The Tudor Wife
Emily Purdy

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © Brandy Purdy 2010

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Source ISBN: 9781847561947

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780007371679

Version: 2018-07-05

Vengeance is mine; I shall repay. —Romans 12:19

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

PROLOGUE The Madwoman in the Tower, 1542

Part One ANNE 1522-1536

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

Part Two JANE SEYMOUR ANNA OF CLEVES 1536-1540

33

Part Three KATHERINE 1540-1542

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

POSTSCRIPT February 13, 1542

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS

About the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE The Madwoman in the Tower, 1542

Overhead the sleek black ravens circle and caw, while below my window the workmen chat merrily, their voices hale and hearty as they call to one another above the din of hammer and saw. They brush the sawdust from their leather jerkins and woolen hose and go blithely about the business of building the scaffold upon which I shall soon die. It does not matter whether I look down or up; the sight that meets my eyes is equally grim—carrion birds or the planks that shall soon be stained with my life’s blood.

They are very bold, these birds. When the workmen pause for their noonday repast, they swoop down and perch upon the burgeoning scaffold, snatching greedily at the morsels of meat and bread and tidbits of yellow cheese proffered by the calloused hands. How many deaths have these birds witnessed? I do not know the span of life that is allotted to a raven, but surely it is possible that some of them were here seven years ago when Anne bared her slender, swanlike neck to the French executioner’s sword. And two days before that swift slash of silver ended her life, George, her brother, my husband, laid his foolish and proud head upon the block and died for her as did four other equally foolish men. It was my evidence that helped speed them to their deaths. I told the truth, and for it I have been punished ever since.

Did these very ravens perch upon the Tower walls to watch, eager as the human spectators, and did they in their bird’s language debate who met death with the bravest face? What will they make of me and poor, wanton little Kat, Henry’s fifth queen, when it is our turn?

Neither of us deserves this fate, to have our lives snuffed out like candles upon the cavalier whim of an old man’s wounded pride. But Henry Tudor is King, and as Kat’s motto, the one she chose when she became queen, so rightfully proclaims, we have ‘no other will but his.’ Our lives and deaths are in his hands.

Here in the Tower my head aches always. Countless times I press my hands against my taut, deep-furrowed brow and try to will the pain away, but it will not depart. And I have long since plucked the pins from my hair and shaken it out so that it streams down my back like a wild, white-streaked waterfall, but still the pain does not ease. Had I still a care for vanity, I think I would weep. I am but a year past forty and already my hair is more white than brown; imprisonment has streaked it with silver and snow.

Jealousy and Hate, Justice and Divine Retribution, some say, have brought me to this place. ‘He who sows the whirlwind must expect to reap the storm,’ the walls whisper all around me, incessantly, in voices I know all too well. George, Anne, Weston, Brereton, and Norris—they will not let me forget that I once thought Vengeance was my sword to wield.

And wield it I did.

Though I despise the din that torments my ears by day, I am glad of the sawing and pounding, the bluff banter of working men, and even the ravens’ cackling and screeching, for when these sounds cease and night falls, that is when the ghosts come out to torment me.

He stands there now in the shadows beyond the torches’ reach, a grim, unwavering silhouette. And though I cannot see them, I feel his eyes mocking me, laughing at me. Sometimes she is there with him. The rustle of velvet skirts and a heady whiff of rose perfume herald her arrival, and my hatred surges so strong that to knock me off my feet it threatens. Then, in a movement fluid with grace, he lifts off his head, tucks it beneath his arm, and bows to me, just like a gentleman at court doffing his fine feathered hat to a lady.

‘Well, well, Jane…’

He speaks my name and my heart soars. He is smiling at me—it matters not that it is mockingly—he is smiling at me, he is speaking to me, and his words are meant for me alone.

‘…you would see justice done, and soon the headsman shall give you a personal demonstration!’

‘I am sorry, George!’ I extend my arms entreatingly. ‘Truly, I did not mean for you to die! I love you!’

‘Forsooth, Madame, you have a strange way of showing it! You accused me of incest and sent me to the block! If that is how you treat those you love, I shudder to think what mischief you would work against an enemy!’

The flame of hate that has burned so long inside me flares high.

‘You chose the block! You chose to die with her rather than live with me! You were guilty! Perhaps you did not sin in the flesh, but you were guilty to the bottom of your soul! You loved her more than any! Yes, I helped send her to her death, and I am glad of it! Glad!’ I hold my head up high, stamp my feet, and clench my hands into tight, trembling fists and feel my nails bite into my palms until they leave bloody little crescents behind. ‘And regret it I will never! Neither God in Heaven nor the Devil in Hell can make me!’

‘There is still murder in your heart, Jane,’ his voice dolefully reproves me.

And then he is gone, and I am alone again, for now. But I dare not sleep, for when I sleep I am granted a foretaste of Hell. That is when the flames come and the stink of sulfur chokes and burns my lungs. I start awake and leap to my feet, screaming, slapping at the flames as they engulf my skirts. I circle wildly, beating at them, burning my hands, and then my over-sleeves catch fire. My Boleyn sleeves—her sleeves—the sleeves she made famous. Anne Boleyn! Even in my wardrobe I cannot escape her! I fall sobbing to the floor, scorched and smarting, and it is then that through a shimmer of smoke I see him. But no, it is not George; it is only Master Kingston, my jailer, with his wife, come to dose me with a bitter draft to bring me quiet rest.

But George is here. I know he is! I sense his presence still, smirking in the shadows.

Oh, George, why could you not have loved me just a little? Why could you not, just once, have looked at me the way you looked at her—at Anne? Why could I, your wife, not come before your sister?

But tonight I shall not sleep. Tonight there will be no fire and brimstone chased away with a bitter decoction of poppies. No, tonight I shall tell how I came to be ‘The Madwoman in the Tower,’ and why, as much as he loved her, I hated her more…

Part One ANNE 1522-1536

1

Anne Boleyn was not beautiful, but, while women were quick to take gleeful note of this, men seldom noticed; the Spanish Ambassador who dubbed her ‘The Goggle-Eyed Whore’ being a notable exception. Yet she cast a spell like no other, this raven-haired enchantress, who caused men to fall at her feet, sing her praises, and worship her; some even gave their lives for her.

Her bearing was innately regal, as if Mother Nature had intended all along that she should be a queen. Each gesture, each turn of her head and hands, each step, was as graceful and gliding as a dance. Her voice was velvet, her laughter music and tinkling bells, and her wit sparkled like silver and was as keen as the sharpest razor. Her eyes were prominent and dark brown, with a beguiling and vivacious sparkle. But her complexion varied in the eyes of the beholder; deemed creamy by some and sallow by others. Nine years spent at the French court had left her more French than English, and her voice would always retain a lyrical—and some said sensual—lilting accent. Instead of petite, blond, and partridge-plump like all the celebrated English beauties, including her sister Mary, Anne Boleyn was tall, dark, and slender as a reed, with a cloak of glossy black hair reaching all the way down to her knees, which for her life entire she would flout convention by letting flow gypsy-free, instead of confining it inside a coif after she became a wife.

No, she was not beautiful, but at deception she excelled, cleverly concealing her flaws by the most ingenious means, and in doing so she set fashions. A choker of velvet, precious gems, or pearls hid an unsightly strawberry wen upon her throat. And she devised a new style of sleeve, worn full, long, and flowing, over wrist-length under-sleeves to conceal an even more unbecoming blemish—the start of a sixth finger, just the tip and nail, protruding from the side of the smallest finger on her left hand. Anne set the fashions other women rushed to follow, never knowing that they were devices of illusion, like the objects the court magician employed to perform his tricks and leave his audience gasping in astonishment and delight, wondering how the trick was done but nonetheless enchanted.

In 1522 when I, Lady Jane Parker, first met her, her fate was undecided. ‘What to do about Anne?’ was the subject of many grave parental debates from her infancy onward. If only she were blond like her sister Mary, or red-haired like the King’s sister, a true English rose—but no, Anne’s tresses were black. If only her eyes were blue and placid, or serene and green, instead of almondshaped and dark. If only her skin were porcelain pale with rosy pink cheeks, instead of sultry and sallow like a woman of France or Spain. If only, if only, if only! Would she ever make a good match? Would any man of standing take a dark, six-fingered bride with a tempestuous and rebellious temperament that even the stern Sir Thomas Boleyn had been unable to quash? Perhaps a convent would be the wisest choice? Filled as they were with plain, ugly, disfigured, and otherwise unmarriageable girls, surely there was a niche there that Anne could fill, and with her brains she might even rise to the rank of abbess and thus bring a small measure of glory to her family.

Then—when marriage and the future were so much on all our minds—came the fateful day when my path first crossed hers and our destinies became irrevocably entangled. Centuries from now, if anyone remembers me, it will be because of Anne Boleyn.

And for that I damn and curse her.

My father, Lord Morley, and Sir Thomas Boleyn were keen to forge a match between myself, an only child and sole heiress to my father’s sizable fortune, and George, the only Boleyn son. It was a notion, I confess, that made me swoon with delight. My heart was already his, and had been ever since the day I arrived at court, a befuddled and nervous maid, lost amidst the noisy and confusing bustle of King Henry’s court. Suddenly finding myself separated from my escort, I asked a passing gentleman to help me find my way. Gallantly, he offered me his arm and saw me safely to my chamber door, and there he bowed, with a most elegant flourish of his white-plumed cap, and left me.

No sooner had he turned his back than my hand shot out to waylay a passing page boy, clutching so tight to his sleeve I felt some of the stitches at the shoulder snap.

‘Tell me that gentleman’s name!’ I implored.

‘George Boleyn,’ came the answer.

And ever since, it has been engraved upon my heart. Every night when I knelt beside my bed in prayer I pleaded fervently, ‘Please! Make him mine!’ I prayed to God, and I would gladly have prayed to the Devil too, if I thought Our Heavenly Father would fail to grant my deepest, most heartfelt wish. Sans regret, I would have sold my soul to have him! As I lay alone in darkness, waiting for slumber, I whispered his name times beyond number, soft and reverent, as if it were—and for me it was!—a sacrament or prayer.

When I went home to Great Hallingbury, our sturdy redbrick manor nestled in the sleepy Essex countryside, I began, like a general, to plot my campaign. Fortunately, I was a spoiled only child and, more often than not, my father was happy to indulge me.

Father was a keen classical scholar, more at ease with the ancient Greeks and Romans, their history, culture, and myths, than the backbiting, scandal, politics, and intrigue of King Henry’s court. Whenever he could, he shut himself away in his library with his beloved scrolls and books, surrounded by statues and busts of gods, goddesses, and great warriors, while he worked zealously at his Greek and Latin translations, which he had afterwards elegantly bound and presented to the King, his friends, and other like-minded scholars. Whenever I could, I haunted his library, chattering endlessly, no doubt making a great nuisance of myself, endeavoring at every opportunity to insert George Boleyn’s name into the conversation, and for months it was George Boleyn this and George Boleyn that, until Father took the hint and, no doubt hoping to restore serene and blessed silence to his library, made arrangements to meet with Sir Thomas Boleyn and discuss the possibility of a betrothal.

Thus, with further negotiations in mind, my father was pleased to accept Sir Thomas Boleyn’s invitation to visit the family castle of Hever, a modest, mellow-stone block nestled in the heart of the Kentish countryside, surrounded by a moat and lush greenery.

Pale and patrician in sapphire blue velvet, Lady Boleyn, the former Elizabeth Howard, welcomed us warmly.

‘Let all the formality be in the marriage contracts!’ she declared, embracing me as if I were her daughterin-law already.

After I had quenched my thirst and changed my gown, she directed me to the garden where I might enjoy the company of her children—George, Mary, and the newly returned Anne.

Surely my heart must have shown upon my face when he turned a welcoming smile in my direction. It was like a whip crack, a sharp, ecstatic pang, a slap, lashing hard against my heart. Love was the master and I was the slave!

At twenty, George Boleyn was breathtakingly handsome, endowed with a lively wit and a reputation for being something of a rake. He was slender and tall, dark as a Spaniard or a Frenchman, with sleek black hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard and mustache, eyes the warmest shade of brown I had ever seen—they reminded me of a sable robe I wanted to wrap myself up in on a cold winter’s day—teeth like polished ivory, lips full, pink, and sensual, and skin the warm golden hue of honey. A poet and musician, his pen and lute were always at his side, and when he strummed his lute I felt as if my heart were its strings. How could I not love him?

But I was never fool enough to think that he loved me. I hoped, I yearned, I burned with lust and jealousy, but I never cherished that illusion. Was there ever a Jane plainer than I? Me with my nose like a beak, my face and figure all sharp angles with no plump, pillowsoft bosom or curves, and my hair a lank and lifeless mousy brown, I could never stir a man’s loins and make his blood race. But reality didn’t stop me from wanting, hoping, and dreaming. And in our world, where titles, lands, and fortunes—not love—are the stuff of which marriages are made, the odds of winning him were not entirely stacked against me.

As I followed the garden path, the summer breeze carried the tart tang of lemon to my nose and I turned to seek its source.

Indolent and lush as a rose in full bloom, Mary Boleyn lounged in a chair situated to take best advantage of the sun. Gowned in gold-embroidered peacock blue and fiery orange satin, far too rich for such a rustic setting, Mary lolled back against her cushions like a wellcontented cat. Upon her head she wore a straw hat with the crown cut out and a very wide brim upon which her long golden tresses, soaked thoroughly with lemon juice, were spread to be bleached blonder still by the sun’s bright rays. And beneath her orange kirtle her stomach swelled with the promise of King Henry’s child.

