He squeezed it tightly, which gave her great comfort.
"I had a...a small accident. I fell off my horse."
"Oh, my lord! Are you all right?"
"I sustained no serious injuries. It is not necessary to go into
detail."
"Can I help you at all...with anything?"
"Aye. See if my manhood is intact." He propped himself up on an
elbow, eyes twinkling.
"Gladly, my lord."
She sat upon the bed and let him pull her towards him gently. She
lowered her head in order for him to remove her caul and let her
hair spill over his fingers. "Take off everything but the jewels,
and go to that velvet box over there and take whatever you want."
She crossed the bed chamber, opened the velvet box, and, closing her
eyes, chose at random a dazzling diamond-and-ruby pendant with
pearl-encrusted gold rope, two more necklaces of diamond and
emerald, and a three-tiered choker fastened with a huge pearl
surrounded by three rows of diamonds.
She draped them all around her neck, chose three diamond-and-ruby
rings that glittered on her fingers and shot back the firelight, and
stepped out of her chemise, skirts, and petticoats, winding a golden
braided girdle round her waist.
She approached the bed, stood upon it, and spread her arms, each
hand winding about an ornately carved bedpost, her hair tumbling
down around her shoulders. She placed a foot on each side of him and
lowered herself onto his manhood, straining against his breeches,
which she pulled down to his knees, as not to disturb the bad leg.
Straddling him, she eased him into her.
He grabbed her buttocks and arched his back, letting her set the
pace, and she began thrusting slowly, then faster and faster as
their passion mounted.
The familiar delicious fire spread through her, deep inside, and she
felt an explosion swelling up within her. He placed his hands on her
breasts and caressed them softly, bringing her to a frenzy of
desire.
She wished she could cease breathing; she wished the burden of their
flesh and mass would simply disperse in order to let their souls
mingle and pulsate together.
There was no food, no wine, no water, no fragrance, nothing but
their throbbing heartbeats and delighted moans as they coupled. He
pulled her head down to him and crushed her lips to his, his tongue
exploring, darting round her mouth with his surging frenzy.
She thrust up and down and in circles, and finally spent him. As he
laid her on her back and kissed her all over, her sensitive breasts
rising like two rubies beneath the glittering jewels, down past her
navel and to her inflamed womanhood. She writhed under the touch of
his tongue and lips within her sensitive folds. She wrapped her trim
thighs around his head and exploded once more.
If only it could always be like this between us
, she wished
with all her heart as she clutched his hair and gave into the frenzy
once more.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Greenwich
Amethyst entered the King's inner chamber. She hadn't been summoned
this time, and the guards let her through. His ushers and pages
bowed to her, with the usual reverence, but with solemnity.
"Do you wish to sup with me, sire? Matthew sent some barrels of
dry-salted beef and mutton from his neighboring farms along with his
delicious apples."
The room was damp and chilly, for the fire had gone out and he
hadn't bothered letting his chamberlain in to relight it. He sat
facing the dying embers, deep in thought.
Not wanting to disturb him, she waited patiently for any sort of
reply.
A moment later he turned to her, an ominous grimace splitting his
lips, a confused mixture of emotions on his face that she couldn't
even begin to discern. Lately he had been displaying emotions she'd
never seen before in him. Had they always been there, dormant, or
were they reactions to the new stresses in his life he'd never
encountered?
"Anne did not attend the funeral rites I held for Catherine last
week." His voice was dry, flat.
"Does that come as a surprise, my lord?"
"At this point, no. But when I entered her apartments afterwards, I
thought I'd stepped into a May Day feast. She was all dressed in the
brightest yellow. She was dancing with her courtiers, also clad in
yellow, like a field of jonquils swaying in the breeze. I include
the males in that description."
"Perhaps she is not one to mourn death," she said quietly.
"Death is only mournful to those close to the deceased. In Anne's
case, Catherine was nothing to her."
"Did you reprimand her?"
"I did not bother. God punished us both. She dances no more."
"What do you mean?"
"She lost my son. Four months along, and she danced him right from
her womb. It was deformed, a hideous, half-formed creature that
could only have been borne by the witch that she is!" He pounded his
fist on the arm of the chair, causing her to jump.
Amethyst stepped back in shock. She could feel the blood draining
from her cheeks, realizing that Anne had played her last hand, and
lost the gamble.
"Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry. But you know that cannot be true,
my lord. Catherine was delivered of a deformed child and she was no
witch."
"Nevertheless, Anne had conceived a son within her womb, my son, my
only hope for an heir. And she expelled him...she thrust him out
into the world to die!"
"Not purposefully, I do not believe. She knows her duty, the way
things stand between us all and what we've all done for the sake of
England, to give you an heir."
" I do not know what goes on in that foul creature's mind, but I
suspect much evil. She was supposedly too concerned about our unborn
heir to attend Catherine's funeral, but she was cavorting about her
apartments to bright, joyous music, jeeringly scorning Catherine's
memory, as well as her very husband when she lost our child."
"Anne never really understood how to make you happy, my lord. She
never loved you. She is a young and ignorant—"
"It matters not!" he interrupted her sharply, for this time he
didn't need her soothing. He needed to fume and rave, and wanted her
to simply listen. "But she blames the miscarriage on the fright she
suffered when hearing of my accident the other day."
"Well, that may be, sire. I was quite shaken when you told me about
it. Any sudden shock can cause great turmoil in an expectant
mother—"
"Five days later?" he cut her off, slapping his hand against his
thigh in exasperation. "She very conveniently used it as an excuse.
