The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn

by Arnopp, Judith

  At this time, two other men step from the shadows of obscurity. One is a man whose soft tread and sharp ears quickly prove invaluable, both to my cause and to that of Church reform.

  Thomas Cromwell is a discreet, unassuming man. He listens quietly to counsel and then, without seeming to do so, demolishes a presented proposal and replaces it with one of his own. His face is long, his methods are subtle, and his desire for reform cold-blooded. I do not like Master Thomas Cromwell, his origins are far too evident, but he is clever, and soon becomes indispensable. Unlike many at Henry’s court, he treats me as if I am already his queen.

  The other fellow, another Thomas, this one by the name of Cranmer, is altogether more likeable than Cromwell. He is a clergyman, keen for reform, and is already the Boleyn family chaplain. Henry is impressed when he meets him and shortly afterwards raises him up, sends him on diplomatic business overseas in the company of my father as part of his diplomatic entourage.

  The stage is set, I am acknowledged by all who are wise enough, as Henry’s future queen. My family’s fortune is in ascendance and I am happy … all but for one thing.

  ***

  Henry orders Mother to wait in the outer chamber. She cannot argue with the king, but she frowns a silent warning as I pass blithely into his inner sanctum. The room is softly lit; the glow of candlelight reflecting from the mirrors, the firelight dancing seductively on the walls. A table is laden with a sumptuous repast.

  With a flick of his hand he dismisses his page. The boy bows and backs away, leaving Henry to serve me himself. Leaning close, he bubbles wine into my cup, his now familiar fragrance filling my head. With a great sigh, he puts down the jug, runs a finger along my face. In response, I tilt my head toward him, trapping his warm hand against my neck.

  “It is not food I hunger for, Anne.” His eyes are soft and sad. His tongue appears briefly, moistening his lips before disappearing again.

  Alone with him in the firelight, the danger sends a shiver of anticipation through me. I close my eyes, savouring the painful pleasure of the moment. It is times like these, when he is less a king and more a man, that are our most precious … and our most perilous. For a little while I can cast off my brittle armour and become soft and womanly, but it is dangerous.

  I lean against his doublet and his hand moves to my head, pulls off my hood to let my hair fall free. His fingers trickle across my hair, his rings snagging, pulling my head back. I look up at him, baring my throat, and swiftly he stoops to place his lips against it. With a gasp I push against his chest, knowing I should fend him off, but he is like a hungry hound, licking and biting, sending delight stabbing deep, deep into my belly.

  When he draws away, his hair stands up in a red halo, his lips are wet and slack, his eyes dark, his breath rapid. Keeping hold of my hand he pulls me toward the fire, pushes me down upon floor cushions. I lie back, afraid, but wanting. I cannot fight him. I don’t want to fight him.

  With a grunt he falls down beside me and burrows his face in my neck again, his hands fumbling at my bodice. I can scarcely breathe. I crane back my head, my limbs squirming, pushing my body closer to his. He is making little headway with the lacings and, with a roar of frustration, he tears them apart, freeing my breasts. Then he pulls back a little while he feasts his eyes upon me. Then slowly, he reaches out and cups them with both hands. His thumbs roll across my nipples and I give a small squeal at the waves of pleasure surging through me. “Henry,” I gasp, but he doesn’t heed me. He is busy at my skirts, his great hand upon my knee. “Henry!” My warning is unconvincing, I feel his fingers on my thigh, upon my … “Henry!” but he is deaf and I am defenceless. I slump upon the pillows, my armour stripped away. I let him have his way.

  So this is what the touch of a man feels like! This is the thing I have been yearning for. With clumsy fingers the king invades my secret places, penetrating my innocence and tearing away my dignity. I could not stop him, even were I strong enough. I am embarrassed, yet swamped with desire. I don’t want him to stop. As his fingers explore further I grow wanton, opening myself to him, no longer caring if our prince should be born out of wedlock.