The most amiable of wantons was Mary. She lost her virtue early, to no less a personage than the King of France. She comported herself with such lascivious abandon that she was banished from that most licentious and hedonistic of courts for ‘conduct unbecoming to a maid,’ and sent home to England, where she at once caught King Henry VIII’s eye and went merrily and obligingly into his bed. Perhaps she was too obliging, for he soon tired of her, but not before his seed took root inside her womb. Thus, for the second time in her life, Mary Boleyn, then aged but one-and-twenty, found herself banished from court, and to Hever Castle she was exiled to await her hastily procured bridegroom, Sir William Carey, a cheerful knight of modest means who was glad to undertake this service for his King.

Like many, I stood in awe of her dazzling beauty—she had been plucked so many times it was hard to believe her bloom had not wilted or faded—and her equally astounding stupidity. Mary must have been unique amongst courtesans; she had been mistress to not one but two kings and had failed to profit from either. Indeed, Sir Thomas Boleyn had railed at her and boxed her ears and pummeled her until it was feared he would dislodge the King’s bastard from her womb. Now he never spoke an unnecessary word to her. He regarded her as a failure and declared it would be the most outrageous flattery to call her even a half-wit. Mary had been handed power on a plate and had refused to partake, and this Sir Thomas Boleyn could never forgive.

‘Jane…’

George began to speak and my breath caught in my throat. My eyes were so dazzled by the sight of him I almost raised my hand to shield them, but to be deprived of the radiant sight of him would have been unbearable. A god in yellow satin, he was indeed the sun that lit up my life.

‘…I bid you welcome to Hever. Of course you already know my sister Mary’—he nodded towards the dozing wanton—‘but you have yet to meet Anne.’

My ears pricked at the tenderness and warmth with which his voice imbued her name. It was a tone, I would all too soon discover, that he reserved exclusively for her. It was then—the moment I first heard him speak her name—that I began to hate her.

She was seated upon a stone bench and, even as he spoke to me, George stepped behind her and gently took the ivory comb from her hand and began to draw it through the inky blackness of her damp, newly washed tresses.

Like her sister, she was too grandly gowned for Hever. She wore black damask with a tracery of silver, festooned with silver lace. A ribbon of black velvet encircled her long, swan-slender neck and from it dangled her initials, AB, conjoined in silver with three large pendent pearls suspended from them. She was, like me, aged nineteen. She had only just returned from the French court, wellesteemed and, unlike her sister, with her virtue and respectability firmly intact. Indeed, all sang the praises of Mistress Anne and lamented her departure back to her native shore.

‘It is a pleasure to meet my brother’s bride-to-be.’ She smiled warmly and addressed me in that beguiling French-tinged English that made her speech so unique. ‘You are one of Queen Catherine’s ladies, I am told. I have just been appointed to her household, so we shall serve together and have the opportunity, I hope, to become friends; I do so want us to be.’

I felt the most peculiar dread, like a knot pulled tight within my stomach, and I could not speak, could only nod and stare back at her like a simpleton.

She then began to inquire of my likes and dislikes, my pleasures and pastimes.

‘Are you fond of music? Do you play an instrument? George and I’—she smiled up at him—‘live for music. We have melodies in our blood, I think, and our minds are forever awhirl with songs!’

‘I enjoy music, of course, but as a performer I am, alas, inept,’ I confessed. And at her brief, sympathetic nod I felt the distinct urge to strike her. How dare she, with her fancy clothes and Frenchified ways, make me feel so far beneath her!

‘Well, it is no great matter,’ she trilled. ‘Do you like to dance or sing?’

I blushed hotly at the memory of the French dancing master who had nobly retired rather than continue to accept my father’s money, admitting in all honesty that I was as graceful as a cow. The Italian singing master had also withdrawn his services; he could teach me nothing; I had a voice like a crow.

‘I…I am afraid I lack your accomplishments, Lady Anne,’ I stammered haughtily, jerking my chin up high, as my face grew hot and red.

In truth, I had no talent to speak of.

‘Oh, but I am sure you have many talents!’ Anne cried, as if she had just read my mind.

‘The embroidery upon your kirtle is exquisite!’ She indicated my tawny underskirt, richly embroidered with golden lovers’ knots to match those that edged the bodice and sleeves of my brown velvet gown. ‘Is it your own work? Do you like to design your own gowns?’ As she spoke, her right hand smoothed her skirt and I knew this too numbered among her talents.

As for my own gown, other than selecting the materials I had done nothing but stand still for the dressmaker. I had left the style and cut entirely to her discretion; my father was rich and she was grateful for my patronage, so I could trust her not to make me look a fool or frumpish. My own skill with the needle was adequate, but nothing to boast of.

‘Do you enjoy reading or composing poetry?’ Anne persisted. ‘Are you fond of riding? Do you like to play dice or cards? Queen Catherine, despite her pious nature, I am told, is a keen card player.’

‘Her Majesty only plays for the most modest stakes and her winnings are always given to the poor!’ I answered sharply while inwardly I seethed. How dare she play this game with me? Flaunting her accomplishments in my face and making it quite plain that as a candidate for her brother’s hand she deemed me most unworthy!

And through it all George just stood there, smiling down at her, drawing the comb through her hair, even as he glanced inquisitively at me each time she posed a question, waiting expectantly for my answers and feigning an interest I knew he did not feel. As I stood before them I felt like a prisoner on trial, and most fervently wished that the ground would open beneath my feet and swallow me.

Thus began my association with the Boleyn family, though three years would pass before I officially joined their ranks; Sir Thomas and my father haggled like fishwives over my dowry. Meanwhile, I returned to court, where I was soon joined by Anne, in the household of Queen Catherine.

I remember the day she arrived at Greenwich Palace. The Queen had been closeted all day in her private chapel, fasting and kneeling before a statue of the Virgin surrounded by flickering candles, while we, her ladies, lolled about, lazily plying our needles over the shirts and shifts she bade us stitch for distribution among the poor. We gazed wistfully out at the river, sighing longingly at the thought of the cool breeze, and eyeing enviously those who already strolled along its banks. From time to time one of us would pluck desultorily at a lute, toy with the ivory keys of the virginals, or yawningly take up one of the edifying volumes about the saints’ lives that Her Majesty encouraged us to take turns reading aloud.

Suddenly there were footsteps and laughter upon the stairs. Like Lazarus risen from the dead, we came to life, pinching our cheeks to give them color, hastily straightening headdresses and tucking in stray wisps of hair, daubing drops from our dainty crystal scent vials, smoothing down skirts and sleeves. Then the door swung open and in sauntered the King’s gentlemen, with George Boleyn leading the pack.

They were like a flock of tropical birds, a veritable rainbow of gorgeous, gaudy colors in their feathered caps, satin doublets, and silk hose, with elaborate blackwork embroidery edging the collars and cuffs of their snowy-white shirts, and gemstones flashing and twinkling in their rings, brooches, and on the hilts of their swords. All young, handsome, debonair, and carefree, rakish and wild, they were the wits and poets of the court, happy-go-lucky and devil-may-care, the peacocks and popinjays in whose presence life was never for an instant dull.

Laughing heartily, with one arm flung around the shoulders of his best friend, Sir Francis Weston, George approached us.

‘Ladies’—he doffed his cap and bowed to us—‘we bring you fruit!’ He indicated the big straw basket carried by Sir Henry Norris. Then, assisted by his friends, he began to distribute it among us—apples, oranges, plums, grapes, cherries, and pears. And soon joyful banter, merry laughter, and coy flirtations replaced the sleepy air of boredom and gloom that, only moments before, had pervaded the room.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, of the sable beard and smoldering eyes, renowned as the most brilliant poet of the court, plopped himself down upon a cushion at Lady Eleanor’s feet and began to strum his lute and serenade us with a song about the fruits of love. As he sang, his dark eyes lingered meaningfully upon that lady’s bosom, while that beloved, one-eyed, flame-haired rogue, Sir Francis Weston, and blond, blue-eyed, baby-faced Sir Henry Norris settled themselves on either side of Madge Shelton and began to playfully vie for her attentions. A tawny tendril of hair had escaped from the back of her gable hood, and each begged to be allowed to cut it and wear it forever enshrined in a golden locket over his heart. And tall, patrician Sir William Brereton smilingly commandeered Lady Margery’s fan to cool himself and settled back with his head in her lap to let that awestruck damsel feed him grapes and timidly stroke his sleek, raven-black hair.

Only George stood apart. Though a smile and a witty remark were always upon his lips, his eyes constantly strayed to the windows.

‘Will you sit, my lord?’ I asked, moving aside my skirts to make room for him beside me on the window seat.

Smiling his thanks, he accepted and turned at once to prop his elbows upon the sill and lean out, eyes squinting into the distance, to scrutinize the road.

‘You are awaiting a messenger from your father, perhaps?’ I queried.

‘Anne,’ he answered, his voice rich with warmth and longing, ‘Anne arrives today.’ His body tensed and he leaned farther out. ‘Will!’ He beckoned anxiously to Brereton. ‘Come here; your sight is sharper than mine. Look there and tell me, does the dust rise or only my hopes?’

And, sure enough, there in the distance was a cloud of dust, and in its midst we could just discern a cart and a small group of riders. Then he was gone, sprinting down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

‘Is it Anne? Has Anne come?’ George’s friends chorused excitedly. And, forgetting all else, without even a bow or a by-your-leave, they bounded after him, jostling and tripping each other in their haste.

‘Sir William, my fan!’ Lady Margery called after Brereton. But it was too late; they were already gone. And we were left to our own devices, and each other’s dreary and familiar company, once again.

From George’s abandoned place, I leaned from the window and watched the scene below.

He called her name and waved his cap in the air.

She waved back and, spurring her horse onward, left her attendants, with their burden of pack horses, cart, and luggage, coughing in the dust.

She had scarcely reined her mount before George was there, sweeping her down from the saddle and spinning her round and round in a joyous embrace. Their laughter blurred together and became one, and the skirt of her rich brown velvet riding habit billowed out behind her.

‘Greetings, Anne, and have you a kiss for your oldest and dearest friend?’ Sir Thomas Wyatt asked, elbowing past Weston and Brereton, flaunting the privilege of prior acquaintance. The Wyatts of Allington Castle were neighbors of the Boleyns in Kent, and Tom and his sister Meg had been their childhood playmates.

‘Indeed I have!’ she answered, and promptly turned to plant a kiss upon George’s cheek. ‘And one for my second oldest and dearest friend as well!’ she added, giving Wyatt the requested kiss.

‘And what of me?’ Francis Weston demanded. ‘Though we have never met, Mistress Anne, George has told me so much about you that I feel I have known you my whole life!’

‘Indeed, Sir Francis, George has told me so much of you that I feel the same, although…’ With a tantalizing smile she hesitated. ‘Methinks my reputation would soon come to grief if I were to bestow such a familiarity upon you!’

His friends burst into laughter and slapped Weston’s back and nudged him playfully.

‘Now, Mistress Anne, I protest!’ he cried, dropping to one knee with a hand upon his heart. ‘I am no cad, no matter what they say of me!’ he finished with a saucy wink.

‘It matters not where the truth lies,’ she said graciously, extending her hand. ‘You are George’s friend, and so you shall be mine as well!’

Then Henry Norris and William Brereton were pressing forward. There they were, the brightest stars of the court, clamoring for her attention, for just one word, one glance. Like starving beggars devouring the crumbs tossed to them. What fools men are!

They were all talking at once now—all but George, who merely looked at her and smiled adoringly—jostling and shoving each other aside, begging to be the one to escort her to her chamber. Then, without a word, George proffered his arm and she took it. The others groaned, long and loud, like men dying upon a field of battle. To console Brereton, Anne let him carry her riding crop; he held it as if it were some sacred relic that he would lay down his life for.

‘Hold a moment!’ Norris cried. He darted in front of Anne and, from the basket over his arm, began to strew crimson rose petals in her path. ‘I knew my lady would be arriving today, so I was up with the dawn to gather a carpet of roses for her to walk upon!’

‘He means his valet was up with the dawn to gather them!’ Weston chortled.

Not to be outdone, both Wyatt and Weston announced that they had written sonnets to welcome her. And before Wyatt could claim the privilege of prior acquaintance again, Weston loudly commenced reciting, only to have his words curtailed by a sharp cuff upon the ear.

‘You look a pirate and it is a pirate you are!’ Wyatt hotly declared, referring to the patch Weston wore over the empty socket of his left eye. ‘You have pirated my entire second verse!’

‘It is a bold accusation you make, Sir, and for it you shall answer!’ Weston’s hand sought the hilt of his sword and he advanced towards Wyatt, the large pendent pearl dangling from his left earlobe swaying violently.

It was then that Anne came between them, laughing and resting a hand lightly upon each of their indignantly heaving chests.

‘Verily, this is the most passionate welcome I have ever had! Please, gentlemen, do not spoil it by brawling. Let these rose petals be the only red that falls upon the ground this day, and not your life’s blood!’

Then, all thoughts of violence dispelled, they followed her inside.

Anne had scarcely arrived at court—indeed her servants had not had time to unpack all her gowns—before love literally fell at her feet.

Love came in the form of Harry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland’s son and heir. Tall, gangling, gingerhaired, stuttering, shy, and constantly tripping over his own tongue and feet, Harry Percy was the last man anyone would have expected to win Anne Boleyn’s heart. For his clumsiness he was famous; I once saw him mount his horse on one side and fall right off the other. And it was said about the court that ‘anyone can fall down stairs, but Harry Percy has made an art of falling up them!’ He looked like a farm boy masquerading as a prince, and only the most mercenary of maidens would have been smitten with him. And, as much as I would like to paint Anne blacker, and say that such a one was she, to do so would be a lie. The love that shone in her eyes and the tender, indulgent smile that graced her lips whenever she looked at Harry Percy told their own tale.

