Judge The Best

by G Lawrence

  I stared from the window, but I did not see the green before me. I saw the past. I saw a girl leaving home for the glittering courts of Europe, and I saw her return. She knew not what would come, but I did.

  Soon, that girl would have what all of us long for in this life; to have another’s heart beat only for yours, to know the overwhelming power love can bring to a soul… to feel, even for the briefest of moments, that you are adored, wanted and held above all others.

  That girl… would I tell her to go back? I knew not. Her story would lead her to death. But if she had taken another path, would her life have ever been as miraculous, as strange and wonderful, as mine had been?

  These questions could not be answered. They would never be known. But I would not tell her to run… No. For then there would be no Elizabeth. For all that I had faced, for all I had endured, for all the pain, misery and suffering, I would not surrender my daughter. She was my one hope for this broken world.

  I sat by the window and thought of my life. I watched them building the scaffold. They had told me I would die. I was glad of it.

  Tomorrow I die, I thought. Tomorrow I shall be free.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  The Tower of London

  May 18th 1536

  I thought I was to die that day.

  I was ready… eager, even… I was prepared for the end of life; ready to take the skeletal hand of Death and step into the light of Heaven. I had steeled myself to face the crowds who would come to watch me die. I welcomed the thought of seeing my brother once again. I thought I would be free of my mortal pain and fear, that I would find relief from this terror of death, this consuming, unyielding, fear.

  At dawn, I took the Sacrament and made my last confession. I called Master Kingston to witness it as I swore, upon my eternal soul, before witnesses and before God that I had never offended the King with my body, that I had never betrayed him. Unlike Katherine, I was not afraid to confess this upon my soul.

  And I told no lies. I could not, not with my soul about to be judged. I never offended with my body, but perhaps I did with my heart. A man I thought to love had died.

  Never would I have allowed Norris to be to me what the court accused me of, and yet, did I not love him? Did I not care for his good opinion, for many more years than I cared to count? So I was specific, for I would not lie before God. Unlike Henry, when I felt something for another, I had not allowed them to share my bed. Unlike him, I had remained true to our vows.

  But when my confession was done, they did not come for me… I sat upon my stool. I waited.

  The women about me told me Henry had already become engaged. Their words struck deep into me, tearing into the last strands of love I had borne for him, shredding them from my heart. My mind whispered, reminding me he did such once before… with me… with Katherine.

  I thought on my poor mother and sister… what were they thinking now? Hiding at Hever and in Calais, hoping this tempest would pass them by. On my father, I tried not to think. He would scrabble about in the dirt that stained my name for a chance at redemption. Redemption in life, he might achieve, but God would judge him. He would put the loss of his heir, George, from his mind. But I could not. The empty hole my brother left was a gaping wound in my heart; raw and bloody, it tore, it rent, it ripped when I thought of him.

  His smile… his laugh… the way we used to talk… walks promised, now never to be taken. His soft friendship armed me against a hard world. I could not forget him. My brother… He was my courage… my best friend.

  I had thought that morning I would feel his hand, soft and warm, curled about my own; that I would see them all again, all the innocents who had died for my sake as we stood before the Almighty in the soft light of Heaven. But it was not to be. My execution was delayed. The small hope I had left, to swiftly leave this life and enter the next, was ripped from my hands.

  What did they hope to achieve with this delay? Would Henry relent? Were I to believe the worst, I would consider my enemies wished to offer me false hope, just so they could snatch it away, so I might understand their power over me. Hope… it can become a weapon, when it is used well.

  When Master Kingston told me my execution was postponed, I gazed at him with glassy eyes brimming with disbelief. I rose unsteadily from my stool, my legs numb. My mind swam with the knowledge that I must wait another day, another night, for the blessed release of death. My courage faltered. My face fell. Outside the Tower, the wind blew strong and fast, whipping about the walls. Its scream of despair echoed in my frail heart.

  I turned to Kingston, regarding him with my weary, red-rimmed eyes and tired mind. “Master Kingston,” I murmured. “You say I shall not die afore noon and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead and past my pain.”

  “I am sorry,” he said. “Your execution will come on the morrow, at nine o’ clock, my lady,” Kingston continued, glancing at me with troubled eyes.

  His words sparked something of my old humour. I chuckled. Strange emotions were bubbling within my breast. “I have heard the executioner is very good.” My lips quivered with eerie mirth. “And I have a little neck.”

  I put my hands about the slim contours of my throat and pressed them into the soft skin. Once, Katherine had called me a swan for the elegance of my bearing… Many times, Henry had kissed me there, his warm lips lingering on my flesh as he muttered words of love and devotion. It all seemed so far away… that person was another Anne, one who was loved so deeply by her King that she could never fall from grace. I started to laugh louder. The sheer ridiculousness of my fate overtook me.

