Anne Boleyn: A Novel (12 page)

“No, but he still sees his daughter!”

He was surprised at the bitterness in her voice.

“God, how I hate that brat. She’s the image of him, too, which makes it worse. I’ve shown him how it upsets me, but he still visits her behind my back, and keeps her in royal state, just as he does her mother!”

“Mary is only a child of twelve. Nan,” he pointed out. “Would you have him ill-treat her? She’s his own child, and he’s got a soft heart for children. Nan, surely you’re not jealous of that?”

“I’m jealous of everything connected with that marriage,” she admitted sullenly. “I’d never like the girl; she’s too damned impudent; you should see the way she turns away when I approach anywhere near, and the way she speaks to me, at the times when she’s forced to! I’d like to box her ears...But she’s his daughter, George, the only child born in wedlock, and that miserable old woman never stops bleating about ‘my rights and the rights of the Princess Mary, His Grace’s heir’!”

“And that can only irritate him,” George reasoned, “considering how much he wants a son.”

“You don’t know him as well as you think,” Anne muttered. “The girl’s a reminder. As long as he sees her he thinks of Catherine, and the little beast clings to his hand and makes him presents and cries over her mother. Jealous! Of course I’m jealous. I want him to forget he ever saw Catherine or ever had a child by her that didn’t die at birth. I want him to love my child, when it comes.”

It was beyond her to explain the fear behind her feelings; the emotional quicksand of depending on a marriage which might take months or even another year before it could take place, and knowing at the same time that so many factors were opposing it. Unless he married her, she was lost. She had enemies everywhere at court, people who had tried to patronize her and been viciously snubbed, people who resented her favor with the King and feared the power of her family and her political adherents. People who deplored the idea of replacing the regal Catherine with the granddaughter of a London merchant. And the men of her own party, Norfolk, Suffolk, Sir Francis Brian, the Earl of Surrey and many more, who saw her promise to destroy Wolsey unfulfilled, and the Cardinal apparently working in her interests.

She felt so tired suddenly that she leaned her head against her brother’s chest and closed her eyes. Dear, faithful George, ready to advise or cheer her out of her fits of depression. And he wasn’t happy himself. She thought of his wife, Jane, at that moment. That was their father’s doing too; an arranged marriage with Jane Rochford to get back some of their Howard mother’s estates, and George had never been happy with Jane and now hated her. She hated Jane too, for that reason principally, but also because there was something sly and malicious about the woman which repelled her. The sharp exchanges which took place between the sister and the wife in the old days became intensified when Anne returned to court and seemed to have no higher prospects than the casual fate of Mary Boleyn. But things had changed, she thought grimly. Mistress Jane felt the whip of her tongue these days and had to bear it, because she knew that Anne was going to be Queen of England.

Neither of them heard the door open, and they stood there, George with his arm round her, looking down. Anne’s eyes opened and she started.

Jane Rochford stood in the doorway with her hand still on the handle, staring at them without moving. Her pale blue eyes narrowed, and she held herself rigidly.

“Your pardon,” she said quietly. “I had no wish to disturb such a scene of family affection.”

Rochford’s face flushed with anger. “Why the devil can’t you come into a room like anyone else, instead of creeping about like a scavenging cat! What is it?”

He had moved away from Anne and they stood side by side. Jane’s hand released the door handle and it clicked upward into place.

“I didn’t expect you to be pleased to see me,” she said. “From now on, my quietness won’t offend you. When I come here again I shall remember to knock.”

Anne moved one step forward, her right hand touched her throat in the gesture that was once coquettish and was becoming a nervous habit.

“If you tried to make George as good a wife as I am a sister,” she remarked sharply, “you might find him more often in your rooms instead of mine!”

Jane Rochford looked at her for a moment and slowly looked away.

“I doubt if I’ll ever accomplish that. George, your father wants you. That’s all I came to tell you.”

Anne turned her back and rested the toe of her red brocade shoe on the rim of the empty grate. They heard the door close again, and footsteps fading down the corridor.

“She’s gone to cry and abuse me for not loving her, as usual,” George remarked. He stretched. “Lord God, why did she have to hold the Rochford estates?”

