The Concubine (12 page)

“Don’t,” he begged her. “Catherine, don’t cry. I had no intention of making you cry.”

He felt like a great clumsy boy who, romping round, had unintentionally hurt his mother.

“It will make no noticeable difference,” he assured her. “It is some time now since we…since we lived as man and wife. This means only the separation of our households, for the sake of appearance. You can have any house, any of my houses that you care to choose. You shall be shown every honor and consideration. You can keep what state you wish, and be known as the Princess Dowager.”

He thought—Yes, I know, I was clumsy and hurt you, but don’t cry. Have a bite of my apple, borrow my top, but please don’t cry.

She pressed her hands to her mouth and willed the tears to cease, her mouth to stop trembling. There was so much she must say, clearly, positively, firmly, before this nonsense went any further.

“Henry, I am your wife. Nothing can alter that. The present Pope would never dream of retracting a proper dispensation given by his predecessor. I don’t care where I live, or what state I keep, but I am your wife. I have been for sixteen years and shall be until I die.” She saw the shame-faced expression change to sullen displeasure. “If it is…if it is a question of another woman…I will be discreet. I know that I am growing old and no longer attract you. If some other woman could make you happy, I would accept that, and pray for you both. But to treat our marriage as though it had never been, that I could not do. It would be impossible. It would be wicked.”

“Wicked to put right a grave wrong?”

Her own voice came back to her, deep-toned,

“Wicked to pretend that I have been nothing but your mistress and that Mary was born out of wedlock.”

“Pretend! Pretend! Anyone would think that this was some game I had invented for my own amusement. You speak of Mary. Isn’t it true that when the business of her betrothal to the Emperor was discussed the lawyers, Spanish ones, brought up the question of her legitimacy. It came up again over the French betrothal. This isn’t something I made up out of my head. It’s fact. If it were merely my fancy wouldn’t Clement have told me I had no case? Do you think Wolsey and Warham would sit in solemn session and say the marriage was open to doubt were it not so? There was an error and we suffer for it; Mary, too; but it must be put right. Come now, once accept the situation—as I have—and it will not seem so bad. I’m fond of you, and of Mary, as well you know. I shall treat her as I always have, and you as…as my favorite sister.”

She knew that if she gave in now she would have his friendship for life. Something would be salvaged from the wreck—his goodwill. If she made things easy for him, he would make things pleasant for her. But it wasn’t only of herself she must think.

It never had been. All her life long it had never been Catherine first. The English marriage which would be good for Spain; the long, wretched time of waiting after Arthur’s death, while her father and Henry’s brooded over her dowry and the choice of a second husband for her; marriage to Henry which had, by mere chance, brought her happiness, though when it was arranged nobody cared whether it did so or not. And now this. Even now Catherine mattered hardly at all. Mary was the one who mattered.

She said, “As long as I live I shall regard myself as your wife and shall call myself Catherine the Queen. And Mary will be your one legitimate child. You have gone, behind my back, which was unkind, to the Pope and gained no satisfaction. I shall ask him to consider my case. I will write to the Emperor, too. The original dispensation that Julius gave is either in Rome, or in Madrid. They can get it out and study it and see if there is a flaw that would justify this troubling of your conscience, after so many years. You are my husband, my King, my lord, under God I owe you obedience and in any other matter that you could name I would obey you. But when you ask me to accept something which denies the Pope’s ruling, and the sacrament of marriage, and the legitimacy of our child, then you ask too much.”

Knowing her as he did he knew that further words would be wasted. The tears had made her eyes swell, and with her jaw set in that obstinate line she looked like a bulldog.

“We shall see,” he said, and turned and went out, setting each foot down more heavily than usual.

He was still far from being the tyrant that he was to become in later life, but he liked his own way and was accustomed to getting it. And at the moment Catherine’s attitude mattered. The Pope was the Emperor’s prisoner and it would have been of inestimable value if the next emissary could have carried some proof that Catherine had agreed to the annulment. Her orthodoxy and piety were everywhere acknowledged, if she would have admitted to a qualm of conscience, too, there’d have been no more argument about it.

Now it would go on and on.