  Master Kingston stared at me as mirth spilled out over my lips, over my form, bouncing from the walls. It sounded unearthly… unnatural. I was nearing the edge of my capacity for calmness. I forced the laugh to end, shutting my lips over it, and turned my feral, dark eyes away. “I will return to my prayers, for the rest of the day, Master Kingston,” I whispered, seeking to claim control over the broken one again. “If you would be so good as to leave me with my almoner.”

  The swordsman had not yet arrived. That was why the execution was delayed. I would die in the French fashion, as ever I had lived. All along, Henry had known I would die. His offers of mercy were a feint. He had known from the start that he was going to kill me.

  I returned to my prayers. I prayed for myself, for Elizabeth, and for Henry. My sweet daughter did not need my prayers, but Henry did. He needed them more than anyone.

  But if Death did not come, others did; Mary and Margaret Shelton, Nan Gainsford and Mary Lee. Cranmer brought them. His last gift.

  I talked to my friends, I unleashed my heart. My part was done. I was ready for death.

  Later that day I was told that my marriage had been announced as null and void. There was nothing left to me, but Elizabeth. All that Henry and I did, all we achieved together was gone, swept away by the breath of wolves and jackals, lain bare and crisp, for Henry to write his new tale upon.

  “They say the King has already asked for a dispensation,” Mary Shelton said to me that afternoon.

  “Why does he need one to wed Jane?”

  She shrugged. “I know not… but it is rumoured that the King once had an affair with someone related to her.” She dropped her voice. “Or that Mistress Seymour once had a liaison with one of his family.”

  I chuckled. “So he will take another woman he is related to,” I said, my mouth twisting into a smile as bitter as winter. “That will make it easier for him to be rid of his wife when he tires of her.”

  Chapter Eighty

  The Tower of London

  The Night of the 18th of May 1536

  And so it has come. The night before the day I am to die.

  I find myself strangely comforted by the notion of death; that at last I will be free of my mortal bonds, free of pain and suffering… free to forget that the man I trusted with my heart has betrayed me unto death.

  What is death? What lies behind the veil before me? This w
hispering, silken sheet which obscures the last truth, the final end? Will I go to God as my true self, I wonder, with the same dreams and hopes and loves and fears that I held so dear in life? Will I leave all such cares behind me? Will I care not that I leave this world of such beauty and majesty and grace, of toil and heartbreak and hardship? Will I mourn to no more walk amidst the willowed wood, sorrow to never again feel the earth beneath my hand? Will I ever again witness the breaking of the bright dawn, pink and golden over the skies? Shall I feel the salt breath of the sea upon my skin, or know the comfort of a heart beating close to mine?

  Will the world miss me? Will oak trees mourn not to hear my step below them? Will the streams weep and the clouds grieve, knowing that I will never pass by?

  What is death? How shall I meet it? How can I go willingly into the darkness set before me, trusting that God’s light will find me? How do I find the courage to do this?

  And how shall I surrender the world… this beauteous, graceful, creation that I thought on so little when I was a part of it, and now I am to lose? No more to know the last light of day, or the first. No more to see birds swoop in the heavens, or catch sight of creatures of briar and bracken as they scuttle about their days. No more to watch the stars of the night sky as they dance about the moon. No more to stand in sunlight, witnessing the brilliance and glory of the day.

  No more to live. No more to dance, or sing… to lift my voice in company, or trill in happiness when in solitude. Never again to put my soft palm under the velvet of a horse’s mouth and feel its silky touch upon my skin. No more to know the caress of rain upon my face, or the warmth of the afternoon sunlight on my back. Never to see the soft hush of purple and grey upon moorland, or flowing water in a blue stream washing over pale grey rocks, smoothed by eons of time and tumbling water.

  Never again… Never again.

  No more to love. No more to hate. No more to live, and no more to die. Perhaps there is my answer, perhaps there I will find my courage. For in death there will be peace. No more will my restless heart know pain and suffering. God will take that from me. He will grant me peace.

  “Death, where is thy sting?” says the Bible. I come to think now that I understand finally what these words mean. It is not in looking forward to a life everlasting alone that such words have meaning, but in the release of a soul from earthly torment.

  All along, I thought Henry’s love was my salvation. All along, I have been wrong. Henry is not my saviour. I am. His last act, intended to suppress me, to master me, to subdue me, will do nothing of the sort. No more do I hate Henry, for hatred indicates equality, and equals we are no more. Henry is beneath me, and I despise him.

  Katherine told me to surrender, to accept, and to set myself free. That is what I will do, as well as I am able. Henry’s last act of fragile fear will set me free.

  I want to do her bidding. I want to follow Katherine without terror, and yet still I falter. I am become dusk, that unearthly state where all becomes unclear, unfocused, unformed. Wavering between states of being I am held. Half of me is ready, half trembles with fear.

  But I can die. I will die. Everything will. Everything must. Death is the price we pay for life. It is the sacrifice we offer, to lose all that was once ours and surrender to the darkness of earth and the light of Heaven. We must accept that we are transitory, that we are mortal; that no matter our deeds and accomplishments, we are not eternal. In surrendering this, this fragile thread we cling to, this illusion that the person inside the vessel is immortal, we may accept death, we may leave life behind, with a blessing for those who follow on our lips.

