Pray for Reign (an Anne Boleyn novel) (24 page)

"T
he King waits outside." The midwife entered the
room, breaking into Anne’s despairing thoughts. Anne nodded, swallowing her
fear. She watched the woman scurry outside to notify him. The babe was nestled
in her cradle when Henry stole into the room, trying to be quiet, but nearly
tripping over the pallet bed in his haste to see his child. Though she feared
his reaction to her failure, Anne was prepared to defend the identity of her
tiny child with all the vehemence in her soul—no matter what he might say.

"My lord?" she asked, uncertain as to whether she
should speak. Though she had produced a living child, it was not the son they
both expected, and she wasn't sure if he would curse or thank her.

"I have found a wet-nurse already." His voice
sounded gruff, like the rustling of dry leaves. She wondered whether he was
still angry.

Lowering her eyes she said, "I’m glad you have thought
of it, husband." At the mention of their relationship he drew near to the
bed where she lay shrouded in satin.

"Dare I hope you still find pleasure in the
title?" He touched her hand, studied her eyes.

"Your eyes are so black in the dimness, yet I see the
spark of forgiveness," he let the statement trail.

"Not forgiveness, Sire, for there's naught to forgive
save my behavior. The spark you see is regret." She took the hand that
touched hers, pulled it to her breast.

"For the sake of our babe, can you forgive my
slander?"

She might harbor his words in her soul, but instinct told
her to bury them. He waved away the thought with a shake of his head.

"Had I known you were so close to your time, I'd not
have baited you—or slandered you, my lady." Full lips touched her forehead
in a warm tender kiss. She sighed audibly, content, and relieved she had made
the right choice. Whether he truly forgave her remained to be seen—and whether
she could forgive him also.

"Then my world is beautiful again, and I can count
myself the happiest woman in the realm." She lied, turned to the cradle,
then to his face.

"Have you seen her?"

Nodding, he smiled broadly. "She is Tudor through
enough. The bald head shows pink and fair, and the eyes are deepest blue. But I
pray she has your passion, for though it drives me mad at times, it is what I
find dearest in you."

From beneath the satin coverlet Anne looked over to the
wooden cradle where a soft whimper had sounded. Henry strode over and picked
the infant from it with such tenderness and ease, he should have been born a
woman.

"Meantime, we must cancel the joust planned for our
son, and add an s' to the princes' proclamation. Damned seers." His face
darkened with annoyance, but brightened again so quickly Anne doubted she had
seen it.

"I've a name for her if you'd care to hear." She
watched him. How tender he was even with a girl-child rather than the expected
son.

"Elizabeth, for your mother." She hoped the error
of granting a girl would be glossed over by pride in his lineage.

"A noble name." He smiled and rubbed his broad
forehead against the infant's. "And fitting. My mother was the fairest
woman to ever grace this court. You will be the second," he said to the
child as he placed her at Anne's breast.

"And though the child be a girl, I'm satisfied, for
with one living child, surely will come another. And another, ’til the
son."

Anne shifted so the warmth of Elizabeth's body lay snug in
the crook of her arm.

"I worry for her welfare. As you said, your child by
Catherine still lives, and many in the realm will not rejoice at our good
fortune." She poked her finger in the infant's mouth, surprised at the
strength of the suction. Only a few precious hours ’til the wet nurse took her.
She wanted to fill her soul with these memories, for she would soon have to abandon
the babe to conceive the son.

"Do not concern yourself, no one would dare harm my
child." He touched Elizabeth on the head tenderly.

"But we will have her wet nurse’s food and drink tested
for poison, will that settle your worries?"

She nodded, giving a large yawn for answer and let her eyes
close thankfully. She heard him tiptoe to the door, his cloak rustling faintly,
the brief rush of well-worn velvet and ambergris dissipated with the faint
click of the closing door.

George couldn’t have been more relieved. Henry beamed over
his new child and told everyone what a wonderful choice he had made in wives.

