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VIII

VIII

Titel: VIII Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: H.M. Castor
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plagues me only because I am an archangel, a warrior of light, battling the dark forces. It is my virtue that draws him .
    With a roar I swing at him, putting all my weight behind a punch – but it passes right through his jaw. I stagger. I have swung round to face the opposite direction – yet here he is, in front of me again.
    He tips his head to one side and stretches out his arms, a look of mock pleading on his face.
    Comfort me?
    He is a devil: he must be. He is a herald of evil. And look what he is showing me now… Comfort me . That is what she said – Anne. He is showing me that Anne is his creature. He must have fashioned her precisely to trick me… he made her look like the golden maiden who would provide me with sons. But she was the exact opposite: the Devil’s serpent sent to entrap me.
    Just as Jesus Christ was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, so have I been tempted by Anne Boleyn.
    And here is my choice: to relinquish my God-given destiny, the glory for which I have fought so hard, sacrificed so much… or to take courage and destroy this devil in all its forms.
    A surge of joy runs through me. I feel ecstatic, sure of my blessed vocation and my virtue. I rejoice in it. And I rejoice that God tests me: that he enables me to see the Devil clearly, as others cannot.
    The night is past and the day is come nigh.
Let us therefore cast away the deeds of darkness,
and let us put on the armour of light.
     
    I hear something behind me. I turn away from the boy. On the opposite side of the room, the sill of the window has become a horizon, beyond which something is rising. I hear a slow tread on invisible stone stairs. A swaying, monstrous head emerges; scaly claws and short, muscular legs plant themselves above the cliff-edge. I know this serpent: I dreamed of it. I crouch quickly to pick up my sword from the floor.
    When I straighten the serpent has become Anne, climbing the wharf steps, her dainty feet stepping in golden slippers. The train of her mantle leaves behind a bloody trail of stinking, rotting flesh.
    The next moment it is a serpent again; its neck weaves back and forth. The ridges of the windpipe stand out against white flesh. Against scaly flesh, green and grey.
    The serpent’s jaws swing towards me, gaping, stinking and dreadful. I step forward, ducking to reach the neck. I slash and slash and slash.
    My sword cannot make contact. The creature advances. I begin to back away. Quicker now. My legs collide with something and I turn.
    I yelp. I have backed into the bed and now I see the boy, lying there under the covers. He is like a wife, waiting for me. Like a hideous parody of a wife – his hair greasy and shorn, where hers would flow over the soft white linen of the pillow.
    I drop my sword and draw my dagger. I stab and stab and stab – his face, his eyes, his neck. He lies there – he does not struggle; it is like stabbing a corpse. But his eyes are open; he is looking at me. There are hands restraining me now. My servants have returned.
    “Fools!” I swing round, slashing one of them across the cheek.
    Someone calls for a doctor.
    I look back to the bed, panting. I have stabbed the bolster, nothing more. There is no blood, no mark to say he lay there. I am sweating and I am cold.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XV   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    The fire is blazing. Beyond its glow, the room is dark. I am sitting wrapped in torn bed hangings, my dagger planted point-down in the table in front of me. I am watching the movement of the flames’ reflection in the sheen of the blade.
    In my peripheral vision, I am aware of the pale mass of Cromwell’s face, floating like a dumpling in dark soup. We have been sitting for some time in silence.
    At last I say, “Anne must die. And it must be handled quickly. I’m not interested in the mechanics. You will find a way.”
    “Poison?”
    I shake my head. “Nothing underhand. I would be suspected instantly. It must be clear to everyone what she is.”
    I look at Cromwell. I can see that he understands me completely.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XVI   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    The sunshine is eye-watering, glinting off trumpets and gilded armour, off swords and shields and cloth-of-gold surcoats. Drifts of blossom from the orchard at the tiltyard’s western boundary flutter on the warm spring breeze and land: a stray petal here on a herald’s crimson cap, there on a horse’s braided mane; a sprinkling of pink and white against the wooden fencing of

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