Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (22 page)

From that moment on, Princess Mary made every
concentrated effort to bait and insult me. I was never able to
withstand insult in silence, and responded with hurt and fury while
she moved more solidly behind her mother. As fond as I was of her,
she said things to me I could not overlook. And so—and to the
death—I would be her sworn enemy as well.

Meanwhile, Katherine persisted in her efforts
to goad me into a reaction with her insincerity. Had she not been
my queen, I might have slapped her. I was seared by Katherine’s
fire-hot “warmth” and frozen at the same time by the snaps and
snubs of her ladies. There was no comfortable place for me. There
was no safe place to hide.

Those who were not entirely within
Katherine’s confidence chose not to be within mine for sides had
been drawn, and my side did not appear to have much hope for
winning. I still retained good friends for, indeed, I had some. I
had Emma. There were also my companions from the music room whose
interest in me was not political. And there were a few men who
would forever be loyal toward me for, somehow, they felt themselves
to be in love with me and fully sympathized with the King. I was
still receiving true kindness from some quarters, but the balance
of my day was fraught with anxious discomfort over snubs and
gossip.

I lived in shame and contrition for months,
then could live that way no more. It was
she
whom I was
protecting with my refusals of Henry’s advances. My modesty was
largely based on loyalty toward
her
. For how long must that
loyalty be tested? For how long must I be apologetic for having
done nothing to her? She did not fool me with her sweetness and I
wondered: When would her forgiveness come? She, who went to chapel
for hours each day, must certainly have heard that Jesus Christ
spoke of forgiveness. Where, I wondered, was mine?

I grew resentful. Honor, like love, is
not
conditional. A vow of loyalty cannot be withdrawn, once
uttered—not, at least, by someone such as myself who tried with
full sincerity to live with honor. Because of my vows to Katherine,
I owed my queen my loyalty, and I was bound by my honor to reject
Henry for her sake, regardless of her treatment of me. However, I
was not the saint I had once wished to become. My eyes gradually
became more guarded and my glances less cowering.

Katherine enjoyed her small punishments,
dispatching her ladies to do the mean-spirited work she really had
in mind for me. I came to enjoy mine. I came to wear new gowns in
her presence, gowns commissioned by the King and richly embroidered
in gold, as well as the jewels he had awarded me. Noticing it
immediately, Katherine became sweet as treacle, and her ladies more
cruel. In response to this, I grew increasingly haughty and
arrogant. My hand gestures grew more expressive to set off my new
rings. Katherine’s mouth grew beatific with false pleasure and
feigned approval; I lifted my chin to expose a gold choker and
smiled.

I would never have brought her harm. With all
my other faults, I was not one inclined toward evil intent as I
have been accused, nor toward evil acts. I was inclined, one might
say, toward colorful retort. I did not take the “high road” as I
might have. I shot arrows in response to being hit, and with
Katherine this came to be a full time occupation. When the pain
reached a certain level and my outrage exceeded my capacity for
restraint, I could not resist fighting back, and did so until the
ill feelings erupted into world scale enmity.

Finally, Katherine exposed her real self to
me and only play-acted for the benefit of those outside her circle.
The fight became ever-so-slightly more honest. I thought honesty
might bring some relief and resolution, but the situation never
improved. In fact, it steadily worsened. I had not counted on the
depth of her hatred toward me.

I did not admit this to myself until far into
the battle, for her approval was of utmost importance to me, but
even had we not found reason for enmity, we were incompatible and
should have disliked each other. Katherine was obsessed with God
and purity and the condemnation of all who were not. She had no
humor and no skills. She was inflexible, solemn and sanctimonious,
preferring the company of Spaniards and viewing all others as
foreigners, even in a country foreign to her. She dressed only in
black, like a nun, and her Spanish ladies wore only black or other
solemn colors. She and her company were tedious and dreary and
self-contained and I found no pleasure or warmth in their presence.
I thought of them all as yammering large black crows.

