Pray for Reign (an Anne Boleyn novel) (7 page)

F
or days after the masque Anne tended to her duties with
little interest. Her mind was too preoccupied to concentrate on her sewing. And
in truth, sewing was one of her most hated tasks—except for going to mass,
which Catherine did three times a day—or so it seemed. The early morning masses
were the worst. Anne would moan and grumble when it came time to be out of bed
and dressing. This morning she chose a somber gown of damask for the small
tribulation—to match her mood. The cool air of the room forced her to hurry.
Tapestries and wall hangings did little to keep the room warm when the fire had
been forgotten. Anne took one look at the black hearth and shivered.

"Would that we had a small piece of Hell this
morning," she said. "Perhaps I could take it with me to service. Jesu
knows there won’t be any heat."

"Why do you so hate going to mass?" Mary helped
Anne with the clasp of a locket.

"I don't hate mass, I hate the feelings it gives
me." Anne replied, linking a pomander to her girdle. "Truth be known,
I believe in God with all my soul—too much."

"Then why the forlorn look each time we're called to
chapel?" Her sister’s tiny arched brows made two neat triangles.

Anne chuckled, trying to cover the mental squirming.
"Because the chaplain is so sure we’re to be called to judgment, not mass.
He never speaks of joy nor goodness. Always it is damnation and repentance,
dispensations and tithes."

She couldn’t explain just what troubled her. She was certain
the Almighty could find no good in lowly Anne Boleyn—what was there to love?
And what if the priests were wrong about God? She could imagine spending her
life as a prudent woman of beliefs—helping the poor, praying unceasingly, only
to discover on judgment day that there was no judgment—that indeed, there was
nothingness. Or worse yet, that God sat before her laughing mightily and
saying, "Oh, Anne. What made you think good works would get you in?"

The imagined derisive laughter echoed in her mind as she
walked the gloomy hall to the courtyard. It stayed there as she crossed the
starlit cobblestones to the chapel. Oh, the feelings mass brought her—she hated
it. The air was biting and frost glistened on the stones and statues. She was
relieved to gain the chapel door. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to
the new light and she stood like a statue ’til Mary prodded her.

"The holy water."

Anne fought off a nervous laugh and dipped her fingers into
the fount. Sweet Jesu, it felt like ice. She no more wanted to touch it to her
breast than she wanted to spit in it. But then, if it had been warm on such a
crisp day, she’d doubt its holiness. She found her pew a few rows behind
Catherine, knelt quickly. A furtive prayer later and she sat. The priest droned
on and on. Catherine sat rigidly in her pew with an odd look on her face as she
stared into the priest’s eyes—as if she were looking straight at God and
couldn’t believe the beauty of the sight. Anne wished she felt so inspired, but
couldn’t let go those nagging doubts that clung to her mind. She wished
fervently that God could so move her, but all she felt was guilt and shame.

She watched the priest’s lips move, tried not to hear his
words on judgment and sin. She stared instead at the candles and the incense,
often having to be prodded when she didn’t notice the priest order them to
kneel. During her musings, she wondered if the sun had finally crept from its
bed. At one point, she had such a terrible urge to see if the stained glass
portrait of Jesus’ first position of the cross had taken the light of life,
that she turned straight around in her seat. She met George’s eye and locked on
it.

In the still gloom of the chapel, the heavy wooden door
opened briefly to admit a latecomer. Beautiful orange light shone in and
ensconced her brother’s trim figure. His chestnut hair seemed haloed with the
light of the rising sun. The sight tightened her chest. Truly, God had visited
her. Just this once, perhaps she’d listen avidly to the priest, but when she
turned back, he stood surrounded by the smoke of incense and the grayness of
the early morn. How different was this vision. She found her mind trailing
away.

As George met Anne’s eyes and held them, he knew instinctively
what ran through her mind. Mass made her panic—always had. He tried his best to
speak with his gaze and tell her to allow the wonder of God to meet her, but
always she could only see the fear. When she’d turned back to face front he
couldn’t lose the image of her black eyes, round with something he’d not seen
in them before. He lost track of what the priest was saying. For the rest of
the mass, he kept remembering times from childhood when theology ran rampant in
their quiet bedchamber.

"Do you think that God exists?" he’d asked her
once. The evening was cool but the roar of the fire heated their hearts. He
looked eagerly at his big sister for the sage wisdom of an eleven-year-old.

"Surely he does, George. Don’t be silly."

"Do you think he knows our hearts, as chaplain Cranmer
says?"

He watched her shift upon the bed so that her eyes alighted
on the large crucifix that hung over the headboard. Something in her manner
suggested he’d said something that unnerved her, and he waited anxiously for
her response.