"She is a woman above all women. I’d not give her up,
if the Lord himself declared I must." Henry sat with pen in hand before
his privy chamber. Marc Smeaton strummed each chord Henry ordered, while George
and Francis and Hal Norris watched the King scribble that note down after.

"It’s good to know you love her so true," George
dared.

"I love her truer than that, for she’s the most
exciting woman I have ever met." For some reason, George had a hard time
meeting his eye. He kept remembering Henry’s wrath and wondered what would
happen the next time Anne balked at the royal will.

T
he weeks following Elizabeth’s birth were filled with
melancholy for Anne. She wandered about her apartments, brooding and weeping
and crying. The wet nurse had taken Elizabeth and almost made her, her own. It
nagged at Anne, thinking that she should have her own child about her, to sing
to her and raise her. But the child was a princess and the mother must conceive
a son, so no time could be found for Elizabeth. Anne believed it was the source
of her melancholy. George came often to her chambers, when his duties with
Henry were done. He’d sit with her and stare quietly into the fire, or at the
walls, sometimes saying nothing, sometimes talking incessantly. It seemed he’d
do anything to break her mood, or aid her in it, whichever she wanted. She
could kiss him for it, thankful he didn’t nag her like Henry had begun to do.

"Henry said he would send Elizabeth away soon."
She regarded her brother with large eyes.

"He says she must reside outside the city, to keep her
safe. But what will safeguard me?" She asked, afraid of the haunting
remembrance of the fight. The evening had grown late, a dim light from the
brazier glowed around them, soothing her.

"Have no worry, Nan. Henry loves you, more now than
ever. He has already given up his handsome lady and tells anyone who will
listen, that you’re a woman above all women." George lazed back in his
chair, brown eyes drowsing as he sat next to the brazier.

How she loved him in the moment, watched him stretch his
long legs straight against the floor, pointing the toes for just a second in a
large stretch. She studied the smooth contour of his face and thought, not for
the first time, that it was a near mirror image of her own. As if the part of
her that was steady and calm had been born two years later than the rash
portion. He was so entirely beloved to her, the charisma that held no snobbery,
the humor that tolerated no slander.

She watched him smack wetly as he drifted off into sleep,
full lips working noisily, long brown lashes veiling the gorgeous soul of his
eyes. She smiled as she watched, knowing there would never be another body in
this realm who could nestle so close to her heart. No one, perhaps, except
Elizabeth. But the babe looked so much like the father, it was hard to imagine
her as her own. Anne barely had time to see her.

When she did, the child squealed as if she hated being taken
from the wet nurse. Still, Anne loved the tiny pink thing, holding her close
when she could, and cooing quietly to her. Elizabeth hardly noticed, and would
weep furiously. Anne wondered if her own child would be as alien to her as the
country’s women, if she would fail to charm part of her own body.

"You’re quiet," George’s warm voice filtered
through her thoughts, making her remember his presence, and shattering the
image of Elizabeth.

"I thought you were sleeping."

He chuckled, the swell of it drifted across the space that
separated them.

"How can I sleep with you staring at me?"

Anne smiled, realizing she had indeed been staring.

"Sorry, I was thinking."

"Yes, well, I could feel it right through my closed
eyelids. You certainly have a penetrating stare, to burn straight through a
sleeping man’s dreams." He shifted in the chair, lying more to his side,
his face in profile. "Now, I’m a bit tired. That wine you gave me must
have been drugged."

"Aren’t you going to your own apartments, your wife
surely waits for you."

He snorted. "We’ve had a bit of a fight, and I doubt
she waits for me. So I’ll sleep in this wondrous chair, if you don’t mind. The
brazier may need tending through the night." Anne thought for a moment,
then nodded and shrugged. No harm could come from her brother staying outside
her bedroom, and perhaps with him sitting outside, she’d feel safe enough to
gain sleep for a change.

"Very well, but I’m going to my bed, I’ve not the
strong back you have, fool. Sleep well, brother."

He merely grunted. She rose and threw a few shards of coal
onto the brazier to ensure him a few hours rest. Then found herself studying
his face again.

