Anne showed me to a room just down the corridor from her own. She was wearing a rich sapphire bracelet, one I knew to be new.
“Is one of the king’s men here?” I inquired.
She nodded. ‘’The king has sent me a letter and his man has been instructed to await my reply.” After I’d refreshed myself she drew me into her father’s paneled library. Henry’s letter claimed concern for her health and well-being and distress whilst not understanding what her intentions were toward him. He’d signed it, “Written by the hand of your entire servant.”
I drew close to her. “Does your father know of this?”
“Nay,” she responded. “Not this particular letter. But we’ve talked of how I should respond should the king write.”
“How shall you respond, then?” I asked.
“Honestly.” A few hours later, after a cheerful dinner with her mother, Anne showed me the letter she would return to Henry in the morn. In it she reiterated what she had already told him in person afore she’d left the court. She found him noble and worthy in every capacity and enjoyed his company above all others’. But she had given her maidenhead into her husband’s hands, and there, by the grace of God, it should remain.
We spent the next days wandering the gardens, reading Erasmus together and making plans for our future children. Perhaps our daughters would be friends, too, I mused. Anne laughed. “I am much more concerned with my sons! But yes.” She took my hand. “I would that our daughters would be friends too.” We sat down on the stone bench where we had once made our blood pledge and talked of gowns and slippers.
Henry arrived at Hever Castle within a fortnight.
Lady Boleyn was not, I assume, given to entertaining the king without the commanding hand of her husband but alas, he was away on the king’s business. “Lady, I require but simple fare and good company, and I know well that both can be found within your household,” the king replied. His visit was ostensibly to take advantage of the hunting in the area. He was hunting for certes. I could scarce hold back my grin, but he was kindly to me as well. He inquired after my husband’s health and thanked me for being a constant friend to Anne.
Anne appeared to be in high spirits. She rode out to the hunt with the king; ’twas a sport they both enjoyed, and being competitors, both of them, they passed the day in good pleasure. When they returned they rode side by side, her face flushed, her eyes shining; she looked beautiful in her velvet hunting outfit of forest green. Henry’s men and her serving ladies bantered and laughed behind them. I met them at the bridge over the moat afore they dismounted.
“I see you were successful,” I called out, indicating the stag.
“Aye, the lady beat me to the shot and carried the day,” Henry called back, more a young man than the king. He looked at Anne, besotted, and what was even more concerning was that she looked back at him with genuine love and affection. The king stayed for three nights before returning to court and after he left, Anne told me that, although it must remain a secret, as he considered himself an unmarried man he would soon make her his wife.
“So Henry does not plan to marry Wolsey’s French princess?” I said in shock.
“How wonderful! I am entirely satisfied in your dignified match and future happiness!” She reprimanded me by quoting what a woman friend would have been expected to respond with rather than what I’d offered her.
“Your happiness is paramount to me, dear friend. But I fear for your safety too. There will be many who will not welcome you at court after this. The queen has many who are partial to her. And Wolsey wants the French.”
“They can be partial to Katherine or to the French elsewhere,” Anne said. “Katherine has spoilt her own nest and married under false pretenses. Henry assured me. I have no desire to go awry of our Lord in this, so I looked fast into his eyes and determined that he was telling the truth. They are not truly married—and never have been. I have his word on that and the king, as you know, is the anointed of God and above deceit.” She held out her hand, upon which was set a magnificent emerald ring. “I told the king I should answer him anon in a letter. But first—to write to my father.”
At the end of the month she heard back from her father and then returned a letter to the king, along with a gift she commissioned, one that cost her dearly: a model of a ship with a woman on board wearing a diamond pendant. As a ship meant protection and a diamond a woman’s heart, I knew, as Henry would, what her answer was. She was giving her heart to him and depending upon him, and not her father, to guard her henceforth.
She pulled me into her chamber and showed me his return letter upon its arrival. In it he obliged himself to forever honor, love, and serve her sincerely and asked her to do the same, out of loyalty of heart. I sighed as I read it. It would be hard not to as they were so deeply in love. She set the letters, with the others he’d sent to her, in a small trunk. I felt heartsick all over again at the loss of my letters from Will. But perhaps it would have been unbecoming for a married lady to keep them, and in any case, their contents were writ upon my heart.
Along with some gifts for Anne, Henry had sent another box. Anne held it out to me. “’Tis for you.”
I was taken aback. “Me?”
She nodded and smiled and I took it into my own hand. I opened the box and inside was a beautiful bracelet of gold and garnet. There was a small note thanking me for being “a faithful friend and true to my dear heart,” along with an invitation to return with her to court. My sister, Alice, would join us there frequently, as would Jane, George’s wife, and a few other of Anne’s cousins.
An invitation from Henry was a command, and unless my husband decreed otherwise I would return with her. Henry was already looking to reinforce Anne from the factions into which he knew the women would divide.
NINE
Year of Our Lord 1528
Windsor Castle
Allington Castle
Hever Castle
Richmond Palace
The court, returned now to Windsor, was a happier place for the relative absence of the queen, who deplored frivolities as much as Henry adored them. We’d been recovering from a May Day masque, drinking small ale and talking over the next week’s plans, when a new maid came in to tidy Anne’s chambers. A small girl trailed behind the maid, hiding in a corner.
“Where is Bridget?” Anne asked the new woman.
“She’s taken ill of a sudden, m’lady. I’m her cousin come to take her place if ’n it’s a’right with you.”
Anne nodded her agreement and turned back to the conversation she was having with the court musicians. She was commissioning the pieces for a dinner in the king’s honor to be held two weeks hence. I grinned at the little girl in the corner and crooked my finger to her, drawing her near to me. It was rare to see a child at court. Royal children were often set up in their own households, like twelve-year-old Princess Mary, and children of the nobility and gentry stayed at their own properties or were tutored with other noble families until such time that they were old enough to be introduced to court life.
The little girl came close to me. “And who are you?” I asked.