It was upon her first day to serve Queen Catherine, when she sat sewing beside me, that Harry Percy came in with a group of gentlemen, tripped over a footstool, and fell sprawling at Anne’s feet. We rocked with laughter until tears ran down our faces. Even Queen Catherine herself could not suppress a smile, though she tried to hide it behind her hand. Only Anne was silent. Then, with a gentle smile, she bent down and softly asked, ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

‘I…I…’ Percy stammered, staring up at her with eyes big, brown, and adoring as a spaniel’s. ‘I tr-tripped.’

His words inspired a fresh burst of laughter.

‘Take no notice of them,’ Anne advised. ‘Anyone is apt to trip.’

‘And what a nice trip it was, eh, Percy?’ Francis Weston quipped, laughing harder still when Percy failed to comprehend the jest.

But Anne and Percy were oblivious to it all; they had eyes only for each other.

It all came so easily for her. She had found true love and her niche, occupying a unique place at the heart—and in the hearts—of that band of merry wits. With George, Wyatt, Weston, Brereton, and Norris she was most often to be found. Together they would sit huddled in a window embrasure or outside under the trees, laughing and setting sonnets to song or devising clever masques to entertain the court. She was the flame to which they, like moths, were drawn. Women envied her yet rushed to emulate her—the cunning sleeves, doglike collars, and the French hood (a gilt-, pearl-, or jewel-bordered crescent of velvet or satin that perched upon a lady’s head, often with a veil trailing gracefully behind) which she favored over the more cumbersome gable hood with its stiff, straight wooden borders and peaked tip that framed the wearer’s face like a dormer window. And now she was set to wed the heir to a rich earldom, and it was a love match to boot! Even Dame Fortune seemed to fawn on Anne Boleyn!

But then came a hint of trouble, the distant rumble of thunder, like a storm brewing just over the horizon, and I was among the first to heed it.

2

At first, it was just like any other night at court; no special cause for celebration, no privileged guest to welcome or holy day to mark. We dined in the Great Hall, and afterwards we danced. The King and Queen sat on their thrones, and hovering nearby, at the King’s beck and call, were Cardinal Wolsey—the butcher’s boy turned priest, who had made himself indispensable to the King and now held the reins of power as Lord Chancellor—and his perpetually black-clad, equally grim-faced henchman, the ruthless and clever lawyer, Thomas Cromwell.

Henry VIII was in one of his moods, sullen and silent, a dark scowl perched like an evil gargoyle upon his face. His beady blue eyes narrowed and his cruel little pink mouth gnawed distractedly at his knuckles above the magnificent jeweled rings that graced each finger.

He was like two souls warring for control of a single body. He was ‘Bluff King Hal’ when it suited him, always smiling, always laughing. At such times he could speak to a person—noble or peasant—and make him feel as if he were the most important person in the world. He would look deep into their eyes and nod thoughtfully, as if his whole existence hung upon their every word. But when he was in a red-hot temper or one of his black moods, it was like the Devil claimed him body and soul, and he became a bloated, red-faced, raging monster; a tyrant, ready to shed the blood of friend or foe, anyone who dared cross him.

He was a giant of a man, massive and muscular—at the time of which I now write, an active life of dancing and sport kept the future promise of fat at bay—with broad shoulders and trim, finely shaped calves of which he was inordinately vain. He was very handsome, ruddycheeked, with red-gold hair and a short, neatly groomed beard. And his mode of dressing made him seem larger and more dazzling still. His velvet coats, which reached only to just above his knees lest they obscure his shapely calves, were padded at the shoulders to make them look bigger and broader still; his doublets were a frenzy of jewels, gilding, embroidery, puffing, and slashing; and his round, flat caps were garnished with gilt braid, jewels, and jaunty curling white plumes. Silk hose sheathed his legs, and the square-toed velvet slippers he favored were embroidered with golden threads and precious gems. And round his neck he wore heavy golden collars and chains with diamonds, and other magnificent gems, as big as walnuts.

From time to time he would dart swift, peevish glances at the woman by his side—Catherine of Aragon.

At the age of fifteen a golden-haired Spanish girl named Catalina had bid farewell to her parents, Their Most Christian Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella, changed her name to Catherine, and left behind her native land, to brave a savage, storm-tossed sea and marry Arthur, Prince of Wales. The moment that that frightened, weary, homesick girl, green-tinged and fluttery-bellied with mal de mer, set foot on English soil, a miracle occurred—the people of England, always wary and distrustful of foreigners, fell in love with her. It was a love that would last a lifetime and sustain her through all the travails to come. Her bridegroom was a pale and sickly boy who succumbed to death’s embrace before, Catherine swore, he could become a true husband to her, and for years afterwards she languished in penury, darning her threadbare gowns and pawning her jewels and gold plate to pay her servants and keep body and soul together, while her father-in-law, the miserly King Henry VII and her equally crafty father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, haggled over the unpaid portion of her dowry.

Then the old King died and young Prince Henry, glowing with promise and golden vitality, at age seventeen was crowned the eighth Henry. His first official act as king was to make Catherine his queen. He loved her brave, tenacious spirit, her kindness, sweet smile, quiet grace, and gentle nature. At the time, it didn’t matter to him that she was six years his senior; Henry was in love. And, for a time at least, everything seemed golden.

Time passed. The luster dimmed and tarnished. All the stillbirths and miscarriages—only Princess Mary lived and thrived—and the poor little boys who clung feebly to life for a week or a month before they lost their fragile grasp, took their toll, as did the years, upon the golden-haired Spanish girl. Her petite body, once so prettily plump, after ten pregnancies grew stout; her waist thickened; lines at first fine, but etched deeper with every passing year and fresh sorrow, appeared upon her face; the golden tresses faded and skeins of silver and white snaked through them. And more and more she turned to religion for comfort, fasting, wearing a coarse, chafing hair shirt beneath her stiff, dowdy, dark-hued Spanish gowns, and spending hours upon her knees in chapel, praying fervently before a statue of the Virgin.

King Henry grew bored and his eye started to wander. And, even worse, his mind started to wonder why he was cursed with the lack of male issue. He needed a son, a future king for England. A daughter simply would not do; no girl, no mere weak and foolish female, could ever handle the reins of government, or bear without buckling the weight of the Crown! This was the impasse they had reached by the night my ears first became attuned to that distant rumble, and I knew a storm was brewing.

It was the most hilarious sight! Rarely has a dance inspired so much mirth. Indeed, at the sight of Anne and Percy dancing the galliard, some of us fairly screamed with laughter. I can see them now: Anne, grace incarnate in a splendid embroidered gown done in five shades of red, with a French hood to match, and a choker of carnelian beads. And Percy, equally resplendent in lustrous plum satin, bumbling, bumping, treading upon toes, and stumbling his way through that lively measure; twice he lost a slipper and once trod upon his own hat when it fell from his head.

Suddenly the King clapped his hands and the music stopped. The dancers froze as if they had suddenly been turned to statues.

‘Enough! Enough!’ Henry strode across the floor, women dropping into curtsies and men falling to their knees on every side of him. He stopped before Anne and Percy.

‘Mistress Anne, you will oblige me by satisfying my curiosity upon a point that has perplexed me for quite some time. You are newly come from France, where I am told the court fairly overflows with gallant, handsome men, graceful of both step and speech. And here in England we have such men as well.’ He gestured to a nearby cluster of gallants, all of them eloquent speakers and accomplished dancers. ‘And yet, you have given your heart to young Percy here, who has feet as big and ungainly as duck boats and stammers so that it appears he can scarcely speak English, let alone flattery and flowery speeches?’

‘All that glitters is not gold, Your Majesty,’ Anne said pointedly, her eyes flitting briefly over his ornate, goldembellished crimson velvet doublet, unimpressed, as she sank into a deep, graceful curtsy at his feet, with her red skirts swirling about her like a spreading pool of blood.

‘Indeed?’ Henry arched his brows, very much intrigued. Clearly this was no blushing, demure damsel, simpering and shy, who would quail meek and fearful at his feet! ‘Percy! Sit you down, man, and I will show you how to tread a measure without treading on everyone’s toes!’ He clapped his hands sharply. ‘Play!’ he commanded the musicians. ‘Mistress Anne…’ He held out his hand, and not even Anne dared refuse him.

After the dance ended he thanked her and turned away to speak briefly with Sir Henry Norris, a dear friend as well as his Groom of the Stool, his most personal body servant. Anne dismissed the King from her thoughts as if he were no more than any other boring boy she had encountered at a dance, and headed straight for where Harry Percy sat; she never looked back. But as they stole away together, Henry’s eyes followed them, beady blue and crafty, and his rings flashed a rainbow in the candlelight as he thoughtfully rubbed his chin. Then he turned and crooked a finger to summon Wolsey

.

The Cardinal hurried instantly to his side. Though their words were hushed, Henry’s expression was adamant, and the Cardinal’s most perplexed. ‘See to it!’ the King snapped before he resumed his throne, ignoring Catherine’s gentle, inquiring smile, and brusquely brushing aside the hand she laid lightly upon his sleeve.

The golden light of the torches spilled out into the garden, and there, upon a carpet of soft green grass, Anne and her darling Percy danced alone. I watched them from the terrace. When he swung her high into the air during lavolta, Anne flung back her head and laughed joyously. In that moment, I think, her happiness was complete. It was then that Percy stumbled. Anne fell. She landed, laughing still, and rolled upon her back, the grass and her full skirts cushioning her fall. Percy was all concern. But when he bent over her, Anne seized his outstretched hand and pulled him down so that he lay on top of her. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him long and lingeringly. Only then did she let him help her up and escort her back inside. They never noticed me as they passed, arm in arm, smiling and staring deep into each other’s eyes. Never before had I seen two people so much in love. I thought of myself and George then, and nearly sank down and wept. We had danced together twice, and he was always gallant and polite, but when he looked at me there was no love in his eyes, only courtesy and…indifference. And, despite all my attempts, I could not kindle a flame, not even a spark.

Weeks passed and life went on as usual. My sense of foreboding faded and I even began to think I had been mistaken. But no, it was only a quiet lull during which the storm lay dormant, gathering its strength.

It was upon the night of a lavish banquet to welcome the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Queen Catherine’s nephew, that the lightning first flashed in earnest.

At Wolsey’s opulent palace, York Place, an elaborate masque was to be staged and Anne and I were among those privileged to take part.

After the banquet, we hurried to the chamber that had been designated our tiring room to don our costumes. Flustered and flush-faced with excitement, we all fluttered about, chattering and screeching like caged birds, nervous fingers fussing with the laces of our gowns, fidgeting with the pearl- and gold-tipped pins and shimmering golden nets that secured our hair beneath the gold-and-crystal-bordered white satin French hoods, and snapping and slapping at the maids who knelt to hastily repair a loose hem or sagging sleeve.

It was to be a battle royal between the Virtues and the Vices. Perhaps I should have taken as a portent the roles assigned to us. Anne was Perseverance, her sister Mary was Kindness, and I was cast as Constancy.

In shimmering satin gowns of angel white, with sashes becomingly draped across our breasts embroidered in golden letters with the name of the Virtue we had been chosen to represent, we took our places upon the battlements of a large castle crafted of plaster and papier-mâché, painted in the royal Tudor colors of white and green, that had been wheeled into the Great Hall. Countless candles lit the scene, and the Cardinal’s boy choir and musicians provided heavenly music.

Suddenly a shrill, fiendish screech pierced the air and in rushed the Vices—Cruelty, Jealousy, Disdain, Malice, Envy, Slander, Wantonness, and Danger. Brandishing and cracking whips, they were gowned in jet-glittering black with embroidered hell-flames of orange, yellow, and scarlet lapping at their skirts and bodices upon which in flaming letters their Vices were blazoned, and red devil horns adorned their heads of dark, unruly, free-flowing hair.

As the music soared we made a great show of panic, beseeching the heavens to send us aid, while we pelted our attackers with a volley of sugarplums, oranges, dates, figs, and nuts. Then, with a fanfare of trumpets, rescue came in the form of seven Knights clad in Our Lady’s Blue satin, their cloaks embroidered with flaming hearts, and blue-dyed plumes swaying gracefully upon their golden helmets, each one bearing a shield emblazoned with his title. George was Sir Loyal Heart, and Francis Weston and Harry Percy were aptly cast as Amorous Youth and Gentleness. They were led by the tall and majestic figure of King Henry VIII himself, head to toe in scarlet and hearts aflame. Ardent Desire his shield and lusty, determined gaze proclaimed.

In a mock battle the Knights danced the Vices to their defeat and the demonic temptresses crumpled at their feet and begged for mercy. The Knights pulled them up roughly and set them spinning, twirling away as, with an adamant, imperious wave—‘Be Gone!’—they banished them.

The trumpets blared and the choir sang hallelujah as we showered our saviors with rose petals of red and white. With hands upon their hearts they knelt and beseeched us to come down from our lofty perches.

After a great show of maidenly modesty, we relented and let Beauty—the King’s sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, and erstwhile Queen of France—lead us down. She had reigned for less than a year before old King Louis died, and was famous for her shining red-gold hair, lily-white skin, and determination to trade the title of Queen for that of Duchess and marry the love of her life, Charles Brandon.

Then confusion came and threatened to dissolve the intricately choreographed masque into chaos. Ardent Desire was supposed to lay claim to Beauty and lead her out to dance, and Sir Loyal Heart and Perseverance were likewise to be partnered, and so forth. Nothing was left to chance; our dancing partners had been assigned to us from the first day of rehearsals. Yet King Henry bypassed his sister and boldly seized Anne’s wrist.

With a cheeky grin, Francis Weston disdained Honor and besought Madge Shelton to bestow Charity upon Amorous Youth instead. And Harry Percy slipped upon a sugarplum and skidded into the arms of Pity instead of Mercy.

An anxious moment ensued as those of us who remained hastily sorted ourselves into pairs. I for one did not hesitate and boldly grabbed George’s hand even as he reached for Mercy, Sir Thomas Wyatt’s pretty blond-haired sister Meg Lee, who was rumored to have been George’s childhood sweetheart.

