by Diana Rubino
He approached her and she flinched at the sound of his pendants rattling. She waited for a stunning blow but it didn't come.
"All the while I thought you were barren and now you are carrying Matthew Gilford's child!"
"I thought I was barren too, sire! You know how hard I tried! I even went to Dr. Butts, who made up some concoction for me, but it never worked! You know how badly I wanted to give you an heir!"
"My confidante, my lady, my special intimate, with whom I share everything, and you go behind my back whoring around Warwickshire, lying on your back and spreading your legs for your sister's husband, of all people?" he raged.
He may as well have struck her, for his words plunged through her heart like a dagger.
"It was not like that, sire. We love each other, the way you and I did...er...do..."
"Do not sass me, you whoring wench! You refused to become my queen because I was married, and now you go and share another married man's bed!"
He stomped over to the far side of the chamber. She waited for him to fling open the door and slam out.
"I would have wed you, but you put Anne Boleyn ahead of me."
"Aye, because of the child she claimed she carried, and I have regretted it ever since."
"And I put England first when I encouraged you to take Jane to wife to gain a son."
"It is not the same at all," he snapped.
He paced up and down until she would go mad. She wished he would say something, or just leave.
But he stayed. He was not finished. She wished he would depart without further passing judgment. Perhaps on the morrow he would be thinking more clearly. She thought of Anne Boleyn, his false accusations of the innocent victim, how she had been dragged to her death at the wishes of the King, charged with adultery she had not even committed.
But Amethyst had not committed adultery! She was the King's concubine, his mistress, but they had never exchanged vows in the eyes of God or the church. He had done it in the past, married off his mistress to a willing courtier so as to lend a respectable air to any child that might be born.
"Sire, I know I lapsed, but there was never an intention to hurt you. After all, you and I are not married." Her voice was calmer now, steady.
She knew Henry intimately enough to know he admitted when he was wrong. She saw past the commanding monarch. She'd seen him stripped of his jewels, his crown, his regalia. She knew the man underneath.
"And never shall we be. You committed this, this... Act behind my back. Without telling me. You knew of every wench I ever shared my bed with, wife or not! You knew everything! Do you take me for a fool, Amethyst?"
"N...nay..." She never heard him talk this way, and she desperately wanted to be alone, to decide when to leave, to plan a future for her and her child, but the ache to feel his arms around her kept her stonily attached to the chair.
"There is only one thing to do," he said, more calmly, but this frightened her even more, his unruffled composure. He was past the initial anger and working on the punishment.
She awaited the dreaded words, and immediately began preparing herself for imprisonment in the Tower, the days and nights of endless prayer for the salvation of her soul, the walk up the scaffold to the muffled drumbeats and gawking eyes, the black-masked executioner, the sword's blade glinting in the sunlight, the block with its cup for her chin, the slash that severed her life from earth...
"I shall marry you off, just as I have many another mistress. He will be a nobleman, worthy of your rank, for appearances' sake, although to me you are nothing more than a common street whore."
She gasped in shock. "Nay, Henry, you know that is not—"
"That is the way I feel about you. You will raise your bastard child and never see me more, and I shall go on with my life and forget we ever met."
"Nay, sire, you do not mean it."
H turned to face her then and she reeled back at the sight of him. His brows were drawn together in a furrow of furious anger, his lips drawn and tight, his fists clenched.
"My lord, I...please find it in your heart to forgive me. Please do not punish the child. It is not his fault. It is God's will."
"God's will? God told you to lie on your back and fling your legs up into the air? You insult me, Amethyst, and you shall insult me no more! I shall marry you off, all right, to someone you rightfully deserve!"
"Who?"
"Never you mind. Just get yourself a wedding dress. And do not dare wear white."
"Henry, please, sleep on this and—"
"I loved you. Thought I knew you. And you betrayed me like Anne?"
She shook her head. "We are not wed and you—"
"Spare me your protestations."
"—loved Jane, did you not, and neglected me sorely."
"Well, you shall have a new husband to dance attendance upon you now, my dear."
"Who?"
"I am king and I shall decide as I like."
"But please just tell me his name!" she begged
"Sir Mortimer Pilkington."
He hadn't hesitated for a second. He'd chosen her husband between the time she had told him of her pregnancy and now. A nobleman. At least he wasn't casting her off onto some London fishmonger. But still she stood, stunned at his fury.
His eyes raked over her one last time, as if to imprint her image into his memory. Then he swept out of the chamber with a resolute slam of the door.
She was too fraught with shock to even weep. She simply sat and thanked God he was letting her live.
She thought of running after him, begging him to forgive her. She knew why he was punishing her like this. He no longer had her to himself. She carried another man's child inside her, and this fact undermined the intimate closeness; the belonging they had always shared. She no longer belonged to him and him alone. And the fact that it was dashing Matthew had to make it feel all the worse.