I, on the other hand, was vivacious and
sociable. I was raised to be French, so I enjoyed engaging in
flirtatious banter with men and fussing over my appearance, two of
the most grievous sins to the Spaniards who prized modesty and lack
of adornment. I may as well have plied my trade in a roadhouse,
they felt, for choosing gowns of yellow or blue or for wearing
jewelry that was ornamental and not religious. They were even
scandalized to learn my favorite color was vermilion, as if beauty
should only come in shades of gray.

As for my conversations with the men . . .
well!
The women crossed themselves and pressed their lips
and hissed in whispers. The married ones among them showed up in
their beds because God willed women to subjugate themselves to
their husbands’ base desires. Aside from that, their society was
solely with other women. Even mere conversation with a man was
viewed as scandalous.

I would have been grateful for Katherine’s
exclusion of me had the repercussions not been so humiliating and
so painful, and had I not cared quite so much.

Katherine no longer had the power to dismiss
me from her service. She tried begging him and appealing to his
higher nature, and found that Henry would not allow it. In fact, he
even insisted (against the protests of both) that we sit (in
intense and immeasurable discomfort) on either side of him, when
playing cards. Hence we both were forced into the other’s society,
each now avoiding the other whenever possible, and hurling our
small punishments like spears into the fray. The punishments grew
larger as time passed, and at the height of our battling I hurled
spears of the sort I would never have imagined myself capable of
sending to anyone.

Katherine gathered her ranks about her and
initiated fire from every direction, but never directly. She
assigned people to fight her battles for her. She maintained her
poise and an expression of wounded purity while giving cruel
instructions phrased as “wishes” in gentle, wistful tones,
delivered with sighs. She concocted and spread slanderous rumors
while contriving to appear as though she were reluctant to divulge
the information. She asked questions, listened carefully, then
twisted my answers and had her party pass them along, quoting me
out of context and rephrasing my statements in such a damning way
that I could not deny having said things which, though benign,
became abominable in the retelling.

Her faction would insult me and bait me, then
gasp when I responded in kind, as if words I spoke in my own
defense were somehow more ghastly than their own unwarranted
attacks. They would never mention what they had said to provoke me,
or take responsibility for much of my angered speech. Instead, they
would repeat my oaths without repeating their own, and whisper
accusations of poisonings because I, outraged, vehemently wished
“all Spaniards in the sea.”

Katherine feigned disappointment in my
“disloyalty” and “lack of character” (but never to me) and ever
played the victim, all the while scheming to discredit me further
and bring harm to me. She stirred up a whirlwind of ill-feelings
and ill-will by “hesitantly” mentioning to people—for their own
good, she assured them—that she had overheard me making vicious
remarks about them, making certain that none within her circle of
influence would vacillate toward loyalty to me.

I had never witnessed such a plethora of
hypocrisy nor had my stomach ever churned as it did when, during
this onslaught, I was forced to watch Katherine in chapel with her
hands folded in solemn worship, her face raised and carefully
arranged in an expression of innocent, long-suffering purity and
endurance.

Had she more imagination, she might have
timed her moments of prayer to coincide with the angle of the sun
so she might always be seen in a shaft of light!

She played her subjects for fools and
succeeded. They took her at face value, rallied to her defense and
screamed to see me hanged, when who among them knew the souls of
either of us and could judge? Her satisfaction in this was grim,
but she derived pleasure from it, far more than she could and yet
escape without punishment. Taking their cues from Katherine, her
supporters aped her behavior and did as she did, earning ample
rewards and praise from her at my expense.

Worst of all she—all of them—lied about me.
They lied. I could never endure a liar.

There was no hope of reconciliation, and we
came to hate each other with a hatred unbecoming to a lady and a
queen. We were now mortal enemies. War had been declared, and would
be fully fought until the death.

