The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn (33 page)

He takes a step nearer, reaches out and pats my hand dismissively as if I am a child, or one of his hounds. “Yes,” he says in a distant voice. “Next time fortune will smile upon
us, and God help us if it does not.”

He doesn’t linger. He turns to go, his head down, his broad shoulders filling the doorway for a moment, blotting out the light, leaving me with nothing, not even hope.

My legs are as unsteady as my mind when first
I rise from my sick bed. I demand to be dressed in my finest clothes, and layer by layer, my status is reconfirmed as I prepare to fight the battle of my life. I am determined to win my husband back and defeat the insidious woman who creeps like a louse into our marriage bed.

George arrives in a gust of fresh air to escort me to the hall. He holds out his arms, lets his hands slap against his thighs. “Anne, you are magnificent. If you weren’t my queen and my sister, I would woo you myself.”

Ignoring his wife’s scowl, I manage to laugh. I link my arm through his and we process to the hall. The court falls to its knees at my entrance, Jane Seymour included, and when I am half way to the throne, Henry rises and comes to meet me. His smile is warm, his eyes soft with concern. For the benefit of the court, I wonder? Or is his gentleness genuine?

He tucks my hand beneath his elbow, keeping it covered with his own, and leads me to my chair next to his
. Together we sit and face the court. “You look beautiful,” he whispers as he lets go my hand, and a shiver of hope flushes through my body. I feel warmer than I have in days.

His fool, Will
Somer, begins to do his work, wandering about the room like a dotard, making jokes of the ladies fashions, blithely insulting the greatest lords of the land, safe in the king’s protection. The hall fills with laughter and merriment, our lost prince forgotten. Life goes on.

When the music begins Henry leads me out and we dance before them all, our hands touching, our eyes locked, our feet much lighter than our hearts. When the musicians pause
, he bows over my hand and leads me back to my place.

Jane is nowhere to be seen. I hope she has been dismissed and is snivelling somewhere en route to Gloucestershire
; but perhaps she is ensconced in some secret boudoir waiting for Henry’s return. Uncertainty and fear nibble at my mind, and my eyes dart constantly about the hall. But I keep a smile on my lips and George, the only person who knows that my hold on sanity is tenuous, hovers nearby, every so often leaning close to place a hand upon my shoulder or on my knee.

Henry behaves as if nothing is amiss, as if baby princes are as easily obtained as buns from a baker’s shop. Determined that none shall think him vulnerable, his laughter is loud, his wit bouncing about the vaulted hall
. Like George on my right, he often leans close to draw me into the revel.

I am in the midst of court
. It is warm—too warm—the people are laughing, the music is loud, and I am surrounded by friends. And yet, I feel I am not really here. I have become a priceless relic, encased in glass, seen yet not touched, admired yet not used. A queen of ice, my feelings numbed.

That night
, Henry comes to me. He draws back the bed hanging and without speaking, lifts the sheets and slides naked into bed beside me. He is huge and safe, and I am so glad. I roll into him, lay my cheek upon his furred chest and anoint him with my tears, his kisses light, like butterflies on my face.

He loves me gently. There are no games, no French trickery. I lay in his arms like a wounded hind grazed by his arrow
, and beneath his kisses I begin to heal, the angry sore of loss is soothed; a scab begins to form.

As he loves me the numbness begins to gradually recede, and feeling creeps back. I stretch my limbs, open myself to him,
delight in the ecstasy of his touch flowing like blood through my veins. My breasts, that have ached to nourish my dead son, now ache for him, my quaint leaping and throbbing beneath his fingers. He mounts me, his face serious, and fumbles between my legs. I gasp at his entry.

His movements, slow at first, grow rapid and I cling to him, my mouth open, my eyes closed
. As we leave our cares behind and ascend to the stars, my tears begin to fall, releasing my sorrow and filling me with life.

Life that smarts and burns.

***

Jane Seymour has not left court
, but she has the sense to stay out of my way. On the morning I encounter her in the garden, she sinks into a curtsey and stays there as I sweep past, her head low, her skirts spoiling in a dirty puddle. I pretend to be unaffected. She is as insignificant as the other small beasts that frequent the court; the rats in the cellars, the beetles in the wainscot, and the fleas on the court dogs. Yet my hands tremble and I need to sit down, but the turf seats are wet, the lawns soggy and dotted with worm casts.

Nan offers me her arm. “Don’t let her worry you,” she whispers, full of concern. “She is nothing. Carry on as if she does not exist.”

But she does exist, and the king persists in his courtly game. My sister-in-law, Jane, delights to bring me news of it. I hear of every move or gesture the king makes toward her, and the knowledge consumes me. Yet it is to me he comes at night, we make love regularly and desperately as he battles to conceive his son.

To keep myself sane when he is away from me and I fear he is with her, I bury myself in work. I raise funds for charity, giving aid to the poor and needy, and I continue to work toward
Church reform, although these days my ally, Cromwell, sometimes seems to be more akin to a foe.

He blocks my wishes, coolly countering my argument with his own as if he were my master and not my servant. “He is the king’s servant
,” George says when I complain to him.

“And I am the queen. What better way to serve the king than to please his wife?”

George does not reply, his raised eyebrows say it all. He has removed his doublet and his shirt sleeves are white against the darkness of the chamber. “The problems with Spain persist,” he says, joining me at the table. “The conditions they demand in exchange for peace suggest to me that it is not peace they really seek.”

“I know. How dare they demand that Henry make amends with Rome
, and that Mary be reinstated in the succession? I am confident Henry will never agree to that, so the Emperor is doing me a favour; the treaty with France is as good as signed.”