  I am sprawled before the hearth with my skirts about my waist, my inhibitions fled. Henry kneels before me, fumbles with his codpiece, his jaw tight, his eye as wild as I have ever seen it, his face almost puce with desperation. When I hold out my arms he falls upon me again and we melt into each other, welded as one, his chest rasping against my face, my hands pulling at the back of his shirt, sliding against the slick skin of his buttocks.

  At my touch his expression freezes, his body stiffens. With a roar, he thrusts himself against me. For long moments I am suffocating, crushed beneath the weight of his body. A terrific heat gushes suddenly upon my thigh, and then he goes limp and falls against me, breathing hard and fast like a wounded bear.

  After a while, his breath having slowed, Henry rolls away and sits with his back to me, his head in his hands, panting heavily. My body is still screaming for his attention. I need him to do to me whatever it is that comes next; something, anything, to relieve the shivering need that consumes me.

  “Henry?” My voice is hoarse. I reach out and place a hand upon his lower back, tug at his shirt tail. “Come back to me, My Lord.”

  He springs to his feet, looks down at me, sprawled dishevelled on his floor, his eyes darting immediately away again. With a swift movement he stoops, pulling down my skirts to cover my nakedness. Then he holds out a hand to help me rise.

  “I am so sorry, Anne. I had not meant … I am so sorry, treating you like a tavern wench.”

  His voice breaks as, wracked with remorse, he struggles to find a way back to how we were before. How can I tell him I don’t mind? How can I tell Henry, whose prudish side is now back in control, that all I desire is for him to throw me down and use me so again?

  With a heavy heart, I know I must play the sympathetic lady, not the demanding whore.

  “I understand, Henry. I know it is difficult for a man to remain chaste for so long. When we are married …”

  Words fail me, and while Henry disguises his humiliation by pouring out two cups of wine, I tuck my tingling breasts into my chemise and begin to lace up my bodice.

  February 1530 -Richmond

  “Tell me it’s a lie!” The words hiss from between my teeth, making George draw back in alarm. He holds out his hands.

  “Hey, don’t shoot the emissary. I am merely reporting what I’ve heard.”

  “Then I will see Henry and ask him.” I storm across the chamber to the door, but before I can open it George grasps my upper arm, spins me round.

  “Don’t be a fool, Anne. You need to tread carefully. Pretend you are glad he and Wolsey are reconciled; and should he return to court, receive him graciously. There are many ways to kill a cat.”

  Anger surges through my body, but inside my head a wiser voice advises me to listen to my brother. My shoulders sag and I slump onto the bed, pluck at the counterpane with nervous fingers. “It is true Henry has missed him. He says no one gives him such honest counsel as ‘his old friend, Thomas’. But to go in secret against our work and reinstate Wolsey’s archbishopric …”

  “Well, if he is wise, perhaps Wolsey will now seek to get the king what he wants, instead of putting Rome before England.”

  I raise my hand and let it fall again, punching the stuffed mattress with all my might. “Why does the Pope have to be so against this? What concern is it of his who is queen?”

  “Hush, hush. He is doing his job, protecting the Church, and he knows Henry fears a war. Catherine has powerful friends, and with France making peace with the Emperor, and stirring up the Scots against us, the king’s hands are tied. All we need do is continue to persuade Henry that the Pope is his enemy, and that he needs to break free. Our hardest task will be to make Henry feel justified in taking the matter into his own hands. Just look upon this as a set-back; that is all it is. Wolsey will be his own ruin.”

  I cove
r my face with my hands and sob silently for a few moments, although no tears come. “It is so hard for us, George, hard for Henry but harder for me. I know he has other women, he has to seek release somewhere, whereas I …”

  I do not need to speak the words. George knows to what I refer. He gets up, puts his arms around me and I lie upon his chest, the old familiar smell of him reminding me of happier days, youthful days at Hever, before my world was ruled by Henry.

  He kisses the top of my head.

  “We will get there, Anne. I promise. You will be queen, and your son will sit on the throne, and your daughters will marry with the great princes of Europe. All will be as we want it. It is our destiny, written clear in the stars.”

  I smile into his jerkin, my courage temporarily restored.