And then, upon the sweetmeat- and petal-strewn floor, with the nuts crunching and fruits squashing beneath our satin slippers, we danced a graceful but lively measure that ended with a flourish when the Knights swept the Virtues up into their arms and carried them away. They had defeated Vice, claimed their prizes, and would live to dance and fight another day.

As George followed close on the heels of the King, I was there to see how the King tarried before setting Anne down. He seemed determined to linger there with her in his arms, despite Beauty’s icy blue, disapproving stare. It was only when Devotion, his brother-in-law, auburn-bearded Charles Brandon, clapped him jovially upon the back and exclaimed ‘Well danced, Sire!’ that he released her.

‘Mistress Anne,’ he said as she curtsied low before him, reaching out to tilt her chin up so she would look at him, ‘Ardent Desire and Perseverance dance well together. Perhaps next time we shall change roles; I should like that very much.’ And with those words he left her.

Anne sprang up and turned anxiously to George, her lips trembling with a question she dared not ask.

‘Court gallantry, darling Nan.’ George smiled reassuringly and squeezed her hand.

‘You are sure, George? Only that and nothing more?’ she asked, clutching desperately at his hand while her eyes searched his. ‘When he held me close against his chest and looked into my eyes I felt naked and cold as death!’

Before George could answer, a new drama ensued to divert Anne’s attention. During the dance, poor Harry Percy had trod upon a walnut, and its shell had punctured the thin sole of his dancing slipper. Now he limped over, trailing a trickle of blood. Anne instantly began to fuss over him, just like a mother hen instead of the suave, Frenchified sophisticate she really was. And, supported by Nobility, Pleasure, and Liberty, otherwise known as Norris, Wyatt, and Brereton, and with George, convulsed with laughter, trailing after, they went to seek the services of a physician.

And I was left alone and forgotten once again.

That night in my father’s study at our London house, with the busts of wise Athena, chaste Diana, beautiful Venus, and bountiful Juno staring down at me from the mantel, I sat beside the hearth and rested my head against my father’s knee and asked how the marriage negotiations progressed.

‘Ah, Janey.’ He reached down to stroke my hair, now freed from its golden net. ‘It is a fine match to be sure, but I confess, I’ve had my doubts. I’m troubled about young George and the company he keeps. I’ve heard tales; things not fit for your ears. Perhaps it’s nothing and age will curb his wildness, but…’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘I want my girl, my only child, to marry well, but I also want her to be happy.’

‘And I will, Father!’ I sat up straight. ‘I will! I will be the happiest woman alive—the happiest woman who ever lived—if I marry George Boleyn!’

‘Ah, Janey.’ He reached down to caress my cheek. ‘Your eyes are dazzled by a pretty face, and your heart bewitched by longing, masquerading as love! But you must trust me to know what’s best; though my eyes are old, my sight is truer through the wisdom that comes with experience and age. And I am quite sure that George Boleyn—handsome devil though he is—is not the man for you.’

At these words I flung myself down and wept as though a storm had broken within my heart. Such a sharp, wrenching pain seared my breast, and my whole body shook with wracking sobs that seemed to tear at my lungs, as if a cat were trapped within and trying to claw its way out. And my throat sang out a long, keening wail, a dirge of deepest despair, like a mourner’s lament.

‘Janey, Janey!’ Heedless of his gouty knees, my father knelt down beside me and stroked my back. ‘I know it is hard for you to believe me now, but time will prove me right; if you marry George Boleyn he’ll bring you nothing but grief!’

‘I would rather come to grief with him than find the greatest joy with another!’ I vowed.

‘Janey, I was watching you tonight, with him and his circle of friends, and you were always on the outside looking in, but never were you a part of it.’

‘But, Father,’ I protested, ‘that will change, after we are married…’

And in my heart I firmly believed this. Once we were alone together as man and wife, away from the pleasures and wayward distractions of the court, ‘darling Nan,’ and his band of brilliant friends, George would come to know me, and he would see that I worshipped him and that to earn his love was all I craved. My arms would always be open to him, I would give him children, and to his every comfort I would personally attend. And though he might have had a more beautiful wife, never would he have found a better one. I might lack the dazzle of a diamond, but I would make up for it with devotion as perfect as a pearl. No one could ever love him as much as I did. There was a flame in my heart that burned and yearned for him that could never be eclipsed, extinguished, or dimmed.

‘And if it doesn’t?’ my father asked gently. ‘If it is always like the necromancer’s magic circle and you can never, like the spirits, step inside?’

‘Nay, Father, he will come to love me, you will see. I will make him love me!’

Oh, how young and full of certainty I was then. I did not know then that it was impossible, no matter how much you desire and crave it, to make someone love you.

‘Please, Father, do not deny me this! My heart will surely break if you do!’

With a reluctant sigh he gave in. ‘It is with grave misgivings that I say this, Janey, but I will leave things as they are; I will say nothing to Sir Thomas of my doubts. The negotiations shall continue and we will see what comes to pass.’

‘Thank you!’ I whispered fervently. ‘Oh, Father, thank you!’ I flung my arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses.

While the threat of losing my heart’s desire was but narrowly averted, Anne would not be so fortunate.

Robert, a distant cousin of mine, was a gentleman of Cardinal Wolsey’s household, and from him I had the whole story.

Wolsey summoned Harry Percy into his presence chamber and, before his entire household, soundly berated him, lashing poor Percy with his tongue as if it were a whip. How dare he dally with that Boleyn girl? Nearly foaming at the mouth, jowls quivering, eyes flashing, Wolsey declared himself astounded by the sheer gall, the presumptuousness and audacity Percy had displayed by allowing himself to become entangled with a common little nobody, the granddaughter of a merchant no less! Even if the man had risen to the rank of Lord Mayor of London and had prospered to such an extent that he was able to leave £1,000 to the poor upon his death, that dark-eyed minx with her long legs and swinging gypsyblack hair was no match for the Earl of Northumberland’s heir. Furthermore, Percy’s thoughtless behavior had grievously offended the King, and his father would arrive forthwith to deal with him personally.

Never a very brave man under the best of circumstances, Percy stammered that he had not meant to offend anyone, but he was a grown man and thought himself capable of choosing his own wife.

‘I…I l-l-love Anne!’ He fell to his knees at Wolsey’s feet, blubbering and shuddering, like a man made of jelly.

‘Love? Bah!’ scoffed Wolsey. ‘Do you think that the King and I do not know our business? Do you think your father is a mutton-headed dolt like you are? Whom you marry is no concern of yours; it is for us—the King, myself, and your father—to tell you who to marry and when to marry, and it is for you to obey without quarrel or question!’

Clutching like a drowning man at the Cardinal’s scarlet robes, Percy begged him to intercede, to plead his case before the King, asserting again that he loved Anne wholeheartedly.

But Wolsey would have none of it. He ordered Percy from his sight, to be locked in his room until his father arrived.

And oh, what a sight that was! His long red beard swinging, green eyes blazing, he swept down from the North, where it was his duty to safeguard the border from marauding Scots. Without waiting for Percy’s door to be unlocked, the Earl kicked it down, seized his son by the hair, and slapped him until his nose poured blood and two teeth wobbled in their sockets; then he dragged Percy out to the barge by his collar, flung him in, and bore him away, bawling like a baby, to marry Mary Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s only daughter, and a loathsome shrew if ever there was one.

It was Anne’s turn next, and I was there to witness it, having chosen that moment as just the right time to bring my future mother-in-law a gift of embroidered gloves.

Anne stood straight and defiant while her father paced before the hearth, raging and roaring at her. And I, seated out of the way on a window seat, my presence quite forgotten, could not help but tremble.

I was glad that Thomas Boleyn was not my father. I swear ice water instead of blood coursed within his veins, and his heart was harder than marble. Gaunt and unsmiling, his dark hair speckled with gray, he spoke in crisp, curt syllables and was liberal with his blows, which he dealt swiftly and without remorse.

‘Did you not know that we had other plans for you? The Earl of Ormonde…’

There had been some talk of marrying Anne to her cousin in Ireland to resolve a longstanding family dispute about the rights to an earldom.

‘James Butler,’ Anne announced, ‘is a drunken fool with a voice like bagpipes, he stinks like a stable, and I will not have him!’

‘You will not?’ Thomas Boleyn repeated incredulously.

‘I will not.’ Anne repeated each word slowly, enunciating clearly as if she were addressing a deaf man. ‘It is Harry Percy I love and I mean to marry him!’

Thomas Boleyn raised his right hand and dealt Anne the first of three ringing slaps.

‘That is for your impertinence!’ he explained after the first. ‘That is for risking this family’s standing with the King. We would be nothing without his favor!’ he said after the second. His hand rose again and delivered the hardest and most stinging slap of all. ‘And that is because you failed! You have sullied your good name; your reputation has been compromised. Go now; you are banished to Hever until it is the King’s pleasure to recall you. Go! I cannot stand the sight of you; I never could suffer a fool!’

With her head held high, showing the red print of her father’s hand blossoming against the pallor of her cheek, Anne left the room.

I followed her, but she ignored me. The sight of her thus drew many alarmed and inquiring glances, and as she passed many fell to whispering, but Anne was oblivious to all.

George, in his dust-covered riding clothes, his white shirt open at the throat and sweat-sodden, caught up with her in the garden.

‘Nan, oh, Nan, I came as soon as I heard…’

Gently, he led her along the graveled path, to a quiet, leafy bower. Not once did he glance at me. I might as well have been a ghost; to him I was already invisible. His gloves fell unnoticed to the ground. I picked them up, pressed them to my nose, and inhaled their scent of spice, sweat, and leather.

‘Nan!’ he breathed as his fingers lightly traced the bruise flourishing on her cheek. His other hand tightened around his riding crop. ‘By Heaven, I should like to give him a taste of what he metes out so freely!’

‘It is all Wolsey’s doing,’ Anne said numbly. ‘Wolsey!’ she hissed, with all the venom of a serpent. ‘Heaven upon earth was within my grasp and he snatched it away, because he—that butcher’s boy!—deemed me unworthy. George, before you and God, I swear that if ever it is within my power I shall work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has done me!’ And with these words she fell weeping into his arms, burrowing her face into his strong shoulder as I so longed to do.

Neither of them seemed to realize what I knew from the start—Wolsey was only following orders.

The next morning, Anne, dressed for travel, knelt at Queen Catherine’s feet to formally take leave of her.

‘I trust Your Majesty will know the cause,’ she said softly, her bitterness and anger ill-concealed.

Queen Catherine leaned forward in her chair and gently took Anne’s bruised and tearstained face between her hands.

‘I am sorry, Mistress Anne. He is a sweet boy and I know your love for one another was sincere. Go with God’—she pressed a dainty gold filigree cross set with seed pearls into Anne’s hand—‘and know that you are in my prayers.’

‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ Anne whispered, her voice shaking with the tears she was struggling not to shed.

Impulsively, Queen Catherine gathered her close in a motherly embrace.

‘Do not be afraid to weep when you are alone,’ she counseled. ‘Tears cleanse the soul and will give your heart blessed release.’

3

And so back to Hever Anne went, to mourn her lost love, dream of revenge, and nurse her wounded pride.

A year passed, followed by a second, and a third, with Anne stubbornly refusing to return to court. Whenever her father broached the subject, she spoke so wildly that he dared not force her lest she behave in such a manner that the King’s goodwill and the Boleyns’ fortunes would be lost forever. So he let her be. Bleating sheep, taking inventory of the larder, and supervising the cheese and candle making, he reasoned, must soon pale beside the remembered pleasures of the court. But Anne was nothing if not stubborn.

She changed dramatically during those three years. Gone were the elegant French gowns, packed away with sachets of lavender, and with them her jewels, locked in their velvet-lined casket. And the volatile, vivacious nature that had captivated an entire court seemed also to have been snuffed out. Like a ghost, she drifted about Hever, in somber-hued gowns of gray, black, white, and brown. And her hair too had become a prisoner of her pain, denied its freedom, confined and pinned beneath a modest coif, white and nunlike.

She went for long, solitary walks and would sit for hours immersed in a book of scripture. She wore her Book of Hours, beautifully illuminated, bejeweled, and gilded, dangling at the end of a golden chain around her waist. Except for Queen Catherine’s cross, it was the only adornment she allowed herself.

She was fascinated by the ‘New Learning’ that was sweeping Europe, heralded by Martin Luther’s heated demands for Church reform—to curb the avaricious excesses of the Catholic Church, for the lucrative trade in Indulgences to cease, for people to accept that prayer alone was no guarantee of salvation, and that God and man could commune freely without priestly intervention, and everyone should be allowed to read and hear the word of God preached in their own language instead of Latin only. And though it was dangerous, and by the law deemed heresy, to possess such texts, Anne owned several, prizing greatly a book of scriptures written in French and William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament. It was a passion George also shared, and they made use of merchants importing goods from France and like-minded friends in the diplomatic service to procure these banned volumes, which they discussed fervently, albeit in hushed tones, and kept carefully hidden. Both hoped someday to see the Bible fully translated into English and legally sanctioned. For how else could the word of God reach the people, most of whom understood not one word of Latin, it being the tongue of priests, lawyers, and scholars and not the common man?

It was a lonely life Anne led at Hever. Her parents and Mary were almost always at court. But George did not forsake her. Whenever he could obtain leave from his duties at court, straight to Hever he would ride. If she wanted to talk they would talk; if she wished to sit in silence he would speak not a word and instead give her the comfort of his presence. He was the only one who could draw her out of her cloistered shell and make her smile. As they debated the tenets of Lutheranism, the new ideas espoused in their forbidden books, or made music together, the shell would crack to reveal a glimmer of the old Anne. Her spirit was not dead, only sleeping.

Another frequent visitor was Sir Thomas Wyatt. Most unhappily wed to a wife who shamelessly cuckolded him, he would tarry long with Anne at Hever.

