The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn (39 page)

I see that now.

It is a dead sort of day, the type of day where the sky is white, and there is not even the hint of a breeze. Clouds muffle the horizon and I want to push them away, thrust back the oppression and the
fear, and revel for one more day beneath blue skies, feel the wind on my cheeks, the scent of Hever in the air. Instead I am here, in my palatial prison, with no future, no next week to look forward to, perhaps not even a tomorrow.

Just after noon, the door opens and Archbishop Cranmer is announced. He stands just inside the door, his furrowed face dead white. His long fingers are restive, fiddling with the tassel of his book binding. He is the king’s servant but a good man nonetheless, and I move forward, breaking convention, to greet him.

“Thomas,” I say, grasping his hands that are clammy and cold in mine. It is the first time I have used his given name, usually it is “Cranmer” or “Sir”, but today I have need of a friend. 

I call for wine and usher him toward a table beneath the window
, where the light will fall upon his papers and ease his eyes. “Have you come to hear my confession? I fear it will disappoint Cromwell.”

I pour him a cup of wine and hand it to him
. He takes it but doesn’t drink, instead he places it on the table and runs his tongue across dry, cracked lips.

“
Your Grace.” He indicates that I should sit, and I do so. He seems more distraught by my approaching death than I, and I have the curious desire to put him at ease, make his task less hideous, although it strikes me that it should really be the other way round.

“Tom, do not worry for me. I know I have to die, whether to suit the king’s need or Cromwell’s, there is no wriggling out of it. I am ready and if …
if George has to die for my sake, then living is a thing I no longer wish for.”

“
Your Grace,” he repeats, leaning forward in his chair, “there might yet be a way. I have instruction from Cromwell that if you agree to certain things, your life may well be granted after all.”

Time slows
and I can hear the blood thumping in my ears, my heart hammering loud beneath my ribs.

“How?
What things?”

Suddenly
, life is sweet again. I remember Hever in the sunshine; Mary, George, Wyatt and I crawling through meadows of sunshine, the scent of apples and summertime. I remember Grandmother’s horrid little dog, his relentless scratching, his turds curling ripely on the lawn. I remember the boredom, the everyday dreariness of the familiar. I want to experience all that again.

I want to go home.

I want to see my mother.

“How?”
I repeat. “Tell me what I must do.”

He takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye, speaking all in
a rush as though he has little time to say it.

“Admit
that your marriage to the king is invalid. Confess to a pre-contract. If you are not the king’s true wife, then no crime has been committed.”

I do not answer right away. The only sound in the chamber is the crackling flames in the grate. It is so quiet that I know Lady Kingston and my aunt, Lady Boleyn, are listening on the other side of the door. All my life, ever since I came to court, there have been spies carrying tales to my enemies, looking for a way to come between me and the king
. Yet even now, I will not whisper.

“And what
of Elizabeth?”

“She will be cared for. As a royal bastard
, she will receive every honour.”

“Like her sister Mary, you mean?”

He does not answer. What can he say? The only person preventing fair treatment of Mary was me. I can only hope that Henry’s next wife will be kinder. I slump back in my seat, the brief hope of reprieve forgotten. “She is the king’s heir, whatever they may say. I cannot sell her legitimacy for the sake of my life.”

He sighs, flicks the edges of his pile of papers, taps his finger as he decides how best to respond.

“She may wish you to do so. You are her mother. Think how she will feel to grow up the daughter of a disgraced and executed queen …”

“Better to be the daughter of a whore,
you  mean?”

He closes his eyes against my profanity and we both sit in silence, each thinking our own thoughts.

“Why does Cromwell need my confession to get his annulment? Why not just press some poor innocent into perjury? Why not just promise my sister Mary a fortune in exchange for declaring a pre-contract between the king and herself? Why do you need me?”

Even
as I speak I realise that they have already exhausted those avenues. Mary has refused to play their game, and Percy, poor weak Henry Percy, has chosen not to betray me either. Perhaps he is not so weak livered as I thought.

I look Cranmer in the eye. I see pain, discomfort
, and much sorrow. I begin to weaken. “If I do admit to a pre-contract, what will happen to me? Will I be free to return to Hever, to marry again and forget I was ever queen, or will I be a prisoner, like the late queen, Catherine?”

He hesitates. “I believe it would be best were you to take orders and enter a nunnery.”

I raise my eyebrows. “A nunnery? This has been carefully planned. So I am to be closeted to pray for the king’s soul while he continues as before, and is free to marry whomever he pleases … Tell me, Cranmer, do you think he would ever be able to forget me?”

A long silence, a ragged sigh, a dropped head.
“No, Your Grace. There is not a soul on this Earth who has met you who will ever be allowed to forget.”

Finding myself touched by his words, I stand up and move to the window, kneel upon the seat. Outside
, the castle green is alive with people, and beyond on the river, the world goes on without me. If only I could board a wherry and make my escape upriver, take horse to Hever and never come to court again.

For the first time, a life of obscurity sounds like
Heaven. Life is very sweet. It will be less so without George, and I would never know true happiness again, but he would not want me to die.

He would tell me to live. 

I make up my mind.

“Very well, Cranmer. You have your confession. I was pre-contracted to many men in my youth, and have lived a disgustingly dissolute life. My marriage to the king has as much substance as gossamer. Go tell him so
, and let us be done with this nonsense.”

“You will go into seclusion and not seek to visit or communicate with the king, or your daughter?”

“Elizabeth? I must not write to Elizabeth?”

