‘Anything?’ I asked Anne as I watched her dress before dinner.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to go back to her tomorrow.’
At about midnight, I saw Anne into bed and then went to my own rooms. William was dozing when I got in, but when he saw me he slipped out of bed and untied my laces, as tender and as helpful as a good maid. I laughed at his intent face as he unlaced the waist of my skirt, and then held the skirt wide for me to step out, and then I sighed with pleasure as he rubbed the ridges on my skin where the ribs of the bodice had cut into me.
‘Better?’ he asked.
‘It’s always better when I am with you,’ I said simply.
He took my hand and led me into bed. I stripped off my petticoat and slid into the warm sheets. At once his warm dry familiar body engulfed me, enveloped me, the scent of him dazzled me, the touch of his naked leg between my thighs aroused me, his warm chest on my arched breasts made me smile with pleasure, and his kisses opened my lips.
We were awakened at two in the morning, while it was still dark, by the quietest of scratches on the door. William was up and out of bed at once, his dagger in one hand. ‘Who’s there?’
‘George. I need Mary.’
William swore softly, threw a cloak around himself, tossed my shift to me and opened the door. ‘Is it the queen?’
George shook his head. He could not bear to tell another man our family secrets. He looked past William to me. ‘Come, Mary.’
William stepped back from the door, curbing his resentment that my brother should command me out of my own marriage bed. I pulled the shift down over my head and jumped out of bed. I reached for my stomacher and my skirt. ‘There’s no time,’ George said angrily. ‘Come now.’
‘She’ll not leave this room half-naked,’ William said flatly.
For a moment George paused to take in William’s truculent expression. Then he smiled his charming Boleyn smile. ‘She has to go to work,’ he said gently. ‘This is the family business. Let her go, William. I’ll see she comes to no harm. But she has to come now.’
William swung his cloak from his naked shoulders and draped it around me and swiftly kissed me on the forehead as I hurried past. George grabbed my hand and pulled me after him, at the run, to Anne’s bedchamber.
She was on the floor before the fire, her arms wrapped around her as if she was hugging herself. On the floor beside her was a bloodstained bundle of cloth. When we opened the door she looked up at us through the trailing locks of her dark hair, and then looked away again, as if she had nothing to say.
‘Anne?’ I whispered.
I went across the room and sat on the floor beside her. Tentatively I put my arm around her stiff shoulders. She neither leaned back for comfort nor shrugged me off. She was as inflexible as a block of wood. I looked down at the tragic little parcel.
‘Was that your baby?’
‘Almost without any pain,’ she said through her teeth. ‘And so fast that it was all done in a moment. I felt my belly turn over as if I wanted to void myself and I got out of bed for the pot and then it was all finished. It was dead. There was hardly any blood. I think it has been dead for months. It has all been a waste of time. All of it. A waste of time.’
I turned to George. ‘You have to get rid of that.’
He looked appalled. ‘How?’
‘Bury it,’ I said. ‘Get rid of it somehow. This cannot have happened. This whole thing must not have happened.’
Anne slid her white ringed fingers through her hair and pulled. ‘Yes,’ she said tonelessly. ‘It never happened. Like the last time. Like the next time. Nothing ever happens.’
George went to pick the thing up and then checked. He could not bear to touch it. ‘I’ll get a cape.’
I nodded towards one of the clothes chests that lined the walls. He opened it. A sweet smell of lavender and wormwood filled the room. He pulled out a dark cape. ‘Not that one,’ Anne said sharply. ‘It’s trimmed with real ermine.’
He checked at the absurdity of this, but pulled out another, and threw it over the little shape on the floor. It was so tiny that there was nothing of it, even when he wrapped it in the cape and tucked it under his arm.
‘I don’t know where to dig,’ he said quietly to me, keeping a watchful eye on Anne. She was still pulling at her hair as if she wanted pain.
‘Go and ask William,’ I said, thanking God for my man who would manage this horror for us all. ‘He’ll help.’
Anne gave a little moan of pain. ‘No-one is to know!’
I nodded to George. ‘Go!’
He went from the room. The little thing under his arm was so small that it could have been a book wrapped in a cape to keep it dry.
As soon as the door was shut I turned to Anne. Her bed linen was stained and I stripped it off and took her nightgown off her as well. I tore it up and started to burn it on the fire. I pulled a fresh night shift over her head and encouraged her to go back into her bed, to creep under the blankets. She was white as death and her teeth chattered as she lay shrunken, tiny under the thick covers, swamped by the richly embroidered tester and curtains of the great four-posted bed.
‘I’ll get you some mulled wine.’
There was a jug of wine in the presence chamber and I took it into her room and thrust the hot poker into it. I mixed a little brandy in it as well for good measure and poured it all into her golden cup. I held her shoulders and helped her to drink it. She stopped shivering but she stayed deathly pale.
‘Sleep,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay with you, tonight.’
I lifted the covers and crept in beside her. I wrapped her in my arms for the warmth. Her light body with the newly flat belly was as small as a child’s. I felt the linen of my night shift grow wet at my shoulder and realised that she was silently weeping, tears pouring out from under her closed eyelids.
