Цитаты из книги The Tapestry — стр. 2

This meant that Catherine could be unaware that adultery was a grave sin. Saint Paul wrote that those who were guilty of grave sins, committed with intent, could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, for they destroyed the grace of God. Would she risk the fires of hell for a sordid affair with the king? Only a woman who was…

When I described the painting I had seen in the hall just before dinner, the king laughed a little. “You are a woman of surprises,” he said. “That is one of our favorites. It is adapted from a series done years ago by our court painter, Hans Holbein, called The Dance of Death.” “Then the skeleton in the painting is . . .”…

“You are fortunate to be able to travel abroad,” the king said to me. “In truth, we envy you. If we leave the kingdom, it’s assumed we are planning war. We’d have to raise taxes, muster an army, and set fire to the Scottish border before we go. A high price to pay for trying out the stuffed capon in Calais.” The room…

Catherine begged her to explain. Sidling closer to us, the girl whispered, “None of the men will stoop to pulling at the weeds, so they employ women like me, with small hands that have some strength.” She proudly held up her toughened hands, stained with soil.

When the raven climbs the rope, the dog must soar like a hawk. Look to the time of the bear to weaken the bull. Here I stood in a gallery of the Palace of Whitehall, but those words, the words I could never forget, howled from deep within my very soul. I had learned it in pieces over eleven years of my life from three…

He caught my eye, held it, and then laughed. “I don’t know yet,” he said with disarming honesty. Just as under close scrutiny I’d realized the page was older than I first thought, Thomas Culpepper was younger. I would have put his age at about twenty-five. Even when laughing, his face was eerily perfect. With such…

All emotions receded as I caught sight of the king’s own tapestries. Behind the clusters of men, they covered the walls, one after another: arresting, glittering tapestries. I had never seen any this huge. They looked to be twenty feet wide. At Dartford Priory, we created far smaller ones. These must have been made in…

Living without honor was unthinkable. But there would be no more dangerous quests or conspiracies. My fervent hope was never again to hear the word prophecy, nor to find myself among spies, seers, and necromancers. That was the world of fear, of darkness. I wanted only light.

I took a deep breath, asking God for forgiveness. I would pray for her, by her side, now, and before the altar of every church I entered for the rest of my life. But there was something I could do for her today to ease her suffering, even though to do so was a sin. I said, “Thomas told me that you were the only person in…

I understood now. For so many years I’d feared him, we’d all of us feared him. But beneath the jewels, crowns, satins, and furs, behind the heroic tapestries and posturing murals, was the truly terrified man. So much of the violence, both of the flesh and the soul, was committed from his fear, not his strength. Culpepper…