“I am sick unto death.”
“Surely not!”
“Aye, my lady, ’tis true. But I wanted to see you again once afore I die, and to reassure you that you will be well provided for. I know not if I will last a week or a month or mayhap many months, but I see the angel of death about me from time to time, pursuing me closer and closer. My time draws near.”
“I shall remain with you,” I said. “For however long it takes.”
He coughed again. “You’re a good girl, but that is not necessary. The king has had his secretary write to me of the pleasure of having you at court, yea, has even given us a manor in the Marches as a wedding gift. A suggestion from your friend Mistress Boleyn, for certain.”
Dear Anne, she’d never mentioned it. I’d like as not never visit it but would have an income from it now, to add to my own small stipend from the baron.
The baron sat up and I arranged his linens around him. “I shall ensure that the king’s gift is included in your portion so that when I am gone you will be taken care of. Simon and your brother negotiated your marriage portion and it will go to you. As my heir, Simon will inherit my other properties and income. And title. He will see to the return of your portion after I am gone.”
I was glad to hear that I would be well provided for but about to protest the macabre conversation when he held his hand up. His manner was strong and commanding and I imagined he’d been a much different man decades before. “No, lady wife, in this you will submit to me. Rest a few days and then, anon, get thee back to court. Simon will send you word when our Lord has come to collect me.”
He was a kindly man after all, and though I could not say I would miss him I could have been situated much worse. As a dowager baroness, a widow, I would be free to remarry or not. I would have my jointure settled upon me and be independent of male control. It would not be the life I’d envisioned, but it would not be a bad life, either.
The kindest gift I could give then was to be humble before him, recognizing what manhood he had retained. “Yes, sir, as you wish.” I stood to take my leave.
“Wife, a kiss,” he said. He pointed at his cheek and I smiled before gently placing one on his lips. He grinned. “Thank you.” Then he fell back into his bed and I pulled the tapestries around him to allow the warmth to remain well into the night.
TEN
Year of Our Lord 1529
Richmond Palace
Hampton Court Palace
One late spring night a few months after I’d returned to court, Henry threw a masque. On the off chance that anyone at court had not realized the state of his heart and mind, he chose a Greek mythology theme to make that point clear, in particular, to Cardinal Campeggio and others of the delegation now here to decide his “great matter.” Henry was cast as Eros.
There was a rare moment when Anne and I could talk alone. Normally a swarm of courtiers enveloped her in their cloud. The closer you were to the king, of course, the easier to imbibe of the royal nectar, and some used the excuse to intoxicate themselves. Not Anne, though he exalted her of his own accord. “Why does Henry insist that we pretend not to know who he is, thusly disguised?” I asked. It was ludicrous, really. There were few men as tall as he, nearly none with his mane, and his presence was unmistakably regal.
“I think he desires to be liked for himself and not his position,” Anne said. “In masque, he’s allowed that.”
It was a rare glimpse into the heart of one whom we rarely acknowledged as having the needs any man may have, and perhaps one reason why he loved Anne remarkably. Some said he controlled his ardor because, as a master huntsman, he desired to close the chase. And whilst I suppose that was true, Anne was also the only woman who treated Henry as mere man, chiding him one moment then building him up the next, offering him new books and new thoughts, displaying her love for him in unadorned offerings as a simple country wife would to her husband.
Of course, he wasn’t her husband yet.
The hearings to determine the validity of Henry’s marriage were under way; the pope had determined that Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio, from Rome, should judge the matter. It was understandable that the pope did not want to rule on it himself. The queen’s nephew, Charles the Fifth, had made his will plainly known by sacking Rome two years before and holding the pope hostage in part so he could not rule on the validity of his aunt’s marriage. Hence, the pope had not ruled. We all knew what Wolsey, the king’s lapdog through and through, would decree and he assured the king that Campeggio would find the marriage void as well. Back and forth the arguments went, with nearly all men, courtiers and priests, siding with the king, with a few notable exceptions. Women were not allowed at the Blackfriars hearings save one, on one fateful day.
The queen.
After each day’s trial proceeding George rushed into Anne’s apartments to give us the day’s events. I told Jessica to help herself to a date afore she and her mother took their leave. Afterward, she curtseyed to me and backed away. “You’re shameless with that girl,” Anne said. “Encouraging her to come with her mother and then feeding her sweets. She will not know her place.”
“She knows it well enough,” I said, allowing my voice to show my irritation at Anne’s rising imperiousness. So soon, already, she had forgotten what it was like to be a curious girl. “’Tis not hard to give the child a few reprieves in a hard life.”
George grabbed a goblet of wine and drew near to us. He was splendidly attired in blue silk sleeves slashed to show white linen beneath, silken hose like an aristocratic voice, and boots blacker than an ironsmith’s forearms. I had watched many a woman at court, married and other, young and other, try to beguile him, and though he flirted, as we all did, he had not yielded.
“Where is your wife?” I asked him.
“I know not, nor care,” he said. “She was kind-tongued to me for a fortnight after I was knighted, crowing about her title, and now she’s back to chewing my ear whenever our paths cross. But I have news.”
George’s voice grew excited. “The queen was at court today to answer the charge that she was Arthur’s true bride. She denied it, loudly, from the courtroom for all to hear. She declared herself a maid then and true now as she knelt at his feet. And, after doing so, she turned her back on Henry before he could answer her and departed from the court with her retinue.”
“What did Henry do after she boldly lied to his face?” Anne asked, aghast as all would be that she would call the king a fraud, publicly, and then turn her back on him.
“His mouth opened, and then closed, and then opened again. Henry has his faults but his honor would not allow him to call the queen a liar in an open court full of men. But the look he gave Bishop Fisher, her defender….” George took another drink of his wine before continuing. “I should not care to sleep in his bed this night.”
As for myself, I had never suspected the queen could lie. But Anne was no fool and Henry had made his assurances to her. If a queen could not lie, could God’s anointed king? Surely one of them must have. I, like Fisher, slept uneasily that night.
By the end of May the court disbanded with no clear answer for Henry. Campeggio went back to Rome, stalling, as no doubt the pope had instructed him to do. Wolsey was undone and he knew it. Henry had run out of patience. Another solution to the great matter needed to be found.
Wolsey, in damage control, had new quarters fashioned for Anne at Hampton Court Palace, his magnificent Thames-side residence, and we stayed there first, on progress. The gardens were heady with tulips, lazily nodding like children tempted to a nap on a hot afternoon. The hedges had been cut in neat rows of lover’s knots, and Anne and I strolled through them.