May had by now faded and was being daily persuaded to give way to summer. The sun stretched its rays further and stronger, like a thousand lances determined to strike a strong blow and leave a red mark. The sun was the only challenge to his glory that Henry could not conquer, Anne thought with a wry smile.
He caught her smile and laughed. “How do I amuse you, mistress?”
“I am not your mistress! Nor your wife!” Anne yelled, being careful to keep the reins in hand. This horse was much different than the courser she had in France. She did not care for his churlish temper.
“For a good Christian, you have little faith!”
Henry motioned to his privy guard to hand him a pike, which the boy did with great trouble, being similarly mounted just beside Henry. Henry took the long weapon and dealt Anne’s horse a glancing blow on the rump. The animal ran with great spirit, and Anne cursed this king who was determined to spur her from comfort.
She pulled tightly on the reins, careful not to unseat herself, with her thick bodice and train making any movement difficult. At least Catherine and her court were not on this procession to see her humiliation. Henry spoke out loud as if intimacies had passed between them. Anne hated the taint it bore her, the dirty feeling in her spirit that anyone would think she was unfaithful to Lord Percy or to her Christian duty. Yet what could she say? Henry was master of the realm, and every knee bowed in reverence, making him wholly incapable of understanding anyone else.
“Au premier, L’ Pleazaunce!” she heard him call behind her, and as her horse steadied and slowed, taking a turn in the road, she beheld it: Greenwich Castle, “the pleasant manor,” as Henry called it. Indeed, it was different than his castle at Windsor. Windsor was a grand lady that impressed every visitor with the weight of her history, like a grandmother pouring an old, heavy necklace into the palm of a young girl.
Greenwich was much freer. There were many small buildings, but their charm was not their construction, for they each had small angled eaves and only a few rose above them with spires. But there was an endless army of trees, decked in green and glittering with birds, whose songs filled the air as the royal party entered, her train being lifted by a gentle breeze as she dismounted. Her servants jumped from their horses to assist her, lest the king order them lashed, but she was faster than they were and was off her mount and walking about before they even reached her.
Anne was immediately surrounded by great, tall magical yews and thick, full, long-suffering beeches. Peace lived here; she knew it.
Henry had dismounted and joined her. His face beamed with great pride and appetite. Anne sensed he was hungry after this ride. She hoped he would restrain himself to merely his appetite for victuals. She hadn’t the energy to stay awake through the night and keep watch over her door to prevent his entry yet again.
“The palace sits on the River Thames,” he said, motioning beyond the cluster of red brick-and-plaster buildings. “When the tide turns every seven hours or so, you can catch a barge to any other estate.”
Wolsey was not far behind them. “Yes, Henry was born here … his mother’s most perfect consolation after a hard and difficult labor.”
“Yes.” Henry nodded, but to Anne, not Wolsey. “It is the home of many revelries. I am a king of the people, am I not? All comers are welcome here for jousts, if they do not mind a sore stripe and broken lance!”
Why was everything directed at her? Anne grumbled inwardly. Did she want these prizes? He went to great trouble to present her with these affections, but they were unwholesome. Any move she made only encouraged. To protest gave him license to overcome her disdain. Heaven forbid she praise him, for there’d be no end to his great leapings and posturings.
She had found no way yet to dissuade him in his attentions, to allow her to return to Percy. She reached in her pocket and patted her prayer beads. They were there, as always. She had rubbed them through her fingers so often these last weeks that she feared one day she would reach into her pocket and they would crumble beneath her touch. No prayer beads were meant to withstand this much use, she was sure. When she was alone, she sank to her knees and said her prayers aloud, and when she was attended, she kept the beads in her pocket and said them silently. Once she had fallen asleep in her bed, saying her prayers, and was awakened when the beads hit the floor. She had sat upright in bed and saw a sudden fluttering of the curtains drawn closed around her bed.
“Leave us!” Henry bellowed, and the attendants fled back to their mounts.
“Wolsey, you as well,” Henry said. Wolsey bowed and fell back.
Henry grasped her hand and tried to lean against a trunk, but Anne’s head began to ache. She thought it was the strong sunlight so she moved deeper in the shadows, the woods that surrounded the palace grounds. She hoped Henry would notice her discomfort and not take this retreat into shadow as a sign of encouragement.
The earth was so soft under her feet and, unsteady after a hard ride, she leaned into his grasp … then wished she hadn’t. Henry slipped his arm around her side, dropping her hand, glad to have reason to touch more of her. The birds still sang, and there were so many varieties here that their trilling overlapped and wove together a song unique to this place.
“Everyone in the court observes the order I set,” Henry said. “How many dishes they may eat, and when, and where they may sit, where they may stand, and what clothes they may wear, what they may say and when.”
Anne continued her walk. It was misery. She wanted a still bed and a dark room.
“Only here do I know what it is to be a subject. How small I am against this king.” Perhaps he meant it to affect righteousness, but he sounded depressed, as if he would rule this world too if he could.
Anne bit her lip and kept walking.
“Anne,” he said, pulling against her, stopping her in the path.
