Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (31 page)

I did not know where the passion had gone. It
went away one day, and did not return. Henry came to me each night
and lifted my gown, and murmured his love to me. I wanted only to
sleep. Still I would go through the motions and, truthfully, I
liked it, once it had progressed. I just no longer had the pressing
need for Henry that I had in the beginning, nor did my body whip
into a frenzy of lust at the feel and the closeness of him.

In the early days I would have started to
breathe harder in anticipation as I lay in bed waiting, just seeing
him approach me from across the room. He still responded that way
to me, even as I waddled toward him after a visit to the chamber
pot with my swollen belly, thick ankles and bloated face. He did
not care how I looked; I was his Anne. He patted the bed beside
him, his organ at attention and in need of me while inwardly I
groaned, but not from pleasure. I was so tired. I was always tired.
Our lovemaking had become an activity I had to endure in order to
be allowed to sleep.

I did not love him any less. If anything, I
felt more toward him, and continued to feel a stronger love each
day, as his baby grew inside of me. I could not fathom why I should
love him so intensely, and yet not want him to touch me.

“Thou art
pregnant
, my dear,” Emma had
laughed, rolling her eyes. “Thou art so formidably pregnant that I
suffer pain just imagining thee spreading thy limbs for the old
villain. He hath done his work. He might leave thee to thy
rest.”

There had been a soreness in my groin for a
while, but it had passed. I had begun pulling away from Henry when
the cancre appeared, for I felt a sharp pain when he touched me
there. I attributed it to a particularly long lovemaking session,
and begged him to allow me to heal. Emma had raised her eyebrows
with concern, and questioned me about it when I once complained to
her, laughing, that Henry, in his enthusiasm, had torn away the
skin and left a sore. She kept pressing, asking if I had seen such
a sore on Henry. Embarrassed and defensive, knowing what she
implied, I ordered her away.

“I am not diseased,” I snapped. “The king is
not diseased. Now go.”

Taken aback by my tone, Emma left the room
without a word. She was too good a friend to take it to heart, or
to dissolve into tears. She let the subject drop.

I healed, but my thoughts had gone down
strange paths in the interim. I could not consider that I may have
the pox as Emma had intimated. Yet I dreamt of it on occasion, and
awoke in a sweat. I told no one of this, and never expressed my
fears even to Emma. Since the sore had gone away, I saw no reason
to bother the court physician. I did not want a man to examine me
down there, and he could do nothing to stop my worries anyway. I
rather thought he might increase them with a diagnosis, and I
preferred not knowing to being certain. I did not tell Henry about
my dreams, but when he came to me, I thought of them, and wondered
if indeed he was diseased. Even with the damage done, I saw him
differently, and saw our lovemaking as a threat to me.

There are many strange dreams and fears that
come with pregnancy. The fears of the pox would pass and be
replaced by other, more pressing fears. Would the child be male?
Would he live? Would I survive the birth?

I kept my rosary in a pouch at my waist—or
rather, that area at the center of my torso that had once been a
waist. I pulled it out, and slipped each day into the chapel to
pray that my child might be a son. I found my favorites among the
winged cherubs that peeked out from the walls, and fixed my eyes
upon them. I asked, for at least an hour each day, that my child
might look like one of those, praying to my very soul that I be
carrying within me a strong male child with an angel’s face and fat
soft curls. Most important was the gender of the child, but I had a
strong desire to present Henry with something beautiful. I wanted
to please him, and make him happy that he had chosen me. I wanted a
child that would tell the world that God had blessed this union
despite the way it had begun. I also wanted God’s reassurance for
myself, for even now, I still had doubts.

As sometimes happens, I felt that God had
heard my prayers. I knew this from the warmth that spread
throughout me each time I knelt and prayed.

I told Henry that I had felt the glow one
feels when prayers are about to be answered. He beamed at me and
patted my belly. They were his prayers as well.