He laid siege to her, bombarding her with sonnets.

‘Persistence is my only virtue,’ I heard him once declare as he lay sprawled upon the grass at her feet, ‘and with my heart entire I hope that it may be rewarded.’

‘Oh?’ Anne arched her brows. ‘Are loyalty, friendship, and kindness masks you don only to woo me?’

‘Nay, dear Anne, but I do not want to claim too many; it would ruin my reputation if I were to appear overly virtuous. It is more exciting to be a sinner than a saint!’

I sometimes visited her too. I thought it would please George if I affected a sisterly interest in Anne. And—honesty compels me to admit—I was curious and fascinated. Thus, I was in a position to observe her, and though Anne adopted drab and modest garb like a nun, I discovered she was a far cry from being one.

One dreary autumn afternoon I claimed a headache and excused myself, but instead of retiring to my room I stealthily followed Anne out into the forest.

The lilting strains of Wyatt’s lute provided a trail for us to follow. Anne stepped into a clearing, while I hung back, hiding behind the trunk of a large tree, congratulating myself on my fortuitous choice of attire, a brown gown, which allowed me to blend in with the scenery.

Smiling and still strumming his lute, Wyatt came to greet her. He gestured downward and I saw that he had fashioned a bed of leaves, a dry and crackling festive array of brown, orange, yellow, and red. From a basket he offered her wine and dainty cakes. Then he reached for her.

Gently, he lifted the plain white coif from her head and plucked the pins from her hair until it fell like an ebony cloak about her shoulders, and he drew her close for a lingering kiss. When their lips parted their eyes met in a long and silent stare. Anne was the first to look away. Eyes downcast, she nodded in a manner that seemed more resigned than anything else.

Slowly, she lay back against the bed of leaves.

His lips were upon hers, then trailing slowly down to her throat and breasts, while his hand gathered up her full gray skirt and petticoats.

All the time Anne lay passive, her arms draped loosely about his back. While he moaned and sighed, she stayed still and silent. Only once did she cry out, when he lay full upon her and with his fleshly lance shattered the shield of her hymen.

Suddenly he drew back, bolting up onto his knees, to let his seed spew onto the leaves.

Anne just lay there, rigid, staring up at the sky through the lattice of naked branches and dead leaves while he put right his garments.

With a tender smile, Wyatt extended his hand and drew her up for another kiss. Softly, they spoke, too low for me to hear, and then he left her and rode home to Allington Castle, and his wife.

Anne sat for a long time, hugging her knees, upon that bed of leaves. Then from out of her bodice she drew a slim gold chain—a locket. She parted the gleaming halves of the golden oval and gazed down with such sorrow that I felt the tightness that portends tears well up within my own throat.

‘I wanted it to be you!’ she cried, and I knew that it was upon Harry Percy’s likeness that she was gazing.

With a wrenching sob, she flung herself facedown into the leaves and wept until the sun set.

Witnessing her despair, I almost felt ashamed for telling her what had befallen poor Percy since his ill-fated marriage.

Between Harry Percy and Mary Talbot it was hate as black and thick as treacle at first sight. Their marriage was never even consummated, and after the wedding his wife went home to her doting father. Percy was left alone in his drafty, cavernous castle. There he tried to drown his sorrows, scrutinizing the bottom of each tankard and goblet he drained, hoping to find consolation written there. Stomach pains became the bane of his existence. And though still a young man in the midst of his twenties, he looked twice that; already sorrow was steadily bleaching his ginger hair white. He often gave way to tears of self-pity, berating himself for his cowardice, denouncing himself as ‘a jelly, a spineless jelly!’ And every night, when he slumped facedown across the table in a drunken stupor, he would cry her name—‘Anne!’

In the third year of Anne’s exile, George and I were married in the royal chapel at Greenwich. I wore white damask and deep green velvet with my late mother’s pearls and a special brooch Father had given me pinned to my bodice. A curious, ornate piece of exquisite craftsmanship, it was heavy burnished gold set with a large green agate topped by a head in the antique style depicting some ancient goddess, Persephone perhaps, with long, flowing hair strewn with enameled flowers. A wreath of gilded rosemary with trailing green and white silk ribbons crowned my unbound hair. It was the last time I would ever appear in public with my hair unbound; henceforth, my tresses would be covered with a coif and headdress and reserved as a sight for my husband’s eyes alone in the privacy of our bedchamber. As I knelt at the altar beside him, I remembered George combing Anne’s hair and smiled at the thought of him soon doing the same for me. Perhaps it would even become a nightly ritual, something we did before retiring to bed.

I was radiant with delight and my face ached from smiling. As I held George’s hand tightly in mine, I swore I would never let go. He was mine now, all mine, bound to me with Church rites and golden rings!

I was restless throughout the banquet that followed, aching for the moment when I would be left alone with him behind the velvet curtains of our marriage bed. And then that moment came, and I learned a valuable lesson—anticipation only makes the disappointment keener.

He was kind, very kind, but maddeningly aloof. Indifference stared back at me from behind his luminous, wine-glazed brown eyes. How could he be so close to me and yet so far away? We were like two people facing each other across a great chasm where the bridge had collapsed. But only I wanted to cross over; George was content to stay on his side.

He kissed me. I clung to him, fiercely, like a drowning woman wild to survive. I giggled, squirmed, and sighed at the delicious new sensations of his fingers gliding over my breasts and down to my cunny. I cried out my love as he entered me, heedless of the pain, and clawed at his back until his blood was caked beneath my nails. For a moment I thought I spied something akin to irritation in his eyes, but otherwise he was unmoved by my passion. His seed spewed into me, then it was over. He rolled off me, bid me good night, and turned his face to the wall. I wrapped my arms around his waist, nestled against his back, and cooed over the scratches my nails had made, kissing them and lapping at them kittenishly with my tongue, but he just lay there, silent and still as a marble tomb effigy.

How many ways can a husband tell his wife that she means nothing to him without actually saying the words?

We divided our time between court and Grimston Manor in Norfolk, which the King had given us as a wedding present. And yes, it was grim and made of gray stone as cold and hard as George’s heart was to me.

After our wedding night, he never passed an entire night with me. On the rare occasions when he came to my bed at all, after he had spent his seed he would shake off my clinging hands and curtly dismiss my pleas. ‘Leave off, Madame; my duty is done for tonight at least!’ he would snap peevishly as he headed for the door, even as I clung to him and begged him to stay and sleep the night with me. He would flee into his own bedchamber, which adjoined mine, pressing his shoulder firmly against the door and bolting it even as I flung myself against it. And I would slump there against the door, in tears and agony, while his seed snaked down my bare legs. And at each sound that filtered through the thick wood to my ears I wept all the more. The splash of water into a basin told me that he was washing himself, washing away all traces of me, the evidence of our coupling. This was invariably followed by wine sloshing into a goblet, twice or thrice at least, but sometimes more. Sometimes then would come the scratching of a pen upon parchment or the poignant pluck of lute strings, but, more often than not, I would hear the rustle of clothing, the clothespress banging open and shut as he dressed himself. Then the outer door would open and I would hear his footsteps heading for the stairs.

I knew where he was going. Sometimes I even followed. I listened, I saw—the carousing, the drinking, the gambling, the whoring, all the obliging court ladies and harlots in taverns who raised their skirts and opened their arms and legs to him. There were rumors that he sometimes dallied with men, reveling in the forbidden sin of Sodom and, if caught, risking a fiery death at the stake. I suppose it was, for him, the ultimate gamble.

Francis Weston’s was the name linked most often with his—a hot-tempered rascal, with a wild, unruly head of hair of the brightest red I had ever seen. His right eye was a shade of gold-flecked brown that reminded me of amber. He had a hundred tales to explain how he had lost his left eye, each more amusing than the last. A generous offer to let a friend shoot an apple off the top of his head during archery practice had gone tragically awry. A quarrel in a tavern over the last sausage on a platter. ‘The lesson here is not to quarrel at meals and to be wary of forks; in the wrong hands they can be a dangerous weapon!’ Other times he cautioned his audience not to pick their teeth while riding in a litter, or to try to pin a brooch onto their hat brim while on horseback, or to tease their ladylove’s pet monkey or parrot. ‘And never, never tell a temperamental tailor that you will be delinquent in settling your account while he has a pair of newly sharpened shears in his hand!’ But whatever the truth, by his loss he seemed undaunted.

4

The storm that had flashed, then fallen dormant, finally began to show its strength in the summer of 1526.

I was at Hever, sitting in Anne’s chamber, embroidering and talking idly with Anne and her mother, when we heard the distant trill of hunting horns.

Hoofbeats came clattering urgently across the wooden drawbridge, and Sir Thomas Boleyn flung himself from the saddle and rushed inside as if the hounds of Hell were nipping at his heels. Within moments he stood before us, panting and dripping with sweat. Ignoring us, he went straight to the clothespress and commenced flinging dresses and kirtles, bodices and sleeves about until the floor was lost beneath a welter of satin, silk, velvet, damask, and brocade. Suddenly he stopped, a spring green silk gown exquisitely embroidered with white roses, with just a shimmer of silver glimmering amidst the pearly threads, clasped between his hands.

‘Tudor colors…green and white…roses…the royal emblem…’ I heard him murmur intently as he scrutinized the gown. ‘It’s perfect! Here! Wear this!’ He tossed it onto Anne’s lap.

I recognized the material at once. George had brought it back with him from a brief pleasure jaunt to France. I had coveted it for myself at first glance, but no matter how I oohed and ahhed over its beauty, and hinted at the nearness of my birthday, George had ignored me and given it to Anne instead.

‘No more of these drab, colorless dresses!’ he continued. ‘If you want to dress like a nun I will send you to a convent! That is the traditional fate of spinsters who fail to make a proper marriage. Need I remind you, Anne, that you are now three years past twenty and woman’s youth is fleeting?’

He reached out and yanked the plain coif of pleated white linen from her head. ‘Take down your hair! You’ve half an hour to prepare yourself; when you are ready, wait in the rose garden. Take your lute and play, or stroll about and admire the flowers, whatever you will, as long as you appear pleasing to a man’s eye!’

And then he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

I knew something important was about to happen. While Anne, clutching her lute and arrayed in the spring green gown, sullenly descended the three stone steps into the sunken rose garden, I rushed to hide behind the tall, dense green shrubberies surrounding it.

She left her lute lying upon a bench and idly roamed the pebbled path, lost in thought, crushing the fallen petals of red, pink, yellow, and white beneath her satin slippers, while all around her roses in full, heady bloom swayed gently upon their thorny stems.

Then there he was—King Henry VIII himself in all his might and majestic glory. In his eagerness he had ridden ahead of the hunting party, thus no cavalcade of clattering hooves and blaring horns heralded his arrival. He stood there, a ruddy giant of a man, hands on hips, sweaty and flush-faced from heat and exertion, legs parted as if he meant to straddle the world and declare himself its master.

The crunch of his boots upon the gravel startled her, and Anne spun around and sank quickly into a curtsy. Any woman less graceful and nimble would have lost her balance and fallen flat.

‘Up! Up!’ he gestured brusquely. ‘No ceremony, Mistress Anne. You see I come before you not as Henry of England…’ At this, her brows arched skeptically. ‘Ardent Desire has come to call upon Perseverance. You persevere in staying away from court while I ardently desire your presence!’

‘Alas, Sire, I am done with all that!’ she answered. ‘The pleasures of the court have lost their allure, and my heart is yet too sore to contemplate…’

‘Three years is time aplenty for a broken heart to mend! You have been overlong at nursing your grief, Mistress Anne, and I command you now to cease!’

‘With all due respect, Sire,’ Anne retorted, ‘my heart is not yours to command.’

Undaunted, he answered, ‘It will be.’

‘I daresay anything is possible.’ Anne shrugged.

‘Aye, it is, Anne, it is!’ he vowed, nodding eagerly. ‘With us, anything is possible!’

‘As you say.’ She shrugged disinterestedly.

‘Come, take my arm, show me the garden.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Nay, dearest Anne’—Henry turned and lightly caressed her cheek—‘I’ve yet to be granted my wish.’

‘Then if Your Majesty will follow me along this path, I will be glad to show you the garden,’ Anne said coldly, turning away from his touch.

‘For you, Mistress Anne, I would follow the path to damnation itself!’ he declared as they proceeded along the petal-strewn path.

‘Ah! What fine roses flourish here at Hever!’ His meaty fingers caressed a lush crimson bloom while his eyes devoured Anne.

‘Thank you, Your Majesty. I shall give the gardener your compliments,’ said Anne, her voice crisp and cool as winter.

‘You are not your sister,’ he observed.

‘No, Your Majesty, I am not.’

‘What a rare blossom you are, Mistress Anne! An English rose who weathered the lusty storms of the French court and came home to us fresh and unplucked! The King of France, I am told, is an ardent gardener who likes nothing better than to gather a beautiful bouquet for his bedchamber. However did this English rose escape his attention?’

‘One can attract attention without bestowing one’s attentions, Sire. And, as you say, I am not my sister. I would never sell myself so cheaply.’

‘Cheaply?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘Many would account it a great honor to be the mistress of a king!’

‘As Your Majesty rightfully observed, I am a rarity, the exception rather than the rule. Never would I sacrifice my honor for the brief, fleeting favor that can be found between the sheets of a royal bed.’

‘You are proud, Mistress Anne.’

‘Too proud to be plucked by a King and then discarded. A rose does not survive long once it has been plucked, and I will not, like some dried and wizened petals made into a potpourri, be parceled out as a gift to some obliging courtier, as my sister was to William Carey!’

King Henry just stared at her, pulses throbbing. There was a sharp snap as his fingers tightened round the stem of the crimson rose.

‘Roses are meant to be plucked, not to wither upon their stems, their petals by the winds and rains dispersed and trodden underfoot!’