What a fine way to repay his years of devotion and the patience with which he had borne all her mishaps in childbed. Never once had he reproached her, never once allowed his disappointment to exceed her own.

It was the waste of time that irked him most. Of the final outcome he had no doubt. The Pope needed him and in the end would settle for his terms. But there’d now be the pretense of studying Catherine’s case. And another summer was well on its way and here he was, a man, strong, healthy, lusty, with on one side a woman of whom he was tired, and on the other a woman he wanted as no man, surely, had ever wanted a woman before. Both stubborn women, too. One clinging to a marriage which, as he had just explained to her, was no marriage at all; the other demanding marriage as the price of surrender. Of the two he had, being in love with her, more sympathy with Anne. To a woman her good name mattered. Catherine’s good name was in no danger, everyone would regard her as the unfortunate victim of a mistake; she was merely being proud and disobliging.

The first thing to do—he thought—was to prove to her that he meant what he said. And he knew a very agreeable way of doing that, if only it could be brought about.

His face brightened; his step grew lighter and swifter.

Within ten minutes he was mounted, and riding hard for Hever.

J
UNE AGAIN, WITH THE CUCKOOS
calling in the Kentish woods, and the roses blooming in the garden at Hever; lovers’ weather again, and nothing changed, save that he was more in love than ever, and growing impatient, and aware of the time slipping away.

He was renewing his pleading that she should return to Court.

“I can’t forever be coming down to Hever, darling, yet I count every day when I don’t see you, wasted. I
need
you in London. Why won’t you come?”

“I did,” she said, “in May, and you sought me out so openly that had I stayed out the week, scandal would have been busy.”

“It was May Day,” he said humbly. “Everybody makes merry then.”

“That saved us, perhaps. I don’t think even the Queen had any real suspicion. But if I came back, and it happened again…Henry, I hate the thought of people talking in corners, watching, making up tales; and I hate being sly and furtive, and in the wrong.”

“But everything is changed now. I’ve been frank with Catherine; I’ve told her that I no longer regard her as my wife, and…”

“Did you mention me?”

“No. It was not the time for that. She was very upset. She…she…I don’t care to think about it. But I am a free man, and I intend to act like one. Wolsey is now in France and when he returns I want him to see that I do not intend to marry this Renée he has picked for me. I want him to see you beside me. I want it all out in the open. I have chosen you, and as soon as a few legal points are settled we shall be married. What is there in that for people to talk over in corners?”

“When you put it like that, nothing. But I would rather remain here until those legal points
are
settled. They take so long. Last month the Cardinal and the Archbishop were to look into your marriage and declare it void. And that all came to nothing.”

“That was a stroke of foul luck,” Henry said with a touch of impatience in his voice. “How could anyone foresee that while they were actually sitting we should get news of the Pope being taken prisoner. His is the ultimate sanction, so there was nothing Wolsey and Warham could do but what they did, which was to say that the marriage
was
open to question. They said that, the two highest authorities in England. And that justifies me. The news from Rome was a shock. But things are settling now and it may well be that the Pope’s captivity may even be of benefit to us.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“In two ways, or one of two ways. A helpless man—and Clement is that if ever a man was—is always eager to find an ally. As soon as his slow mind takes stock of his position he’ll see that his only hope is for me and Francis of France to go to his aid; and he’ll know what my price is! Francis can make his own bargain. Or—and this was Wolsey’s inspired idea—it would be feasible to argue that a Pope who is a prisoner is incapable of fulfilling his proper function and therefore his authority devolves upon his Legates in the various countries. Here that means Wolsey, and Wolsey would free me like that!” He snapped his fingers.

“To marry Renée of France, not me!”

“Trust you, sweetheart, to put your pretty finger on the nub of the matter,” Henry said dotingly. “But he
said
it. He admitted that the marriage was open to question, he said that in certain circumstances he could assume Papal powers. He can’t go back on that. He can’t turn about to me, his King, and say—I’d free you to marry the Frenchwoman, but not the woman you love. By God’s throne, if he did that, I’d have his head!”

The very thought turned his face plum-colored, made his eyes bulge.