“She’s a vixen,” Anne said. “And she knows you married her for the land.”

“And she’s tormented me for it ever since,” he answered. “Tears and reproaches one minute and venom the next. I tried to be amicable in the beginning, Nan, you know that; but I’m weary to death of her. There’s no peace with her, let alone happiness! Christ knows she doesn’t love me and never did, but from the moment she married me she’s grudged me anything that makes life bearable. If she’s not jibing at you till I could strike her, and very nearly did on one occasion—she’s jeering at Father and my friends. Now she’s mad with jealousy because the King plays cards with me in the evenings. Sometimes I think she’s out of her mind!”

“When I’m Queen we’ll see what might be done to get the marriage annulled, if you like. You won’t need Rochford estates or anyone else’s by then. The King loves 5’ou; if he gives permission. Father can’t object.”

“Wait till the day comes,” he told her gently. “And don’t worry about me. Nan. She doesn’t trouble me too much as long as we’re at court. Take care of yourself. Rest and stop fretting or you’ll catch this damned sweating sickness that’s going about.”

She shook her head at him and smiled.

“That’s what the King said. The fever’s drifting down from London, and he told me this morning that he’s moving from Greenwich to Hunsdon. It’s funny, George, that a man as brave as he is, should have such a horror of falling ill.”

“Shall we be going to Hunsdon with him?”

“Not immediately,” she said. “A little absence makes him miss me. And dear God, it gives me a rest! I wheedled him into letting me go to Hever for a few days before I join him.”

“It’ll be nice to go home,” Rochford said. “And good for you to be away from court. Promise me you’ll forget Wolsey and the decretal, or whatever it is he’s after, and rest yourself properly.”

“I promise.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “You’d better go to Father now.”

By the autumn the court had returned to London, the outbreak of fever had subsided and the King and Anne were cheered by what seemed good news from Rome. The Pope had ordered the commission to try the divorce and the Italian Cardinal Campeggio was on his way to London, bearing the decretal Wolsey had asked for. It would soon be over, Henry rejoiced; the commission would pronounce his marriage invalid—obviously the Pope meant to accommodate him and he would be free to make his sweetheart Queen. In the first weeks of that fine autumn, Anne shared his hope, ignorant of the changing European situation.

The French had begun to lose the war. At the moment when their victory seemed inevitable, their Commander Lautrec died of the plague which suddenly swept through his armies and the Imperialists inflicted a crushing defeat. But the Emperor was shrewd enough to see that the support of the Papacy was wavering between France and England, his enemies, and himself and to recognize the value of that support. Heresy and revolt were spreading everywhere and Charles foresaw that his own system of monarchial autocracy and the authority of the recognized Church needed each other in order to survive. While the retreating French pillaged and ravished the unhappy Italian countryside, the advancing imperial troops maintained strict discipline and showed every respect for the Church, and Charles’s agents arrived at the Vatican proposing an alliance with their master.

To Clement the position was clarifying at last. The Church had tasted the arrogance and greed of the French during their ascendancy and much as Clement hated him, Charles was proving the more trustworthy. And the Queen of England was his aunt...Hurriedly, Clement sent a courier after Campeggio with fresh instructions. On no account must he let the decretal out of his possession—better destroy it first. No decision on the divorce was to be given till he heard from Rome.

It was early spring and the court had moved to Hampton. In the morning Henry and a company of gentlemen had gone out hunting, taking Anne with him. She loved the chase as much as he did, enjoying the fresh air and the excitement of the swift horses, struggling to keep up with him as he rode recklessly ahead. Norreys and another favorite of Henry’s called Weston rode close beside Anne to see that no harm came to her, and when they stopped to change mounts, she spent a few minutes talking gaily to her two escorts. She enjoyed their company, and was beginning to like Weston, who was small and quick-witted, as much as the handsome Norreys. They loved the King and they admired her because he did, and there was no danger of his jealousy if she joked with them.

They ran the quarry down after more than three hours, and the King took the huntsman’s knife and cut the stag’s throat himself. He had beckoned Anne to come close, so that she could see his skill. She managed to shut her eyes at the worst moment, but she opened them and blew him a kiss of congratulation as soon as he straightened up and looked round at her. Not being squeamish, hunting exhilarated her, but the cold-blooded kill always shook her nerves. Afterward they sat down to a huge meal under the trees, served on gold plate by servants who accompanied the King and brought the food.

