Anne Boleyn: A Novel (6 page)

“By the living God, I’m not so sure of that!” he burst out. “I’m so little sure, I’ve had no peace of mind for nearly sixteen years!” The lie escaped him easily, and within seconds it seemed as if it had always been the truth. Catherine again; Catherine, his brother’s widow...He let her go suddenly and for some moments there was silence between them.

“I’ve ordered the Cardinal to see into it,” he said at last. She answered almost by instinct, still playing for time, trembling on the edge of an idea so tremendous she hardly dared formulate it to herself.

“If Your Grace’s marriage is unlawful...what would it mean?”

“That my daughter’s a bastard,” he said brutally, “that I’ve no wife and am free to take another.”

As he spoke he was thinking of the French Princess. Then she suddenly came close to him and put her arms round his neck. He felt her shivering; she seemed suddenly small and gentle.

“If Your Grace were really free,” she murmured, “then I might dare to think of you without hurt to your honor or to mine.” And with those words she left him, her light footsteps pattering down the stone corridor until the echo of them died away.

That night she lay awake, listening to the snores of Catherine’s other ladies, the masque costume thrown on the floor, never to be worn again. The game was still to be played out, but for the first time, Anne saw the stake. The rumors were true; he did want a divorce and a new wife. He and Wolsey were determined to remove the Queen, and Anne knew she had not a chance against them. Everything was in their favor, and nothing in Catherine’s, she thought coldly. Catherine was old, looked more than her years, was past child-bearing, and had nothing to show the King for his years of marriage but that sickly redheaded brat. Anne disliked the little Princess Mary, a pious, solemn child, who sensed her mother’s antipathy to the new maid of honor, and treated Anne with stiff reserve. The Queen was too serious-minded to offer Henry much companionship; her prayers and her readings and her ordered life bored Anne to screaming pitch. God’s death, what charm would they hold for a young and lusty man! No, Catherine had no weapons...

Anne moved, resting her head in the crook of her arms, and thought quite clearly that if she could keep the King’s love and continue to withstand him, she might become Queen of England.

Queen of England. She stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine it; Catherine divorced, herself standing beside Henry at the head of the court; herself married,
and by the Cardinal!
she thought viciously, the Cardinal who’d prevented her marriage to Percy because she was too low-born. What a magnificent revenge!

For a moment her excitement was swamped by a tide of hatred.

“Don’t tilt with the Cardinal, I beg of you,” her brother had pleaded, and she remembered her answer. “I’ll tilt when I’m ready; sometimes a woman can succeed where men fail...”

What did Wolsey think of her success with the King? Did he realize how Henry was besotted? He had spoken to her several times, his manner slightly condescending, and then passed on with his head held as high as if he were the King himself. A man with many enemies, she thought fiercely, her uncle, Norfolk, among them. In fact, he was surrounded by men who were only looking for a means of poisoning the King against him.

She smiled slowly. What better means than a woman; declare herself Wolsey’s enemy, and she’d find supporters among the most powerful faction at court. She was sure of her uncle; Norfolk had always treated the Boleyns with contempt, as too parvenu to be redeemed by his sister’s infusion of Howard blood, but he had spoken to her father and to George on several occasions since she came under the King’s notice. Norfolk was a squint-eyed fox, but he was ambitious enough to help one of his own blood to the throne. No Howard had ever been able to resist intrigue; Anne had studied them and she knew the long history of wars and treachery in the family’s struggle to increase their power. And she was one of them. She had their skill and their ambition, and their pride; she also possessed the shrewdness of her merchant ancestors.

Norfolk must be approached and tactfully sounded out. Her father was the man to do that, Anne decided; much as she hated him, she acknowledged his subtlety. She almost laughed, imagining her father’s face when she told him her intentions. He’d be afraid; he’d shout and bluster at her for not making the utmost of the King’s favor while it lasted instead of wasting her opportunities in pursuit of an insane ambition. She knew exactly what he’d say, but in the end his greed would get the better of him. He’d go to his dread brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk, and propound the idea of his kinswoman becoming Queen of England and ruining the hated Cardinal in the process. Norfolk would find other allies as powerful as himself.

