Anne Boleyn: A Novel (20 page)

“When did you hear this?” he asked her.

“Yesterday,” she lied, “but I hadn’t the heart to spoil the hunt for you by telling you. However, I thought it best to tell you now, before she makes an open scandal. Also, I wanted to deny it to you, Harry. I know you’d never believe it of me, but I wanted to assure you just the same. I’m promised to no man except you. And I’ve loved no man in my whole life, except yourself.”

Immediately he was ashamed of his suspicion that the preparations and her unusual sweetness were the prelude to the disclosure. She had known and been fretting since the day before, and hadn’t liked to worry him...He was moved too, by that declaration of her love, and roused by the lovely shape of her face as she knelt before him, with the hair which was such a feature of her beauty streaming down over her shoulders.

He held her face in his hands, eager to hear the words again.

“You’ve loved only me. Nan? Not Percy or Wyatt...Wyatt’s a fine fellow and no one could blame you. It used to be rumored in the old days...”

“Not Percy, and not Wyatt,” she assured him gently. “Wyatt’s my cousin; we played together as children, and he had a love for me once, but I never returned it. I love you, Harry, with all my heart, and you’ve never had a rival for it.”

He caught her in his arms and kissed her, murmuring endearments, but with a great effort she freed herself, one eye on the empty wine cup. She could surrender now, but he was sober and she dared not.

“Come to the table,” she urged him.

She served him herself; a great helping of lampreys, and spiced river trout, then a carving of mutton with a slice of game pasty in a thick golden crust. She poured his wine and he swallowed it eagerly, and sat down to eat, herself, when his plate was full, talking and laughing and reaching out to him across the table. He drank a great deal, pausing between courses to refresh himself with quinces and the hard cool apples which grew in the kitchen gardens at Hampton. The golden wine pitcher was empty, and he grimaced as he put it down.

“I have another on the serving table,” she assured him and brought it to him; she poured till it slopped over the edge of his goblet and then left the jug at his elbow.

His face was flushed, and he loosened the collar of his doublet, and eased the jeweled dagger belt round his waist.

He ate another helping of fish, while she sucked grapes and watched him; he laughed at her with his mouth full.

“What witchcraft do you practice on the cooks, love? I’ve not eaten lampreys as good as these for months.”

“No witchcraft, Harry. Just a box on the ear, if it’s not to your liking. And a silver piece if it is.”

“They’ll have a gold piece from me tonight,” he promised. “Ah, Nan, what a good wife you’ll make me!”

“The best in the world,” she answered. “Let’s drink to it, Harry. The King’s goodwife! May his platter be full and his linen well stitched!”

They drank the toast, and he leaned toward her, refilling his glass and hers.

“And may his bed be warm, Nan!”

This was the moment and she knew it. His voice was thick, and his hand wandered, trying to set down the wine jug. When he did so, a red stain spread over the polished surface of the table.

She left her chair and went to him and stood in front of him without saying a word.

“You look like a bride,” he mumbled, half to himself. He put both hands round her waist and noticed that she wore no corselet, without understanding why.

“I’ve waited, and waited, Nan...God’s love, will the time never come...”

“It’s come,” she whispered. “My love can’t bear another hour of waiting.”

He raised himself slowly, unable to believe what he heard. Night and day for six long years he had wanted her and pleaded with her to surrender, and at first his mind rejected the notion that she actually meant to yield. He was confused and heavy with wine and the food; his heart pounded as he drew her close to him, and pulled her up in his arms till her mouth was in reach of his own.

She caught him tightly round the neck, and kissed him first slowly, and then with fierce intensity; desire leaped in him like a sheet of flame. He heard her whisper against his lips, “No more waiting, Harry...Carry me, beloved...”

His chair fell backward as he picked her up, and for a moment he stood with her in his arms, the hem of her white dress touching the floor, and they looked into each other’s eyes. Then hers closed, and her face was hidden against his neck. She felt him move with her across the room. He walked unsteadily, and the hangings which covered the entrance to her bedroom brushed against her as he pushed through them. Then the movement stopped, and she knew that he had reached the bed.