He was hurting. But she could not go to him. Her time as the King's special friend had ended once and for all in a manner that neither of them could ever have predicted.
After his pronouncing sentence upon her, she felt as though living in the eye of a storm. Henry avoided her, ordered her to stay confined to her apartments. She took her meals there, since she was forbidden to step foot in the great hall. She was also dismissed from her duties with the King's Musick.
She knew the entire court was tittering, each courtier with his own theory as to why, after the years and tragedies their relationship had endured, the King had suddenly expelled Lady Amethyst from court functions.
He would not let her see her betrothed until the wedding day. She asked his closest associates, the Duke of Norfolk; his favorite groom, Henry Norris; his personal jester, Will Somers; but no one was able to tell her anything about this Mortimer Pilkington.
Perhaps they didn't know him. Henry was never one to disclose much of anything to many people.
The courtiers knew something serious was amiss when she did not reappear after a day or so. They knew not that she was expecting Matthew Gilford's child, but they knew a rift had occurred between her and the King. The way he avoided her, coupled with her conspicuous absence from the dais and at the King's Musick told them one thing. Whatever it was, this was not to be another temporary separation.
With packed trunks and a teary farewell to her ladies, she donned her simple wedding gown of beige satin, the sleeves turned up to show the ermine lining, the underskirt of embroidered satin dotted with pearls. Atop her head was a pearl-lined caul, her hair pulled back underneath. Around her neck she wore Henry's first gift to her—the simple teardrop pearl she so treasured. Matthew's ring was on her finger.
His face before her eyes, she exited her apartments for the last time. She held back tears as she walked through the corridors, past the King's chambers.
She ached to see him, to say goodbye. He was nowhere in sight. There had never been a sadder, more sorrowful bride, she was sure. How much sadder she was about to become, she had no idea, but she pra
yed that the Lord would not send her a burden too great to bear.
A carriage took her to Saint Margaret's Church in Bromley, south of London, where she was to be married to a man she'd never seen before. She had been allowed to take one maid, Harriet, and they sat wordlessly as the carriage rattled over the rutted roads, over the bridge spanning the gray choppy Thames, the wind biting and vicious. The sky was a leaden shroud of tarnished pewter, the sunless day lashing out at her angrily. Her wedding day.
In all the times she had imagined it, first with the King, and lately with Matthew, it had certainly never been like this.
Her heart thumped and her stomach churned sickly as they reached the small church, its thatched roof bare in spots like a desolate stretch of dry, abandoned ground. Mortimer Pilkington, the man who would in a moment more become her husband, stood at the altar with a priest. They were both dressed in black.
She walked up the aisle, his face coming closer into focus, his features sharpening as she approached him. He was short of stature, no taller than she, with white thinning hair. His sharp black eyes glared at her with a complete absence of interest in the dim light of the candles.
He was about fifty-five, his cheeks sagging into ruddy jowls that brought down the corners of his mouth into a frown. She slowed her steps as much as she could, but even so, she could not postpone the inevitable, and finally she was beside him.
He nodded politely and without giving her another glance, turned to the priest and commanded, "All right, marry us and be done with it."
His accent was the clipped chirp of the titled nobility that sounded condescending even when uttering soft endearments.
She recited her vows as if by rote, and it was over before she even realized she was there. He'd jammed a thin band on her ring finger, grasped her arm and led her back down the aisle to her coach that would take them to her new life as a married lady.
"What is the name of your manor, my lord?" were the first words she ever spoke to her new husband.
"Cleobury. It is the primary residence. I own another house in Chelsea, for I travel to London quite often."
"What...what is your occupation?" She almost panicked as she realized she had wed a complete stranger. She knew nothing of this man—absolutely nothing. She did not know what he knew of her, either, but she was sure the King had informed Mortimer Pilkington of her maternal status.
"I am a wool merchant. I own several farms out East Anglia way. I keep busy." He turned to her, those stony eyes regarding her with an apathy bordering on distaste. Perhaps he owed the King a favor, and that was why he'd agreed to marry her. He certainly didn't seem in the least pleased at the turn his life was taking.
"Are you...widowed?"
"Aye. Esther died giving birth." His voice softened a fraction and he quickly cleared his throat.
"Oh...I am terribly sorry."
Perhaps he was capable of loving another human being after all. Her heart indeed went out to Esther, doomed to go to her grave in service of this dispassionate rock. "Did the child survive?"
"Aye, the miserable sod. He killed her. He is the one who should have died." His words jabbed her like the point of a dagger. How could he speak of his own son this way?
She turned away from him and watched the cold gray landscape rush by. She could no longer speak to this man, so full of anger and hate. He seemed happy enough with the silence as well as they headed north.