I dreamt of a sweet little boy one night. He
was about two years old and had bare feet, unkempt yellow hair and
blue eyes. Oddly, he wore brightly colored old-fashioned peasant
clothing yet, in the dream, it did not seem strange to me that he
should be either barefoot, or dressed in peasant garb instead of
gold and velvet. He was laughing, running in a field chasing
butterflies. He turned and called me “Maman” then ran up to me and
hugged my knees. I reached down and lifted him up and turned to
Henry, who did not look like Henry at all, and said, “He looks just
like you,” in French. A hoard of children followed him, boy after
boy after boy, of all sizes, smiling, clamoring “Maman, come see!”
Then the dream vanished with a kick from the baby. I awoke, still
remembering the tiny voice that called me “Mama” in French, placed
my hands on my belly thinking “I know now who thou art, little one.
Thou art beautiful.”

My mood was calmer after the dream. I told
Henry about it in the morning, and he listened as if the dream was
prophetic. We both preferred to believe it was, and so we did. We
believed it would come true.

The calmness did not stay for long.

I had mood swings. I whipped from hysterical
laughter to tears in an instant. I grew ever more petulant in my
demands, and found fault with everything. I slipped into bouts of
self-pity, for my sleep was fitful and, as badly as I needed to
sleep, I could not seem to do it successfully. I was up frequently
in the night to visit the chamber pot, or else found myself in a
restful doze only to be kicked awake again. I twisted through the
night, and stared at the darkness, then dragged myself out of bed
in the morning when the baby would finally settle down to rest.

“Why couldst thou not have slept during the
night?” I often muttered to my belly in irritation. The weariness
made me ill tempered and short. Everyone stepped quietly around me,
for there was no way of predicting how I might react to
anything.

I complained to Henry incessantly, tossing
reproaches that he accepted with a mixture of patience and
exasperation. He would leave and attempt to right these imagined
wrongs with a touching sincerity, yet still I would find fault with
his efforts. He often shouted with frustration as I nagged and
listed my grievances, then would see me shifting in my chair to get
comfortable, or note my reddened eyes, and soften toward me.

I shot blame at everyone around me, amplified
minor things and shouted. Servants were at fault because there was
not enough of something, or there was too much. Tasks were
performed too late, or before I was ready for them to be done.
Visitors were ill-timed, no matter when they came. Nothing was
scheduled properly, or rescheduled, or scheduled again so that it
suited me. Food made me ill, and I blamed the cook. Smells turned
me queasy and I demanded the source of them be removed—next time
before the odor reached my nose. I sometimes wept because I was so
miserable, and because no one read my mind to remove irritants
before I was aware of them. In the absence of actual sufferings, I
invented some so that I might have a means through which to vent my
general discomfort.

Pregnancy did not suit my temperament.

Emma drew Henry aside and begged for him to
be patient. It was not her place to do this and, while Henry took
her pleadings to heart, I was furious when I heard of them. How
dare she view me as a demanding child? How dare she imply my
complaints were ill-founded, and that my mood was off? I had good
reason to complain, I thought. Everyone was conspiring to see that
these months were a misery for me. None of them understood. And now
Emma was whispering to my husband about me as if I were something
to be endured, rather than a woman who truly required special
attentions she did not receive.

Another part of me was ashamed of my
behavior, but this part I hid, even from myself.

In an effort to improve my outlook, I hosted
gatherings on an almost daily basis. Wine flowed, cards were dealt,
dice was thrown, laughter was loud and shrill, and often ladies and
gentlemen indulged in behavior never allowed in front of the former
queen. They downed the wine until they were tipsy, vulgar and
coarse in their actions and their speech. I did not mind, as
Katherine would have. I saw no harm or insult in bawdiness and
found it rather amusing.

These gatherings created a diversion, but I
could not stomach wine in my condition, and could only wistfully
watch while the others carried on. Often my outlook was more soured
than improved, particularly since the behavior of the attendees,
while essentially harmless, brought scandal to my name. But on some
occasions, the laughter allowed me to take leave of my misery, and
at such times, I could even laugh with the others.