It was nearly dawn when she awoke; streaks of gray light patterned the floor through the edges of the window curtain, and the birds were roused and beginning to twitter in the trees outside. She turned her head and saw him lying beside her, one heavy arm flung outside the sheet. She moved cautiously, afraid of waking him, and lay quietly listening to the sounds of the new day. They had forgotten to draw the bed curtains and she could see the shapes of the furniture in the room, and the white dress lying crumpled and torn on the floor. She raised her arms above her head and stretched; she might have been at Hever, waking warm with happiness and Tom Wyatt by her pillow. It was the same feeling, relaxed and safe and curiously tender, so that she leaned over the sleeping King and kissed his forehead. At one point in the night he had wept like a child, and she cradled him in her arms, comforting this strange manifestation of passion which she didn’t understand, until he slept, his head as heavy as a boulder on her breast. And then he woke again and turned to her with joy.

It was the end and the beginning; the end of the long cruel game she had played with him and herself, and the beginning of a new life, as if in the night she had been reborn. He was a strange man, she thought gently, sensitive and emotional, and nervous, in spite of his great physique; she saw that side of him when the wine had worn off, and he came to her after the first quick, unthinking consummation.

His expectation in her was fulfilled; the man who babbled his adoration a few hours ago could never be turned away from her now.

She lay back on the pillows, smiling, and went to sleep.

The treaty of alliance with France was duly signed and plans went forward for Henry’s visit to the French King. In Rome, where the divorce case dragged on, prevented from coming to any conclusion by endless squabbling over points of law, the news of the treaty was received with alarm. The Emperor, busy repelling an invasion by the Grand Turk Suleiman, made it clear to Clement that he was in no position to enforce a sentence of excommunication with troops, at that time, so the Pope continued to work for a compromise.

Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury was dead, having fought to the last to preserve the Church’s liberty, and Clement knew that the ability of the English clergy to continue their resistance depended on the man who took Warham’s place. He was heartened by rumors that the King intended to submit Dr. Cranmer as the candidate. Cranmer had spent some time at the Vatican and thoroughly gained Clement’s confidence; his charm and loyalty to the Holy See contrasted sharply with the bullying worldliness of England’s other emissaries. The Pope trusted and liked him, and after Cranmer spent some time at the imperial court, even the Emperor held him in esteem.

Clement prayed that Cranmer might be the nominee, and then in September all Europe heard that Anne Boleyn had been created Marchioness of Pembroke, granted lands and a large fortune, with the right of her sons to succeed her, regardless of their legitimacy. And all Europe jumped to the same conclusion. She had yielded and the King had given up his plan to marry her. Money and the title were the compensation.

The new Marchioness of Pembroke sat in her apartments at Greenwich Palace, listening to Margaret Wyatt playing a gay melody on her lute; she sat in a high-backed chair, tapping her foot and humming. She was dressed in a gown of soft gray velvet, with a silver embroidered petticoat, and white ermine tails edged her wide outer sleeves; the inner sleeve came to a point over her wrist and matched the shining petticoat.

The pale colors didn’t suit her as well as her favorite scarlet or green or the dazzling white which enhanced her dark coloring, but they suited the huge sapphires she wore around her neck, matched by the stones glowing in the frame of her headdress. They were Catherine’s jewels; part of her dowry from Aragon. Henry had sent for them and given them to Anne. The casket stood in her room, and there were sets of emeralds, huge and cold, like drops of living green, and the bloody warmth of rubies, made into necklaces too heavy for Anne to wear without alteration; the rings were too big and had to be adjusted, and there was a caul of pearls and diamonds that the King made her put aside for her wedding day. She often opened the casket lid and took the fabulous pieces out and looked at them, but the pearls she had especially asked for had been kept back by the Queen. They had belonged to the great Isabella of Castile, and she refused to part with them, even for Henry.

