Anne then knelt on the floor near the two of us and held out a hand. George and I each took one of her fragile, delicate hands in one of our own hands, callused by much hard riding and made strong by the virtue of our manly estate. I then turned to George and we clasped together our free hands. We looked long at one another, smiling and tightening our grip on each other’s hands.
“Yea,” George said, and his voice was thick with the strength of his emotions. “We have much in life to be thankful for.”
“Aye. As long as we have each other, we will surely withstand all the dire twists and turns that might befall us in the future,” Anne softly replied. Her grip on my hand again increased, and my eyes gazed into hers. There was so much that had been left unsaid between us three, but then, what comes from the heart is often said without the use of simple, spoken words.
“I feel we should take a cup of wine and drink to our lifelong fellowship,” I then said, releasing their hands after a final, gently increased pressure. I walked over to a small, roughly hewed oak table placed near the chamber’s window where a ceramic flask of wine and some silver goblets had been put.
I filled up three goblets, taking up two to pass to Anne and George. I then took up my goblet and returned to my cousins.
“To loving fellowship,” I said.
“To loving fellowship!” Anne and George responded together, smiling broadly.
And so we touched goblets, and drank the wine.
“So, verily,” George said, breaking into the drawn-out, heavy silence that had developed between us—a silence which, nonetheless, spoke strongly to us of our deep and abiding friendship. “I do not know about you, my two good people, but I have ridden hard this day and have not eaten since early morn. Excuse me while I leave you both for a few minutes so I can go and find myself some food.”
George then walked over to the small table, placed his empty goblet down near the jug of wine, and then went out the door.
Thus, Anne and I were left alone for a few moments. Anne breathed in deeply, and sighed. She looked at me with eyes shining with unshed tears, and asked: “Do you think I should tell George what has really happened here, between you and I?”
I turned my head to glance out the window above the window seat. I could see by the diminishing light that the lovely summer’s day was rapidly passing us by. The light coming into the room reminded me of the surf upon a beach being drawn back into the sea. One moment the light was strong, the next moment weakened. The moment after that the wave of light was strong again, but not as strong, and, in the next breath, the light entering the room was further weakened. And so the pattern would be continued, until darkness in the end took dominion. I could not help reflecting that there was a pattern to all natural things and this pattern was continued even into our own lives.
I then turned my attention back to Anne, to answer her question with a question: “Do you want to tell George?”
Anne put her hand on my arm.
“Tom, I tell George everything. I have always. You, of all people, should know that.”
“Yea, Anna. I know. But grant me the favour of not telling him until I leave England.”
Anna looked hard at me, and then took my hands in both of hers.
“You do not want George to know, do you?”
“Anna!” I broke away from her, and walked back to the table to replenish my cup. I turned back to her, and furiously said: “What is there to know, Anna? You have spent hours telling me how that part of our lives is all finished. Why tell George when there is nothing… nothing at all to say?”
Anne bowed her head, and was silent for a moment; she then, with a great air of sadness, nodded.
“You are right. There is nothing for George to know. Only you and I will ever know what really happened.”
“Thank you, Anne. I know you hate having secrets from George… I too, find it a very new experience. No doubt, one day, he will put together the bits and pieces that made no sense to him this day… But, Anne, I now… I, at this moment… I am too unsure and confused… I think I can come to terms with all this better, Anne, if George does not look at me with pity.”
“But Tom, George would nev…” But at this point Anne had to break our conversation, because we could hear George’s deep voice singing, becoming closer and louder with every passing second.
George entered into the chamber carrying two lutes: his own and mine. Simonette followed swiftly after him, again bearing a tray loaded with food, this time two cooked fowl and more fresh bread and cheese.
“It seems today that I have been taken back to the days when you three were in the nursery,” Simonette now said. “Here am I, ensuring that your stomachs stay full! My lady Anne! Why are you still out of your bed? Back there at once,
chère belle
, before I grow cross.”
“Oh, Simonette, my brother and Tom are here!”
“My dear, dear lady! As if they would care if you were abed or not! I did not say that they were to go, but you need all your rest, and they can talk or sing to you while you are resting.”
“Yea, Anne. We will come and sit near you by your bed,” George said in support of our nurse. Anne did appear to be worn out again, so I took her arm and gradually led her back to her rumpled bed. When she had walked those few steps, and had almost reached her destination, her body began to sway and I sensed her utter weariness, so I picked her up again in my arms, her head nestling into my chest, and carried her those few remaining steps to the bed.
“Oh, Tom,” she said, laughing softly, as I gently placed her slender form on her bed covers, “I could have walked myself.”
I smiled at her, pulling some of the bed covers over her, and took up the breakfast tray, which we had left before. I turned around, still holding the tray, to see George watching me with a strange glint in his eyes.
God have mercy
!
I thought.
I think he begins to put together the true pieces of the puzzle!
But then George quickly lowered his eyes, and when, a few moments later, he glanced up again, it was as if he had shuttered away all his thoughts, pushing them into the far recesses of his mind. Simonette put the new tray of food onto Anne’s bed, and took the other tray from my hands.
“I will leave you three to enjoy your meal in peace,” Simonette said as she passed George and I, before going out the chamber’s door.
George was still holding both our lutes as Simonette left the room. He slowly walked from where he was to pass over my lute to me.
“Come, Tom,” he said, as I took the lute from him. “This is what I have dreamt of since you wrote to me that you planned to return to England. The three of us together, playing music like we used to.”
I smiled at him.