  Autumn 1530

  In reality, Wolsey is not the master of his own ruin. It takes all our efforts to oust him from favour again. Although he claims sickness and stays away from court for much of the time, his influence with the king remains too great. My brother works closely with Cromwell and Cranmer to undermine his strengths, and magnify his weaknesses.

  But with new friends come new enemies, and Suffolk, the friend of Henry’s youth, turns against me and my cause. It is his wife, Mary, Henry’s sister, who is behind his volte face, and she makes no secret of her triumph. She has always hated me, resenting the precedence that I, as a mere commoner, am given over her, a Tudor princess and former queen of France. She snubs me publically, looks down her hooked Tudor nose and makes no secret of her championship of Catherine.

  “She defies you, Henry,” I rage at him. “If it were anyone else, you would have them in the Tower!” But although Henry blusters and threatens her, I cannot make him take action. Not against his sister; not against a Tudor.

  And so her husband, Suffolk, takes her side, whispering gossip into the king’s ear, gossip about an imagined past affair between myself and Tom Wyatt that, thankfully, the king takes no heed of. Instead of punishing me, Henry turns upon them and sends Brandon and his sulky wife to rusticate at their country seat until he sees fit to recall them.

  It is less than they deserve, and although Suffolk may be out of sight, he is not out of mind. I know he continues to work against us, and now that he and his wife are openly my enemies, all I can do is man my guns and defend my rights.

  December 1530 - Richmond

  “How does this look?” My sister, Mary, whom I have recalled from Hever to bolster my flagging retinue of friends, holds up her embroidery.

  “It is a little cockled, Mary. That gold thread needs to be unpicked and re-stitched.”

  Mary sighs and resigns herself to the task. We are busy designing a new device for my household and I have decided on the phrase;

  Let them grumble: this is how it is going to be.

  It is a fitting sentiment for the way I feel and will show my enemies, once and for all, the spirit of the woman they are dealing with. They would do well to remember that one day soon I will be their queen.

  Mary and I bow our heads to our work again and do not look up until the door opens and the king enters, followed by Norris and George.

  “Henry!” I throw away my needlework and rise to greet him. He drapes an arm about my shoulder, kisses the top of my head, and keeps hold of my hand while George pulls up a seat beside mine. We sit ourselves down. Norris perches on the arm of Mary’s chair and George stands at the hearth, surreptitiously lifting his doublet to warm his behind.

  “What are you working on, Mary?” he asks and she flushes, uncomfortable to be in the presence of the king.

  “It is Anne’s new device,” she murmurs and holds it up for him to see. George, who has just taken a draught of wine, almost chokes.

  “You can’t use that, Anne. What are you thinking of?”

  “Why not?” I stick out my chin and glare at him while Henry leans forward to take my own work from my lap. He frowns at the golden lettering and when he sees what is writ there, his eyebrows shoot up beneath his cap.

  “Indeed you cannot, Sweetheart. It would cause a riot.”

  “Why so? I am fed up with pussyfooting around everyone. I am soon to be their queen. They should respect me for that.”

  Henry sighs, kisses my fingers, his brow lined with trouble. “We must tread carefully with the people, Anne. We must woo them to our cause, not trample them underfoot.”

  I look down at my handiwork, the words that had seemed to say it all, and I know he is right. I have known it all along. It is the frustration of my situation that makes me so heavy handed. It is not the first time I have made such a mistake. These days, George is always accusing me of pride and arrogance. “You win yourself no friends,” he says, but he doesn’t realise how hard it is for me. I am neither one thing nor another, never knowing from one day to the next who at this topsy-turvy court is a true friend, or an enemy.

  I should be happy now Wolsey is dead. The hard work of my adherents was unnecessary in the end, for just as they managed to get a warrant for his arrest, word came to us that the old man had died. Of a broken heart, the king believes. Henry wept when he heard the news, and for a long time since has been listless and sad. I fear he blames me for the loss of his friend.

  I try to comfort him. I perch on his knee, place my lips on his whiskery cheek. “With Wolsey gone, the way is now clear for us, Henry. At last we can make some headway with the divorce. The cardinal was working against it; secretly he was Catherine’s man …”

  He looks at me oddly, pushes me from his knee and stands up, moves to the window to look across the wintery gardens.