He shakes his head. “But remember, your compliance will ensure her well-being. If you want her to be well cared for and happy, you must remain a stranger to her.”

Can I do that? Can I bear to live my life estranged from her, never to share her triumphs, or comfort her in dark times? I would hear news of her, of course, but second hand news is not the same. She is my beloved daughter, I cannot and do not want to live without her.

But life is calling me, singing its sweet tempting song
, and I find myself agreeing. If I live, everything else will come right.

I have to live.

I am still awake when dawn breaks in a wave of pink sky. Today is the day my brother must die, and our innocent friends along with him. I cannot stand it
. How, knowing they die for me, can I continue to breathe, continue to eat, to sleep, to live?

Perhaps I should have stood firm and denied the pre-contract. Perhaps I would be better off dead than suffering a life of torment
, without Henry, without Elizabeth, and without George. I wish I could just prevent my next breath from happening, close my eyes, never inhale again, just stop, put an end to everything. Yet somehow my body continues to function, my heart continues to beat … and slowly break.

Why is Henry doing this? Why does he not come and save us? How can he let his friends perish in this way? George, Weston, Brereton
, and Norris are men whom he has loved as brothers; men who have served him intimately and devotedly for so many years. What can be urging him to take such a horrible, irreversible step? How can he do this to me, for the sake of whom he took on the mighty power of Rome?

And then I realise. It is all suddenly quite clear. It is not Henry at all. It is Cromwell, manipulating the king to his own ends
, and Henry believes it all.  He believes I never loved him, that I slept with his friends, laughed at him in secret.

Poor Henry! He must be suffering the most horrible torment. I almost feel his sense of betrayal, imagining me indulging in heinous depravity, laughing at his prowess, his talents, every one of his friends disloyal and spiteful.

He thinks we have made him a fool, but it is Cromwell who does that. Poor gullible Henry, deceived and controlled by the son of a draper; tricked by a servant into destroying his real friends. After this day he will have no one to trust, never again will Henry know the comfort of an honest friend for he is letting them all die.

I cannot sit still
; all morning I stride back and forth, chewing the skin around my fingernails, taking neither food nor drink, and speaking to no one. Until, a little after noon, Master Kingston arrives.

“Is the deed done?” I already know the answer for I heard the cannon that
signals to the people the fate of all traitors. He nods his head, looks at the floor. “My brother is dead? And the others too?”

“Yes,
Your Grace. I am sorry, but take comfort in the knowledge that they died nobly and well.”

Nobly and well! What comfort is that? I wring my hands as if trying to wash them clean.

“Tell me,” I gasp through dry tears, although part of me has no wish to hear it.

He clears his throat. “Lord
Rochford, your brother, went first. He stood bravely, spoke to the crowd of his faith and love for the king …”

“And his innocence?”

“Of course, Your Grace. All men spoke of that, bar one …”

His voice fades away.

“Smeaton.” I cannot help it, I spit the word.

“Yes,
Your Grace, although he had the chance to retract his confession.”

“So, he did not clear me of the public shame he has brought to me? Then I fear his soul will suffer for such false accusations.”

Kingston accepts my outburst without words. I look at him, sensing he has something more to impart. “Well, what more have you to say?”

“Your Grace, forgive me but …
the council have decided … your confession regarding the pre-contract … it is not enough to save you.”

For the first time in his presence I almost fall
, but swiftly he reaches out and holds me firm, his strong hands clasping my elbows until I am steady again. I slowly raise my eyes to his, hating the truth I discover there.

“So I am to die anyway. I need not have perjured myself?”

He shakes his head once.

“When is it to be?”

“Tomorrow, Your Grace. You must make your peace with God.”

Someone is laughing. “It doesn’t really matter,” I hear
a voice saying. “I have lost all that I cared for. My brother is dead, my friends are slain, my daughter is stolen from me. What use is life to me now? Although … I would have liked to see Hever just one more time.”

I come back to myself with a jolt, realise that I am clutching Mr Kingston’s collar. I draw back, stand like one chastised, smile an apology for my brief lapse of manners.

“Is it to be by fire, or the axe?”

“The king, in his mercy, has sent for a swordsman from Calais. It will be both swift and painless.”

“His Majesty is so kind.”

Mistaking my irony
, he closes his eyes in silent agreement.

“It is extraordinary, is it not, Mr Kingston, that on paper I am not and never was the king’s wife
, yet I am still to die for infidelity and treason? How determined he must be to be rid of me.”

Mr Kingston bows and asks if there is anything I require
, but there is only one thing left.

“I would like to take the
Sacrament and make my peace with God.”

“It shall be done, Your Grace.” Silently and reverently, although I am no longer owed any such allegiance, he bows from the room, softly closing the door, leaving me for one more night, alone.

Just one more night.

18th May 1536 – The Tower of London

Even if the hammering of the scaffold builders stopped
, I’d know no rest. It is long since I slept but, somehow, the need for it has passed. I spend my last night on Earth in prayer, reflecting upon my life, what I might have done differently, where I might have taken an alternative path.

Had Wolsey not intervened I might be married to Percy now, and the mother of a dozen boys, but fate decreed otherwise. Had I been made of lighter morals
, I might be mistress to Tom Wyatt and likewise a mother to a troop of tow-headed rascals, all looking just like their father. For a few moments I linger happily on the thought, regretting his marriage to Elizabeth Brooke; perhaps we’d all have been happier without it. Perhaps it would have been better to become his mistress, and my mistake was in clinging to chastity. I am to die a whore anyway.