Tarnish (37 page)

For the first time in my life, I feel that I am beautiful. The warmth that cascades through me is not a blush. Guiltily, I recognize it as not embarrassment but a rush of sudden desire.

“Will you dance with me?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

The distance between us creates a cushion, one that allows me to breathe, to think. Of Mary. Of wounding her yet again. And of Thomas.

But then the king takes my hand in his, and all thought is lost. As we dance, each touch is like a miniature lightning strike, every parting a vacuum.

I hear George start singing in the corner, leading a group of men in an off-key rendition of “Anguished Grief,” Gilles Binchois’s singularly memorable tune marred only by the joyless lyrics of the Christine de Pisan poem. George stumbles about in mock torment, giddy from laughing at love.

“Interesting that your paramour is not with your brother. For Thomas Wyatt would normally be at the forefront of such a crowd. Perhaps the dart of love has actually pierced his heart.”

“I’m not sure anything can pierce his heart.” But as I say it, a sliver of doubt pierces mine. And guilt.

The king laughs—a sound like bells. And all else is erased. We turn away from each other in the dance, and when we come back together, the king pulls me just a little bit closer. His touch is so sure, his gaze mesmerizing.

I wonder wildly what perception his fingers could incite on the skin of my back or along the hollows of my ribs. Then shame, in the image of Mary, crashes through me, followed swiftly by jealousy that she has already experienced that touch.

“A woman such as yourself deserves more than a man like Thomas Wyatt.”

Another blow of contrition, and a glimmer of anger. My family has never acknowledged that I’m anything more than a child. Not my father, nor my brother. Certainly not Mary. And Thomas treated all our interactions as a game, though not a childish one.

“I shall just have to keep looking, then.”

The intensity of his gaze flares, the heat of it reflected beneath my ribs like fire on glass.

“You may not have to look far.”

I stumble, and he catches me easily with one hand, pulls me into the crook of his arm.

“No need to be afraid of me, Nan.”

I take a deep breath.

“I’m not afraid, Your Majesty.”

I look at him directly. Douse the intoxicating heat. Tell myself it’s impossible. Remind myself that the Boleyns stick together.

“And no one but my sister calls me Nan.”

He stops abruptly—a jolt of surprise and choler.

My breath catches and I look away. I’ve gone too far, let my words fail me yet again.

“Then I shall have to think of something else to call you.”

He swings me back into the dance, but his voice is intimate.

“Something private. Just for me. For us.”

The flare returns, and I am grateful that the dance requires us to part. I keep my eyes lowered as I execute a turn that bells my skirts around me.

I look up to meet the king’s eye as I come out of the turn, and there, behind him, is Thomas. His face is anguished, agonized, like the song. But I only see him for an instant. For as soon as the king returns to his proper position, he blocks everything else from my vision.

The music stops, and the king raises my hand to his lips. Kisses the solitary pearl-studded band that adorns my finger.

Smiles.

“I shall call you Anna.”

Greenwich Palace

1525

54

M
Y DANCE WITH THE KING LEAVES ME FEELING DRUNK, AND AS
the year lurches to a close, I suffer the aftereffects. Not headache and nausea, but guilt and jealousy in equal measure.

All I did was dance.

And want.

The new year rides in like the tide, and the court shifts and moves like a house built on the Lambeth marsh. Tottering. Unstable. No one really knows where anyone else is going. No one knows what might happen next. And as the tide retreats toward spring, it leaves everything exposed.

It feels as if everyone is watching me. I am no longer invisible. I hear that some are placing bets on who will share the king’s bed next, that the odds are on me. But the men at court will bet on anything.

We relocate, moving from Greenwich to Eltham, Eltham to Bridewell, and Bridewell back to Greenwich like a pack of stray dogs. There is no stability, no promise.

The king watches me. I can feel it. The entire court watches him watching. I no longer know how to act or what to say. I’m not even sure what I want.

And the person I have always asked for advice has disappeared into the columns and tabulations of the clerkship of the jewels. Into his poetry.

I cannot face Mary. I remember too well her desperate heartbreak when King François moved on. She claims she doesn’t love King Henry. But surely this betrayal will shatter her.

George is lost in his gambling and drinking. George is lost to me, full stop.

And Jane.

Jane comes to me in tears. The hollows of her cheeks are gray, and her wide, catlike eyes are dull and unseeing.

“I can’t marry him,” she sobs, and throws her arms around my neck. We are in the queen’s watching chamber, surrounded by courtiers. All of them watching.

“Why?” I wrap my arms around her, too. Hide her face in my hood and guide her from the chamber and down the stairs to the Middle Court. Here, people can see us as they rush to perform their duties, but at least they do not pause to listen.