  My soul is prepared. My confession is made. Tyndale once wrote, when arguing with More, that the Church had misused the term penance. It was repentance, he argued, that mattered. To find release from sin a soul must confess their ills to God, not to a priest, and repent in the presence of the Almighty. There must be sorrow for sins committed, faith that God will hear and offer forgiveness and mercy, and the making of amends to those who have suffered at the sinner’s hands.

  Repentance, sorrow, faith and making amends… in these ways does a soul know peace.

  I have told my story. I have asked forgiveness. I concealed nothing, I have told all my wrongdoings and I find Tyndale is right… for I have found release.

  I wonder if Henry will ever be able to say the same? Will he tell his story to others before his death, seeking absolution, seeking to make amends? I know not, but I doubt it. Henry dwells in fiction and it in him. He believes what he wants to, and thinks people he wronged are to blame. He is not honest enough to look on his own sins and recount them.

  Perhaps he knows that I am innocent and does not care. Perhaps the monster has won, and Henry the good knight is lost. For my daughter’s sake, for England’s sake, I hope this is not so. I hope there is something of the man I loved left in the shell of the demon.

  Long have we all taught him to think of himself as not man but God. He has taken those lessons into his soul, and believes all he does is with the approval of the Almighty. But he is wrong. There are forces beyond his control which will judge him on the day he dies. And when we stand together, reunited, he will know.

  I find myself wishing for Death to have speed. It will be done. An hour of courage, a moment of pure terror, a flash of agony… and it will be done. It will be over. No more will any man have the power to harm me.

  Were it not for Elizabeth, I would go gladly, happily, to my death.

  There is something seductive, beautiful, in the notion of knowing pain no more, but only everlasting peace. I have never had peace. Only in brief, passing moments have I felt its hush fall upon me, but it was never secure in my hands. I can hardly imagine it, yet I yearn for it. God the Father will take me in His arms and keep me safe, as my own father failed to. I will hold my brother again, see his smile, feel his hand in mine. I will see Brereton and Weston, and I will thank them for their nobility. I will laugh with Norris again. Beside a bright fire, in the kingdom of God, I will sit with Bridget, Queen Claude and the Archduchess, telling tales throughout the endless eons of existence. Katherine will be there, and I will beg her forgiveness.

  I will see my three lost sons play in a place where shadows cannot reach us. We will walk in blessed light, leaving Henry’s darkness far behind.

  And Henry? He will have what he thinks he wants. Never again will he have to endure a wife challenging him, berating him, questioning him, answering him back. Never again will he be held accountable for his sins. No one will accost him now. Jane Seymour will not dare. She will feel my ghost at her back and fear to become like me. He will render her weak with dread, as he tried to do to me, so he may think himself strong, so he may think himself powerful.

  And he will get what he deserves; a hollow shell to encase his fragile spirit in, a mask to hide behind. But a part of him dies with me.

  All will know the truth, as will he. They will see the monster that has been bred in the blackness of his soul. They will see through the illusion of his power, and know that he is not strong. They will see his frailty, his terror… they will see that there is nothing in him, that he is empty, that he is lost.

  For the rest of his life, Henry will have his people tell him what he wants to hear… and so much the worse for him. His world will become small, pale, and faded. There will be no horizon. No dawn and no dusk. There will be only the noon sun, eradicating all other shades, and lessening the glory of his world. For there must be light and dark, there must be shadow and sun. There must be variance, there must be variety; we must know the light and the dark within, and accept them, if we are to truly be whole.

  Tomorrow, he will kill me, but he will become the ghost in truth; a pale imitation of the great man he could have been. A demon set upon a throne where a godly king might have ruled. He will become a wraith, without friends or love to warm his fickle, festering soul.

  He will live without love. There is no worse fate.

  I would never live under
such a condition, even if it brought me all I could ever want. I am braver than Henry. For I know that a life lived without love is no life. It is living death, and I would rather die truly, than face all the years of my life utterly and completely alone.

  Henry has surrounded himself with dim echoes of the people he once truly loved. About him, the phantoms he has created move and shift in the shadows. Henry rules a realm of ghosts, and all of them are of his making. He has told himself stories. But there is a problem, when we turn people into stories, when we turn people into things. Writers are not the masters of their tales, their characters are. If they are not permitted freedom, the world they inhabit is not real. Henry’s fiction is incomplete, for he tries to hold dominion over his players. In lack of liberty, they will die, not on the block as my friends have, or by the sword as I will, but in the stagnant lack of imagination Henry dwells in.

  Let Henry sit upon his throne of bones. Let Jane Seymour fill her pallid cheeks with the blood of my kin and friends. Let them lift a veil of shadow over them. The sun will no more reach them. The stars will no more shine. The wind and the rain and the storms will shy from them, shuddering to touch living death. They will abide in lies, in falsehoods, in their fractured, unreal reality, until the day they are called to answer for all they have done.