It was only a beginning, she reminded herself, checking her thoughts as they outstripped the difficulties. An idea born of that moment in the corridor when the frantic King had answered her excuse by forswearing his wife and his own child. Of course there were other candidates for the crown matrimonial; he and Wolsey must have some foreign Princess in mind to step into Catherine’s place when she was forced out of it. But the political rival was far away; likely enough the King had never even seen her. He had seen Anne and fallen in love with her, though he still saw her as a mistress. In time, he might see her as a wife...

It was dawn when Anne fell asleep, and she was wakened in less than an hour to help the Queen dress and attend morning Mass.

“As you may have noticed, My Lord, the King’s Grace has become much attached to my daughter Anne.”

Thomas Rochford chose his words carefully; he was never at ease with his grim, black brother-in-law, and the vicious cast when Norfolk looked at him distracted his attention. They were alone in the gentlemen’s antechamber.

“What of it?” the Duke demanded. He rubbed his long nose with one finger, wondering what this shifty little tradesman wanted of him. Viscount Rochford! Ha, there were more like him everywhere, with their ridiculous titles, protégés of the King, who cared nothing for the niceties of birth provided they hunted well and could amuse him.

Rochford shifted awkwardly. His mission had sounded simple enough when Anne explained it, so simple that his imagination had been fired into a wild enthusiasm for her impossible dream.

“As head of my wife’s family, I wanted to ask your advice on the matter,” he hedged.

“I don’t see what advice is needed,” Norfolk said. “If the King beds my niece, what the devil have I got to do with it?”

“That’s just the point, My Lord. He hasn’t. Yet.”

Norfolk stared, his untidy eyebrows raised.

“She’s not his mistress? Then what’s the meaning of this great wooing for the last months? Don’t tell me the King’s content to admire from a distance!”

“The distance is imposed by my daughter,” Rochford said. “And in his respect for her honor, the King may well be considering a more virtuous relationship.”

The Duke swung fully around and glared into the sly, bearded face of Anne’s father.

“In Christ’s name, what are you suggesting? Out with it, and stop haggling with me like an old woman!”

Rochford flushed at the insult, but he managed to smile and bow slightly.

“A divorce from the Queen is being considered by the Cardinal, If and when the King’s marriage is dissolved, he intends to take another wife.”

“That’s been rumored for months,” Norfolk interrupted.

“The King assured my daughter of it,” Rochford answered.

The Duke stared at him in disbelief, but Rochford met his eye for once and something told the Duke that he seemed very sure.

“And the cunning baggage sees herself with the chance of being Queen, is that what you’ve come to tell me?”

“I’ve come to ask your opinion; supposing the King’s Grace decided to marry a subject, would you approve, My Lord?”

“If the commoner were my own niece? By God, man, d’you think I’m witless? I’d expect her to remember her uncle and her allegiance to her family—being a cunning baggage as I said, I’ll swear she’d take care to advance her own. Approve of it? Of course I’ll approve, you fool, and so will you and so will all her relatives...that’s supposing the girl’s not gone mad and imagined a chance where none exists...I trust you to be sure of that. But who else will want it besides us? What of the daughters of the other great houses, how many enemies d’you think Mistress Nan will have at court when any whisper of this gets out? And how many enemies among the people when they learn their good Queen Catherine is being put away to make room for her own maid of honor...Ah, Rochford, where’s your merchant’s cunning? The thing’s impossible!”

“And how many enemies has the Lord Cardinal got at court and among the people?” Rochford shot at him.

The Duke scowled. “No one could count them. I’d give my good eye to see that puff adder with his neck broken. What’s he to do with this?”

“His influence with the King is very strong,” Rochford said softly. “But so is Anne’s. It might be that the King will listen to her and see the truth of what she says about the Lord Cardinal where he might suspect the motives of such men as myself, and even you.”

“Ah, by God, you’re a cunning villain,” Norfolk said, his finger rubbing his nose again. “You’d offer my niece as a weapon against Wolsey, would you...in that case she’ll draw men to her side as if she carried the Banner of the Holy Ghost...”

“Anne hates the Cardinal,” Rochford went on. “She bears him an old grudge and you know the venom of women, My Lord.”

“I know the venom of your daughter,” Norfolk answered shortly, “but she’d do well to hide it from the King.”

“I fancy she’s proved she knows His Grace’s moods in these last months,” her father answered.

The Duke nodded, “No one’s denying it, but what do you want of me in this?”

“Your promise to speak well of Anne to the King, and to urge on the Queen’s divorce.”