"Stop looking at me, will you?" The growl came,
though his eyes remained closed. She said nothing, merely smiled and kissed his
forehead.

T
he days passed like whispers for Anne, slippering their
way through time quietly, passing secrets as they died. Seven months since
Elizabeth’s birth—and two ill-fated pregnancies. Each one searing her soul with
a name. She wouldn’t speak those names aloud, nor would she tell anyone she had
named each ill-fated babe. She couldn’t even speak their names to herself,
while alone, or while staring deadly at the smoky stone of her chamber walls.
She could only mouth them quietly in the still of the dawn, while the living
pretended the spirits of the dead were gone for good. Non-gendered names, names
with no sex, like her two babies. Henry had taken his love from her, more and
more with each miscarriage.

The renewed passion they shared after Elizabeth’s
christening dwindled. The first child’s death had been a shock to them both,
and at first he had set his lips in a grim line and offered to try again. With
the loss of the second, came his gruffness and the loss of zeal so that she
began to guard her words carefully, hearing again her outburst during her lying
in and fearing the loathing she had heard in his voice then, a loathing that
had returned to his tone. The conjugal visits had stopped, but she did at least
have a belly from the last one, and where he had been gruff with her before,
now he was at least civil. She shut out the memories of lovemaking in quiet
secretive alcoves within the castle. Pretended the murmurings of nearby hidden
servants, whose presence lent season to the trysts, had never been heard. She
smothered her thoughts of hunting and gambling happily with her husband,
thinking her world care-free and secure.

The gambling had ended, the lovemaking as well. Now the
security was being threatened—personified by dark Mary Tudor. She knew
Catherine still held the country's loyalty. The Princess Dowager, as Henry
ordered her to be addressed, had borne him one living child, and the country
was beginning to rally around that child as a center for revolt. Now as Anne
meandered through her garden in the quiet calm of dusk, hearing the crunch of
her boots on the long dead and now brown chamomile, she thought of how crisp
the air tasted, how desolate the garden looked in the January weather. Anything
but the way her world was changing.

The gray stone statue of a cherub caught her eye. It looked
flat and lifeless against the barren slate sky. She had come to the garden to
clear her mind of all the smoky black thoughts that kept creeping into her mind
unbidden. Needed to breathe the burning coldness of nature so she could purge
the ache that rested in her lungs. Though she knew George waited for her in her
bedchamber, she refused to hurry. She needed time to think, time to recuperate,
and it was imperative that she have this time alone. Against her better
judgment, she had gone with him to the market in the afternoon, hooded as she
was now, but with a less regal, more demure cloak.

"Come with me Nan, no one will know it’s you. You think
the commoners have naught to do but discuss their King and his wife? Brah, they
have more important things on their minds."

She had gone, and he had been right. She had wandered
through the snow covered cobblestoned streets to the different stalls, buying
trinkets and ribbons for Elizabeth, no one paying her any mind. The merchant
who sold her tea had been more than pleasant, chattering about how his wife
took chamomile to calm her pregnant nerves.

Anne had smiled and looked interested, patted her belly in
indication of how she agreed. But as she pulled out her purse to pay, she had
heard a crackly voice complaining in loud tones of how the King had become
unjust, and all for the love of a common whore. Her hand froze on the halfpenny
she lifted from her purse. She was aware of her brother’s brown eye steady on
her face as she turned to the cause of the complaint.

"Filthy whore, stealing away the good Queen’s place,
providing a bastard so the King may think he’s made the right choice." A
filthy man with no front teeth plopped his wares onto the tea merchant’s bench,
the spout of a handmade teapot peeked out from the burlap bag’s mouth.

"I tell you, she won’t be dancing in the palace long,
not whilst Catherine’s daughter lives. The King may well force me to swear
loyalty to the bastard, but I’ll fight for the true Princess when the time
comes." The man accompanying him mumbled his agreement, adding an
expletive.

Anne dropped the coin on the counter and made her way toward
the two men.

"Nan." George tugged at her sleeve.

"Nan, come away."

