The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn (8 page)

But the music takes him from me and for a time he is forced away from me to weave among other women. I ignore my partner to watch him laughing and flirting with others before, his face growing serious, the steps lead him
back to me and I am lost again.

Everyone is wilting from the heat and exhaustion of the dancing
. Servants have begun to clear away the remnant of the feast, when a page approaches and whispers in my ear. With great stealth I am ushered along dim-lit corridors, through chamber after chamber, deeper into the king’s private world where I have never been before.

He is not alone and I wait with banging heart while his companions, Henry Norris, Charles Brandon, and others melt away into an outer chamber. Among them I spy Will Carey who, as he closes the door, shoots me a look of compassion before leaving me with the king. For the first time
, the king and I are completely alone and I am bereft of words, my wits fled. My lips are dry, my breath unstable in my throat. Feigning nonchalance, I go boldly forward to meet him.

He has thrown off his doublet and the light of the fire play
s on his snow-white shirt sleeves. When he looks up and sees me, his smile is gentle, his soft ruddy hair glowing in the candlelight.

“Anne,” he says, rising from his chair and drawing me closer to the warmth. I am so nervous that my palms are perspiring
, but he tucks my hand into his elbow. “Come, take a cup of wine with me.”

I don’t know what to say. How is it that when I meet with the king in public
, I am full of wit and a host of ready answers runs tripping from my tongue but now, in the privacy of his closet, I am quite dumb? “You make a fine partner in the dance, Anne. I don’t know when I have enjoyed it quite so much. You are so light of foot.”

“Your Grace is kind.” I keep my eyes lowered, too terrified to look at him.

“And are you kind, Mistress Anne?” His tone is low, as if he fears my answer. The inference of his words brings my chin up, our eyes meeting for the first time since I entered his private chamber.

“I-I hope so, Your Majesty.” I am stuttering like a fool. I
usually despise those who hesitate over their words.

“When we are alone
, you may call me Henry.”

He puts down his cup and picks up my hand, examining it, turning it this way and that, looking at my nails, the shape of my fingers. “Such pretty hands,” he murmurs, lifting it to his lips.

At the touch of his lips I give a little gasp. Just as smartly as one of the royal Fools, my heart turns a somersault.

I cannot snatch my hand away.

I cannot move.

I am ruled by the red-hot emotion of the moment. He is the king. I cannot stop him. He pushes back my sleeve, his lips working their way along my arm, coming to a stop at my inner elbow. I feel his tongue on the place where my heart’s blood runs closest to the surface
, and I swallowing deeply, tilt back my head and close my eyes.

“It is lonely to be a king.” He sounds like a little boy and I straighten my head and look down at him, seeing him differently. Bareheaded in the light of the fire, without his sumptuous tunic to remind me who he is, he is a little less terrifying, a little less king-like. I let out a long breath, unaware before now that I
was holding it.

“I can be a friend to you, Your Majesty. I can dance with
you, comfort you when you need me. I can warm your days but, Your Majesty, I can never warm your nights. Although the honour you do me is very great, I am not like my sister Mary, and can be no man’s mistress …”

He looks up, his hair dishevelled, his eyes belying my words. “Not even mine?”

“Not even yours.”

I withdraw my hand.

“Not even one kiss?” he says, unknowingly echoing the words of Thomas Wyatt.

He stands before me, as tall as a young oak tree
, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. The kiss is inevitable.

A moment’s hesitation before I am swamped in his arms
; lost in the deep, wide chasm of his embrace. His mouth is hot, his tongue searching and desperate, his hands roaming over my body, pulling me deeper into him, awakening all the longings that I have fought so hard for so long. The hard nub of his codpiece is digging into my belly and I am foundering in a wild oceanic storm. I don’t want it to stop.

I never want him to stop.

I plead sickness and beg permission from the queen to escape home to
Hever. She is glad to be rid of me and I am grateful for the fresh air, the tranquillity of the countryside in which to breathe properly and, hopefully, clear my head. If I stay at court I will be lost, and I do not want to go the way of my sister. All my life I have dreamed of a husband and a home, a litter of small children – I have no wish to be any man’s property but my husband’s, and I would go to him a maid, not sullied by the whims of the king.

My mother has no patience with me. She harangues me for my niceties. “You cannot refuse a king,” she says, “not if you care one jot about your family. Think what it would mean for us, and for George. Think what it would mean for your children
…”

I lose my temper. “And what would it do for my children? What has he ever done for Mary’s? Neither she nor Will know who their children should call ‘Father.’ It is madness.
I intend to enter my marriage as a maid and neither you, nor Father, nor the king will prevent that.”

Her face retreats into puckered resentful lines as she begins to shred her kerchief in her lap. By the hearth, Grandmother is snoring gently, oblivious to my predicament. I could wish I were an old woman, freed from the betrayals of my own body, my own heart. Mother will not let it rest. “What if the king should follow you here? You will not refuse to see him?”

I sigh and look from the window where a sprightly breeze is making the catkins dance. “Tell him I am sick, that should cool his ardour.”

Henry has a great fear of infection and makes
himself scarce at the least sign of plague.

“Many parents would shut you in your chamber until you relent.”

“Many parents wouldn’t try to coerce their daughter into whoredom.”

“Anne, don’t dare speak to me so!”

I spring up from my seat. “Then don’t treat me so. I have told you that my conscience will not allow me to bed a man who is not my husband. You should not chide me for that. It is God’s teaching.”

She gentles. “Anne, how can you not love him?”

“Mother! I do love him. He is my king, he is a man above all others, but he is not free to love me. What he offers me is … is specious –I cannot give him what he wants.”