She turned to look at him, and his face was that of a boy, lit with desire for some great prize. She noticed her stomach had turned sour and didn’t know if her head or her sovereign was to blame.
“Anne, I am your servant too.” He pulled a velvet drawstring from the pocket of his cloak and reached for her hand. She held it there stupidly, confused why this monarch would abase himself before her, when her sober judgment of him was so plainly spoken between them. But men had lost their lives for scorning his charity. She would at least not make their mistake.
He loosened the sack and dropped a fat green emerald ring into his palm before lifting it to set it on her ring finger on the right hand. It was a square-cut emerald, as big as a walnut. It weighed her hand down.
“Henry, I cannot accept this.” She took hold of the ring to pull it off. “This gift belongs to your wife, not me.”
His shoulders fell and he looked away from her. Shaking his head, he walked off a few paces. “Is there no one at this court who believes in me?” he muttered. “Anne, you have read the papers I delivered?”
“Of course,” she lied. These were endless technical papers drawn up by lawyers attesting that his marriage to Catherine was invalid.
“There can be no greater danger than a monarch ruling in dishonour. When I die, civil war would break out, a hundred different nobles claiming the throne for themselves. And who would die, Anne? Is it not the poorest, who send their sons into service when the grain gets low?”
“You have a daughter from Catherine to rule England when you’re gone,” Anne reminded him.
“What woman could rule England?” Henry bellowed.
“What does Queen Catherine say to the papers?”
He shrugged, coming back to her and taking her hands. “She will not read the papers, but she knows my intention. She will woo me back, or turn everyone against me.”
Anne tried to pull her hands out from his but he drew her closer yet. She was crushed against his chest, his arms wrapping around her waist, with her looking up at him, the sunlight burnishing his red hair and making his eyes glisten like embers.
“I will not be won. Only, do not abandon me, Anne. Swear it. Swear allegiance to your king.”
“Do not say that, my lord,” she whispered.
He crushed her tighter. “Swear allegiance to your king!”
“I swear my allegiance,” she said under her breath, thinking the pressure would cause her to black out.
She could smell his robes, anointed with cinnamon oil and spices, as the heavy gold and jeweled chain around his shoulders crushed into her skin. The shining hurt her eyes, and the world spun. She let him take more of her weight.
“Wolsey, More, the men of the Star Chamber, they would choose tranquility with her over my conscience,” he said. “I am suffering, but do you see me complaining in the streets? No. As a man, I do not matter. I do not exist. It is as king that I must act, and I must do what is right.”
“As must I,” she said, finally pushing him away. “I cannot lie with you. I cannot receive your gifts. You must not try to persuade me again. Let me return to the court and marry Lord Percy.”
He looked stung, but the look deepened as if the venom found a quick vein. “Lord Percy does not wait for you. He married another last week, did you not hear? A woman of excellent name.”
Anne gasped, her mouth hanging foolishly. She prayed she would not cry in front of him and bit her lip.
“I have brought you to my table, Anne, and given you a brace of cards. Whether you lose or win is your decision, but you are in the game. And you will wear that,” he said, pointing to the ring.
They walked back out into the sunlight, Anne clutching him harder. Her legs were weakening, and she had no energy to support her throbbing head. The guards and courtiers all averted their eyes. Wolsey walked to them.
Henry grabbed her hand and presented it, with the fat emerald upon it.
Wolsey’s mouth puckered. “Well.”
Henry burst out laughing. “Well,” he mimicked.
“You will not be dissuaded? You know the type of woman she is. You know what she brought into your courts,” Wolsey said with a shake of his head.
Henry bowed to her, a great embarrassment in front of the malicious court, and began his walk into the palace.
Wolsey began to follow him, but Anne grabbed his hand. It was cool in comparison to her own. Wolsey’s eyes narrowed, and he shook himself free.
“Please, Cardinal,” Anne said, “this is not my work.”
“What do you want from me, Anne? You have more influence with the king than I in this matter.”
“No! You have more influence,” she replied. “And you have the Pope’s ear.”
He studied her. “I thought you did not want to be a queen.”
“I do not want to be a mistress! Only you can protect his name, and mine.”
Wolsey looked at her, his eyes watery and soft in the bright sun. He had a kind face, Anne thought, too kind for this work. This was not the age for men of compassion.
“You have shown yourself as an enemy of the realm, Anne. In time Henry will see it too. This is a prophecy as certain as anything in that black book you secreted away in your trunk.”
He took his leave of her without another word, and Anne was left alone while yet surrounded by courtiers and guards who did not speak to her as they moved past. She waited for her attendant to find her and show her which room at Greenwich was to be hers and tried to keep from crying in front of any of them. She bit down on the inside of her cheek and clenched her lips together.
The sun bore down strangely, and sweat beaded along her lip and down between her breasts. She shrugged, trying to make herself comfortable as the heat grew remorseless. A cough rattled her chest—not the deep cough of a winter cold, but a choking, bloody cough. She saw the sleeves of her dress speckle with red as she covered her mouth.