"I pray he knows not all our thoughts, for my mind is
the one thing I cherish privacy in. It would be horrible to think I may not
even think a thing without reprimand."

Now in the chapel where the rising sun sent rays of color
through the stained glass, he wondered what she thought, and if she’d ever
managed to find hope in the knowledge that God knew her heart.

Later in the day, Anne sat in the queen's presence chamber,
playing melancholy music on the virginal for Catherine. Most of the girls sat
about sewing or embroidering; some worked on lessons. Dull things, really, and
Anne thanked the heavens her musical skill spared her from those boring tasks
for the afternoon. The notes she played sounded plain to her, so that every so
often she would make a mistake on the keys, simply to see if she were indeed
playing. Things had lost their lustre in the days since
the dance. Paintings held no beauty, food no flavor. The smoke from the
torch-lights smelled sooty and black. She kept thinking about her marriage and
how pleasant it would be to marry Harry Percy, instead. But she hadn’t seen him
since the eve of the dance, had gone about her daily routines automatically.

As she stared into the expanse of gray stone, ignoring the
many companions who chatted to Catherine, she heard a ruckus behind her.
Someone had come into the room, someone different, someone unexpected. She
could tell it by the rush of satin and exclamations of delight. When she
turned, from curiosity, the grayness of the room lightened, the green velvet of
the drapes shivered to match the quiver of her stomach. Harry stood silently in
the doorframe, allowing the many women to coo about him and offer him wine. He
smiled at each one indulgently and playfully. His expression reminded Anne of George.
She swallowed the clump of excitement and waited for him to see her. Many of
the women who had flocked to the door tugged at his coat in their haste to draw
him in—trying to make him more comfortable, or more vulnerable, she wasn’t
sure. She stayed where she sat.

"Keep playing, Mistress Boleyn." Catherine’s
imperial tone broke the spell. "Make it something pleasant. Something
happy."

Anne could have played nothing else; her heart rocked with
happiness. Her chest even ached from its mad hammering. And as her fingers
echoed the emotion, Harry came toward her, pulling along two waiting women. He
took a moment to bow low to Catherine who waved him to stand after only a
moment. His golden head bobbed indulgently next to her auburn hair as he sat
next to her, making her smile with soft words and pleasantries. After a
respectable amount of time had gone by, Harry left the Queen’s side. All the
while, Anne waited impatiently for him to come to her, knowing he would. His
touch on her shoulder felt warm and moist through the satin of her gown.

"Mistress Anne, is it? Have we not met?" She
stopped playing, knowing her next move to be more important than entertaining
this pride of lionesses.

"Yes. I believe so." She turned so her back faced
the virginal, her eyes uplifted to his face, his mouth. "We danced at the
masque."

"Ah, yes." Such a beautiful voice; sensitive,
strong. But those women—they still clung to him, and one stroked his arm,
trying to claim him. She motioned him to the bench next to her.

"Do you play?" That should scatter the flock.

"No, but I love to watch a skilled musician." He
excused himself ever so politely from the leeches, and rested a discreet
distance away from her on the bench. He smelled of rose water and it blended
nicely with the rushes beneath their feet. Already the rest of them were
gathering, their eyes devouring his features.

"What shall I play?"

"Something happy, as Her Majesty suggests. Like you
were playing just a moment ago."

She glanced to where Catherine sat, watching them with a
hint of a smile. She held a pawn in her delicate fingers, poised to rejuvenate
her queen. Without a word, Anne continued, allowing his presence to saturate
her feelings. Her body rocked with each note. For long moments neither spoke.
The other women found different pursuits. She didn't care.

"Shall I come tomorrow?" He touched her hand, and
she wanted him.

"Yes."

"Good. Then I will. Say you'll be here."

She nodded, the 'yes' stuck in her throat, captured by the
lust that clung there.

D
ays later, Anne sat alone in the bower room, having been
given leave by Catherine who lay abed. The Queen’s apartments usually lent
laughter and music to the gloom of the castle, but today no sounds came down
the corridor or eked into the bower room. The Queen must be sleeping, probably
strained with the knowledge that she had discovered again that she was not with
child. Anne felt a fleeting pity, then lost it in the gratitude of being alone
for an hour or two. The remains of a snack sat on the hearth in a pewter plate:
Spermese cheese, some bread and a slab of poorly cooked pork. She looked at it
for a moment, thinking she should eat the cheese for it would grow hard if left
to the air.

Before she could decide, a quick rap came on the door. She
stood hastily, smoothed her skirts. Surely someone called her back to
Catherine.

"Nan, I’ve been searching for you. The Queen said you
might be in these apartments."

"My Lord Father..." She hurried to Thomas, knowing
as she saw him that he came for a formal purpose. She swallowed the
nervousness. He gave the room a leisurely glance that rested on the hearth and
its remnants and Anne as she stood with crinkled skirts that even now she was
smoothing.