Sometimes I had a good night’s sleep. Not
often, but sometimes. On the days following a real rest, my mood
rose and I was far easier to live with.

During those months I made enemies among the
people who surrounded me, for I could instantly become a churlish,
demanding witch, as trying as a spoiled child, but less appealing.
A part of me knew this. Another part of me took advantage of my
position, and screamed its dissatisfaction with the people whose
misfortune it was to serve me. That part of me could not stop—I
could not stop it though I tried. With each effort at being more
amenable, I would find in the midst of it some small trifle that
seemed to me to warrant an exception: “In this case I
must
be churlish for anyone of good reasoning could
see
. . . ”
And so I passed the long months, accumulating ill-feelings from
everyone, at every level within the court.

I tried to recover my sense of duty and my
restraint, but with such discipline comes the need for release. I
did not even have the release of my music as my belly grew. I had
no place to set my lute with the mountain of infant resting upon my
thighs as I sat, and attempts had just led to frustration. There
were still my harp and the virginals, but in my peevishness I
wanted only the lute. On top of this, I was locked in the present
and could not see past the irritations of the moment. I would
always be this uncomfortable. The baby would never be born. I could
not abide the suspense of not knowing its sex. I would never sleep
well again.

Then suddenly, pretending to me that he did
not want to disturb my rest, Henry took to sleeping in other
chambers. It was clear to me that he did not sleep alone. It was
known to all that he had found someone else to comfort him, and it
was evident this was a source of spiteful amusement to
everyone.

I challenged Henry about his mistress and he
snapped at me, drawing comparisons between Katherine and myself.
For the first time, I was found wanting. It was my duty to avert my
eyes, he said irritably. It was his right to bed whomever he chose.
Katherine had never mentioned his transgressions, nor complained of
them, and he suggested I follow her lead and be a “modest goodly
wife.”

“Katherine never
loved
thee as
I
do!” I sobbed.

Henry did not respond to that. He turned his
back to me.

Then I recovered and snapped, “Did
God
give thee the right to bed other than thy wife? Didst thou speak it
in thy wedding vows?” To which vows did I refer, I wondered,
suddenly hearing the words? His vows to Katherine, or his vows to
me?

He turned on me in fury, demanding me to tell
him how I dared speak to him in that manner, after all he had done
to make me his wife. And for what? For this? I burst into tears. It
took me quite some time to compose myself. Once I did, I erupted
into tears again.

“I love thee so much,” I sobbed. “My heart is
breaking over thee.” The knowledge that he had come to be my
husband through a lack of concern for previous wedding vows did not
console me. I was learning and understanding too late that a man
who leaves his wife for another woman is just as apt to leave the
other woman for yet another. I had believed it could not happen to
me.

After the first of these conversations, Henry
comforted me and paid me more heed than he had as of late, but did
not discard his mistress. Nor could I think of other than her. She
was always in my thoughts.

I could not endure Henry’s betrayal. I howled
like a wolf caught in a trap and turned on my servants. Not only
was I by nature excitable, but I was living in a constant state of
defensiveness and Henry, my only safe haven, was slipping away. It
all came out in words like: “Look at what you have done! You are a
stupid fool. Leave my sight at once!” Bad words. Ill-chosen words
aimed toward underlings who did the best they could for me. I
cringe upon hearing them. I writhe with discomfort and shame.

Only Emma took my side when others would
whisper complaints of me. It was a hard chore to place upon her. It
did not earn her love among the others, but she had mine. She
always will.

And suddenly Emma was gone, married and moved
away.

“Do not leave,” I had told her in a small
voice. “I beg thee.”

“I shall not be far, and I shall be a wife.
‘Tis certainly past time for me to be a wife, dost thou not agree?
My teeth are longer than my fingers, I am so old.”

I was now alone to face these people with no
one as intermediary. I had three attacks of nerves on my first day
without her, and even feared leaving my room.