Anne Boleyn: A Novel (3 page)

“I love you, Anne,” he whispered again.

“That’s why I can’t come to court to be near you. If I go, you know what it would mean, even more, what it would mean if I refused him for you.”

“I know,” Wyatt agreed. “He’s as cruel as Lucifer if he’s crossed. But most women wouldn’t hesitate between being the King’s mistress and being mine...Are you sure, Anne?”

“I’m sure. I’ll never submit to him. I’m not Mary, and I’ve told my father so. He’d play the pander with his own mother if he’d gain by it! Oh, Tom, enough of it!” And she leaned over and kissed him fiercely, her hands on his chest, caught in the chain of the gold locket he wore round his neck. The locket was her love token, his was a ring which glittered on her right hand. The little finger of that hand was deformed by a double nail and she was clever at disguising it in a long flowing sleeve of her own design.

The shadows lengthened in the room, and the last of the late autumn sun sank out of sight behind the towers of Hever Castle. It was dark when Wyatt left her, and she stood fastening her dress, listening to the sound of his horse trotting across the courtyard and out of the castle gate. She was brushing and plaiting her hair when another horseman rode across the cobbled yard outside her window, and a woman came to light the candles in her room.

A few moments later George Boleyn opened the door and came in. He was as fair as his sister was dark, but they shared the same fine features. Of all her family, he was the only one Anne loved.

“A courier from Richmond,” he said. “There’s a letter for you, Nan.”

She opened it, breaking the royal seal.

Anne looked up at George at last; her expression was strange and her eyes had narrowed as they always did when she was excited or alarmed.

“It’s from the King. Here, read it.”

“He offers you an appointment as lady in waiting to the Queen!” he exclaimed. “‘My heart is sore, and I wish for the music you promised me at Hever and for the sight of yourself again...’ Christ’s blood, Nan, there’s no refusing this!”

“And why not?” she demanded. “Have I no freedom? He can’t make me go!”

George folded the letter and held it out to her.

“None of us are free. You’ve been at Hever too long to realize what it means when the King says, ‘Come,’ however well it’s worded. It’s Tom keeping you here, isn’t it?”

“I can’t have Tom at court,” she answered. “I at least know that.”

“Sister, you can’t have him anyway,” he answered gently. “The King’s marked you out for himself, and he’s heard about Wyatt.”

“Tom knows,” she said defiantly. “And he’s not afraid.”

“Tom’s mad and in love,” he retorted. “He’ll lose his head, Nan. Nan, listen to me! I’ve been at Richmond for the last three weeks and the King’s sighing and playing melancholy music and acting the lover when he isn’t losing his temper twenty times a day. Whatever you’ve done to him, it’s lasted through the summer and he’s getting impatient—impatient with Father and with me. And he looks at Wyatt in a way that sends most men to the block. If you love Tom, sister, love him enough not to bring the King’s spite on him, for God’s own sake!”

Wyatt’s words came back to her as she stood there with Henry’s letter in her hand. “He’s cruel as Lucifer when he’s crossed...” She opened it and read it again slowly. The post of maid of honor to the Queen was a coveted honor, one assigned only to the highest born. She looked at her brother for a long moment.

“I’ll never be his mistress, George. That I’ve sworn, so he’ll be just as vengeful in the end.”

“Decide on that when it comes,” her brother urged. “He’s notoriously fickle. Nan, and likely enough he’ll tire of the idea when he sees you again.”

“You underestimate me,” she said softly. “He hasn’t tired in the last three months, you said so yourself. Suppose he finds me even more agreeable, what then?”

“I don’t know,” George answered. “Before God. But I do know this. He’s not a safe man to defy; this letter, and this offer —it’s more than he’s conceded to any other woman. And you dare not refuse it, for Tom’s sake apart from your own.”

“Too many women have yielded too easily,” Anne said. She was folding the letter into small, neat squares. “But I shan’t, brother. If it weren’t for our Cousin Wyatt, I’d tell him to go to the devil.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I know him, Nan, better than you do. I’ve seen behind that knightly grace of his...don’t play with him or he’ll make you suffer for it. That’s what I’m afraid of, and I love you well enough to tell you, go to court, for a time at least, or you’ll see Wyatt in the Tower.”

