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I kneel before the first man, representing the first year of my life. He is old, scrawny like a diseased fowl, and his feet are callused and hard as claws. I pour the warm, rose-scented water over them, dry them gently with a new linen towel.

The next man has festering sores all over his feet. The greenish pus runs into the water, clouding it in its silver basin. I beckon to Norris to bring a clean basin for the next man. It takes over an hour until the last man’s feet are washed.

During all this, I do not feel a thing. Except shame that I feel nothing.

Good Friday. Fasting all day, shut up in our smallest, plainest room. No one at court is allowed to speak to anyone else, to smile, to sing, to eat, to wear anything but black. Even the church bells’ metal clappers are replaced by wooden ones, to make dull, muffled sounds. A single piece of meat is left out on the table to grow maggoty and remind us of the corruption that awaits us all.

Three o’clock-the Hour of Death, the Hour of Satan. The Temple veil is rent in half, and we are given over to the power of darkness.

And then I felt it—felt its cold hand gripping me. And what had been pretence, form, play-acting, became real. I felt the power of the Devil, felt him in my very bowels. And God was far away, and the ceremonies did nothing to recall Him. Powerless, powerless ...

All in the Abbey again, huddled together, a flock of black crows. Now Cranmer unveiled the great crucifix in three stages, chanting sorrowfully, “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Salvation of the World.”

We knelt and answered, “Come, let us adore!”

The cross was placed reverently upon a cushion on the altar steps. Cranmer crept toward it on his knees, then kissed it and prostrated himself on the flagstones before it.

Now I must follow. I was frightened, frightened at my presumption and arrogance. I had meant to use this ceremony for political show, to reassure people of my innocence of any wrongdoing in appointing Cranmer Archbishop. Now I trembled at the implications of approaching the altar of God for such reasons. Would He strike me down, as He had done other rulers who had mocked Him in His very house?

I began the crawl up the cold stones to the altar steps. My hands were shaking.

“Mercy,” I heard my voice whispering. “Mercy, 0 God! Forgive me.” Closer and closer I came. My heart was pounding so rapidly I felt myself go dizzy. He would wait until I presumed to touch the sacred cross itself before He struck me.

Now! I reached out and grasped the wood, clinging to it like a rock. I felt strength, power surge through it to me, fill me with peace, dazzling peace.

I breathed out. Peace. I had always thought peace was the absence of fear, the absence of pain or sorrow. Now I knew peace was a thing in itself, a presence that had its own shape, that displaced all other feelings.

I laid my forehead on the holy wood, pressing it hard as if that would bwidth="1em">“He is risen!”

The silver trumpets blared, the candles blazed into light all over the Abbey.

“Bestow the kiss of peace!” commanded Cranmer.

Everyone stirred as faces were turned toward neighbours and the cheek-kiss was given.

Then the traditional Mass of the Resurrection began. Nothing was omitted—from the procession of newly baptized Christians in their white robes to the public renunciation of the Devil and all his works and all his ways. Let anyone dare to challenge my Church, I thought smugly, to say everything was not intact!

Now the solemn part began, the sacred mysteries of the Canon: the Offering, the Consecration, and the Communion, followed by the commemoration of the living ... “that it may please Thee to keep and strengthen Thy servant Anne, our most gracious Queen; that it may please Thee to be her defender and keeper, giving her the victory over all her enemies, we beseech Thee—”

There was a scraping and movement in the back, which grew louder and made Cranmer halt in his chanting.

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