“You have it, and I’ll make you the promise you haven’t yet asked; I’ll inform my Lord Suffolk and some others that the rise of Mistress Nan may be the fall of Master Wolsey.”

Three weeks after the masque, Anne received the Queen’s permission to retire to Hever Castle for a short rest. She left the court in a comfortable litter with an escort of her father’s servants, and halfway a messenger from the King halted the procession.

He brought her a letter and a gift. She opened the gift first, having thanked the King’s Grace and promised to send a courier from Hever with an answer as soon as she arrived. Inside a finely tooled leather case, she found a little Book of Hours in a cover of most beautifully worked gold; the prayers were exquisitely illuminated. She fastened the book to the chain on her girdle, and settled back in the swaying litter to open the King’s letter,

“Mine own sweetheart,

This by the hand of him who is heavy through your absence...”

Two nights before when she told him she was leaving Greenwich, he had almost wept, then blazed into anger, accusing the Queen of driving her away. Gently, Anne refuted it, at the same time leaving the suspicion that her life in Catherine’s service had not been altogether happy. She was leaving because her conscience insisted, she explained, leaning her cheek against his hand. She was in a state of sin and temptation where she was, and she was determined to take refuge at Hever. What sin, he implored her, what temptation? Did she mean his love and the brief kisses he took from her now and then.

The same, admitted Anne, His love for her threatened her soul’s salvation, and his kisses weakened the defenses of her poor flesh.

She was one of those rare women who can invest even their pieties with eroticism. Her description of her struggle against yielding to his temptations only roused his passion till he seized her again, crushing and bruising in the agony of his desire. When he released her his eyes were full of tears, and he bowed his great shaven head against her shoulder. Think of his loneliness, he murmured, think how he would miss her sweet company and her laughter to cheer him when he was sad...

Immediately she comforted him, kneeling with her arms round his waist, stroking him as if he were a child, hiding her triumph and her smile at the same time. If he went hunting near Hever, perhaps he might honor them with a visit...

The day she left he was already making plans to ride to Kent, and the letter she read during the journey spoke of the absence as being made short by his impatience to take horse and hunt the wild sweet hart of Hever. It prayed her to accept the Book of Hours, and with it the assurance that he who loved her well besought God to protect and cherish her, since she refused to allow him to perform the office himself.

She folded it up and hid it in her dress, and took out the little gold book to look at it again. It was very beautiful, and much more valuable than the pomander.

She had left the court in spite of her father, in spite of her Uncle Norfolk, who had sent for her and demanded fiercely what she meant by abandoning the King when so many were now interested in her advancement. Her answer, short and impertinent, was also ill-advised, for it turned the Duke’s indifference to her to real dislike. She had managed the King well enough without the advice of either well-wishers or those who sought to profit by her; she would continue as she had begun.

Nothing sharpened Henry’s interest like uncertainty, as Anne knew; nothing made the pleasure of reunion keener than a short absence at a time when she would be most missed. The weather had been wet and unsuitable for hunting; he would be confined to his palace and indoor sports like wrestling and tennis, and he would miss her more than if she left him in the spring. In any case, she was far too clever to stay away too long, and in spite of her calculation, the exile was a strain on her.

She did not love the King but she dearly loved the life at court, the glamour and increasing notoriety of her position, and the fantastic goal of marriage drew her like a magnet. And the man fascinated her. He was a bewildering mixture and it taxed all her ingenuity to keep up with him; he was bored in a second with something that had once amused him, and he liked to play at chivalry although the least sign of open defiance revealed the nature of a tyrant. He was a gross sensualist; his superficial attempts at lovemaking had proved that the refinements did not appeal to him, and at the same time he censured others for the things he did himself. He was deceitful, Anne had discovered that by watching him with the Queen. In general he treated her with courtesy and respect, while he discussed her repudiation and disgrace behind her back. He was a man of free emotions; he wept as grandly as he laughed; his rage was a hurricane and his favor extravagant, but he was quite capable of deciding on a man’s ruin and keeping the victim in complete ignorance of his displeasure until the order for exile or arrest was carried out. He was enormously vain, mentally as well as physically; the friend who bested him in argument was never forgiven, nor was the man who outdid him at sports. His brother-in-law the Duke of Suffolk had somehow managed to win over Henry in the lists and outshoot him at archery without losing his favor, but Suffolk was a fierce, blunt man of remarkable character, daring enough to marry the King’s sister Mary against royal wishes, and yet bluff his way back to court.