“And you too, my George,” she said gently. “You and Tom, the only two people in the world I love. So His Grace the King has another fancy for me! And this time I lose Tom, as before I lost Henry Percy!”

George Boleyn started; it was the first time in months that she had mentioned Percy’s name.

“Do you still remember that?” he asked. “I thought you’d forgotten him.”

She turned to him suddenly and the fury in her face shocked him. Alike though they were, Anne’s emotional capacity was deeper and fiercer than his, and there were times when it startled him.

“Forgotten! As long as I live, I’ll remember.” She leaned toward him, one hand on the oak marriage chest at the end of her bed. “How d’you suppose I felt, hearing he was wretched, married to that Talbot heifer—that’s what she looks like and that’s what she is...Do you think I didn’t feel? He’s pale, you said, and he never smiles, and his wife and his father rant at him together...George, George, did you think it meant nothing to me that he was suffering? And he always will, he’s not like me, to find a Wyatt and forget for days on end.”

“But I thought you loved Tom,” her brother interrupted. “Now you tell me you’re still heartsore for Henry Percy.”

“Heartsore describes it,” she admitted slowly. “Not in love with him any longer—I’m Wyatt’s now—but there’s an ache still when I think of him and me and what I might have been, and what I am. I dubbed him my gentle knight, George, and by God that’s what he was!”

She sat down on the edge of an old chest.

“We have our friend Wolsey to thank for it all,” Anne said at last. “Percy for his marriage and I for my great accomplishment—the mistress of my own cousin! By God, I’ll pay that debt if it takes me till the last years of my life!”

Her brother shrugged and shook his head at her. “Nan, I don’t understand you. I thought you were happy here—you seemed so.”

She half smiled at him. “Don’t shake your head and look perplexed; I’ve learned to take my pleasures where I find them, and they’ve been sweet enough. But no woman likes to play the whore rather than the wife, even the worst...Allow me my regrets, brother.”

He came and put his arms around her. “Banish them, Nan. Life’s short enough. Had Percy been a man, he’d have defied his father.”

“And the Cardinal?” she shot at him. “You forget him.”

He laughed angrily. “Small chance of that. He’s greater than ever; believe me, the court bows as low to him as to the King himself. Don’t tilt with him, Nan, I beg you.”

“I’ll tilt when I’m ready,” she answered. “A woman may succeed where men fail, just because she is a woman...It seems there’s another reason why I should obey the King’s command and come to court.”

She was calm and mocking again, fanning herself with Henry’s letter.

“You needn’t, Nan,” he said quickly. “Forget what I said, excuse yourself to the King, and give up Wyatt quickly, that’s all you need do. Father and I can keep in his favor...”

“Don’t lie to me, George; you’ll all be in danger if I refuse, you admitted as much till I talked of the Cardinal and paying off that trifling debt. You needn’t fear for me, brother. No harm will come to me. No harm ever comes to the Queen’s maids of honor,” and she laughed.

She walked to the bell rope hanging beside her bed and pulled it sharply. A few moments later her country-bred maid appeared, bobbing in the doorway, her mouth a little open as usual. She was terrified of her mistress, who boxed her ears if she was clumsy or misunderstood an order, and then gave her a piece of velvet or a pair of slippers twinkling with embroidery when she cried.

“Bring paper and a fresh quill and ink. And don’t dawdle!”

Anne kissed her brother’s cheek. “Don’t look so, George. There’s no need to frown and fret. Now I’ve two letters to write which must go by morning. One to Tom and one to the King.”

“I’ll ride to London with them,” he said. “The King’s at Greenwich now, and Wyatt’s been given another duty among the gentlemen which’ll keep him at court for a month at least.”

“He was here today,” she said.

“I know, I saw him. What answer will you give the King?”

“While deeming myself unworthy of the great honor of serving Her Grace Queen Catherine, I yet presume to accept, being moved by a great longing to see the King’s Grace but once again, his presence being the source of all happiness to his most obedient subject, Anne Boleyn.”

She wrote that letter first, phrasing it in the most modest terms, signed it and sprinkled it with sand to dry.

And then she wrote to Wyatt, that for his safety and for hers, they must wait on the King’s will.

Catherine, Princess of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and Queen of England, was kneeling praying in her oratory. The furnishings for the little chapel had come with her from Spain; the velvet prie-dieu had belonged to her mother, the great Isabella of Castile, the gold and ivory crucifix was an heirloom of the house of Aragon, and in the tiny room, Catherine came more and more often to pray for peace of mind and remember the country she had left more than twenty years ago.