And as yet, when this war first became
real—and for most of its duration—I had done nothing. Whatever I
felt for him and whatever I wished, she could have Henry. I did not
want him at this price.

However, I had no choice, for there was no
price Henry would not pay to have me.

•
~
۞
~•

Despite the attentions of the King, I was
still free to speak to, and perhaps to flirt among, the men at
court. I had no heart for it, having caught sight of Hal on rare
occasions. The scar was torn open again, just as I had known it
would be. Because of this, I flirted in the manner of one who knows
with certainty that no man before her is, nor ever could be, her
one true love. I had neither care nor concern for the men, and had
no mercy.

I was being crushed from all sides, from
Katherine, from Henry, from the ladies, and from the pull in my
heart as I looked toward Hal’s figure retreating down a corridor. I
forced myself into cheerful spirits, and having done so, took
little note of the impact I had on those around me except to sense
that, somehow, I was drawing more notice than I had previously. It
was partly due to Henry’s partiality toward me, partly due to my
being marriageable once again, but mostly due to the force of my
character, which I now gave full rein, having not the strength in
my heart to disguise it.

I was a woman all would see when she entered
a room, with a voice and a laugh all could hear. Were I a gem,
Henry said in the lyrics to a song he once wrote for me, I would be
a ruby, full of blood and passion and sparkling red flames.

My mother queried often with tight lips:
“Hast thou no shame at all?”

To which I would reply nothing, and retreat
to my chambers where I lay awake in the dark.

There were many men who found themselves
smitten with me as I pushed through this phase of my grief. Most
admiration came from musicians and friends, but there were other
men as well, and some of these forced attentions upon me that were
not welcome. I had the unwitting misfortune to aim my charms
full-force upon one man in particular, who was most decidedly the
wrong one. These charms landed upon fertile soil where they grew
into a weed most difficult to eradicate.

Sir Thomas Wyatt was the brother of a friend,
and a man whom I had never viewed with interest, nor particularly
liked. I was in fair form one night, flitting about from one man to
the next and leaving them all staring after me when I came upon Sir
Thomas. I dimpled at him, and feigned an interest in his stories,
and laughed at his witty comments, and rewarded him with one of my
mischievous sidelong glances during a dance. He was a married man.
I felt such efforts would be safe with a married man, and learned
soon enough to rein in my charm, for a wife was not a deterrent to
Sir Thomas.

I quickly made attempts to discourage him,
but he interpreted my discouragement as coyness, and persisted in
wooing me.

Even though Henry was very publicly in love
with me, Sir Thomas Wyatt began to make his intentions clear, not
only to the court, but to Henry himself. The two of them faced off
on my account more times than was necessary, since during that
timeframe I wanted neither one. Their battles were pointless
children’s fights, arguments over which of them I most preferred
while I attempted to escape the attentions of them both.

I often wondered why Henry did not merely
squelch Sir Thomas. It is a mystery that can be explained in three
words: They were men. The two of them met nose to nose over me as
if they were equals, and not a king and his servant, because the
issue, to Henry, had nothing to do with his power and his crown.
His position, in fact, placed him at a disadvantage, for his
objective was to prove himself intrinsically the better man. He
needed to be chosen for himself alone, loved for himself alone,
found attractive because of his personal charms, and desired for
his skills as a lover. He needed to win me because I preferred what
he was, not because he had ordered away all competition.

Henry envied Sir Thomas his youth, his
handsome face and beautiful physique, as well as his reputation as
a sought-after lover among the women at court. He secretly
perceived from the eyes of a man (without regard for what a woman
might prefer) that the younger Sir Thomas was more attractive to
the ladies than he, and hence stood the better chance of winning
me.

But surely Henry could prove himself more
deserving of my love because surely he wanted my love more than did
Sir Thomas. For this reason, he allowed the man to challenge him in
competition, knowing he could win with one wave of his hand at any
time, but never waving that hand because he wanted his triumph to
be a pure one.