Wolf Bride (36 page)

‘Hush.’ He caught her wrist, but then released her at once, seeing the fear on her face. He would not have his wife afraid of him. It was too much to bear. ‘Be careful.’

She hid her face in her hands for a long moment. ‘Poor, poor Anne.’

‘I had hoped when the marriage was dissolved that she would be spared this fate. That the king would change his mind at the last minute and simply put her away, as he did Queen Katherine, so he could marry Jane Seymour in her place. But there is to be no clemency . . .’

Wolf stopped, swallowing hard. He had said too much already. Even here in the dark privacy of his bedchamber he could not be certain they were not being spied upon.

‘The law says she must die. So she will die.’

‘May God forgive them.’

Unable to say what he truly felt, to admit the heaviness and agony of his heart, his eyes sought hers. ‘At least it is not the fire,’ he whispered. ‘Her Majesty does not go to the stake, though the law required it for treason. They have sent for an expert swordsman from France instead. The man is an executioner of great skill and judgement, I’m told. He will ensure that the queen . . .’

Again, his voice failed him, for he had remembered that Anne Boleyn was no longer the queen. ‘That her end will be swift,’ he finished hoarsely, then fell silent.

His wife knelt up beside him in bed, dragging her nightrail over her head. Her body was so pale and perfect in the flickering candlelight, he could not take his eyes off her. In his mind’s eye, Wolf saw again what he must witness later that morning, the barbaric slaughter of a dark-eyed lady he had once danced with and knelt before, as entranced by her charm and wit as every other man at court. His heart stuttered at the cruelty of it.

Anne Boleyn. Sacrificed to the brutal whim of her husband and king so that Henry might beget an heir.

His hands trembled as he pulled Eloise towards him, his breathing quickening at the sight of her naked beauty.

‘Make me forget,’ Wolf whispered in her ear. ‘Eloise . . .’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Wolf stood to the back of the crowd, arms folded, staring up into the clear blue sky rather than at the black-draped scaffold before him.

It was a fine mid-May morning: a day for hunting, or jousting, or lying with a lady-love on the greensward. Immaculate white blossom blown from the trees within the windy confines of the Tower enclosure signalled the advent of summer. Sunlight and budding flowers. Love and laughter. A newness and clean simplicity about the world. A time for fresh beginnings. The irony struck him again as he heard a stirring in the crowd and knew that Anne Boleyn was being led out from her lodgings.

He did not look round, not wishing to stare disrespectfully at Anne in her moment of
extremis
. He thought instead of young Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet and courtier who had so enchanted his wife. He looked up at the miserable grey walls, the intimidating height of the White Tower looming above them.

Where was Wyatt held prisoner? Could the poet see this sorry spectacle from his cell window?

Anne Boleyn was climbing the scaffold steps with painful care, dressed demurely in dark grey damask, an ermine mantle draped about her shoulders. Her small band of ladies followed, pale-faced and watchful as they assembled behind her on the platform, only one of them weeping.

Not her own women, he realised, scanning their faces with a sinking heart. The king had not allowed his former queen the comfort of her own household about her in prison. Not even today, her last day on earth.

She had prepared her last words. Turning towards the crowd without looking down, she spoke them, her voice falling cool and clear in the sudden intent silence.

‘Good Christian people,’ she began humbly, ‘according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it.’

Henry was far away, of course, preparing to marry Jane Seymour on receipt of the news that Anne was dead.

The king had been careful to stay away from his wife since early on in this process of false accusation and unfair trial. It was hardly surprising, for if the king could see her now, waiting so beautiful and resolute on the scaffold, he would surely dismiss the executioner and allow Anne to live out her days in some remote spot, as he had done with his first divorced wife, Katherine.

Wolf could not imagine how it would feel to watch his own wife die like this. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He swore silently that he would do everything in his power to protect Eloise and keep her from harm.

The last lines of one of Wyatt’s poems came unbidden into his head; a poem some had whispered was about Anne Boleyn herself, though the poet had strenuously denied this. As well he might, given today’s horror.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere
, for C
æ
sar’s I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Anne’s pitifully short speech was over. She stepped back, still pale, but carefully showing no emotion.

She had not confessed her guilt, he realised slowly, thinking back through her words, nor yet condemned Henry for sending an innocent woman to her death. Anne Boleyn wished to safeguard her baby daughter’s position with this politic speech, he guessed, and felt only admiration for her courage and resolve.

Prayers were being said on the scaffold, then a lengthy passage was read out from the Holy Bible, while the skirts of the women flapped uneasily in the wind coming off the river.

He watched the proceedings with a growing sense of desperation. This wait was unbearable. Why had he not told the king he was unwell, that he could not attend this appalling act of injustice? Because he was neither a liar nor a coward, he reminded himself grimly, and set his feet further apart, trying to gain strength from the earth itself. Henry was his sovereign, and Wolf one of his lords, sworn to obey him.

Even faced with this horror, he could not imagine a greater dishonour than to rebel against his king.

Anne had been standing slightly apart from the other women, head to one side, listening intently to the priest. When the man finished and closed the book, she started, looking about herself as though surprised that the time had arrived for her to die.

Slowly, the former queen removed her velvet gable hood and handed it to one of her ladies. She was still calm, no sign of tears or panic, though her dark eyes constantly searched the crowd as though hunting for a friendly face.

Wolf stared back at her, unable to help himself now, wishing he could call out some words of comfort to ease her last moments. But his throat was like dust, and he could not make a sound.

Anne’s shining dark hair was hidden beneath a plain cap. She was blindfolded by one of her women, then guided gently to the spot where she was to die. There she knelt, achingly graceful to the last, her slim neck bared, her head held high at the muttered suggestion of the executioner.