“Yea, cousin. Many a time I would dream that dream too.”
Thus, we walked together to Anne’s bed, pulling up two stools, and began to tune our instruments. I glanced at Anne to discover that she was lying amongst her pillows, smiling lovingly at us both. I smiled back at her, and then placed my instrument on the floor.
“Perhaps it would be better to eat first, and play with full stomachs. You said before, George, that you have not eaten since early morn.”
George nodded in reply, and put his instrument alongside mine.
“Aye. Let us eat, and talk, and keep the greater pleasure for the last.” He arose from his stool and walked over to sit on the edge of his sister’s bed, reaching over to pull apart a fowl. He passed to me a leg, and then offered the other leg to his sister. Anne shook her head slightly and said, “Nay, brother. I have no appetite for meat.”
“Come, sister,” George said, taking Anne’s right hand in his free hand. He then placed the fowl leg in her hand and closed her fingers firmly around it. “I insist you eat something, Nan. How do you expect to put some flesh back on your bones if you will not eat?”
“Am I an infant that everyone needs to fuss over me? Tom will tell you, George, that I have already eaten well this day.”
But, on reflection, I could remember her eating little, though picking much.
“Nay, Anne. I cannot tell George that you have eaten well this day, because you have not. I agree with George; you are a shadow of what you should be. Eat, Anna. You need to eat to regain your strength.”
“Jesu!”
Anne exclaimed, pulling herself up so she was sitting upright. “You both win! But just wait until I become strong again! We will see, then, who will be the winner of the arguments!” Anne, after an impish smile at both of us, began to chew upon the fowl’s leg in her hand.
Thus, while we all ate, we spoke together. George restarted the conversation by saying: “I must tell you, Anne, the King grows more fond of those manuscripts of mine. You made the right decision to give them to him, so he could study them well.”
“What manuscripts are those?” I asked.
Anne lifted her head from eating, and answered: “’Tis a long story, Tom.”
I laughed. “You know how I like long stories, Anna. Can you not share this one with me?”
“If you must know, Tom, it all began when one of the Queen’s ladies entangled herself badly in a mess of politics and love. Good fortune, it now seems, has now decided to smile kindly at her. And me too, I suppose…”
“But you spoke of manuscripts?” I was beginning to feel very bewildered.
“What my sister speaks so cryptically about, Tom, is this: Anne was able, by her quick thinking, to save two of the Queen’s attendants from the threat of certain destruction. And she even risked herself in so doing.”
“Oh, George! Do not make too much out of so little! I believe that I have a good understanding of the King. I never thought, for one moment, that there was much chance of making him angry at me.”
I looked at both of them.
“I am confused! What have books to do with all this?”
“My cousin Tom, ’tis like this.” Anne turned to face me. “I have in my company a certain lady who has recently been betrothed. This lady is secretly of the Lutheran persuasion; thus, she often has in her possession books that can only be described as illicit reading. Her beloved, in jest, took away from her one of these books; no doubt thinking it was some romantic fable he could tease her with. But when he read it, he became so taken with this book that he took it everywhere with him. Fool that he is, he even took it to the royal chapel. My friend came to me in tears. It seems that she had somehow become aware that Wolsey had taken notice of her lover’s great idiocy, and was making moves to tighten a net around him. George had recently given to me his copy to read, and, as I read it, I could not help thinking that it contained certain sentiments that would easily gain the sympathy of the King. Thus, when my dear friend told me of her troubles, I decided to take matters into my own hands and gave to the King two of George’s books.”
“And how many sleepless nights I have suffered since!” George exclaimed, with a laugh.
Anna turned to her brother.
“Oh, George! I told you to trust me. Have I misread the King’s character yet?”
“Nay, Anne. But the tide runs with you. What will happen when the tide turns against you? That is my greatest fear.”
“Fear not, brother. I will have to make a gross mistake for that to happen. And, George, I do not plan to make that sort of mistake.”
“You are so confident, Anne. I feel that you almost mock the fates, my sister. I hope that the fates will not decide to put you in your place.”
Anne stuck her tongue out at George before pealing with laughter.
“Why do you laugh?” I asked her.
Anna gazed first at me and then at George.
“Because I believe we are all too serious… Either I am meant to be Queen, or I am not meant to be Queen. Let us wait, and see… and speak of other matters.” Anne tossed her meatless bone onto the platter placed on the bed. She then flung herself upon the pillows, and stared up at the ceiling.
George and I looked at each other; we knew, without having to say one word to the other, that Anne, despite her attempt at gaiety, had, for some reason, been swept away by a wave of sudden remorse, and was vastly in need of our comfort.
“Have you eaten enough, Tom?” George muttered under-breath to me.
“Yea, I have had my full,” I likewise replied.
“Cousin, let us then play our lutes, and sing to each other our new songs.”
Anne rolled over to her side, and leaned her face on a hand.
“Cannot we have some of our old songs? So many of the new tunes speak of only pain and heartache.”
When she said that I remembered the conversation I had only hours before. I had spoken of my regret to Simonette that things could not remain as we remembered them from our childhood. What had she said to me? Yea—I remembered her words.
Thus, I turned to Anne and said: “There is joy still to be found in our music, Anne; only you must not go seeking it, but let the joy find you.”
Anne wiped away some tears from her eyes with a free hand.
“How that brings to my mind dear Father Stephen! Do you remember, Tom, how he would often say to us as children, that true happiness could be found by not concerning overmuch with your own happiness, but by always seeking out the best ways for the happiness of others?”