‘You’ve written in the flyleaf.’ Lynette held up the book Jean’s father had sent to Anne.
Anne cribbed the book out of Lynette’s hands, furious at the intrusion, and wiped the cover with her sleeve. ‘I didn’t know you could read!’
‘Seigneur taught me to read and scribe in Latin and Greek.’
Anne felt a jolt of jealously.
‘That surprises you! You thought me no more than a handmaid!’
Anne shrugged as if she did not care. ‘Actually, I’d not given you a thought.’
Lynette tutted. ‘Le temps viendra – that’s an impatient heretical saying.’
Anne’s hackles rose at the thought of Lynette raking through her personal belongings and trying to belittle her. ‘It evokes the idea of the impossible becoming possible through choice. After all, the word heresy translates from the Latin to mean choice.’
‘The wrong choice,’ Lynette snapped.
‘Your kind would see it’s meaning become lost in time, but the mumblings of my kind will stop that from happening.’ Anne said, infuriated by the way papists – as Lynette clearly was – seized words and distorted their meanings to their own ends.
Lynette’s flame-red gown intensified the spite in her eyes. ‘Pray be all Lollards will feel the measure of justice for their mumblings,’ she spat by way of an answer. ‘Their souls are the stinking kennels of Satan. I would pray no more for them than I would pray for a dog.’
‘Christ said that a man must have shameless impudence when he prays. That he must do it and not faint. And if your good at your Greek, your know that expounds to mean he must not behave badly, Anne preened.’
‘God forgive thee. You are one of the damnable, my lady, fallen into sundry heresies. Take care, lest the justices don’t cry out to fire the faggots for you.’