She shrugged him off with a glare and spoke to the commoner.

"You speak treason, my dear man." She stared into
eyes that were ringed with filth and grunge. He lifted a hand to his face,
swiped at the spit that congealed on his lip.

"The only treason that’s being committed is by the
whore, my good lady," he said, when he noticed she was not as bedraggled
as he.

"You can’t say you support the bastard?"

George stepped between them, sleek body quickly providing a
barrier.

"My mistress comes from the palace, sir. She waits on
the Queen." His arm stretched across Anne’s chest, squeezing her opposite
arm intensely. He turned his gaze quickly to her, dust colored brows narrowed
in warning.

"Brah!" The man spit a brown thick fluid to the
dirt floor where it lay in a round disgusting globe.

"Then I pray you mean her kind grace, Queen Catherine,
for I see no other on the throne. But if you mean she waits on Nan Bullen, then
I pity her, for she’s sure to go to hell for it."

Anne pushed George away and stomped up to him.

"He means the true Queen, you cur. The Queen your King
has seen fit to put on the throne. And if you value your belly intact and your
head on your shoulders, you’ll make recompense for those words."

"I’ll eat my words, good lady, for I’d rather shit them
out tomorrow then mark that whore as Queen."

She wouldn’t allow her rage to interfere with her wit, and
though she wanted to have him quartered right there, chose another tack.

"Then it’s good to know Her Grace, has such loyal
supporters. How many may she count, for the times are dangerous to speak such
words." She lowered her voice to a meek spectre. Her heart raced.

"I’d say she can count London, milady." He chewed
the inside of his mouth.

"And have you the ear of London?" He puffed up his
chest, and Anne was aware of the attention of all in the shop. The merchant had
stopped waiting on customers.

"I’ve the ear of most men hereabouts."

She turned to George.

"Get his name, for the Queen should like to know
it." She eyed the man speculatively.

"There are spies for Catherine everywhere. They are
highly paid. This man will take your name, and someone will come for you. Count
your fate you have met me this day."

She watched him for a second, as his face changed to
disbelief, he thinking that he had chanced upon one of Catherine’s many secret
supporters. His stupid appearance gave her no satisfaction.

She turned and left the shop. Now as she paused mid-step
beside the stone cherub in the garden, she wondered if her guards had gone to
take him yet, and whether she should punish or free him. After all, he had only
spoken of the discontent in all of London, she couldn’t punish them all. She
sighed heavily, and changed direction. There were other ways to deal with the
problem.

"Mary must give up her status," she said when she
gained her apartments. George lay half asleep on her bed, curled up with her
puppy, Purkoy. At the sound of her voice, he sat up quickly.

"The country can never support two wives and two
different claims to the throne. One must go, and I'll be damned if it will be
me and mine." The early evening air smelled of stewed meat and sour ale
for she had taken her dinner in her apartments rather than the dining hall and
some of it lay still on the table by the door. She discarded her cloak on a nearby
chair and sat next to him on the bed. He reached out to touch her stomach, long
tapered fingers warmed her flesh through the damask gown.

"Perhaps it was not such a good idea to have her come
to court in Elizabeth's household. Your spiteful tongue has turned against you
this time, making her more visible, rather than humble"

She snorted. Indeed she had made a mistake—curse her
impulsive rantings, for Henry had done what she'd demanded and placed his elder
daughter in Elizabeth's household to wait on her. Yet the Spanish brat lost no
opportunity to call Elizabeth bastard in front of the entire court. The whole
situation was impossible.

"That last incident with her calling me Henry's whore
in front of everyone at supper..." She clenched her long fingers into a tight
fist, the nails biting flesh.

"I sent her word that she is forbidden to call herself
a princess or be slapped like the cursed bastard she is." She pushed
herself from the bed and took to prowling around the bedchamber.

"I've taken Mary’s jewels, her privilege of eating
alone, her food and drink is no longer tested for poison...What will it take to
break that damnable willfulness?" She reached for a log, threw it onto the
crackling fire. An errant spark leapt to the thick rug in front. She stomped on
it before it could catch.

