40

HE DOESN’T RETURN.

I want to write to him, but cannot send a letter. Not only could it be opened and read by his wife, by my father, by anyone, but I don’t know what to say.

I miss you?

I’m sorry?

I’m jealous that you are at court and I am not. I’m jealous that the court gets you and I do not. I miss his company. Having someone to talk to. Having a friend.

Just a friend.

On a troubled day in early April, one that spits with rain then trembles with a cold north wind, a clatter in the courtyard wakes me from my lonely stupor. I look out of the leaded window and see a big bay horse. A flash of green.

I am suddenly embarrassed by my old gray gown, the high neckline, the simple coif that covers my hair. I am completely unadorned and unbeautiful, and I am suddenly afraid to see him.

“Master Wyatt.”

The steward, barely gracious, leaves the room abruptly.

I just stand and stare, tugging at my gown as if I could make it fit better with a pull in the right direction.

“Wyatt.”

I flame with embarrassment at how drunk I got the last time he visited. How I practically threw myself at him. How I drove him away with my brazenness and childish fears.

“Anne.”

His voice is rough, unused. He is so uncomfortable. We are so uncomfortable.

“Why are you here?” I blurt, and bite my tongue. “I mean . . . welcome.”

He doesn’t move. I’ve offended him and yet I can’t apologize. I can’t face his criticism or his censure. Nor can I face his expression—a combination of fear and sorrow.

“I have news.”

“From court?” My voice sounds small—pathetic—even to my own ears.

“Yes. Your sister. She has a daughter. Catherine.”

Another Boleyn girl.

“Thank you for bringing such good news.” We don’t move. He’s still at the door, ready to bolt.

“There is more. Not so good. Our mortality is so close to the surface, Anne. It takes only a fleeting event to break the skin of it.”

“Is it Mary?” I finally manage to whisper. Images flood my mind. Mary making me a crown of daisy chains. Crying when she left me in France. Wrapping her arms around me like a mother.

“No!” Wyatt takes one step toward me, hand outstretched. “The king . . . it’s the king.”

My extremities tingle. As if with cold. As if with too much wine. I fall back against the paneling.

“What?”

Wyatt is not the messenger of death. I would have known. I would have felt it. But he is disheveled. Agitated.

“You haven’t heard?”

I shake my head, unable to speak.

“There was a tournament. He was . . . showing off.”

“What happened?” I croak, my lips barely able to form the words.

“The Duke of Suffolk. His lance struck the king.”

Wyatt is visibly shaken. A little wild. He’s staring right into my eyes as if his very gaze could keep me from flying apart.

“Unhorsed him?”

“Yes.” Wyatt sinks to a bench. “His visor was up.”

“It struck him in the face?”

No one could survive that. Not even the king. I start to shake, and clench my skirts to still my trembling hands.

“No.” Wyatt has not moved, but somehow seems more distant. “The chest. He fell, heavily. But the lance shattered—splintered in his face.”

“He’s . . .” I can’t say the words. Disfigured? Blinded?

“He’s fine. He got up and rode again. More fool him.” The last is a whisper. It is treason to speak against the king.

“He had to prove he was well.” My words and my small voice cannot encompass the relief I feel. “He has his country to think of. He had to show his strength.”

“Our strength comes not from our ability to cheat mortality, Anne, but from our capacity to love. If I were so close to death, I would run. Even if I were called a coward. Run to the one I love and find life there. Life and truth.”

He stares at me. Into me. I think of his arms around me, safe in the dark. Life and truth. What is he telling me?

“And the king didn’t do that,” I say quietly.

“No.”

I think of Mary and her new baby girl. A familiar twinge of jealousy followed by shame. I’m ashamed of my own relief that he didn’t go to her.

Everything I feel is tight in my chest—packed in cotton wool and doused in gunpowder—ready to explode at a single spark.

I rub my hands on my skirts and say the first thing that comes into my head.

“I’m glad the king is well.”