‘Sleep,’ I said again, helplessly. ‘We can’t do anything more tonight. Sleep, Anne.’
She did not open her eyes. ‘I shall sleep,’ she whispered. ‘And I wish to God that I could never wake up.’
Of course she woke in the morning. She woke and she called for her bath and she made them fill it with unbearably hot water, as if she wanted to boil the pain out of her mind and out of her body. She stood in it and scrubbed herself all over and then she subsided into the suds and called for the maids to bring in another ewer of hot water, and another. The king sent word that he was going to matins and Anne replied that she would see him when he broke his fast; she was taking Mass in her bedchamber. She asked me to fetch the soap and a hard square of linen and scrub her back till it was red. She washed her hair and pinned it on top of her head as she soaked in the boiling water. Her skin flushed crab red as she had them add another ewer of hot water, and then bring her warmed linen sheets to wrap up in.
Anne sat before the fire to dry herself and had them lay out all her finest gowns for her to choose what to wear today and what to take with her when the court set out on its summer progress. I stayed at the back of the room watching her, wondering what this fierce baptism in boiling water meant, what this parade of her wealth told her. They dressed her and she laced tightly so that her breasts were pressed into two tantalising curves of creamy flesh at the neck of her gown. Her glossy black hair was exposed by her pushed-back hood, her long fingers were loaded with rings, she wore her favourite pearl choker with the ‘B’ for Boleyn at her throat, and she paused before she left the room to look at herself in the mirror, and shot her reflection that knowing, seductive little half-smile.
‘Are you feeling all right now?’ I asked, coming forward at last.
Her swirling turn made the rich silk of her gown fly outwards and the encrusted diamonds sparkled in the bright light. ‘Bien sur! Why ever not?’ she asked. ‘Why ever not?’
‘No reason at all,’ I said. I found I was backing from her room, not from the respect that she liked to see, but from a sense that this was all too much for me. I did not want to be with Anne when
she was glittery and hard. When she was like this, I longed for the simplicity and gentleness of William and the world where things were as they appeared.
I found him where I expected him to be, with our baby on his hip, walking by the river. ‘I sent the wet nurse for her breakfast,’ he said, yielding the baby to me. I put my face to the crown of her head and felt the little pulse gently beating against my cheek. I inhaled the sweet baby smell of her, and closed my eyes with pleasure. William’s hand came down into the small of my back and then he held me close.
I rested for a moment, loving his touch, loving the warmth of my baby against my body, loving the sound of the seagulls and the warmth of the sunshine on my face, and then we walked slowly, side by side, on the tow path alongside the river.
‘How is the queen this morning?’
‘As if none of it had ever been,’ I said. ‘And there it rests.’
He nodded. ‘I was thinking just one thing,’ he said tentatively. ‘I don’t mean to give offence but …’
‘What?’
‘What is it that is wrong with her? That she cannot carry a child?’
‘She had Elizabeth.’
‘Since then?’
I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Only what anyone would think, if they knew what I know.’
‘And what would anyone think?’ I demanded, a little edge to my voice.
‘You know what.’
‘You tell me.’
He gave a little rueful chuckle. ‘Not if you are going to glower at me like that, you look like your uncle. I am shaking in my boots.’
That made me laugh and I shook my head. ‘There! I am not glowering. But go on. What would everyone think? What are you thinking, but trying not to say?’
‘They would be saying that she must have some sin on her soul, some dealing with the devil or some witchcraft,’ he said flatly. ‘Don’t rail at me, Mary. It is what you would say yourself. I was just thinking perhaps she could confess, or go on a pilgrimage, or wash her conscience clear. I don’t know, how can I know? I don’t even want to know. But she must have done something gravely wrong, mustn’t she?’
I turned on my heel and walked slowly away. William caught me up. ‘You must wonder …’
I shook my head. ‘Never,’ I said determinedly. ‘I don’t know half of what she did to become queen. I have no idea what she would do to conceive a son. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.’
We walked in silence for a moment. William glanced at my profile. ‘If she never gets a son of her own then she’ll keep yours,’ he said, knowing where my thoughts would be.
‘I know that!’ I whispered in quiet grief. I tightened my grip on the baby in my arms.
The court was to travel within the week and I would be excused to be with my children as soon as everyone left. In the excitement and chaos of packing and organising the annual progress, I walked like a tumbler dancing on unbroken eggshells, fearful of doing anything that might turn the queen’s temper against me.
My good luck held, Anne’s temper held. William and I waved goodbye to the royal party as they rode south to the very best that the towns and the great houses of Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset could offer. Anne was brilliantly dressed in gold and white, Henry at her side was still a grand king, especially on a big-boned hunter. Anne rode with her mare as close to him as they had always ridden, in those summers only two, three, years ago, when he had been besotted with her and she could see the prize within her grasp.
She could still make him turn to listen to her, she could still make him laugh. She could still lead the court out as if she were a girl riding for pleasure on a summer day. Nobody knew what it cost Anne to ride out and sparkle for the king and wave to the people at the roadside who stared at her with a bitter curiosity but no love. Nobody would ever know.