"Perhaps you shouldn't try to break her will."
George stretched back out on the bed with his hands beneath his head, ankles
crossed. He looked too comfortable.

"Shouldn't I?" She swung on him, frustration and
sudden anger making her want to strike something.

"If she doesn't admit my child as legitimate, the
country will continue to support her. Do you know what the word revolution
means, dear brother?" Angry words turned patronizing.

"There can be no pity, for with it comes the Islanders'
uprising. Gad! Such a predicament. Better they were both dead, Mary and her
damned Spanish mother." She paused her raving long enough to open and slam
the door. A placid pop from the fire came after, then silence. She stared at
her brother for a long time, let his image blur a bit.

"I know, I'll confine her to her house. No church
visits, no hunting, naught. She'll see fit to acknowledge me or suffer like her
mother."

"Anne, it can't work—it didn't with Catherine...
Besides, Henry has punished her enough because of your insecurities... He won’t
allow her to see her mother—because you’re afraid they manage some conspiracy.
He doesn’t get to see her—because you’re afraid he’ll remember he loves her.
Anne... this girl is just that... a girl who loves her father... does she not
deserve her childhood?"

His defense of the brat, made Anne want to scream. She
railed at him, flew across the room like a madwoman.

"She has no childhood. She is not a child... she is a
princess... and princesses have no childhood. Now, speak no more of it. It will
be done, or it means our death. Henry himself would use poison but Catherine is
born nobility. The whole of Europe would revolt. But do not think if he tires
of this bother and returns to her, she would not have us done so. Best you keep
your tongue."

He merely licked his lips, seemingly unimpressed by her
temper. She surveyed his frame against the satin bed-cover, upon the
beautifully engraved cherry bed Henry had given her. Her temper cooled as she
watched him staring back at her, large brown eyes never flinching.

"I have enough to deal with, without managing your
criticisms," she continued, trying suddenly to placate him. She touched
the small swell of her belly.

"This child has given me worry since its conception,
Mary fights against me, and my own household squirms beneath its enforced
piety." She shook her head, the black curtain of hair falling neatly
around her shoulders.

"Why, even my own sister marries without my consent and
gets with child speedily while I struggle to bear." A great sigh fled her
lips. Such troubles, it was nearly impossible to surmount them all.

"And that Nun... thank God she’ll give no more
trouble." She thought of the Nun of Kent, as she was being called,
self-proclaimed prophetess who had often spoken publicly against Henry's new
marriage; to the point where she foresaw Anne being torn apart and eaten by
dogs. The unwanted image crept into her mind, made her tremble.

"Fortunate for you she retracted those prophecies
before her execution."

Anne shrugged. "Fortune had naught to do with it. Henry
persuaded her to recant." She grimaced and shivered involuntarily,
noticing that the drapes did as well, with the cool draft of air that came
through them.

"And does he and Cromwell still have the list? The one
that contains the names of all who were sympathetic to the Nun?" George
asked, finally sitting up on the bed and scratching at his back. He made a
brief inspection beneath his doublet, came out pinching a bedbug and flicked it
to the floor.

"Why of course they still have it. The list keeps
everyone in line. Since Cromwell refuses to publicize the contents, the people
are afraid their names might be on it—and now many are scrambling publicly from
Catherine's side to mine. But the list can only maintain the peace for so long.
Sooner or later, its existence will lose potency. That's why it’s still
important that Catherine and Mary are removed."

She shuffled across the room in a nervous, thoughtful
pacing. Smoke from the torch on the wall trailed after her wake, curling black
tendrils up to the ceiling and blackening a sooty spot there.

"Perhaps when Henry goes across the channel to meet
with Francois, I shall have myself appointed Regent. Then whilst he's gone,
I'll murder that brat." Her mouth pursed with great thought, knowing she
hadn’t the heart to do it, hoping the admission might give her the courage. It
was no secret that most monarchs had found it necessary at one time or another
to tactfully rid himself of rivals in such a way. Henry himself had done so
once or twice.