by Diana Rubino
"I would have thought life in the Tower would serve to humble her."
"And a more loving queen we can never have than Jane. Her lineage is impeccable; her father is a noble, a great admirer of Henry's... She is worthy of the position."
"And what of you? Are you planning on leaving court now?" he asked softly.
She sensed the hope in his tone and her heart gave a little leap of its own, but she shook her head."Nay, I shall stay on. Henry has never confided even in his queens regarding certain matters, and even if I never become his wife, I am glad to hold my post as long as he wants me there."
"So, have you seen your sister?" His gaze finally left hers and swept over the grounds before them.
"Aye, she is well. But Matthew, I have made the most crucial bargain with Henry."
"What? Marrying Topaz off to him should he grow tired of Jane?" he mocked.
"Nay, but Topaz's freedom hangs upon the success of Henry's new match. He begged to repay me for giving way to Jane. He offered me castles and gems and titles, but I told him I needed no more of that. What I wanted was intangible. I asked him if he would let Topaz free should Jane produce a male heir within one year."
"Oh, Amethyst!" He emitted a curt, ironic laugh. "The odds are so great!"
"Not really. Jane is nowhere as anxious as I was. I believe he would will Jane to start breeding and overrule God's wish if it is not to be. He is so desperate for that male heir, he agreed... Well, almost immediately."
"And how much coaxing did it take on your part?" he asked, his eyes twinkling in the sparkling sunlight embracing them.
"No more than a few minutes, Matthew. These days he is becoming quite coax-able. Now that Anne is dead, he is just about like his old self again, no longer tormented by the dark moods that plagued him when she was alive."
"They say she was the witch, but your magic powers do beguile even a king, Amethyst." He took a step towards her and a breeze lifted her skirts nearly to her knees. He reached out to smooth them down and her hands captured his.
He drew her closer and slowly, hesitantly, and began stroking her hair, as if he'd wanted to do it for a long, long time.
She lifted her head from where it was hidden in the crook of his shoulder and tilted her face up to meet his gaze.
"Oh, Amethyst," he whispered, and parted his lips to meet hers in a desperate kiss.
She'd wanted so badly to fulfill the dream she'd been nurturing in her mind and in her heart—and to make it reality. To be Henry's consort, to sit beside him, to give him his beloved heir. She momentarily transferred this desire to the man before her, to whom she'd always poured out her heart.
She brought him to her, searching his lips with hers, her hands nimbly exploring the thick locks of hair, the taut muscles of his arms and felt a creeping arousal through the strangeness of it all.
He responded immediately, returning her kiss with consuming passion, his searching lips smothering hers.
She withdrew her arms and pulled away gently, as if they both knew it had to end. They loosened their embrace, their eyes still locked.
"Matthew..."
"Aye, I know. Forgive me, I could not help it. I have been wanting that to happen for such a long time—"
"Just because I am not going to marry the King doesn't mean I am free. I am sorry, Matthew. I never should have started this."
He looked at her, his eyes darkened with desire. "It's all right. 'Twas I who started it. But please, Amethyst, promise me one thing."
"What?"
"That you will consider me your closest ally."
She blinked up at him in surprise. "Of course, Matthew. You are my only ally. I love Henry with all my heart. But I can never marry him unless I am sure that I am worthy in every way. Perhaps it is not meant to be, a Yorkist bearing the child of a Tudor? I don't know. But you are the only one in whom I can confide all my secrets and truly be myself. You will always hold a very special place in my heart."
"Please, Amethyst, let me kiss you, just once more..." he whispered, his voice drenched with longing.
She stepped backwards before she could give in to that which she desired more than anything else in the world at that moment. "Matthew, nay, you have a castle full of guests."
He sighed, took her hands and gave her one last despondent gaze before he departed to fulfill his duties as host.
Matthew clearly had business to attend to, so Amethyst left Kenilworth shortly thereafter with a promise that she would return as soon as possible. The vision of his disheartened face as they said goodbye lingered before her eyes and in her heart. She missed him already. No, she prayed. Please don't let me fall deeper in love with him than I already am!
She had never imagined it was possible to be in love with two men at the same time, but the more she thought about Matthew, the more the King began to wane in her affections. Henry was King, but that was part of the problem. He was not her friend, as Matthew was, he was her liege lord. She headed back to her own castle with a heavy heart and decided to head back to London as soon as her family would permit without asking too many pressing questions.
When Amethyst arrived back in London, the first thing she did was visit her nephews and then her sister. The boys were well and delighted to have news of their father and fresh produce from their home county.
But Topaz had grown pale and thin, and her gown hung on her limply. Amethyst noted that she had been moved to a comfortable suite in the Queen's House, one floor down from where Anne had spent the last days of her life. Was it a subtle warning, perhaps? Henry was a very subtle man.