“Yet Cromwell appears to be considering the Spanish treaty. Do you think he is stalling? Perhaps he has plans of his own.”

I shrug. No one can be sure what Cromwell is thinking, or what he is plotting. His duplicity will never cease to astound me. His underhand politics were fine when I was sure he was working with me, but recently I am not so sure. There is something in his manner; his eyes slide away to dark corners and do not meet mine, conversations halt when I enter a room and another begins on a new subject of little import. It is as if he is squeezing me out, diminishing my influence with the king.

The greatest bone of contention between us is the
use to which we put the Church lands and benefices from the closure of the smaller abbeys. I insist that the buildings would make ideal seats of learning; we could fill them with the best books, open schools of theology to educate future preachers of God’s word. But Cromwell has let Henry realise the riches to be gained, the gold he could have to fill his coffers, the property he could sell to the highest bidders. Before the Bill is even penned and passed through Parliament, Sawley Abbey in Yorkshire has been sold to Sir Arthur Darcy. This is not the way forward, it is not the path to betterment; it is gluttony and makes our motives for reform questionable.

My arguments are lost. Male voices being louder than female, and my influence over the king less than it once was, I feel my feet slipping from beneath me, my hold on the reform policy picked from my pocket. Like everything else it undermines my security, increases my unease. Each time I enter a room I cast about for enemies
, and more often than not find Jane Seymour’s brothers hovering like wasps, with their stings at the ready.

At night when Henry comes to my bed, after he has loved me we lie in the dark and he speaks of his inner fears. In the black of night I can pretend that nothing has changed, that all is as it ever was. He places his hands on my belly, silently asking if there are any signs of pregnancy, but I have to disappoint him, tell him there is no hint that I have yet conceived. He falls back on the pillow and sighs.

“I am the last Tudor, Anne. Why does God not send me a prince? Have I offended him? Is he punishing me? Punishing us?”

I stroke his damp brow. “No, my love. There has not yet been time. We must give it a while, our prince will come.”

I smother his face in kisses and urge him to love me again
, but in truth, I fear he may be right. Perhaps I am barren. Cursed!

Whenever I can I pray, my knees growing stiff and roughened from kneeling. I am like Catherine, praying and praying to a God who does not heed me. But the difference between Catherine and I is that whilst she resorted to prayer alone, I am not content to do so. I am a queen and can indulge in politics just as effectively as Cromwell.

The caged birds at the window sing gaily of the spring, their song filling the chamber with brightness. I am being idle, teasing grass and pieces of stick from Porquoi’s coat. He lies across my lap, from time to time licking my hand in gratitude.  He is growing fat, and I make a note to feed him fewer treats and make the grooms exercise him more vigorously. The English tongues at court, making their usual chaos of the French language, have long since degenerated his lovely name ‘Porquoi’ into ‘Purkoy,’ and I find myself using it too. It suits him somehow. He is everyone’s favourite, and I often have to seek him out when he has followed one of the servants from the room, or secreted himself beneath the skirts of one of my ladies.

Nan comes breezily into the room. “Good morrow, Your Grace. The king has just arrived back from the
hunt, did you not hear the furore in the courtyard?”

“Thank you, Nan.” I lift
Purkoy from my lap. “Look after the dogs for me, please. I have something I wish to discuss with the king before he closets himself with his council.”

I get up and move toward the door, the dogs follow
ing expectantly. “No!” I order them back to the hearth. “Stay.” As I hurry along the corridor I can hear them creating a fuss, lifting their voices in a conjoined howl. I smile as I picture them with their noses pointing Heavenward, lamenting the fact of our parting, although I shall be gone no more than an hour.

Henry is distracted, his brow furrowed. We both need to get away, escape from court and the constant barrage of problems that beset us, if just for a little while. I try to get his attention, tear his mind from matters of state
, but I fail. “Later, Sweetheart,” he says, absent-mindedly patting my shoulder. “I will come to you later and we can talk about it then.”

I turn away and march crossly back to my apartment. I am so distracted I do not notice Nan’s red eyes, or the way the women tread so carefully around me for the rest of the afternoon. Ne
ither do I notice that someone is missing from my household. I take myself early to bed and wait for Henry, promising that if he fails to come, I will go in search of him.

Ye
t he does come, much, much later, creeping guiltily through the door like a clandestine lover. He sits heavily on the bed, his sigh a gust of winter air.

“What is it, Henry? What troubles you?”

He doesn’t answer right away but rakes his fingers through his hair, easing back onto the pillow, resting his injured leg carefully on the mattress. “Does your leg trouble you? Shall I call for someone?”

“No, no. It is not that. Anne … Anne, I have something to tell you. Something you will not like to hear …
it is difficult …”

A wave of anger.
It is her again. He has been misbehaving. “Maybe it is best I don’t hear it, then.” The tart words emerge from clenched teeth, and his hand tightens on my knee when he hears and understands my rising fury.

“Nay, it isn’t that, Anne. It is your little dog,
Purkoy.”

“
Purkoy?” Only then do I realise he wasn’t there to greet me when I returned from Henry’s apartment. Urien was there, but not his companion, not Purkoy. “Where is he? What have they done with him?”

I do not know what I mean by the question. I am only certain that some ill has befallen him. I see him in my mind’s eye, his little white curly head cocked questioningly, his black eyes gleaming with mischief, the soothing feel of his soft coat
. “Where is he?” I repeat with rising panic.

Henry takes hold of me, draws me close to him
, but I pull away, forcing him to look at me as he tells me the news.

“There were none in your household brave enough to break the news. I am sorry to be the one to tell you but,
Purkoy, well, he had an accident …”

“How?
When? What happened?”