‘That would depend, Sire, upon who does the plucking. I think it is not meet for someone to steal into a garden and take whatsoever he desires, like a thief in the night. Better that it be done lawfully, by one who has the right!’

‘It is not for roses to decide who plucks them! I look forward to seeing you at court, Mistress Anne.’

‘I thank Your Majesty for your kind invitation…’

‘It is not an invitation.’

‘It is a command?’

‘We understand each other perfectly. Good day, Mistress Anne.’ He extended the rose to her and, with a curt nod, left her.

With her left hand Anne tore the petals from the rose and flung them fiercely aside as her right hand did likewise with the stem; then, with a swirl of spring green skirts she turned and ran from the garden to lose herself in the maze where I dared not follow.

That night Anne kept to her chamber, ignoring her father’s repeated summons to come down to dine.

‘The King requests your presence,’ the first message said. Another followed shortly afterwards, saying, ‘Bring your lute; the King desires you to play for him.’

Anne sent her lute downstairs with her answer. ‘Play it for him yourself. My head aches and I am going to bed.’

Sir Thomas Boleyn did not dare send for her again and made her excuses instead to the much annoyed monarch.

The next morning we assembled in the courtyard to bid the King farewell. Only Anne, to her father’s supreme annoyance, was absent.

King Henry pursed his lips and a cloud of anger seemed to hover above the swaying white ostrich plumes on his round velvet cap.

‘We hope Mistress Anne will soon regain her health and grace our court again,’ he mumbled gruffly.

‘Indeed she will, Your Grace, I am certain of it!’ Sir Thomas assured him. ‘I am certain of it!’ he repeated as he knelt upon the dusty, sunbaked flagstones to hold the gilded stirrup for the royal foot.

It was then, as he started to swing himself up into the saddle, that King Henry looked up.

Framed like a painting by a master artist, Anne stood at her ivy-bordered window, still in her thin, clinging white nightshift, idly running an ivory comb through her long black hair. Her eyes were staring straight ahead, out into the distance, pointedly ignoring what was happening in the courtyard below. Then, abruptly, she turned away and disappeared from sight, even as King Henry breathed a long sigh and shuddered with desire.

‘Tell your daughter that Love is the physician who cures all ails,’ he commanded. Then he leapt into the saddle and spurred his horse onward and, with his retinue following, took to the road again.

5

And so it began, the chase, the hunt, that would consume the better part of seven years, shattering and destroying lives, and shaking and tearing the world like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. Nothing would ever be the same again, all because of Ardent Desire and Perseverance.

At Sir Thomas Boleyn’s command, an army of dressmakers descended upon Hever, and the rustle of costly fabrics, the snip of scissors, the snap of thread, and the chatter of women soon filled the sewing room. Lace makers, furriers, clothiers, perfumers, jewelers, shoemakers, stay makers, all rode forth from London as reinforcements summoned by her anxious father, to outfit Anne for battle even though she herself stood haughty and recalcitrant in their midst, with no intention of fighting.

‘When Henry of England desires a woman there is never any other answer but “Yes,”’ Sir Thomas counseled, circling Anne appraisingly as she stood upon a stool while a seamstress knelt to adjust the hem of her new, sunset orange gown.

‘Then I shall teach him a new word—No!’ Anne announced, prompting George, lounging in a chair draped with swags of silk and lace, to burst into great, rollicking peals of laughter, thus earning himself a sharp cuff upon the ear courtesy of his father.

‘But he is the King!’ Elizabeth Boleyn protested, wringing her hands despairingly. ‘Please, Anne, do not provoke his anger! By refusing him you risk all that we possess, all that your father has worked so hard for, all these years!’

‘Ah, the life of a court toady!’ Anne sneered. ‘Such backbreaking labor almost makes one envy a bricklayer!’

In his chair George sniggered helplessly, despite his father’s warning stare.

‘Enough!’ shouted Sir Thomas Boleyn. ‘You are a clever girl, Anne, so I know that you will understand what I am about to say to you. Your matrimonial prospects are nil; men may flirt with you, but there are no suitors banging at the door begging for your hand. So now you must choose: a life of gaiety at court, where you will do everything that you can to make yourself pleasing to His Majesty, or a bleak life of silence, contemplation, and prayer, locked inside a nunnery. The choice is yours. You should account yourself fortunate that the King casts even a glance at you! Mark me, you are no beauty. A tall, skinny stick topped with long black hair is what you are; your skin is sallow, your bosom small, your eyes too large, and your neck too long. Then there is that ugly wen upon your throat, and that nub of a sixth finger you hide so well with your oh-so-cunning sleeves. And yet…for some unaccountable reason, the King has noticed you; he wants you, and what Henry wants he shall have! I as your father command you, Anne, to make the most of this opportunity. Take it and make it turn to gold!’

‘You would serve me to him upon a platter if it would enrich your coffers and elevate your station,’ Anne said bitterly.

‘Indeed I would! You are a gambler, Anne, so play him, Anne, play him; and take Henry Tudor for all that he is worth! Just don’t lose like you did with Percy. I think it is safe to say that you will not have another chance. Now I will leave you to your thoughts, though I trust that you have already decided.’

And with those words he left her, with his wife trailing after him, admonishing Anne to listen to her father, for he was a wise man and surely knew best.

‘Sacrificed upon the altar of parental ambition!’ Anne sighed. ‘It is either the King’s bed or a convent cot!’

‘Nan, listen to me.’ George went to her and lifted her down from the dressmaker’s stool. His hands lingered on her waist as hers did upon his shoulders as they stood close together, leaning into each other’s embrace. ‘I have been at court long enough to know that it is the chase that delights him most, so lead him, Nan, and lead him long; resist and run until he wearies. His interest will wane, and he will turn his eyes towards a different, and easier quarry. He is not the most patient of men, and there are women aplenty who line his path ready to throw themselves at his feet.’

‘Aye, my sweet brother, have no fear.’ She reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Perseverance will outpace Ardent Desire. I will give Henry Tudor the run of his life!’

‘I know you will, Nan.’ He smiled. ‘There’s none who can match you, Nan, none!’

Seeing them standing there, so close, so lost in one another, made my blood boil. By now I was well accustomed to these displays of tenderness and intimacy. I used to watch them, as vigilant as a hawk. The way they walked together, talked together, danced, sat with their heads together whispering confidences, composing songs and sonnets with their pens scratching over parchment, or bent over their lutes; the way they touched hands, embraced, and kissed; the way George’s hands would linger at her waist when he lifted Anne down from her horse; and the way sometimes of an evening or a rainy day by the hearthside he would lay his head in her lap and she would lean down with her hair forming an ebony curtain around him…they looked like lovers. It was as if they were made to be together and, as blasphemous as it sounds, God had made a mistake when He made them brother and sister so that full passionate love between them was forbidden. I never saw, either before or since, such a strong devotion between two people. It was as if they were bonded together, fused, with a chain of unbendable, unbreakable links; nothing could divide them. Together they were whole and complete, but apart something vital was lacking. Was everyone else blind? Why was I the only one who could see it?

‘If I did not know better, I would swear you two were lovers!’ I shouted at them. But even as the words were upon my lips I wondered, did I really know better? Did I? Then I ran out of the room, slamming the door behind me just as hard as I could.

George followed me and caught hold of my wrist. ‘What are you about?’ he demanded angrily.

‘You seem overeager to defy your father’s wishes, George. You dislike the thought of Anne in the King’s bed!’ I charged with eyes blazing.

‘She will find little happiness there,’ he answered.

‘And her happiness is very important to you.’ I nodded knowingly. ‘Or should I say that it is everything to you? Tell me, George, would that not be more apt?’

He frowned at me. ‘Do not quibble words with me, Jane. You know well that Anne’s happiness is of the utmost importance to me. We are alone against the world, I often think, and though I lost my battle, I will do everything I can to help Anne win hers. I have been a pawn to my father’s ambition, and you see what it has wrought me—and you with me. Together in this bitter parody of a marriage we are bound.’

I reeled back as if he had slapped me. My voice failed me, and I could do nothing but gape at him as hot, angry tears poured down my face.

‘I know, Jane,’ he said softly as he took my hand in his and held it oh, so tenderly. ‘You yearn for what I can never give. For reasons I will never understand, you claim to love me, though you find fault with nearly all of me and heap scorn and jealousy upon everyone and everything that pleases me. You harp and badger, weep and shriek, jeer and cling, until it is all I can do not to strike you. And that displeases me; that I should be roused to the brink of such an ugly thing!’

‘Would that I could be the only one who pleases you!’ I sobbed, snatching my hand away. ‘Would that I came first before your sister, your dissolute, foppish friends, and all your foolish and unsavory pursuits—the gambling, wine, and whores, and the music and poetry upon which you squander so much of your time! Your will is weak, George, and I would be the one to make you strong. Banish them all, George. You need none of them—only me!’

‘Oh, but I do,’ he insisted. ‘I need them all. And I do not want to be your everything, Jane. Verily, I find your love as stifling and oppressive as a tomb. When I am with you I feel as if I am boxed inside a coffin. It is a sad truth that we are mismatched, and not one common interest do we share. You married for love—or, if you want to quibble words, you married your ideal of love—while I married as my father dictated. Let us be friendly, Jane, but let us abandon all pretense and go our separate ways, and perhaps we will both find happiness after a fashion. I wish you well, Jane, and would you did the same for me.’

‘I’ve no doubt that you will go your own way, as you have always done!’ I cried, and I would have slapped his face had he not divined my intentions and caught hold of my wrist. ‘Would that I could be like Anne; perhaps then you would love me!’ Stumbling, blind with tears, I fled back to my chamber and threw myself weeping upon the bed. If only, if only, if only I could be like Anne! How very different my life would be, and George would love me!

With her sumptuous new finery, Anne returned to court and resumed her duties in Queen Catherine’s household, though it was the King who most often availed himself of her services.

He summoned her to his chamber to play her lute and sing for him, or read aloud when his eyes were wearied, or to walk with him by the river or in the pleasure gardens. Dutifully, she hunted and hawked and danced with him. She diced and risked fortunes at cards with him, and applauded his performance at the tennis court, bowling green, tiltyard, and archery butts. Yet through it all she remained aloof, toying with him like a cat plays with dead things. At Henry’s side she seemed more a wax figure than a flesh-and-blood woman.

It was only with George and their merry band of friends that she truly came alive. With them her spirits soared and her laughter rang like a bell. Henry noticed this too, and I think it was then that his heart first began to harden against these men who had long been his most loyal servants and friends, the gentlemen of his privy chamber who attended him at all his most private functions—his baths and bowel movements, robings and disrobings—and who each took turns sleeping on a pallet at the foot of his great bed whenever he retired alone. Herein, I believe, is the answer to why, years later, it was so easy for him to condemn George, Weston, Brereton, and Norris—they had Anne in a way that he never could.

But Anne continued to turn her lips away from his and to shun and evade his embrace. She steadfastly refused to become his mistress, though Henry avowed, ‘It is not just your body I covet, Anne, but you, Anne, you! Your vivacity and bold, daring, untamed spirit! I can talk to you of books and ideas, for you are no docile, simpering sycophant; you have a mind of your own and are not afraid to speak it, and I want to possess and know all of you. I want to stir your soul as well as your body and heart!’

‘Your wife I cannot be; your mistress I will not be.’ Those were her words, cold and to the point, like a dagger in the heart.

‘But if I were free of Catherine…’ he persisted.

‘But you are not.’ Anne shrugged and continued along the rose-bordered path, pausing to inhale the perfume of a lush pink rose.

They were in the rose garden at Hever once again, and I was secreted behind the shrubbery, just like before.

Anne had all of a sudden quit the court without the King’s consent and, summoning George to be her escort, returned to Hever, leaving Henry to come scurrying after, the moment that he missed her.

‘But if I were…’

‘But you are not and cannot be,’ Anne said crisply, snapping the rose’s stem and holding it against the skirt of her pink satin gown. ‘Her Majesty strikes me as being a woman in excellent health, nor have I heard her express the desire to renounce the world and retire to a convent.’

‘For the third and last time’—Henry seized her arm and spun her round to face him—‘if I were free of Catherine, would you marry me and give me sons?’

‘Verily, Sire, I do not know,’ said Anne, idly twirling the rose by its stem. ‘I should have to think on it.’

She pulled her arm free of his grasp and strolled onward, humming to herself and twirling the pink rose.

This was the spark that lit the fuse of what would at first be called ‘The King’s Secret Matter,’ then ‘The King’s Great Matter’ when it became common knowledge.

Henry confided to Anne that for some time his conscience had been troubling him. He feared that his marriage was accursed by God, and for this reason he had been denied a living son, the male heir that was vital to safeguard the succession.

It all began with a verse from Leviticus that Henry interpreted to suit his desires. ‘If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.’ These words hammered at his mind, while lust for Anne hammered at his loins. To Henry’s mind, being childless and sonless amounted to the same thing.

Catherine had been first and briefly wed to his elder brother Arthur, and by marrying her, Henry had convinced himself, he had unknowingly committed a sinful and incestuous act. God had shown his displeasure by denying him living male issue; all the baby boys had been born dead or died shortly after as divine punishment. The Pope who had issued the dispensation that allowed them to marry had committed a grave error, he insisted, and it was one that must be rectified as soon as possible. The Pope must grant him a divorce from Catherine so that he might lawfully remarry and beget sons while there was still time. And Anne, he had already decided, would be the mother of those sons. Already he could see them in his mind’s eye, a brood of hale and hearty red- and black-haired boys, replicas of himself, lusty, broad-shouldered, and strong-minded. To Henry it all seemed such a simple matter.

6

Like a shuttlecock hurtling to and fro, Anne would, upon a moment’s whim, leave court and return to Hever. Then the King would come, hot on her heels, or else his messenger would follow, bearing lavish gifts and ardent love letters.