“Not that he would. Wolsey’s aim is to please me. It always has been. I’ve set him very high and in his heart he is grateful. He’ll grumble a little; he has always had this leaning toward France, and he’s getting old and set in his ways; he’d like to see me make a French marriage. But when he knows that my mind and heart are set on you, and that I’ll not budge, he’ll give in. He’s rather like…” Henry fumbled in his mind for an apt simile and found it, the fruit of his long rides about the countryside where he would talk to farmers and shepherds and blacksmiths and millers and plowman, talks which had established the toughest roots of his popularity with the common people. “He’s rather like those old horses that in their last days are set to turn a mill wheel. They have to be blindfolded at first, otherwise they turn dizzy and stagger; later on they become accustomed and the cloth can be taken away. Thomas, blindfolded, has started on the round that will set me free, and I think the time has come to uncover his eyes. When he comes back from France I want him to find you by my side, and to know the truth.”

“And that,” she said in that light, frivolous manner which always took him by surprise, “is why you
need
me at Court.”

“How you love to tease me. One day,” his voice thickened, “I’ll tease you!” He thought of the form the teasing would take; the two of them, naked in the wide bed. He’d take his sweet, sweet revenge for all the times when she had laughed and he had not known why, for all the openly mocking words like those she had just spoken, and for all the more subtle things, looks, words with which she had tightened the chain that bound him to her. One day his devotion, his patience, his unswerving allegiance, his love, would have their full reward.

He answered her solemnly.

“No; that is not why. It is a reason, but I have another, more urgent. You should understand it, for you have, and rightly, a concern for your good name.
And so have I for mine
. I know what people will say. Henry of England has tired of his old wife and fallen in love with a pretty face. Simple people always reduce everything to their own simple measure. They’ll laugh at the mention of my conscience. It’ll be a rare man who can understand the full truth, that my conscience is troubled and that I love you and that the two things are separate. I think that no man has ever been placed as I am. There is my conscience, but many with worse settle things with their confessor, and I could, if I wished, take refuge in the thought that Julius sanctioned my marriage. Then there is my lack of an heir. Nothing remarkable in that. Other men suffer the same and fold their hands and murmur about the will of God. So we come to the naked truth. My conscience, my heirlessness, maybe I could bear, had I never seen you. I’m ready now to turn the situation to my advantage, but I did not
create
the situation, though they will accuse me of that. And sometimes, when I think of the calumny, the arguments—yes, I’ll be honest, when I think of Catherine’s hurt, a black moment comes upon me. And I am in London, you are here; it isn’t possible for me to run here every time I am downhearted.” His face lost a little of its healthy color, the pupils of his light eyes widened. “So I think of you, and, sweetheart, sometimes you seem so near, so close that I can smell the scent of your hair; but there are other times when it seems that I’d fallen in love with a woman I’d dreamed about, or read of. I say your name, Anne, Anne Boleyn, and it is just a name. I’m like a man who has left his safe warm house at night to follow the will-o’-the-wisp that dances two steps ahead and will lead him on, over the quicksands, and will still dance on, over the place where he has gone down—” He broke off, stared into her face and said in a different voice, “Don’t look at me like that! In God’s Name, I don’t want your pity, or your concern. I want
you
, close to hand, in London, so that when the black dog sits on my shoulder I can see and touch you, hear you laugh. Is that too much to ask? At best, being a King is a lonely business.”

The last feeling that she had ever expected to feel for him was pity; pity was for the small, the weak, the ill-done-by, not for the great, the rich, the powerful. Also, she realized suddenly, she had never, until this moment, given him much consideration as a person; as a King, yes, as a man, yes, but not as a mere human being, capable of feeling frightened and lonely.

She said, “I’m no will-o’-the-wisp, Henry. I’m real enough. I gave you my word and as soon as this troublesome business is settled and I can decently come to London, I will do so, gladly enough.”

“But I want you there
now
. I shall want you when I face Wolsey. I shall get my way with him in the end, but he’ll produce a thousand reasons why I should not follow my heart. And Catherine, stubborn as rock; nothing will shift her until the Pope gives his verdict. The worst part lies just ahead, Anne; and I mean it when I say that I need you.”