She clasped her hands before her in prayer, calling out, ‘O Lord, have mercy on me. To God I commend my soul.’

Wolf wanted to look away, as other noblemen there had already done, their heads hanging before this appalling sight. But he could not. Her chief accuser, Sir Thomas Cromwell, was staring too, his mouth slightly agape. But there was something compulsive about her slight figure on the scaffold. In the poignancy of her beauty, Anne seemed otherworldly, and so brilliantly, dramatically alive . . .

The French executioner was a younger man than Wolf had expected. He fumbled for his sword, hidden beneath a heap of straw so as not to frighten Anne when she ascended the scaffold. For a long moment he hesitated, looking down at his victim with what appeared to be pity. Then he called out in a heavily accented voice, ‘Where is my sword?’

Anne, blindfolded and still praying under her breath, gave a little jerk of her head. Perhaps she thought in that instant that she had been given a few moments’ reprieve, that the Frenchman’s sword really was missing.

Silently, the executioner lifted his sword and swung.

Wolf looked away.

He heard her body fall. A terrible groan went up amongst the watching crowd, then a hoarse shout of ‘God save the king!’ from one of the nobles in the front. Less than a minute later, there came the roaring boom of cannon fire from the battlements, signalling London that the woman who had once been their queen was dead.

To his shock, Wolf found he was crying.

He turned away from the scaffold, walking head down with the rest of the crowd. Nobody spoke on the long return to the gate. Their feet shuffled at the same slow pace as though in shame. High above the broad river the grey-backed gulls were crying, specks wheeling overhead in a too-dazzling sky.

He rubbed the back of his hand across his face, and thought longingly of Eloise, how his wife had watched from their bed as he dressed in the half-light that morning, her face flushed with desire but her eyes anxious, fearing for him.

I have been a fool, he thought simply. I love Eloise. So why can I not tell her? What is the matter with me?

‘His Majesty, King Henry, and Her Majesty, Queen Jane!’ the king’s steward announced, solemnly thudding his staff on the floor three times.

The entire court sank to its knees, Eloise and Susannah with them. It was a few weeks since Anne Boleyn’s execution. A fanfare sounded in the musician’s gallery, and Eloise bowed her head as the king swept past, resplendent in gold and scarlet, his new bride on his arm, almost as magnificent in a full-skirted gown of silver and blue.

Behind them walked young Henry Fitzroy, the king’s bastard and Duke of Richmond, whom some whispered might one day inherit the throne if his father failed to beget another son. After him came the king’s advisors and Privy Councillors, the sombre Sir Thomas Cromwell prominent amongst them, followed by the new queen’s most favoured ladies, giggling and smirking behind their hands at her fantastical elevation to the throne of England.

A pair of handsome shoes stopped in front of Eloise.

‘Rise, my lady,’ a voice said mockingly, and she looked up, dazed by the length of those powerful thighs encased in hose, her attention caught immediately by the smooth bulge of his codpiece, the flat belly above and broad chest, his athletic build making her mouth water.

His eyes met hers, an intense blue, glinting with promise of pleasure to come, and Eloise smiled, taking his hand. That look always made her shiver with delicious anticipation, for it was how Wolf looked at his most aroused.

‘I thank you, my lord Wolf.’

The musicians had begun to play a jaunty galliard. The king was dancing with Jane Seymour, his hand clasped possessively about her waist. Around them the courtiers watched, applauding at every jump and turn, smiling on the new couple as though Anne Boleyn had never existed.

Indeed, no one had mentioned Anne since the day she died. They had not been told that it was forbidden, yet somehow it had seemed better to erase her from their memories, slowly unravelling the past to make Henry’s second, imprudent marriage disappear into the cracks of history.

Wolf lifted her hand and led her forward, his limp barely discernible. Or was she merely so accustomed to his tigerish gait that she no longer noticed it?

He was still a man to be reckoned with, she thought, suddenly proud of who her husband was, of his courage and influence at court. The king seemed colder with him these days, more distant. Yet men still moved aside as he approached, their bows respectful; the bored noblewomen stared greedily at his hard body, no doubt trying to imagine what he would be like in bed.

Look away, he’s all mine, she thought silently, glaring back at the women with her chin raised.

‘Shall we dance?’ Wolf asked, and she guessed from his arched brow that he knew what she was thinking.

He had barely danced with her before, and she had wrongly assumed he did not like to dance because of his leg. But he was strong and light on his feet, his dancing as rhythmic and compulsive to watch as the way he made love. He caught her by the waist as she jumped, aiding her to land gently, and she relished the way their mouths almost brushed in that slow descent.

‘Jane looks radiant,’ she said softly. ‘Some are whispering that the new queen is already with child.’

‘For her sake, I pray it is a boy.’

She turned away, weaving in and out of the other couples as the dance required, then returned to where he was waiting, his gaze fixed on her face.

‘At least Susannah seems happier than when she first arrived,’ she commented. ‘She seems to have forgiven Hugh for whatever it was he did.’

Wolf grunted. ‘They will make a match of it.’

She stared, astonished by his certainty. ‘Hugh and Susannah?’

His smile was dry. ‘Wait and see.’

As Eloise spun in his arms, she heard applause and turned to see that the king and Jane had stopped dancing. The royal couple were already on the dais instead, the king clearly out of breath, throwing himself back onto his throne with a sullen expression. Henry had injured himself in a fall from his horse earlier that year, she remembered, and was no longer so active as he had been. No doubt Jane Seymour would suit him then, for Anne had been an eager and skilled dancer, always light on her feet. Jane seemed to prefer to sit and watch the world go by.