But every time, Anne would just laugh and dismiss the messenger with a haughty wave of her hand and the words, ‘No answer.’

Often she allotted these outpourings of the King’s anguished heart no more than a cursory glance, and she was very careless with them, leaving them lying about where anyone could find them.

I remember a day when she sat idly by the hearth in the Great Hall, with Henry’s latest letter in her hand and the accompanying gift lying at her feet.

‘ “Because I cannot always be in your presence,”’ Anne read aloud, aping Henry’s voice—she really was an excellent mimic—‘ “I send you the thing that comes nearest—my portrait set in bracelets, wishing myself in their place. Signed, Your Servant and Friend, Henry Rex.” ’

With a bored and indifferent sniff and a shrug of her shoulders, Anne let the letter fall to the floor, ignoring her father’s pursed lips, her mother’s worried frown, and Mary’s quizzical stare as she again grandly intoned the words, ‘No answer,’ and sent the messenger on his way.

‘Anne!’ Elizabeth Boleyn wrung her hands and looked near to tears. ‘It is cruel of you to keep the poor King dangling with no reply!’

‘Indeed, Mother, I never said it was not.’

‘Anne.’ Sir Thomas Boleyn approached her, rubbing his palms, with a crafty gleam in his eyes. ‘Your mother is correct. It is most unkind…’

‘Verily, you should know, Father. Upon unkindness you are expert!’ Anne answered flippantly, while toying with her sapphire velvet sleeves.

‘Anne’—he paused, biting his lip and making a great effort to control his temper—‘would you like me to compose a reply to His Majesty? Then all you need do is copy it in your own elegant hand and sign your name.’

At this offer Anne threw back her head and fairly screamed with laughter.

‘It is no jesting matter, girl!’ he snarled. ‘Look at those diamonds!’ He snatched up Henry’s neglected gift and shook the bracelets in her face. ‘Just look at their clarity, their sparkle; clearly these are diamonds of the first water!’

Mary, her mother, and I obligingly clustered round and oohed and ahhed in admiration at the King’s florid and heavy-jowled countenance ringed in twinkling diamonds.

‘Oh, Father.’ Anne sighed as, stretching languorously, she got to her feet. ‘It is a pity our good King Henry hasn’t the Second Edward’s tastes, since you are so much more appreciative of his favors than I am!’ And with those words she swept grandly from the room, leaving her father speechless and boiling with rage, and her mother wringing her hands and repeating endlessly, ‘Oh dear!’ I myself maintained an air of dignified silence, while my husband, it grieves me much to say, rolled on the floor in gleeful laughter, and a blank-faced and bewildered Mary besought an explanation regarding Anne’s reference to the tastes of King Edward the Second.

But the Boleyns needn’t have worried. Anne knew how and when to play her cards. Upon New Year’s Day 1527 she decided the time had come to answer all the King’s letters.

But she did not take up her pen to write to Henry, but to the goldsmith instead, for it was he who would fashion her answer. A brooch, but not just any brooch. Exquisitely wrought of gleaming gold, a little lady with long black enameled hair, dressed in a gown of scarlet enamel spangled with seed pearls and diamond chips, sat in a boat christened Love, being rocked upon a tempest-tossed sapphire sea, with her hands clasped and upraised as if to implore ‘Have mercy upon me!’

So there could be no doubt as to her meaning, when she knelt at the King’s feet to present her gift, at a private audience where no one but her family were present, Anne wore a pearl- and diamond-spangled scarlet gown with her long black hair unbound.

A smile of pure delight spread across King Henry’s face as he gazed first at Anne, then down at the brooch upon its bed of tufted black velvet, then back at Anne again. But when he reached for her, Anne swiftly stepped back.

‘If you make me Queen of England I shall brave the storm that is your love and give you sons!’ she announced; then, after bobbing the briefest of curtsies, she turned her back, in direct violation of royal etiquette, and walked out of the presence chamber.

7

Anne immediately resumed her old ways, going back and forth to Hever, ignoring the enamored King’s increasingly ardent love letters, and dismissing the messenger with ‘No answer.’

Anne had played her card. Now it was time for Henry to make his move.

A secret court was convened, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, with a panel of bishops to weigh the evidence and render a verdict.

Henry presented himself, slump-shouldered and morose, as a man whose conscience was sorely troubled by the nagging thought that he, by taking his dead brother’s wife, had unwittingly sinned against God. Queen Catherine, he solemnly avowed, was a fine woman and he would like nothing better than to hear that all was well and that she could remain at his side as his wife always, but the qualms that assailed his conscience were just too great to be ignored. Thus, he looked to them, the cardinals and bishops of England, to free him from this torment. It was a grand performance. Only those in Anne’s inner circle knew that she was the cause of it all, this intricate, tangled web of theological and legal quibbling that would soon rise from a whisper to a scream. Even Wolsey never suspected that it was Anne Boleyn Henry aimed to wed; he was led to believe it was a French princess Henry coveted so that he might have legitimate male heirs and a dynastic alliance all in one stroke. Queen Catherine was also kept unawares until the wily Spanish Ambassador whispered the truth in her ear. But by then Henry had lost his round.

After three days of heated debate, the court concluded that the marriage was sound, since a papal dispensation had been issued beforehand. Henry was assured that his conscience could rest in peace.

But Henry refused to accept the verdict, and Wolsey bore the brunt of his displeasure. Wolsey, that upstart son of an Ipswich butcher, who used the Church as a stepping stone to power and cared more for worldly goods than the word of God, had promised Henry the verdict he desired.

But then failed to deliver.

To make matters worse, now Queen Catherine had been dealt into the game, and she had a very powerful card to play. Her nephew Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, would never sit passively by and let his aunt be humiliated and cast aside.

Never for a moment would Catherine’s convictions waver. She was Henry’s lawful wife and Queen of this realm, and such she would remain until her dying day. Nor would she oblige the King by slinking away to a nunnery. Though her faith was strong, and she was without a doubt devout, she had no vocation; she would not, like some she could name, use the Church as a means to achieve an end. She loved her husband dearly and was sorry to court his displeasure by disobeying him, but God and her conscience must come first.

At that time the situation in Rome was dire. The Holy City had been sacked; mercenary soldiers in the Emperor’s service ran amok, raping and pillaging; the streets ran red with the blood of the slain; and the air was filled with smoke, flies, and the cries of the dying. Pope Clement himself was a prisoner, and he was not about to risk the Emperor’s further wrath by siding with Henry.

It should all have ended there, but Henry was not about to let his desires be thwarted. Come what may, he would have Anne Boleyn.

Around this time Tom Wyatt, dallying with Anne and their friends in the palace gardens, playfully snatched a little bejeweled tablet that dangled from a delicate gold chain Anne wore about her waist, claiming it was high time she gave him a love token. He pressed it to his lips, then, laughing, held it high, beyond her reach, as she leapt and grasped for it, once even daring to duck his head and swiftly steal a kiss.

‘Keep it if you like.’ Anne shrugged. ‘It is but a little thing, and of no great consequence. And while that bauble may be beyond my reach, greater jewels than that are within my grasp.’ And upon her right hand she proudly displayed an enormous emerald. ‘The stone of constancy, His Majesty says, and thereby a most fitting symbol of his love for me.’

She did not confide that in exchange for this great, gaudy, glittering green ring, King Henry had snatched from her finger a dainty ruby heart set in lacy gold filigree. ‘I shall take this heart until you vouchsafe me your own,’ he said as he forced it onto his little finger, the only one it would fit upon.

A few days later the King and his gentlemen gathered for a match upon the bowling green while Anne and a bevy of ladies assembled to watch and cheer them on.

The King and Tom Wyatt were both expert players, and a moment arose when it was uncertain whose bowl had rolled nearest the jack; it was so close, sight alone could not settle the matter.

‘Wyatt, I tell you it is mine!’ Henry’s voice boomed as he pointed to the smooth, round wooden bowl lying in the grass, seemingly just a hand’s span from the upright white jack. As he pointed he waggled his little finger, making sure Anne’s ruby heart caught Wyatt’s eye.

With a cocky smile, Wyatt withdrew Anne’s jeweled tablet from inside his doublet.

‘If Your Majesty will give me leave,’ he said, extending the golden chain, ‘I shall measure it with this, and hope that it shall be mine.’ And boldly he kissed the jeweled tablet.

Already flushed from the heat of his heavy brocade and silken garments and a vigorous game on a warm day, Henry’s face flamed scarlet. His eyes narrowed and that cruel little mouth became crueler still.

‘It may be, it may well be that I have been deceived!’ And with that he turned his back on Wyatt and stormed from the bowling green. Abruptly he stopped and spun round and went to confront Anne.

‘Mistress, you will explain! How haps it that trinket is in Wyatt’s possession and that he wears it upon his heart?’

‘Thievery,’ Anne answered smoothly. ‘The same manner in which Your Majesty acquired my ring.’

For a long moment no one dared move or breathe. Anne had just called the King of England a thief!

‘As for why he wears it above his heart,’ Anne continued, ‘I can only suppose that were he to wear it around his waist, as intended, people would laugh; the effect is not quite so becoming without skirts.’

Henry threw back his head and roared with laughter.

‘By my soul, Anne, what a woman you are!’ He offered her his arm and together they strolled back into the palace, all smiles and merry spirits.

Watching them, George shook his head and smiled.

‘There is no one like Anne!’ he declared with pride.

It was all I could do not to snatch up one of the wooden jacks and beat him over the head with it. I had a vision of myself doing so, so vividly real it was ghastly and made me feel sick with shame. In my mind’s eye I saw myself raising the jack, and bringing it down with all the force I could muster, and hearing his skull crack, and his voice cry out, pleading with pain, as blood gushed out, and I raised the jack and brought it down again and again and again, hoping and wishing with all my might that I could bash all thoughts of Anne out of his brain.

By now the whole court knew that the King wanted Anne, and bets were being laid about how long she would resist before she became his mistress. But Anne herself only hinted at her true intentions, saying once to her sister, ‘You went first, but I aim to go further.’

Even Queen Catherine knew. Always before she had stoically endured her husband’s infidelities, pretending that she did not hear or see. But this was different; Anne was different.

One afternoon Her Majesty bade us join her for a game of cards. Obediently we sat down around the table. At her request, I dealt the cards. All continued amicably until Anne triumphantly slapped down a card.

‘Mistress Anne.’ Queen Catherine regarded her sadly. ‘You have the good fortune to stop at a King, but you are not like the others, I think. You will have all…’

‘…or nothing,’ they finished as one.

Their eyes locked, Catherine’s intent and searching, Anne’s scorching with ambition.

At last, Catherine sighed and shook her head, her gray eyes misty with sorrow and what, for just a moment, looked like pity, but it passed so quickly I could not be sure.

‘That will be all,’ she said quietly. ‘Leave me now. I am weary,’ she murmured, pressing a hand against her brow, her fingers rubbing as if they could erase the lines that time and worry had etched there, while her other hand reached for the rosary beads ever present at her waist.

As we walked away Anne said, ‘She is as stubborn as one of her Spanish mules! Even a blind fool could see the King no longer loves her. Why doesn’t she just accept it and get the best terms while she can? Henry is prepared to be generous; he will allow her the title of Princess Dowager and love her like a sister—which is what she is—his sister by marriage. Why does she not give in? I do not understand her at all!’

And she would not understand until she herself stood where Queen Catherine stood now.

Henry’s next move was to dispatch Wolsey to France to barter for a French bride; while at the same time another messenger was, unbeknownst to the great and powerful Cardinal Wolsey, sent secretly to petition the Pope in Rome.

Henry chose to keep Wolsey in the dark simply because he feared the Cardinal would not work as hard to bring about the divorce if he knew Henry’s intended bride was Anne Boleyn.

When Anne learned of this she scoffed, ‘You all but bend your knee to Wolsey! Are you King of England or does the butcher’s boy wear the Crown? I thought it was the Chancellor’s task to do the King’s bidding, not the other way around!’

Thus she brought the King around to her way of thinking, and Wolsey’s star began its slow descent.

8

While Anne played for a King, her heart would suffer another blow when Tom Wyatt chose to graciously withdraw from the field where he had battled Henry for Anne’s love.

Ever the poet, he renounced her in a poem:

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is a hind!But as for me, alas! I may no more;The vain travail hath wearied me so sore;I am of them that farthest cometh behind.Yet may I by no means my wearied mindDraw from the deer; but as she fleeth aforeFainting I follow; I leave off therefore,Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.Who list to hunt, I put him out of doubt,As well as I, may spend his time in vain!And graven in diamonds in letters plain,There is written her fair neck round about:‘Noli Me Tangere; for Caesar’s I am,And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’

I was there the night he stood up and recited it to the court. And I saw sorrow, true and deep, in his brown eyes.

Their eyes met across the banquet table where Anne sat beside the King, who possessively rested one meaty, jewel-laden pink paw upon her knee. They shared a long glance of regret, mourning for what could never be.

Though Wyatt had never replaced Percy in her heart, Anne truly did love him in her way. And, had he been free, I am certain they would have wed.

When he spoke the last four lines, Anne’s hand reached up to touch the choker of diamonds encircling her neck, and a pained expression flashed across her face. Then it was gone and she cast her eyes sideways at Henry, who was nodding in approval at the words ‘Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), for Caesar’s I am.’

When he finished Wyatt bowed low to the sovereign, and Henry leapt to his feet, applauding loudly. The court, ever quick to follow the King’s lead, did the same.

Only Anne remained seated and silent, then slowly she stood. I was seated only two places down and I heard her softly plead a headache and that she must go at once to bed.

As she passed him, Henry seized her wrist and said in a voice that made me shiver, ‘Rarely when I hunt does the quarry escape me, no matter how fleet of foot or cunningly it hides. Make no mistake, Mistress Anne, I will catch you, and you will be mine!’

Anne curtsied quickly and fled.