"I’ve come to discuss your wedding."

"My wedding, my Lord?" Her heart lurched. During
the month she’d prayed she’d not be given to the Irishman so quickly. She
didn’t think she could stand it if the news was anything besides that she’d
have to wait another month.

"Yes, it seems as if your fiancé has become quite
enamored of you." Thomas’ tone sounded angry and she couldn't imagine what
had him so upset. He must think she had bedded the young man. He strode across
the room, picked at the cheese as he watched her.

"I can’t have you marry the boy. And I can’t have you
making him believe he wants you." His features hardened. She stared at him
for a long time, utterly confused, and watched his black eyes stare right back.
They never flinched, nor watered.

For a moment she saw him as she had years ago, when he
informed her of her impending work abroad. The entire memory ran past her while
she studied him. The young Thomas smiled at her.

"I selected you to go, my Nan." His finger wound
in her hair.

"Me, My lord Father? But why not Mary?" She
couldn’t believe her good fortune. The Archduchess Marguerite—how exciting. She
gazed up into his eyes. They crinkled when he was pleased, and they crinkled
now. The tiny lines around the corners deepened, and her stomach fluttered to
know she had pleased him. He straightened instantly, sent a furtive glance to
the door that led to the parlor. Anne could hear Mary’s voice above George’s as
they argued over a honey cake.

"Mary is a good girl, Nan. But she’s not as clever as
you are. She has not our wit, our intellect." He looked back at her.
Caught up in the compliments he paid her, she rushed to embrace him.

"Now, mind you honor the Boleyn name." His voice
harshened, and she stopped just short of hugging his waist. She looked up into
his face. It had changed in the instant, so that the lines around his eyes
disappeared and the tight ones around his mouth returned.

"Father, I shall do my best to show the Archduchess you
have chosen wisely."

She'd stood straight, wanting to brush her hair behind her
ear, but dared not move.

He'd given her a dubious look before smoothing her hair and
walking away. Now in the bower room nearly ten years later, she watched the
same face, make the same transformation. For a second her eyes burned, and she
ached to embrace him, tell him she wanted him to be proud of her. That she’d do
anything to please him, to have him love her. She wanted the crinkles, which
had deepened in the years to etchings, to lengthen as far as his ears in a
heartfelt smile. She couldn’t stand seeing his mouth crook in that tiny, wan
grin that made her want to sob.

"Please, Father, I shall do my best." Her voice
sounded like the one of her teens, like an uncertain young woman and she hated
hearing it. She cleared her throat, spoke again.

"I have done naught to encourage my fiancé. I have not
even spoken to him." The lines around his eyes lengthened, so much that
they disappeared into his hairline, became shadows of the gray halo that had
once been deep black. Anne smiled, was moved to touch his sleeve.

"Always you have been the obedient daughter, Nan."
He touched her hair, smoothed the tresses down against her throat.

She closed her eyes, savored the caress.

"I don’t wish to give you up to him, yet the King is
determined." He sighed, snatched his hand to his side.

"I can’t disappoint His Grace, but neither can I suffer
losing my inheritance." He was talking to himself, really, but it was an
insight she'd not understood before, and she wanted to hear more. So it was
more the King who'd wanted this, not her father.

She hurried to the corner table, poured him a draft of warm
ale. She doubted it would soothe him—how could it, for it was urine warm. But
it gave her something to do, something to make her feel useful. In a moment she
had it in his hands and he was seeking a chair. She didn’t want to rush to get
him one, hated feeling so obvious. Eventually she decided to plump a few
pillows and arrange them on the seat next to the hearth. He took it, stared
down into the goblet.

"If the gentleman seeks your audience, or asks to speak
with you, find a reason to ward him off. I may be able to dissuade Henry from
forcing the issue."

She could barely contain her excitement. Perhaps her father
knew of Lord Percy. Perhaps even Mary had told him and he recognized the
opportunity as a more lucrative union. She dared not breathe, dared not ask
him. But surely this was it. He had been so set on the Butler betrothal, ’til
now. She knew her father well enough that he’d not let such an opportunity by.
Sweet Heaven, she began to believe she could be happy here. George, Mary, and now
Harry. And to think she had been nervous to come home. He stared into the
hearth.

"In truth, I never wanted the marriage, but once Henry
had decided it would appease the Irish, I could find no honorable way out of
it,." He had not drunk, and Anne wondered quickly if she should take the
goblet from him so he’d not have to hold it. Before she could decide, he was on
his feet. He passed her back the cup and strode to the door.

"I may yet find you a profitable marriage, my
girl." He winked quickly and departed. Anne was left staring into the
goblet, thinking her world was making the most delicious turns.