William and I stood waving until they were out of sight and then we went to find the wet nurse and our baby. As soon as the last of the hundreds of wagons and carts had trundled out of the stable yard and down the West Road we would set off south, to Kent, to Hever, for the summer with my children.
I had planned for this moment and prayed for it on my knees every night for a year. Thank God that the gossip of the court had not reached so far into Kent that my children ever knew what a risk we had run as a family. They had been allowed my letters which had told them that I was married to William and with a baby on the way. They had been told that I had given birth to a girl and that they had a little sister, and the two of them were as excited as I was, longing to see me as I was longing to see them.
They were dawdling on the drawbridge as we rode across the park, I could see Catherine pull Henry to his feet and then they both started to run towards us, Catherine holding her long skirt away from her pounding feet, Henry overtaking her with his stronger stride. I tumbled down from my horse and held out my arms to them both and they flung themselves at me and caught me by the waist and hugged me tight.
They had both grown. I could have wept at how quickly they had grown in my absence. Henry was up to my shoulder, he would have his father’s height and weight. Catherine was all but a young woman, as tall as her brother, and graceful. She had the Boleyn hazel-brown eyes and mischievous smile. I pushed her back from me so that I could see her. Her body was forming the curves of a woman, her eyes when they met mine were those of a woman on the brink of adult life: optimistic, trusting. ‘Oh Catherine, you are going to be another Boleyn beauty,’ I said, and she blushed scarlet and nestled into my embrace.
William got down from his horse and hugged Henry and then turned to Catherine. ‘I feel I should kiss your hand,’ he said.
She laughed and jumped into his embrace. ‘I was so glad when I was told that you were married,’ she said. ‘Am I to call you Father now?’
‘Yes,’ he said firmly, as if there had never been any doubt about the matter at all. ‘Except when you call me sire.’
She giggled. ‘And the baby?’
I went to the wet nurse on her mule and took the baby from her arms. ‘Here she is,’ I said. ‘Your new sister.’
Catherine cooed and took her at once. Henry leaned over her shoulder to pull back the fold of the sheet and look into the tiny face. ‘So small,’ he said.
‘She’s grown so much,’ I said. ‘When she was born she was tiny.’
‘Does she cry a lot?’ Henry asked.
I smiled. ‘Not too much. Not like you. You were a real bawler.’
He grinned at once, a boyish smile. ‘Was I really?’
‘Dreadful.’
‘Still does,’ Catherine said with the immediate disrespect of an older sister.
‘Do not,’ he retorted. ‘Anyway, Mother, and, er, Father, would you come inside? There’s dinner ready for you soon. We didn’t know what time you would be here.’
William turned towards the house and dropped his arm over Henry’s shoulders. ‘And tell me about your studies,’ he invited. ‘I’m told you’re working with the Cistercian scholars. Are they teaching you Greek as well as Latin?’
Catherine hung back. ‘Can I carry her in?’
‘You can keep her all the day.’ I smiled at her. ‘Her nurse will be glad of the rest.’
‘And will she wake up soon?’ she asked, peering again into the little bundle.
‘Yes,’ I reassured her. ‘And then you shall see her eyes. They are the darkest blue. Very beautiful. And perhaps she’ll smile for you.’
Autumn 1535
I received only one letter from Anne, in the autumn:
Dear Sister,
We are hunting and hawking and the game is good. The king is riding well and has bought a new hunter at a knockdown price. We had the great pleasure of staying with the Seymours at Wulfhall, and Jane was very much in evidence as the daughter of the house. You could break your teeth on her politeness. She walked with the king in the gardens and pointed out the herbs that she uses for cures for the poor, she
showed him her needlework and her pet doves. She has fish in the moat which come up to be fed. She likes to supervise the cooking of her father’s dinner herself, believing as she does that it is a woman’s task to be a handmaiden to men. Altogether charming beyond belief. The king mooned around her like a schoolboy. As you can imagine, I was less enchanted, but I smiled withall, knowing that I am carrying the Ace of Trumps – not up my sleeve but in my belly.
Please God that this time all is well. Please God. I am writing to you from Winchester and we go on to Windsor where I expect you to meet me. I shall want you by me for all my time. The baby should be born next summer and we will all be safe again. Tell no-one – not even William. It must be a secret until as late as possible in case of any mishap. Only George knows, and now you. I will not tell the king until I am past my third month. I have good reason this time to think that the baby will be strong. Pray for me.
Anne
I put my hand in my pocket and felt for my rosary, and told the beads through my fingers, praying, praying with all the passion I had, that this time Anne’s pregnancy would go full term and she would have a boy. I did not think any of us would survive another miscarriage; the secret would creep out, our luck could not survive another disaster, or Anne herself might simply slip over the small step from utterly determined unswerving ambition, into madness.
I was watching my maid pack my dresses into my travelling chest for our return to the court at Windsor when Catherine tapped on my door and came into my room.
I smiled and she came and sat beside me, looking down at the buckles on her shoes, clearly struggling to say something.
‘What is it?’ I asked her. ‘Tell it, Cat, you look ready to choke on it.’
At once her head came up. ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Ask it.’
‘I know that Henry is to stay with the Cistercians with the other boys until the queen orders him to court.’
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Page 101