Wyatt nods. Stares at his hands. Runs one across his face. Stands quickly.

“I brought something more tangible than news.” He retraces his steps to the door. From behind the frame, he retrieves a lute. Its back is a beautiful blond wood that fairly glows, and the rose is carved with intricate knots.

My chest aches.

“Oh,” I say. “Oh, Wyatt. It’s beautiful.”

He hands it to me. Carefully. As if I might bite. The lute has nine courses, and when I pluck at each of the seventeen strings, they’re already tuned. He must have done it himself before coming inside.

I can’t stop the tears that spring to my eyes.

“Oh, Wyatt. It’s the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me.”

“Perhaps now you can call me Thomas.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I tease. I look up from the lute.

“Try.”

“Thomas.” The name feels odd on my tongue. Precious. Decadent.

His gaze is so concentrated I have to look away. I pick out a tune, slowly. The notes don’t resonate beneath my fingers. The music I make is dull and timorous.

“I haven’t played since . . .” I can’t tell him. I haven’t played since I gambled away my virginity to Henry Percy. “Since the night of the joust.”

“I see.”

I want to be able to play it. I want to play it for him.

“I think my dream is coming true,” I blurt, my fingers stumbling.

“You just need the right music.”

He takes the lute from me, plucks a note. He is not an accomplished lutenist. But he makes music. Something I haven’t heard in many months.

“Lucks, my fair falcon, and your fellows all,

How well pleasant it were your liberty!

Ye not forsake me that fair might ye befall.

But they that sometime liked my company,

Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl.

Lo, what a proof in light adversity!

But ye, my birds, I swear by all your bells,

Ye be my friends, and so be but few else.”

“The story of my life,” I say. “None but the birds as my friends.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“And you, of course. You are my friend, no matter what George says.”

Thomas nods and hands me back the lute. Our fingers touch on the neck of it, and a chord strikes bright and perfect beneath my skin.

He lets go. Pulls away. Walks back toward the fire.

“I’m going to be given the clerkship of the jewels,” he says. “My father is vacating the position specifically so I can take it on. Some responsibility.”

“Not exactly poetic. Inventory and valuation.”

“No. And it means I have less freedom.”

“Ah. Your father sounds like mine. The less freedom, the better. And no room for music and poetry when there are numbers to be reckoned.”

“The king seems eager to keep me at court, as well. To keep me close.”

“That’s a good thing,” I say, more to remind myself than to remind him. I swallow my jealousy. And my disappointment.

“Isn’t it?” I add lamely.

I want him to disagree. But he nods, slowly.

“Yes. Our fathers would agree on that.”

I stare at the lute so he can’t see my tears. I run my fingers along the knots of the rose, keeping my eyes wide so the tears don’t fall.

Thomas kneels in front of me and lifts my chin. He strokes my cheekbone with his thumb, taking a tear with it.

“You can sing, Anne. No matter how he tries to silence you.”

I nod, and he sits back on his heels.

“Try,” he says again.

I pick out a tune. My fingers are unsure and unpracticed. The notes throb against me like an age-old bruise, feeling good and painful all at once.

The tune is one the king wrote, a combination of chords and individually plucked strings. I remember him playing it one night in the queen’s chambers. He called it “If Love Now Reigned.”

The more I play, the more the music feels a part of me.

“You play like he does.”

The thought warms me, warms my fingers. I bend deeper into the notes, forgetting myself, forgetting Hever, living a memory of music and the scent of cloves.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Lost in thought and melody, I hardly hear him. But one word spikes through my reverie.

“You’re leaving? You just got here.”

He stands and strides to the door.

“I must go back to court. Responsibilities.”

“Thank you,” I call, uncertainty wavering my voice. “For the lute. And for the song.”

“I wanted to visit.” He turns, but doesn’t smile. “I can’t come back.”

He leaves behind an empty hole of doubt. I fill it with the weight of all my words and play the lute until my fingers bleed. And still the pain doesn’t match that of my loneliness.