"Do they not feed you here?" Amethyst asked, as Topaz idly twirled a dull strand of hair around her finger, which looked even bonier than usual.
"Indeed they do." She waved a hand over at the table across the room. Amethyst looked upon plates piled with food.
"Mutton, sweetmeats, fruits, an entire loaf of bread," she noted. "All your favorites, in fact. So why are you not eating?"
"I am anxious, Amethyst, anxious to see what this queen is going to bring forth, if anything, for she is the deciding factor of my fate!"
Amethyst sighed. Perhaps she should not have told Topaz of the bargain she had made. "You can't pine away for the next nine months at the very least in this manner. You will make yourself ill. And you know as well as I that you will continue to live even should Jane not produce a male heir. You just will not be free."
"I would rather be dead than spend the rest of my years in this dungeon!" she rasped.
Amethyst looked around her, at the overstuffed feather bed, the rich tapestried rug, the pretty pink curtains opened to let the spring sunshine spill through. "I would think you would be thankful to me for talking the King into entering into this bargain instead of complaining like an old shrew! This is far from a dungeon, Topaz. Considering what you've done, you are lucky your head is not atop London Bridge alongside your cohort Thomas More's."
"Aye, I appreciate it, all right? At the end of the day it is your power over the King that keeps me alive. However, it is Jane's reproductive abilities that will set me free! And if indeed he has been cursed by the Almighty, as he has been so far, my fate will be to be cursed right along with him thanks to the bargain you made!"
"I shall keep you well informed, sister. Now eat. You are positively emaciated. All that can be done is being done," she said briskly, thinking of the herb supply she had just replenished that morning in Jane's flagons of wine. "Henry will get a legitimate son and heir, I promise you. I just pray that it is within the year we have appointed."
But despite Amethyst's confidence, Henry did indeed seem cursed, for suddenly his only son, the illegitimate Henry Fitzroy, died in July at age seventeen.
"This is her final curse. She is cursing me from the grave!" the King exclaimed as he and Amethyst walked the grounds together, he alternating between sobbing and swearing.
"But Jane will give you another son, I know it, sire!" Amethyst tried desperately to soothe him, for now she
had a personal stake in this. "She's young and is so devoted to you."
The King stopped, plucked a rose off a nearby bush, and handed it to her. "A pink rose, roses I had especially bred just for the grounds here at Greenwich. To symbolize the union of the Yorkists and Lancastrians, the red and the white; pink, a perfect blend of the two colors, the two royal houses. They have been united all these years, and still I haven't got an heir. Oh, Amethyst, how much longer must I wait until my prayers are answered! I should have a palace full of princes by now!"
"Oh, you shall, my lord. Jane will come through, I feel sure of it," she insisted, though in her heart she was anything but certain.
"I have begun to count on Jane, to put my every hope in her, every fiber of my being begs her to give me a son."
"And she shall," Amethyst reassured him as he began to sob anew. She took him in her arms and began to pray in earnest.
When Jane announced in the early spring of 1537 that she was quick with child, the bonfires blazed and prayers were offered for the safe delivery of the long-awaited prince.
Topaz clung to her Bible like she never had before. "Please let it be a healthy boy! Aye, God, heavenly father! I have relinquished all my claims to the throne, I surely have! I shall never try to oust Henry again, or you may strike me dead!" She begged, she implored, day and night, and this time, she told herself and her sister, she really meant it.
The pregnant Queen sat at the King's side on the dais now and was the darling of the day, with him constantly dancing attendance upon her like a lovesick swain, besotted with the son he was sure she carried in her belly.
Amethyst tried not to be resentful and busied herself with work. She had no place near the King any more now that he was so happily married, so she resumed her duties in the gallery with the King's Musick.
Everyone at court was confused at her meekness. Although they all knew she'd introduced Jane to Henry, she offered no explanation as to why. No one knew about her barren state except the King and Dr. Butts, and she could just see the courtiers looking at her with questioning eyes. Why had she let Henry marry her lady-in-waiting and not wed him herself after such a long-standing and clearly intense affair? It was a most bizarre happening.
The smugness of her secret somehow appeased her misery, which intensified every time she saw Queen Jane, her ever-increasing confidence in her new position, and her ever-expanding abdomen. A blade stabbed at her heart every time she saw Henry touch Jane's cheek or take her hand with a tender affection he'd once saved only for her.
Jane's shyness was giving way to an outgoing congeniality, and she made friends with the courtiers like Anne or Catherine never had. She treated them as equals, and they loved her for it. She was becoming quite a dancer, too. Even with her advancing pregnancy, she was leaping about the floor with the King like a graceful swan. Natural color flushed the Queen's cheeks, more radiant than the rouge that Amethyst had slathered on Jane's face that night she had first told her she would be queen, and her eyes gave off a sparkle that matched Henry's when they met.