He had asked her what she wanted the day after that supper, bursting into her room while she was dressing to go down and eat the midday meal in the great hall. He sent her women out of the room and caught her up in his arms, his eager mouth closing her own, until he set her down and laughed with pure exuberance, telling her that she had made him the happiest man in Christendom and he wanted to give her something as a token of his love. The offer took her by surprise; later, she told him, feeling his urgency rising again with the contact between them; later she would think of something. She never went to the great hall that afternoon; she lay in the King’s arms in the privacy of her bed.

When they dined together that evening, she asked him for a rank in her own right which would protect her from the snubs of women like her Aunt Norfolk. He agreed immediately; when she requested a grant of lands and the right of her children to succeed her irrespective of legitimacy, he leaned across and held her hand in both of his, asking her tenderly why she wanted such safeguards...Didn’t she know his resolve to marry her was greater than it had ever been? Just the same, she should have them, in fact, anything she wished. His adored and beloved, he called her.

When she asked for some of Catherine’s jewels he paused for a second, and his expression clouded; then it cleared, so quickly that she could never be sure afterward that she hadn’t imagined it, and he nodded. She should have them. They were the Queen of England’s jewels, and she was going to be Queen.

Her father was told nothing; they scarcely spoke after that bitter quarrel, but Anne saw him watching the King dangling after her, peevish if she were absent from him even for an hour, and knew that he was puzzled.

The announcement of the title was her answer to him, and she appeared at court wearing Catherine’s jewels on the same day.

Nearly a month had passed since that night, when she walked through the gallery at Hampton with her hand on Henry’s arm, and heard the whispers rising to an excited buzz behind them. He looked down at her and smiled encouragement, and patted her fingers, because he felt them clenched on his sleeve.

“We’ve given them something to mull over, sweet,” he murmured. “They’ll have more yet. Tonight they greet My Lady Pembroke but they’ll bow to her Grace of England before long.”

Before the week was out they were saying he had decided not to marry her; in the chorus of envy and slander that followed her there was a note of satisfaction. She might be a Marchioness with unprecedented rights and wealth, but she was only the King’s mistress, when she had expected to be Queen. Anne listened and said nothing, marking her enemies down for the future. She would be Queen of England. For the first time in her life she was certain of that, because she believed fervently that their liaison would result in pregnancy. Whatever the outcome, she was secure, if her father’s prophecy and the hopes of all who hated her were realized and Henry tired of her—she smiled at the thought—and she bore no child in time, she wouldn’t be dismissed into obscurity like her sister Mary, with nothing but old scandal and her memories to remind her of Henry’s love...

That same month her hopes had risen; surely she was fuller, she thought, standing sideways before her mirror. And appetite was said to be a sign...But that same day the hope was disappointed, and she sent the unsuspecting King to hunt without her, in spite of his pleading. Wyatt’s sister kept her company, so did Meg Shelton, whom she liked, and an impulse of malice suggested her sister-in-law Jane Rochford. It eased the pain of foolish disappointment to see Jane sitting in the window seat, enduring the afternoon because she dared not refuse the invitation.

How that woman hated her. She laid down her sewing and began to talk of the coming visit to France with Henry, and said clearly that her brother George must be among the company; she couldn’t bear to leave him languishing in England, with nothing to amuse him...

Norfolk was making the arrangements, and she decided suddenly to see him and discuss them. A page was sent with her message. The Marchioness of Pembroke requested His Grace of Norfolk to attend on her immediately.

She began sewing again, smiling at some verses Shelton and Margaret were composing, while two other ladies came into the room, and joined the gathering. They sat and stood round her chair, exactly as she and others used to do in the days they attended on Catherine. She was in Catherine’s place, wearing her jewels, taking her seat at table in public, going to France with Henry. At that point she asked Meg Shelton the time. It was nearly four o’clock.

Norfolk had kept her waiting half an hour.

When her page announced him he strode across the floor, clattering in riding boots and spurs, his eyes screwed up with anger, ready to do battle.

He was furious at the summons. Just returned from hawking, he was tired and hungry when Anne’s messenger came. He roared at the boy to wait, while he was served with food and ale, fuming at the impertinence.