Cleobury was a stone manor house in the popular shape of an "H" in homage to Henry. It looked as gray and dismal as the day surrounding them, and of the life that she knew lay ahead of her. The child inside her, Matthew's and her creation, was her only thread left from the past life that had been so violently wrenched from her.
After a light dinner in what he called the great hall, which was a large dining room furnished austerely with a weak fire sputtering in the fireplace, he led her up the stairs and ordered a groom to bring her trunks up to what he called "her chamber." Were they to have separate bedrooms, then? She heaved a sigh of relief.
However, he led her, with his open palm pressed to her backside, to a bedchamber she knew had to be his, for his clothes were lying about and hung in an open wardrobe.
"This is where we shall spend the wedding night," he declared, and her hopes plummeted.
Mortimer's bed was small, considering the size of the room. A white marble fireplace dwarfed the bed, with its gold mantle, on which sat three candelabra. His family coat of arms was carved into the wall above in black, red and white, all trimmed in gold. Although the rest of the house was furnished sparsely, his private chamber was certainly sumptuous.
She sat down on the bed and sank into its feathery softness. How different from Henry's beds. As huge as they were, they were always firm. She would literally bounce upon them before they would mold to the contours of her body.
She removed her cloak and placed it on the oak chair next to her. She looked up at the unfamiliar coat of arms, at the high ceiling arching above her head, out the window into the darkness, ran her hand over the cold sheet. She longed for Matthew, for Henry, for her past as she fought back tears, lightly touching her palm to her midriff, where the life grew, the life she now protected with her body and her warmth.
She heard the shuffling of feet and looked up to see Mortimer standing at the foot of the bed. "Take this wine, it will warm you until the groom lights the fire."
"Thank you, my lord."
"And call me Mortimer when we are in private. You are no longer in the bedchamber with King Henry."
"Aye...Mortimer," she said, and tried to get another look at him, holding a small candle in a silver holder. He'd already taken off his riding clothes and was dressed in a simple robe of pale yellow linen. No satins, no ermine trim, no gems glittered at his knuckles. He was indeed a simple and austere man. The band he'd placed on her finger seemed to mock her with a defiant wink in the soft glow of the candle. She twisted it round, wishing she could take it off.
After a groom lit the fire and disappeared, Mortimer climbed into bed. This was the moment she was dreading. Making love with this cold unfeeling man would be the most unpleasant experience of her life.
But she could not curse the King, for she knew he was lying in his enormous bed, alone, feeling betrayed, hurting just as much as she was.
Mortimer heaved a sigh and turned to her. "All right, let us consummate this marriage."
Each movement was slow, deliberate. He grew impatient and plucked the caul from her head, tossing it to the floor. "Take it all off," he commanded, and waited while she removed her gown, chemise and petticoats.
"May I get under the blankets? It is cold," she said, her teeth chattering with nerves as well.
"Nay! I want to see what my wife looks like naked. You shall perform your duty. Then I care not what you do until I summon you again."
She obeyed, removed the rest of her undergarments, and lay before him, exposed, completely unclothed. He ran a hand over her breasts, down her slightly protruding stomach.
"How far along are you?"
"Nearly three months, my lord."
At this moment she closed her eyes and tried to form a picture of Matthew before her. Mortimer was grappling between her legs, awkwardly, roughly, as if he'd never caressed a woman. Perhaps he never had. He knew nothing about female anatomy, about all the secret folds and intimate spots, the art of stimulation, and she longed for the feathery caress, the gently probing fingers inside her, the circling thumb, Matthew's masterful hands with his gentle touch, bringing her in shattering spasms to the heights of ecstasy.
Her husband jabbed two or three fingers inside her roughly, and she felt as if she were being examined by a doctor. He lowered himself next to her, struggling out of his breeches and hose. He moved his face close to hers and was touching her lips with his in a tentative, halting kiss. His tongue jutted out and probed between her lips until she reluctantly yielded, opening her mouth as he thrust his tongue inside. His tongue was rough, probed ine
ptly. He did not know the technique of kissing, either. One hand stroked her cheek with the back of his hand like a man deciding if she needed a shave.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she desperately tried to conjure up Matthew's face, his eyes, his silky hair under her exploring fingertips, his soft moans, his sharply angled cheekbones. Finally she probed his mouth with her tongue, taking him a bit aback. He promptly guided her hand down to his member. It was soft and limp, and she tried her best to stiffen the folds of flesh, to make him respond, and finally his manhood stirred.
He leapt on top of her as if mounting his prized palfrey, and awkwardly tried to thrust into her. She felt herself responding slowly, as it was not him, but the cold surroundings that intimidated her, knowing she didn't belong here in this large stone manor house.