That should have been me, she would think as she strummed her lute, eyes brimming with the tears that turned her beloved Henry and his queen into two shapeless blurs. But at least she still had his love—something Queen Jane would never have.
"Oh, Amethyst, Jane is fairly glowing, is she not!" he boasted one evening as the two of them played cards in her chambers, piles of food and jugs of wine before them.
"She looks grand," Amethyst mumbled into her hand, tossing a card a little too carelessly onto the table.
"Haven't you gotten your mind on the game?" asked Henry, who attacked his cards and dice and tennis as competitively as he ruled his kingdom. "This is the fourth hand you've lost."
"Is that all I have lost, sire?" The tears, which flowed more freely these days, were coming again.
He stared at her. "What do you mean?"
"I have seen you but twice in the last fortnight. We have barely made love since you married Jane."
"Well, Amethyst, I own but one privy member. Had I two or more, then—"
"Since when has that ever stopped you?" she sneered. "However, that is not the point. I am not bothered about the lack of lovemaking, although now that she is with child, more coupling with her is hardly necessary, now is it? The fact of the matter is that she was supposed to have been only a brood mare. But the truth is that you and I hardly see each other anymore. You are always with her."
He sighed. "Well, Amethyst, she is carrying my child. I must see to her needs, see that she is comfortable—"
"You can easily provide for her every comfort with the hundreds of servants at your feet. You mustn't be there every second... And you certainly needn't sleep in the same bed with her every night!"
"You adamantly refused to sleep with me during my first travesty of a marriage, when in effect I was still a bachelor! Now that I am lawfully married, you complain I am not sleeping with you!" he shouted in exasperation.
She lifted her chin proudly. "That was different. You were pursuing me. I did not know you had any feelings for me other than those of lust. We are far past that, Henry. Our feelings are those of true love, they are out in the open, and you are depriving me! Remember, it was I who introduced you to Jane!"
"Only because you proved barren and you insisted!"
"So you are going to hold that against me now?"
"Nay, I am trying to play a hand of cards!"
"Oh, go to your wife, play cards with her!" Amethyst sobbed, gulping the last of her wine.
"All right!" he said all too quickly, and was out of the room before she could even think of any retaliation.
She halted her tears immediately and ran over to her writing table.
"My dear Matthew," she wrote, "It has all come back to hit me in the face. He is actually becoming infatuated with Jane. I fear I have lost his love. The times we have made love have still not resulted in a child, and now he spends all of his free time with her, so that any chance I might have to bear the King a child of our love is rapidly fading. I feel so betrayed. What would I do without you, my dearest friend?"
She hastily sealed the letter with wax and sent it off with a messenger before she even allowed herself time to change her mind.
But the following day, the kind summoned her and was his old, charming self as they played Greensleeves together and reminisced about old times. Henry came back to her chambers with her, and they made love slowly, tenderly, leisurely, without the frantic anxiety of a couple desperate for a child.
But she also noticed a certain detachment on his part, so that it became clear to her that he was there in body, but not in mind. She sensed there was something missing, but did not share her feelings with him. He was doing his best to make her happy, she could see that, but all the same, she knew it wasn't enough.
After a time, he began to slip quietly out of her bed. She sighed heavily. She should have known. She could see now that this was a farewell of sorts. He had been kind and attentive, but his priorities now lay elsewhere. He was going off to join his wife. All the plans and promises he had made to her had come to nothing thus far. But those little items mattered not if she could free her family at last.
She rose from the bed and began to organize her things. Perhaps is she kept busy enough, she wouldn't feel so broken-hearted.
"Why don't you go home for a while, Amethyst?" Henry said to her one warm August night after he had come to visit her once he had tucked his now very pregnant wife into bed. "I have some matters here I need to attend to. Jane will be entering her confinement soon—"
"And you want me out of the way," she answered for him, sparing him the trouble.
He inhaled a sharp breath, ready to retort, but she held up her hand. "'Tis all right, sire, you needn't explain yourself. I am clearly in the way. I could use a break anyway. My fingers are all calloused from lute playing, and need to be softened up a bit. I can use some time in the quiet of the country, without blasting voices and shr
ill viola strings ringing in my ears."
"Now that is not you, Amethyst. Music has always been your passion, and you must not think you need to escape it. I am simply very fraught with worries right now. The French—"
"I understand, sire. I shall pack up and be out of here by sunrise tomorrow," she said stiffly.
"Please come back for the christening. Dr. Butts says Jane should bring forth the child by mid-October."
She nodded. "I shall be here, my lord."
"I am inviting Elizabeth to court for the christening, too. I was even thinking of having Mary stand up as Godmother."