She gives up for the time being and retreats into her stillroom
, where I hear her crashing bottles and slamming doors. Thereafter I stay wisely close to my grandmother, safe in the knowledge that her noxious fumes will keep all but the most determined of bullies at bay.

And then the letters start arriving. Beautiful letters penned in Henry’s own hand. Knowing how he hates to pick up a pen, preferring to dictate to others, this says almost as much f
or his regard for me as the words themselves.

He is missing me. It is evident in every ardent sentence, every passionate request for my return. He could, of course, order me back to court
, but instead he requests it quite gently, and enclosed in each missive is a gift. Sometimes he sends me a purse, sometimes a jewel. Once, knowing my taste for it, a fresh slaughtered hind is delivered for my table, killed by the king. Sometimes he sends a verse, penned by his own lovesick hand.

O, my heart!

And O, my heart,

It is so sore!

Since I must needs from my Love depart;

And know no cause wherefore!

F
inding me reading it in the garden, George slumps onto the grass beside me and snatches it from my hand. After one scan of the page he lets out a loud guffaw. I hide my mouth behind my fingers. It is cruel of us to laugh but the king is not greatly skilled at poetry, and spoiled as I am by Wyatt’s pretty lines, I cannot help but smile at Henry’s.

“At least the sentiment is there
,” I say, snatching the paper back again and tucking it within my bodice. George lies back in the long grass, plucks a stalk and puts it in his mouth like a peasant.

“What is going to happen, Anne? How long do you think you can resist him? You make trouble at court, you know, whether you are there are not.”

“How so?”

George rolls onto his side, props his head on his hand and watches my reaction to his words. “The king continues to seek his divorce. Wolsey is tearing out his hair looking for a solution, and the queen simmers with resentment …”

“And who can blame her? She has been legally wed to him for years and now he is tired of her, expects her to retire gratefully.”

“And Wyatt too makes trouble.”

“Tom makes trouble? In what way?”

“He glowers every time the king mentions your name, and that is often. Henry suspects something between you, and each time Wyatt is absent from court, he enquires as to his whereabouts, as if he is afraid it is your bed he is keeping warm.”

I frown, shake my head. “Why would the king think a thing like that?”

“Tom has made no secret of his affection for you, Anne. The pretty rhymes he pens are circulated at court. Half the queen’s ladies are in love with him
, yet it is you he desires. At least he and the king have that much in common. When did you last see Tom?”

I cast my mind back a few weeks, lower my gaze and answer him quietly. “He rode over with some strawberries in July.”

“Ha! I knew it. The sly fox. Did he try to make love to you?”

“He may have
, but I assure you, he made no headway.”

This last is a falsehood. I had allowed him one kiss, more to test if it had the same effect upon me
as Henry’s than anything else. It was pleasant, lingering and sensuous, but there was none of the thrilling, alarming sensations I had felt with the king. Poor Tom, I’d give so much to make a man like him happy.

I am in limbo, a strange phantom-like existence that has no direction, no goals. I know not where I am going, or how I am going to get there
, but I am waiting for something. I tell myself that when it happens, I will know. The moment it arrives I will recognise the end of limbo and the beginning of my life.

And then, quite suddenly, the moment does arrive
. The next time I raise my head and look out across the gardens, I see Henry riding along the road toward me.

Attended only by Brandon and Norris, the king’s horse clatters into the bailey. Oblivious to the confusion that his unannounced arrival has inflicted upon our house, he tosses the reins to a groom and jumps from the saddle. I sink to my knees at his approach, feeling the warmth of his hand like a blessing on my head.

“None of that, none of that.”
He raises me up, smiles into my eyes, and my heart soars like a falcon.

“You are well,
Your Majesty?”

“I am now.” He beams about the courtyard as we pass through it, and doesn’t notice the household falling like skittles as their king passes so unexpectedly among them.

“My father is from home, as you know, and I fear you find us in much disarray.”

“No matter, no matter.
A jug of ale is all I require, and then you can show me those roses of yours again. Did you get my letters?”

“Every one of them, Your Majesty.”

“Enough of that, Anne. What happened to ‘Henry?’ Call me Henry.”

“Very well … Henry.” I feel a laugh fermenting; soon it will erupt, burst from my throat in a fountain of joy. I usher him into the parlour and summon refreshment. Shortly afterwards a red-faced girl arrives
, and with trembling hands places a tray on the table. She curtsies clumsily and at a jerk of my head hurries from the room. I begin to pour but stop when Henry steps up behind me, slides his hands around my waist, his breath warm on my neck. “Now we are alone, sweetheart …”

I spin away from him, laughing. “But we are not alone, My Lord.” I indicate Grandmother who is, as usual, asleep at the fireside
. Henry raises his eyebrows, a comical furrow on his brow.

“Who in God’s name is that?”

“My Grandmother. I trust a deaf, half-blind crone is chaperone enough.”

“Will we wake her?”

“I doubt an earthquake would do that.”

“Then come here, and kiss your king.”

“I thought you said I should think of you as Henry.”

I dip my face to my cup, taste sweet wine, looking at his over the rim as I do so. When I do not move
, he comes closer. “Fie, you are a troublesome wench.” He takes my cup, puts it on the table with a bang, and draws me into his body.

Today, after his ride, the sweet scent of his perfume is overlaid with horse and sweat, a male tang that torments my senses. I lay my head on his chest, his doublet as soft as a kitten on my cheek. “Oh Henry …” I sigh, closing my eyes and enjoying the solidity of him.