“What has he done?” I whisper.

She gasps, shocked, and pulls away to look at me.

“George? He’s done nothing. It’s my father. He doesn’t have the ready cash to pay the dowry.”

And my father will never let him get away with anything less than what was originally negotiated.

“But the agreement was signed.” I cannot follow my own thoughts, for they move too quickly.

“There are ways around that.” Jane’s voice is dripping with contempt.

“Maybe it was never meant to be.”

“No, Anne! I love him!”

“You don’t really even know him.”

She sobs again and falls back on my shoulder.

“Without him I will die unmarried!” she sobs afresh.

“Jesus, Jane.” I push her away and hold her at arm’s length. “You’re young and desirable and very pretty. Your father is Lord Morley. You have time.”

“No, Anne! I grow old and withered and I will never marry if I don’t marry now!”

She’s becoming hysterical. I pat her back awkwardly, wondering what I can do for her. What I can do with her.

“Is it someone else, Anne?” Jane asks.

The question startles me, and I’m happy to be able to answer truthfully. “Not that I know of.”

Jane’s face turns to steel and she clenches her jaw.

“I know he doesn’t really want to marry me,” she says, “And I know men can’t really change, but I’m afraid I’ll be a very jealous wife. I’m even jealous of you.”

“Of me?”

“Well, not only are you beautiful—”

I cough through my nose.

“You are, Anne. Everyone remarks on it.”

Only because Thomas told them so, and they believed the lies of a poet.

“But you also have George’s love. He protects you. He advises you. He is the one who told me you’re beautiful before I realized it myself. You are so lucky.”

“Lucky?” I can’t hold it in any longer. “You don’t know him, Jane. You know what he looks like on the outside, but not who he is on the inside. He made a bet.” I choke on the truth. “A
bet
with someone that I would
not
be accepted at court no matter what endless sculpting the other man employed. He thinks a woman’s worth is only what’s between her legs. Not her mind or her virtue or her thoughts or her words. To him, the only thing a woman is good for is as a plaything.”

“George isn’t like that!”

“He is, Jane. And you need to face it sooner rather than later. You’d be better off not marrying him. Marry someone else. Marry Francis Weston or some other pliable young fool who will think you’re clever and feel lucky to have you.”

“So only a fool would want me, is that what you’re saying?” Jane’s tears are frozen on her cheeks. “George wants a clever girl, a pretty girl with a keen mind who he can talk to. Who can make him laugh. A girl like you, is that it? Do you love him yourself, Anne? Do you want him? Is that why you’re not married? Is that why Butler won’t have you? Why Henry Percy ran away? Is that why you’re jealous? Do you think your brother is the only one good enough for you?”

“Jane!” I cry. “That’s an evil thing to say!”

“It’s an evil thing to do, Anne. But evil doesn’t always stop people.”

Her words fall on me like a hail of blows. She juts out her chin as if daring me to punch it, and part of me wants to. But I’m terrified that any defense will be seen as acceptance of guilt.

We stand for an eternity. I watch as the color drains from Jane’s face, taking the anger with it. Her eyes fill with tears and beg forgiveness, but she says not a word as she turns and walks away.

The perfect courtier, sleek and sinuous in her thinking, cutting in her remarks about others.

Someone who doesn’t apologize.

“Walk with me.”

I startle at the buttery voice at my elbow. I quickly drop into a curtsy at the king’s feet, berating myself for being so unaware.

“Rise, Mistress Boleyn,” he says, “and do as I ask.”

Walk with him.

We pass through the door and into the long gallery, where all the courtiers and ladies sink before us. It is like watching a multicolored sea dip into the troughs of waves, heads bowed and eyes averted.

As we pass, I hear murmurs and a few singular shouts for attention, but the king merely waves a finger and they are silenced behind him. I catch looks of surprise and suggestive significance as people see my face before they lower their gaze. I hear murmurs of gossip behind me like the sough of a wave on graveled sand.

People are not avoiding me because I’m an embarrassment. They are deferring to me because I am elevated. This is what it feels like to be inside the royal circle, that bubble of protection, the ring of acceptance.

We walk out into the newly manicured gardens, a dozen or so attendants following at an obsequious distance. I can smell the river and see Duke Humphrey’s Tower high on the hill beyond, reminding me of the day I incurred the king’s wrath. I look quickly away to the man beside me. His hands are still, his gait even, but I sense his restlessness, his mind working, his eyes roving.

“I wanted to be the first to tell you, mistress. King François was captured at Pavia. The French have lost the war.”

With this, the hum of his energy rises a notch. A half step.

“The French have surrendered?” I ask, stunned.

“Soon.”