I would not put it past her to deliberately kill my child, being a
boy, of course, to twist the knife she's already plunged through my
heart. What could she possibly do to torture me more brutally than
to kill my prince? But she failed this time, Amethyst. This sinister
plan of hers did not succeed. I cannot be totally outraged, nay, I
cannot, because I feel the strangest jumble of gladness and sadness,
all mixed together like those crazy concoctions Dr. Butts mixes up
and grinds with his mortar and pestle. Sad because I lost my prince,
but glad because Anne has just forfeited her last chance. It is the
end for her. I am free."
"Free? You are going to divorce her now?" She tried to keep the
eager rise out of her voice.
"Divorce...bah! Divorce is too good for her! Anne is to die. She is
to be tried and convicted."
"Tried and convicted, for what? As a witch?" she asked, feeling numb
with shock.
"No..." He walked about the chamber in circles, his hand flattened
to his forehead, urging his brain to think fast, faster than the
crafty Anne ever had.
"Something more earthly, more mundane, something more fitting for
the deceitful, lying, scheming, treacherous whore that she is...
That is it! Adultery!" He said as simply as if they'd just composed
a song together. "I shall accuse her of adultery, bring her up on
charges, throw her into the Tower and be done with her!"
"How will you find someone with whom to charge her, sire? Adultery
does take two, you know."
"It can take two. But in this case it will take three. No; four,
five! I shall accuse her of having five lovers!" He smacked his desk
with a flattened palm, his eyes shut tight in calculation. "One will
be no more incredible than five, so why not? Let her go to her death
in shame and degradation! I do not need to look very far to round up
conspirators. That Smeaton pouf is just as good as dead, always
fawning round Anne's ankles like a lovesick poodle waiting for a pat
on the head, strumming his lute with those pretty fingers and pared
nails, singing his way into her heart with that shrill voice of his
like he got his tarriwags whacked off! Then there is that poet,
although I use the term loosely, when I saw the kind of mucus that
spurted from his pen."
"You mean Thomas Wyatt, my lord?"
"Wyatt, aye, he's the one." Henry opened the top drawer of his
writing desk and yanked out a sheet of parchment, torn and creased,
as if it had been opened and closed many times. "This is the kind of
muck he has been writing to her. 'The lively sparks that issue from
those eyes, sunbeams to daze men's sight...' Yecch!"
Spittle ran down the side of his mouth and he wiped it with the
parchment. "Sickening, that is what it is. It makes me want to puke.
I would wipe my arse with it, for a better use it could never have.
However, I must keep it as evidence."
She wanted to ask the King why he felt it necessary to snoop through
Anne's personal effects in order to incriminate her. Why did he have
to stoop so low? she wondered. It was beneath his station to resort
to snooping.
She felt herself losing respect for him, just as she had as when
he'd intercepted Catherine's letters, and she hated herself for it.
Just when she assured herself that he would lower himself no
further, he spoke again.
"Then there's her brother George—"
"A bit of a fool, but surely no harm to you– Oh, you mean. Oh, no.
Surely not."
"Aye, why not."
"But her brother! Oh, sire!"
"Why not? Any witch who would expel a half-formed monster from her
womb when she is supposed to be carrying the heir to the throne of
England would not be above incest! It is perfectly credible! He
could very well have been the father! Who would dare question it, in
the light of everything else she has done?"
He grinned maliciously, and she could see he was actually enjoying
this plotting of Anne's disgraceful and torturous death along with a
roundup of innocent men. "Is there anyone you wish to dispose of, my
dear?"
Amethyst reeled in shock. "No!" Never could she presume to take
another person's life...no matter how they hurt her. "Please, sire,
think this over! Just divorce her and be done with it! Then we can
marry! But this...charging her with adultery! Think of the scandal."
His brows knit and he stiffened. "You must excuse me, Amethyst, for
I must now speak to Cromwell."
He strode past her. She grabbed on to the sleeve of his robe to try
to make him listen to reason, but he yanked himself out of her grasp
and slammed out of the chamber.
The council, which included Anne's own father and uncle, soon
inquired into the activities of the Queen and her alleged lovers.
Finally they charged Anne with adultery, the poisoning of Catherine
and Mary, and the injuring of the King's health. After her trial,
she was taken by barge to the Tower, and was led to her lodgings
there, laughing and weeping at the same time, to await her
execution.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Warwick Castle
The great hall gleamed with the glow of the hundreds of candles set
in gold candlesticks atop the enormous horseshoe-shaped table. Fires
blazed in the hearths. The table was set with gold chargers, cups
and ewers, each place setting in perfect symmetry. The wine goblets
were of the newest and most fashionable Venetian glass sparkling in
the candlelight like star sapphires, throwing blue shadows on the
tablecloth. The bell-shaped great salt stood majestically on its
three golden feet carved into the shape of delicate leaves, its
detachable pepper caster glowing like a crown at its top.
This evening's feast was to be ambrosial, down to the last detail of
the marzipan molds of Warwick Castle. As their future queen, Topaz
was going to give her guests a fanfare as close as possible to that
of a royal banquet as Warwick Castle was transformed into a palace.
Topaz's ladies-in-waiting put the finishing touches to her hair,
piled atop her head, brushed to a coppery sheen, encircled with a
light but distinctive gilded crown, dotted with tiny pearls and
diamonds, a pompous statement, but an appropriate one.