Tom Wyatt’s eyes followed her as his body dared not do. He pressed a hand briefly to his heart as if it pained him, then he forced himself to smile and gave himself over to the congratulations of his friends.

The clock had just struck midnight when Anne appeared at George’s door, huddled in her satin dressing gown and trembling violently.

Wordlessly, he gathered her in his arms.

Her words came out in a rush. A nightmare. Anne in a fawn satin gown running frantically through the forest, pursued by baying hounds, hoofbeats, and hunting horns. Then she was cornered, her back against a tree, and the King was there before her, steadily advancing, willful and determined, pressing into her, holding her fast, and lifting her skirts. It was then that she awoke, screaming.

Murmuring soothing words, George led her to sit beside the fire. There was wine warming in a small cauldron and he ladled some into a goblet and pressed it into her hands.

Both of them ignored me standing in the doorway.

‘I want to stop, George,’ she sobbed.

‘Then stop,’ he said as he sank to his knees before her and, taking the goblet and setting it aside, took both her hands in his.

‘I cannot! It has gone too far! I thought when the court failed to deliver the desired verdict that would be the end of it, and I could wave farewell and dance away from him, but he will stop at nothing to have me! I have become trapped in my own net! And Father and Uncle Norfolk never stop pressing me. Winning is all that matters, they keep telling me—it doesn’t matter how I play the game, only that I win! “Do not fail, Anne!” they caution with such hardness in their eyes it takes all the will I have not to let them see me give way to tears. They come at me from all sides, urging me to “Give in, Anne, give in! It is a great honor to be the mistress of a King!” until it is all I can do not to stamp my feet and scream and tear the hair from my head! Were he not King I would tell him what I truly think of him! Every time I see him I must bite my tongue to keep the words from spewing forth else he send me to the Tower and have them chop off my head, and yet I cannot help but think that at least then I would die with the truth upon my lips; that would be better than living a lie!’

‘You mean you no longer want to be Queen?’ I asked.

Sobs shook her and Anne buried her face in her hands.

‘If the prize is within my grasp I shall take it; it would be folly to reject it, and there would be no forgetting or forgiving if I did, but do not ask me whether it is worth it because I no longer know! I am so tired, George, so very tired, yet the battle rages on and I must keep fighting!’

‘Then you must rest, darling Nan.’ He stood up and gathered her tenderly in his arms and carried her to his bed. ‘Sleep now,’ he said as he laid her down and drew the covers up over her. ‘And I shall sit here’—he brought a chair close to the bedside—‘and see that no one disturbs you.’

And there he sat, stroking her hair, until sleep claimed her.

‘Damn them all for doing this to you, my sweet sister,’ I, still lurking in the doorway, heard him whisper.

‘Now you have what you have always wanted,’ I jibed. ‘Your sister is in your bed! Do not let my presence keep you from joining her!’

‘Bite your viper’s tongue!’ George hissed, and flung his slippers at my head.

I turned my back and started back to my own bed, but my feet had scarcely crossed the threshold when I felt his fingers biting into the soft flesh of my arm.

He pushed the door shut so our conversation would not disturb his dear, precious Anne.

‘Why do you always do this?’ he demanded. ‘Why do you say these awful things? What has Anne ever done to you to make you despise her so?’

‘She has stolen what is rightfully mine!’ I rounded on him furiously. ‘She has stolen my husband!’

George laughed wryly and threw up his hands.

When I heard him laugh at me, mocking me, I wanted to throw myself at him and claw at his face, raking long, bloody furrows into that handsome visage with my nails. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself doing so, and I hated myself for it. How could I have such violent, bloody thoughts about hurting the person I loved most? It was Anne who deserved pain and punishment, not my beloved George.

‘You are a madwoman!’ he declared. ‘You talk naught but nonsense. Anne is my sister. You talk of her as if she were my mistress!’

‘She is!’ I shouted. ‘She is your mistress! Mistress of your heart! No brother loves his sister as you do her—it is unnatural, George, unnatural! I should not have to compete with my sister-in-law for my husband’s attention, or his affection, but I do. Every day of my life, Anne is always between us. I know you bed other women, but I never worry about them because I know that for you there is only Anne, and that with her no other woman can compare! You don’t want a wife or a mistress, George; the only woman you want is Anne! And I hate her for it!’

George just stood there staring at me, then he shook his head and laughed at me. ‘You are deranged,’ he said, and then he left me. He went back to Anne, and I fell weeping onto my bed to cry myself to sleep.

But there would be no true rest for Anne. Henry continued to press her to grant him the ultimate favor, and all of her family, except George, took his side.

I spied on them one moonlit night in the gardens of Greenwich.

Anne stood steadfast in a gleaming gown of silver tissue, with diamond stars sparkling in her hair, while the King groveled at her feet like a lovesick swain.

Suddenly Anne seemed to wilt and pressed a hand to her brow. In the moonlight she seemed very pale.

Henry saw his chance and seized it. He clutched her close, pressing and grinding his loins, forcing her to feel his hardness through her skirts. His lips found hers, then traveled down her neck to her breasts, trussed high above the low, square-cut diamondbordered bodice. He peeled her gown down from her shoulders until her breasts were fully exposed, with the cool evening air stiffening her nipples. She tried to pull away but he held her fast, his cruel little mouth closing round each rosy pebble of flesh and leaving it glistening with drool. But when his hands began to fumble with her skirts she somehow found the strength to shove him away.

‘Anne, have mercy upon me! For three years I have lived like a monk, all for love of you! Do not be so cruel to one who has been nothing but kind to you. Give yourself to me, tonight, Anne!’

Anne drew up her gown, tucking her breasts back inside and folding her arms protectively across them.

‘And tomorrow have you show me what a nimble dancer you are as you dance out of your promise to make me queen?’

‘You are queen of my heart already!’ he protested.

‘But not of England! If you make me Queen of England I shall share your bed and give you sons; it was that we agreed upon, and I will keep my end of the bargain only if you keep yours!’

‘In time, Anne, all shall be yours in time! But for now…’ He reached for her again, but Anne slapped his hand away. ‘Is it not enough that I promise you my undying love?’

‘Would you chance your son being born a bastard?’ Anne asked icily.

‘No, no.’ Henry sighed, his great padded shoulders sagging in defeat. ‘That I cannot risk. For the sake of my unborn son I must damp my carnal lust, though I am in the sight of God a free man…’

‘But not in the eyes of men,’ Anne reminded him. ‘And until that day comes, I shall go alone to my bed.’ And with only the briefest of curtsies she left him.

Gleefully, I gathered up my skirts and raced back inside, eager to taunt George with what I had just seen. But George was not there and his valet could not—or would not—say where he had gone.

The valet was putting away some freshly laundered linens when I came in, and every time I asked his master’s whereabouts he studiously lowered his eyes and murmured, ‘I do not know, my lady.’ As he bent over the chest, I drew back my foot and kicked his plump posterior as hard as I could; then, seething with annoyance, I stormed into my own chamber and slammed the door.

I was very curt with my maid as she undressed me.

Joan was a timid country girl I had brought from Great Hallingbury to serve me; she had previously been a dairy maid and was not accustomed to waiting on great ladies. Her nervous fingers often fumbled and she was ever prone to dropping things. Father had always taught me that we must be patient with our inferiors, but tonight I was in no mood to remember the teachings of childhood, and when she pricked her finger on my ruby, pearl, and emerald flower brooch and dropped it, and one of the stones popped out of its setting, I swung round and struck her soundly across the face.

As she cringed and cowered before me, a trickle of blood snaking slowly from one nostril, I should have deplored my anger and tried to comfort her, but tonight I was so incensed by George’s absence that I just could not control myself, and instead I called her ‘a fumblefingers’ and said she was ‘as stupid as the cows she used to milk.’ I seized my heavy silver-backed hairbrush from my dressing table and flung it at her head as I ordered her from my sight. ‘Go back to your cows until you learn how to properly attend a lady!’ I shouted as she ran out, whimpering, with tears streaming down her face.

I finished undressing myself, and in my temper and haste I tangled the laces that fastened my ornate over-sleeves to my bodice and ended by tearing them badly. Furiously, I flung them down on the floor and kicked them into a corner in disgust. They were my best and most expensive sleeves—red velvet trimmed with golden tinsel and intricate gold embroidery—but at that moment all I cared about was the fact that George was elsewhere, making merry with his dissolute friends, no doubt.

Then, in my nightshift and dressing gown, I went into my husband’s room, ordered his valet to bank up the fire and be gone, and settled down in a chair to wait.

Hours passed and I fell into a doze. The dawn was already breaking when I finally heard voices outside the door. I sat up, wincing at the crick in my neck, and watched with mounting fury as the door swung open to reveal Francis Weston and Will Brereton supporting a very drunken George. He sagged there between them, his arms slung across their shoulders, head drooping, feet dragging, too drunk to walk unassisted.

Brereton was bemoaning the loss of a pair of fine Spanish leather boots that he had wagered when his coins were gone.

‘Be of good cheer, Will,’ Weston advised him. ‘All things Spanish are on their way out—or will be if the King has his way. You have merely anticipated the fashion!’

‘Aye.’ Brereton nodded. ‘He seeks to discard Queen Catherine like an old boot!’

It was then that they noticed me.

‘Ah, my Lady Rochford!’ Sir Francis exclaimed, using my new title. The King had given George the title of Viscount Rochford to please Anne. ‘I bid you good morning!’

I was in no mood to bandy words. ‘Put my husband down upon the bed and get out!’ I ordered sharply.

They smirked and exchanged a knowing glance as if to say ‘Is she not a bitch?’

Well, let them think what they would of me! Harpy, shrew, termagant, scold, bitch; I knew they called me all these things and more, lamenting that George was bound to me. How dare they keep my husband out, carousing the whole night through, then bring him home as insensate as a corpse with drink? What wife would not be upset? What right had they to smirk and roll their eyes at me when it was clearly their fault that George was in such a state? Did they honestly expect me to make them welcome, invite them to sit down by the fire, while I sent a servant running to fetch wine and cakes?

‘As you will, Lady Rochford!’ Weston shrugged. ‘Come, Will, let us not be remiss in giving satisfaction to the lady.’

‘Aye, never let it be said that we failed to give satis faction to a lady!’ Brereton chortled as they deposited George upon the bed.

‘Or gentleman either!’ Weston added cheekily.

‘Speak for yourself, Francis.’ Brereton patted him upon the back as he headed for the door. ‘You and I do not enjoy all the same games.’

Impatiently, I held the door open wide.

‘Upon my soul, Lady Rochford, never have I seen a more vicious viscountess with such a viperous tongue and so much venom in her eyes!’ Then, chuckling at his own wit, Brereton tipped his cap and sauntered away, whistling a merry tune.

I turned back to the bed impatiently, wondering why Weston lingered. And then I saw—George had begun to stir and had clapped a hand round Weston’s wrist and was trying to pull him down on top of him.

‘Nay, George,’ he said lightly, pulling back, ‘you are drunk, and I would not take advantage of you in such a state.’

‘Why ever not?’ George murmured, still holding fast to Weston’s wrist. ‘I want you to.’

‘Well, that makes all the difference in the world! But, nay, George, tempt me not! I would not have you for my lover, I would rather keep you as a friend; friends last longer. Now release me.’ He gently extricated his wrist. ‘Your wife is impatient to have me depart.’

‘As I am impatient to have her go!’ George cried with surprising savagery.

‘And where would you have me go, George?’ I inquired, coming to stand at the foot of the bed and tug off his muddy boots.

‘To the Devil!’ he shouted, wrenching his foot free and kicking out at me.

I jumped back, my left hand smarting from a wellaimed boot heel. ‘Go now, Sir Francis!’ I commanded, pointing adamantly at the door.

‘Your wish is my command!’ he said, gallantly doffing his cap. ‘Such scenes of domestic bliss are not for my eye.’

‘No doubt you are well accustomed to such scenes on the rare occasions when you deign to visit your wife!’ I cried.

‘Nay, Madame.’ He shook his head impishly. ‘When I am with my wife I am as good as gold. Verily, she thinks me a saint and worships the ground I walk upon. It would break my heart to disillusion her, so it is best she keep to the country while I tarry here at court.’

‘Well, you shall not tarry here!’ I shouted, flinging George’s boot at him. It thudded against the door just as Weston shut it.

‘George…’ I turned back to him and shook his shoulder, but he only slapped my hand away and snarled at me to ‘Leave off!’ Undaunted, I slipped off my robe and climbed into bed beside him and wrapped my arms around him.

With great effort, he pulled himself up, shouting in a voice loud and slurred that he was going to find another bed, but as he took a step forward, he staggered, fell to the floor, and vomited.

‘Oh, George! George!’ I railed at him, pounding the bed with my fists. ‘Why do you let them do this to you? The loathsome creatures!’

At the sight of my husband lying huddled upon the floor, retching and heaving up the wine and rich food Weston and his friends had urged upon him, my heart surged with tenderness. I felt a great need to comfort and protect him even as I clucked over his misdeeds like a mother hen, nurturing and at the same time chiding her chick. I knelt beside him on the floor, stroking his hair, shoulders, and back, until the spasms ceased; then I struggled to help him up and back onto the bed. He lay there, moaning and groaning in misery, grudgingly tolerating my soothing hands and the kisses I showered upon his brow.

‘Lie still, my love, and let me take care of you!’

He lay still and let me bathe his face. At my tender coaxing, he sat up so I could ease the doublet from his shoulders and draw the stained and stinking white shirt over his head. Then, with a groan, he fell back against the pillows and was still once again, offering no resistance as I peeled away his breeches and hose, pausing to kiss and glide my hands over his flesh. I could not help myself. I kissed and caressed every part of him, and he did not resist me. His manhood sprang to life between my hands and, with an exclamation of triumph and delight, I lifted my nightshift over my head, casting it aside with carefree abandon as I straddled him.

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