  “Have a care, Madam,” he murmurs, “lest I come to believe other rumours that are abroad.”

  “Rumours?” I stand at his side, my cap just level with his shoulder. “What rumours, My Lord?” I know very well to what he refers, for although I had no hand in it, the death of Wolsey has brought me new enemies. Each time I walk into a room the chatter ceases, and I know they have been talking about me. George says I must brazen it out, so I stick out my chin, gird myself in an armour of steely arrogance, although I know they love me even less for it.

  For every ten people who pretend to love me, I warrant there are three who would see me fall, and no matter what I do or how I act, no matter how many churches or colleges I endow, or widows and orphans I give aid to, I will never be beloved … as Catherine is.

  Only the king shields me from my enemies, and sometimes I suspect that even Henry grows tired of me. Oh, his eyes follow me still, his gaze lingering warmly on my breasts, his big warm hands coming to rest more often than is seemly upon my waist, or upon my thigh. It is my tongue he does not suffer gladly.

  I am skimming along the corridor toward his apartment when I encounter a man from the king’s privy chamber bearing a spotless pile of linen. As soon as I see him, suspicion destroys my peace of mind. I stop and click my fingers at the fellow. “Where are you going with the king’s linen?”

  He flushes, makes as if to bow, remembers himself and merely inclines his head politely. “The king bid me take this linen to the queen’s chambers so that she can make up His Majesty’s shirts as is customary.”

  “He? She …?” I am blustering like a fool, disbelief robbing me of coherence. I turn on my heel, and leaving the man standing open-mouthed, march on toward the king’s apartment. The guards, seeing my approach, throw open the door and I pass through the outer chambers, through the presence chamber, and into the privy chamber where I surprise Henry at his midday meal.

  “So,” I storm without bothering to bid him good day. “You run to Catherine for your new shirts, My Lord. Do you think I am incapable of stitching a few sleeves? Are my needle skills so inferior to hers that you go behind my back for her services? I wonder what other services she continues to offer you. God’s teeth, I wish all Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea!”

  “Anne!” He gets up from his table, throws down his napkin and bellows at me, his face as red and angry as a baited bul
l. His attendants keep their eyes on the wall but they cannot hide their shocked, white faces. I suddenly remember to whom I am speaking. It is as if I am looking down from a great height at a picture of myself, a termagant, railing at a king. I see in his small round eyes and tight mouth the man who, pushed too far, will stop at nothing to gain vengeance.

  All anger drains away, leaving me shaking, spent. I fall to my knees, my skirts spreading around me.

  “I beg pardon, Your Grace. I – I forgot …”

  “Forgot what, Madam? Forgot your place? Forgot the respect you owe your betters – the obedience you owe your monarch?”

  I had imagined he was more than just my monarch. I look upon him as my betrothed, my soul mate … perhaps I am wrong.

  “Forgive me, Henry.” I lift my face up to him, stretch my neck, feel the weight of my hair, my hood, the whole world, dragging it backward, dragging me down. I close my eyes, swallow tears before letting it crash forward again, with a sudden wrenching pain at the top of my spine. “Oh Henry …”

  He cannot mistake the despair in my voice. He takes a step forward. “Get up, Anne.” There is no love in his voice, just a weary resignation, and I fear I am losing him.

  I can’t seem to get close as I once did. It is so long since we have been properly alone. Those long heady evenings in his chamber when he would play with my ‘duckies’ and call me ‘sweetheart’ are far away. I know I must be gentle, make him love me again, for there are a hundred girls, younger, prettier, and merrier than I waiting to take my place. I cannot lose him now, not after we have come so far. I must win him back, and fast, but a chasm has opened between us, a vast, ugly gulf, and I have no idea how to cross it.

  January 1531- Richmond

  There is bad news from Rome and Henry is in a towering rage. His courtiers cower in his presence, the women scuttle away at his approach, heads down pretending they don’t see him coming. Only I am there to bear the brunt of his fury against the Pope. He waves the communication in the air and yells like a furious child.