The last thing she remembered was hearing Catherine’s courtiers arriving behind Henry’s procession. Henry had brought his queen in on the progress after all. Anne fell to the ground, thinking of this doomed queen who held everyone’s heart but his. She wished to be trampled under the hooves of a fast horse so she could be absent at last from this world.
She was aware of voices, warm and whispering, all around her. She laid there, listening for the one voice she always heard in her dreams, but it was not among them. Instead, she recognized the clipped, short speech of Dr. Butts, the court physician, a man of many remedies and few words. She felt his hand on her forehead and heard him whisper.
“Graces, no!” another voice said.
Anne opened her eyes. She grabbed his hand and jerked it from her forehead and sank back, lifeless, onto the pillows. Why was she so weak?
The men stared at her dispassionately. She tried to make her gaze fierce but began to shake, as helpless before them as a bent old woman. She shook so hard the linens quaked all around her and slipped down, revealing an immodest view of her bosom. She saw she was in her linen shift and it afforded a generous view at the moment. She saw her chest was spattered with blood.
Dr. Butts began putting his bottles back into his bag and spoke to the other man, not to her. “We’ll have to inform the king of this. You know how he detests sickness, especially the sweats. The Boleyn name pollutes everyone it touches. Her attendant, Jane, has fallen too. Send Miss Boleyn away from court, back to her parents at Hever Castle. We’re done with her.”
She watched them leave, without giving her even so much as the dignity of a nod or bothering to adjust the linens so she was not exposed. She tasted something—old blood?—in her mouth. She wished for the crown, thinking how she would use it to crush this man. She had been indifferent to the promise of power until she had someone to hurt. Now she was tasting revenge.
A violent tremor shook her, and warmth moved through her body. She thought she was dying, and it was clean and tasted sweet. She slipped away.
The room was dark when she awoke. Anne did not know how many hours, or days, had passed. Her tongue was thick and dry. Everything within her cried out for a drink. Her very bones were made of sawdust and brimstone; the fever burned through her thoroughly. She groped about in the dark, finding the table next to her bed but no bell upon it.
“Help,” she called, with no energy behind it. No one came.
“Help me!” she called again, but nothing beyond her door stirred. She sank back onto the pillows and fell back into unconsciousness.
When she awoke again, the sun was piercing the curtains, splitting the mattress she was lying upon into light and shadow. Strength was returning to her flesh, though her tongue remained swollen and cracked. It burned as she opened her mouth to call for help, but no noise came out that would bring anyone to her door. Hoisting herself into an upright position, she banged her head against the wall above her bed, wincing from the pain it caused and the halos she saw as the room doubled and spun around her.
The door swung open and her brother cried out when she saw her. “She’s alive!”
Anne sank down as George rushed to her side, touching her forehead and calling for others to come and help. Her father poked his head in the room.
“Fetch wine and some cool rags—hurry!” George commanded him.
Anne did not remember the next few days that passed, only the comforts they brought. She remembered the sweet stinging warmth of the wine flowing over her cracked mouth and tongue, filling her empty belly and making the pain in her joints and head less worrisome. She remembered soft rags dipped in cool water from great bowls of copper, brought to her bedside and laid over her forehead and face. She remembered her first appetite for food, the way the smashed berries, so early in the harvest, tasted on her tongue. She didn’t care that the juice ran down her mouth and stained her shift. All of her bedclothes would be burned anyway.
Her brother slept on the trundle that pulled free from under her bed. He did not mind that this was a duty most often left to women. He loved Anne better than himself, he told everyone, and would trust none to care for her as he would.
Her tongue was healing, but her lips broke their cracks whenever she tried to speak, bringing tears to her eyes. She had not tried to say much, only pointing to what she needed as her brother attended her every day. But there was one name she must speak, one question she had to know. She prayed it was over, and she was home to stay.
“Henry?” Anne asked, her voice like a rusted spit grinding against its stake.
George went back to wetting rags. He laid one on Anne’s head and attempted to cover her face next, but Anne shook it off.
“Henry?” she asked again. She had to know. Perchance God had delivered her while she slept.
“He fled to his estate in Essex the moment he knew you were ill. We sent word when the fever broke. You recovered against all hope, a sign of God’s favour. The king’s heart rejoices with us. They say he has burned with a desire to know of your health, to see you once more.” He sounded flat as he recounted all this, and Anne saw tears in his eyes.
“George,” she whispered. Her heart was dead at this news.
“Why, Anne? Why did you let yourself be pulled into this? Was it not enough that he ruined our sister? Why must he have you, too? Why did you not protect us from this disgrace?”
Anne wanted to cry, but she had no tears. Her body was so dry from the fever, so used and parched, that it took great effort to deliberately wet her tongue enough to speak. George continued, busying himself with the rags, a cold, indifferent tone in his voice.
“The queen and her daughter, Mary, left the court, following the king. They are with him right now. They were not touched by the sweating sickness.”
There was still hope. Anne took her hand, the movement exhausting her once again. She raised her chin, trying to get George to stay close so she wouldn’t have to use too much energy to talk. “There is a nun. She speaks for God. Send for her.”
“The Mad Nun?” George asked, standing back, chewing his lip.
“Go!” Anne commanded.