She heard the warning, clear as a trumpet call. One of these days, when the black mood was on him, when Wolsey argued and Catherine wept, and she seemed no more than a woman he’d dreamed of, he’d give in. He’d go running to Catherine, put his head on her motherly bosom and say he was sorry and let all be as it was before, love. He could do it tomorrow, all too easily. As yet he had given no reason for his desire to deny his marriage, save the pricking of his conscience, and he could say that Wolsey or Warham had managed to set his conscience at rest.

Thoughtfully she twirled the rose she was carrying. She often carried a flower or a trinket, for apart from the marred little finger her hands were of exceptional beauty, long and slim, the color of cream, and toying with some object—the little finger tucked away—was a means of drawing attention to them. This evening, however, she moved the rose without any conscious design, and was hardly aware of breathing in the scent set free by its movement. But into her indecisive mind the fragrance sent a pang of memory. Four years now since she and Harry Percy had kissed in the Greenwich gardens; the wound healed, the scar sensitive in certain weathers, like the arm and leg stumps of old warriors. And to think of Harry brought Wolsey to mind; Wolsey, so devilishly skilled in finding reasons why one shouldn’t follow one’s heart. To retire now, to let consideration for her good name weigh against the ultimate advantage, would be to let Wolsey triumph yet again.

And she thought—I’m twenty, no longer really young; I might never get another chance to marry; and my father, very tolerant now because he sees in me a way to favor, would, should that favor be withdrawn, show quite another face.

Yet still the thought of the greedy, hard-glinting eyes, the flicking, forked serpents’ tongues, was horrible.

Until marriage—however long that may take to attain—nothing but a few harmless caresses; and if anyone says otherwise I shall demand a panel of matrons to refute the slur.

The thought was so fantastic that she laughed and Henry, waited anxiously, looked at her in amazement.

“I’m laughing,” she said, “at
you
. Asking for what you could so easily command. You have only to order me to be at Greenwich on such a day, at such a time, and I should be there, careful to be punctual.”

He said, with an earnestness that was almost pompous,

“I should never dream of giving you an order, as you should know by now. You are my lady and I serve you, hoping that in return you may grant me some small favor. I promise you that if you will come to London I’ll ask nothing more, make no demands, never embarrass you in any way. All I need is your presence. You shall have your own apartments, your chaplain, trainbearer, everything. In all but name you shall be Queen. And that, too, before long.”

She said, “I will come.”

He began to babble. “Bless you, my sweet Anne, bless you. You strengthen and hearten me. Now I can fight them all. And never think that your position will be in doubt. You shall at all times, and from everyone, receive the respect that is due to my bride-to-be. I thought,” he said thickly, “that I loved you as much as a man could love a woman, but for your kindness I now love you a thousand times more.”

He leaned forward and kissed her in the way he had mastered, passionately, but with passion hard held in control. And she kissed him, coolly, but with infinite promise. Oh God, he thought, how long?

Sometimes it worried him a little. He loved her so much, he longed for her, with every nerve and fiber of his body, yet always his mind must rein his flesh. He’d set himself to wait—and four years had gone by. What did four years of celibacy do to a man? He imagined a man, accustomed to feeding full, fond of his food, cast away on one of the desert islands sailors told of, or clapped into jail. Would the appetite shrivel, fit itself to hard circumstances and make him unable to eat well when at last the full board was spread before him? The thought had so troubled him that once or twice he had thought of taking another woman, some almost anonymous female body, as a kind of medicine. But he knew that it would be useless. In all the world there was only this one woman; and though half of him grieved over her refusal to allow him to become her lover, the other half rejoiced. Chastity was a virtue; and she was compounded of all the virtues. On the whole, willingly he kissed the rod.

Anne thought—Presently we shall go into the house and I shall tell my father and Lady Bo that I am going to London and they’ll hold me cheap.

She said, “There is one thing, so silly and small that I hate to mention it to you, because, born royal, you can never understand how hard other people must fight for precedence. But I have been at Court before. It would amuse you to know how strictly we were graded. As a mere knight’s daughter, for example, I should not be allowed stabling for my own horse. And that comes all the harder because my father has claims, not yet recognized, to higher titles.”