She was a tall woman, big-boned and fair, with strong features and very fine gray eyes, but at forty she was lined and the hair drawn back to the edge of her cap was turning gray. She dressed very richly, with the Spaniard’s passion for fine clothes, and took a pleasure in jewels that her confessor had once said was sinful; she had brought a casket of magnificent pieces as part of her dowry, and sometimes changed her ornaments two or three times a day. Even as a girl, these innocent vanities were her only vices; she expiated them by constant charity to the poor of her husband’s city, and by sheer kindness won the affections of everyone who served her.

She was a naturally motherly woman, and as each child died, her devotion to her splendid husband became more maternal in expression. The love he had awakened in her as a Prince of eighteen had faded gently from passion to steadfast devotion which neither his infidelities nor neglect had been able to shake.

She bore both patiently for the sake of the times when he returned; whether for comfort, advice, or in the hope of a living heir. After seven years the infant Princess Mary was born, and of all Catherine’s children, the frail girl lived.

But there would be no more children now. She was nearly past the age of child bearing, and Henry saw her less and less. He was always hunting or jousting, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers and women, most of whom Catherine disliked. Many of the King’s intimates were parvenus like the Boleyns, risen because he had slept with one of the daughters, and Catherine’s stiff upbringing revolted against such company.

Everything of which she disapproved at court was typified by Cardinal Wolsey; luxury, immorality and worldliness even under the mantle of the priesthood. And now Wolsey and what he represented were trying to separate her from the King. Her nephew the Emperor Charles V had sent her a warning through the imperial Ambassador, that the Cardinal was urging the King to petition for annulment in order to effect an alliance with France and marry Henry to a French Princess. The excuse Wolsey meant to put forward to Rome was Catherine’s youthful marriage to Henry’s brother Arthur, who had died after a few months. After sixteen years of marriage, that first, unconsummated union was being brought against her. The Emperor advised his aunt that when the time came she must resist at all costs. The shock had prostrated the Queen; her first impulse was to go to Henry and implore a denial, but wisely she restrained it. She had a child, and Henry loved his daughter Mary, Whatever Wolsey advised, he would not injure Mary and deprive her of the crown which was her right, Catherine prayed and calmed herself and nothing was said by the King or the Cardinal.

She raised her head from her hands and gazed at the crucifix, her lips moving in a prayer for protection. She was aging and her child was delicate.

There was a movement behind her and she turned; one of her ladies stood in the entrance to the alcove, holding the Princess Mary’s hand.

“Her Highness has come to say good night to Your Grace.”

Catherine rose, and the child curtsied; she held out her arms and the little girl ran into them, hugging her mother.

The princess was small for her age, pale and redheaded like the King, with a round, pretty face and Catherine’s gray eyes. The Queen kissed her and gently turned her to the altar.

“Kneel with me, and pray before you go to bed,” she said.

The child looked up at her. “I pray every night for the King mv father and for you,” she answered primly. “What shall I pray for now?”

“Just for that, Mary; for the King your father and for me.”

Later Catherine walked to the door with her, where the Princess’ own ladies were waiting to take her to her rooms, and kissed her fondly good night. Then she took up her sewing and sat down; most of her evenings were passed embroidering while one of her ladies read aloud. Unlike the King, she had no ear or liking for music. But that evening they were interrupted by one of Henry’s household, a young knight called William Bryant, whose bad reputation and careless manners had always distressed the Queen.

He bowed; the King had sent to ask a favor of Her Grace. Catherine nodded; whatever it was, she had to comply.

The King wished her, Bryant said, to take a noble and worthy lady under her protection, and appoint her a maid of honor.

“My household is at His Grace’s command,” Catherine said. “Who is this person?”

“My Lord Rochford’s daughter, Madame, Mistress Anne Boleyn,” came the reply.

Henry was lonely and in low spirits. He sat in the window of his room in Greenwich, staring moodily out over the river. Already it was growing dark, and the nights depressed him as they lengthened, closing out the sunshine and the crisp autumn days. He had been alone for almost two hours, having suddenly roared at his gentlemen to go away, and then picked irritably at his lute, till that too was pushed aside.