She sat beside him and took pieces of chicken and slices of game pasty from his plate, until he slapped her fingers, to the amusement of his friends. He loved the informal meals in the country, eaten sitting on cushions on the grass, with the dishes and cups and pitchers laid out on a white cloth. He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a sip of Rhenish wine out of his goblet.

“Never have I been so happy, sweetheart,” he whispered. “A fine morning’s sport, a good kill, and my Nan here beside me.”

And in a good temper. Much as he loved her, she tried his patience when she was quarrelsome and acid; it was the anxiety over Campeggio, and the coming trial, he consoled himself. She was becoming oversensitive, he thought, imagining slights from Suffolk and complaining because her aunt the Duchess of Norfolk and some of the great ladies tried to snub her when he wasn’t there. Like all men, he thought her grievances partly imaginary and probably exaggerated, and he could do no more than tell her to be patient, as he had to be, and bear with it until he could present her to the court as his Queen.

After one angry quarrel he had walked out into the gallery at Greenwich and found her talking to Wyatt, fingering his sleeve, and smiling. The rumors of that old liaison returned on a flood of jealousy; he forgot his irritation with her in his rage that she should coquette with an admirer. He knew it was deliberate, but he was incapable of ignoring it; he interrupted them and peremptorily ordered Anne to come and walk in the gardens. Still fuming, he had challenged Wyatt to a game of bowls, determined to beat him in front of her. He had lost the game, but, to decide a shot, Wyatt measured a distance with a gold locket chain on which Henry clearly saw the initials A. B., and Wyatt nearly lost his head for that.

Anne herself had soothed Henry’s rage; he knew she was satisfied by his jealousy, but he had no idea how terrified she was for Tom, that arrogant fool who had lost his temper under the King’s taunts and risked his life by producing that damned chain. She explained away the chain to Henry’s satisfaction. Wyatt was her cousin, she reminded him; he used to visit them a lot at Hever, and he stole the chain from her one day years ago and refused to give it back. He was jealous because the King’s Grace was successful where he was not, she pointed out, knowing Henry’s vanity. The King was too generous to punish him for a foolish display of pique.

She had saved Wyatt, but she took care never again to speak to him alone.

It was late afternoon when the hunting party returned to Hampton Court. When the King left her, she took her embroidery frame along to the gallery, to sit and talk to Norreys and Wyatt’s sister Margaret. Margaret was rather like Tom, dark and gentle and intelligent, and Anne liked her. They were sitting on cushions in the window seat looking out over the herb garden; she joined them, stitching by the fading sunlight.

Norreys was in the middle of an anecdote about the morning’s hunt, when the hangings at one end of the gallery parted, and the voice of Catherine of Aragon’s Chamberlain called out:

“Make way for Her Grace the Queen.”

Everybody rose at once; only Anne hesitated a moment longer, so that when Catherine came through the doorway she saw her still perched on the window ledge with one foot swinging.

The Queen walked slowly with her head up and her eyes looking straight ahead. She was dressed in blue velvet, and a dozen huge sapphires shone in the heavy frame of her headdress. Her short neck was ringed by the ropes of enormous milky pearls that Anne had often taken out of their case and fastened for her in the days when she performed her duties as maid of honor. She had always envied Catherine those pearls.

Three of her ladies were with the Queen, and Anne stiffened when she saw the Duchess of Norfolk among them. The aunt openly hated her niece and loved the Queen; even the Duke’s ambitions couldn’t unite them, and with regard to Anne he shared his wife’s personal antipathy.

The men and women in the gallery curtsied and bowed as Catherine passed among them. Twice she moved her head and smiled at a woman whom Anne recognized as Lady Kingston, wife of one of the King’s officials and devoted to the Spanish cause, and again to someone else she recognized. She passed Anne as if she were invisible, but one hand drew in the skirts of her dress a few inches until she was beyond the window seat. Anne’s face blazed red, and then turned suddenly white. The Queen had turned down the gallery toward Henry’s rooms.