. And then I lost my child when we were forced to flee in the panic and confusion of the fire. We were all terrified. I was running and I fell.’ Once again, her hand rested protectively over her belly. ‘I hated Robert for that,’ she added. Her conversational tone made the chilling words all the more shocking. ‘Every day I would pray that Queen Mary would execute him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I had no idea.’ I felt helpless. How could I appease her? How could I get rid of her before it was too late? My mind was running feverishly along the two parallel paths; how to calm Anna and send her away and how to be ready, for any moment Richard Varney might come…
‘Mother said you were not to be told,’ Anna said. She was not looking at me now but gazing at a point far distant, a point in the past, I guessed, and yet still vivid and painful in the present. ‘She said that Robert would one day become a powerful man and that it was in the interests of us all, whatever our creed, to put personal feelings aside and ally ourselves to him for the good of the family. She said I would have more children, and not to fret.’
I blinked. It was hard advice, pragmatic though, from a woman who was not only protective of her family but who had also experienced a number of miscarriages herself. I remembered the unsentimental way in which Mother had sent me recipes for herbal medicines to try to help me conceive and the unvarnished words that if I did not, I would be a woman with nothing: no place, no influence.
‘It happened again,’ Anna said, ‘over and over, I would conceive and lose the babe and now the physician has told me I must not try again for fear it will kill me. Antony tells me it does not matter, but it does.’ She lifted her gaze to mine. Her face was drained of all animation, all spirit, except for the startling hatred I saw beneath the surface. It was that which kept her alive.
‘You blame Robert,’ I said. ‘You think it is his fault that you have lost all your babes and your hope for the future.’
She nodded. ‘I do. I do blame him. I always will. I lost the last child two weeks ago and I can bear it no more. I had to tell you. You had to know.’
I went down on my knees beside the bed and took her cold hands in mine regardless of the shudder of revulsion that went through me. It was like grasping a corpse.
‘Anna,’ I said, ‘I am so very sorry. I know how hard it is to be childless—’
Her gaze snapped. ‘You do not know what it is like to lose a child.’
I swallowed the hurt and the words that bubbled up. It was a different sorrow to fail to conceive. That grief was mine.
‘No, I do not,’ I said carefully. ‘And I do understand why you feel Robert is to blame for your misfortunes. What can I do?’ I shook her hands gently. ‘How can I help you?’ I did not know what she wanted and I did not want to be so crass as to offer money for a loss that could never be compensated. ‘What do you want of