Above All Others

by G Lawrence

  I did not realise at the time that God would take my prayers so nearly literally…

  That night we dined, each of us too worried to talk. We picked over the offerings prepared with haste by my mother. Pottage with fresh herbs and almonds, stewed herrings with parsley and currants, codling in green sauce of mint and garlic and roasted salmon with spinach tarts… These delights would normally have pleased us, but all food tasted bitter in my mouth. I did not even eat a great deal of the tarts, made of summer cherries and strawberries, which came later, even though these were favourite dishes of mine. I was too distracted. Mother told us that Jane had been sent to her father’s house and had written to us to tell us she was safe, but out of her mind with terror for George. Jane begged for news and I wrote to her, telling her all that we knew. Her letter scared me a little, as she wrote with such vehemence and passion, saying that her father had all but imprisoned her at his house because she had tried to leave to tend to George. I did not doubt that she wanted to be with him, but her father was right to restrain her, if that was what he had done. Riding to Waltham now would be to risk death. I counselled her to wait, and told her we believed George would recover. We sat down to wait at Hever, restless and afraid. Each morning, my mother dosed us with the pills Henry had sent, hoping they would help us to ward off the sweat.

  But they did not.

  I was in the gardens when I began to feel unwell. I had awoken that morning with a headache. I thought I had drunk too deeply of the fine malmsey wines my father had bought with the new-found wealth the King had provided. Last night, after eating, we had sat by the fire, barely speaking. The wine had helped me to sleep, finally, when I climbed unsteadily into my bed and cried myself to sleep thinking of George, of Will, of Mary and of Henry.

  But by the next afternoon I knew that there was something wrong. I was hot, and then cold, my head ached. I was trembling; inside my blood, inside my bones, as though an earthquake had awakened in my body. I could not see straight. Shadows warped and strained in the corners of my eyes. My vision seemed masked, veiled in some way. The flowers in the garden quivered before me. I was seeing double, and then hardly seeing anything at all. I staggered as I tried to get indoors. Each step I took up the stairs towards my chambers was like dragging logs. You need to rest, I told myself, unwilling to believe that anything more was wrong. The flight to Hever, the worries and care of the Great Matter… This has exhausted you. That is all, Anne… that is all.

  But I knew it was not. Cold fear lurked beneath the fire of my skin. I stumbled into my room, having seen no one along the way. I stared around the chamber. I knew not where I was.

  “Bess,” I whispered. “Where is Bess?” I could not think why she was not there.

  I sat down heavily before the mirror of highly polished copper and saw my usually pale cheeks flushed. I pressed my hands to them and then cried out as my hands burned upon my face. My eyes were bright, glassy, and strange. I stared at this face in the mirror. I was afraid, for it was not my face that stared back at me.

  “The face of Death…” I whispered, reaching shaking fingers out to the vision in the mirror, echoing the words of my poor Bess.

  I stared at the face in the mirror. Its skin was as white as bone and the shadows under its eyes and at its cheeks dark and deep. Its eyes blazed. Bright lights radiated from hideous black pools. The dreadful face blurred and danced as I watched it. I felt my body being sucked through the mirror and into the long, glowing dark of those eyes. I was falling, falling into the mirror.

  I stumbled to my feet with a cry and flailed my hands wildly in front of me as though I could hold off the horror with but my mortal flesh. And then, then there was nothing but darkness as the strength left my body and my legs buckled. My head bounced off the wooden floor that lay beneath the rushes and scented meadowsweet strewn there. Warm blood flowed from my nose and from a gash on my head. I could smell the blood as it slipped over my face and yet I could see nothing more. My skin shivered and quaked.

  The last thing I remembered was the sound of my voice. “Please God,” I muttered. “Please God, save me.”

  Into darkness, I fell.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hever Castle

  Summer 1528

  The days that followed after my collapse were nothing but a blur. Distorted faces hovered over me. I smelt the funk of roasting herbs and choked on the scent of burning vinegar. Hot urine and sweat soaked the sheets around me. I felt the smoke of the fire, the heat of the chamber, and moaned as the fire within me was already enough to set Sodom and Gomorra alight. I heard someone open the door and screamed as the stinging chill of fresh air lashed at the sweat on my body. It was like daggers piercing my skin.

  I flinched from my mother’s soft and firm hands as she forced bitter potions down my throat. I choked; spitting and vomiting them back up, and then was made to swallow more. I cried out in my sleep for Henry and screamed in my dreams. Demons and hungry spirits chased through the corridors of Henry’s palaces and into hell.

  I dreamed I saw the tower again, red with blood. I saw the walls of the castle become the hands of a scaly demon which reached out for me, ripping my flesh from my bones with its claws. I screamed out in pain as I saw the slices of my flesh and bone rupture. Gushing blood rushed from my veins. Claws sank into me, pulling, yanking my heart from its bony cage. The demon tossed my heart in its mouth and chewed, dribbling flecks of flesh and iron-scented blood as I stared at it in mute horror. It licked its scaly claws and came back for more, more of my flesh, more of my bone. Its jaws stretched into a gruesome and hungry smile as it picked me apart like a roasted capon. I screamed again, thrashing in my bed, and the vision of the demon was replaced by the ashen face of my mother, crying and dabbing my forehead with a cool cloth.

  “Hush, child,” she said, her voice cooing and loving through her tears. “Hush, my Anne, my love, my little girl… You are going to get well.”

  “Mother,” I croaked. “What is happening?”

  She sobbed with relief to hear my voice. “You are sick of the sweat, but you are going to get well. Do you hear me, Anne? You are going to get well. This is not the way I will lose my children.”

  I nodded but she disappeared again as I was flung back into the hideous nightmare world of devils and bone and blood. For more than a week I teetered on the edge of two worlds, the world of dreams and that of reality, locked in battle with the Devil Himself and unable to remember but one prayer to God through the horror and the fear.

  But my mother was right. After a week I was well enough to wake one morning and see her asleep in a chair, her head nodding against her chest, clearly exhausted. The dark figure of a doctor was kneeling in prayer by the fire. The room was dark as the windows were closed and shutters were fastened over them. The air was warm, but not too hot, and its thickness smelt of the smouldering ashes of herbs and the steam of bubbling potions. Blue sage-smoke wafted above me, slowly moving streams which billowed with the draughts. About my throat, strips of parchment quivered and crunched. There were prayers written upon them, and fastened to me with string. I coughed, feeling as though I had a full-grown lad sat on my chest, and tried to sit up to lessen the pressure. As I moved, my mother and the doctor, who I now recognised as Doctor Butts of the court, rushed to the bed.

  “Water,” I croaked, and my mother pushed a cup of cooled water boiled with herbs to my lips. I gulped down blissfully welcome mouthfuls, cringing at the sting of the bitter herbs on my torn throat and cracked lips.

  Doctor Butts felt my forehead and let out a heavy breath. “The fever has broken,” he said. “It is safe to assume you are out of danger.” He smiled weakly, great relief on his face. “I was worried, but it seems God has decided to keep you in this world, my lady. And now I must see my other patient.” He stood up stiffly, setting his hands against his tired back and stretching it. “Who will be glad to hear that you are also on the mend.”

  “Other patient?” I wheezed at my mother as Bu
tts left. My throat was dry and speaking hurt. My normal voice had been replaced by that of a dying demon. My lungs felt weak, shaky. My whole form was feebler than I had ever known. It cost me much just to talk, or sit up.

  “Your father was brought to bed of the sweat the day after you,” my mother said. She looked utterly exhausted. Lines I had never seen before had ploughed deep into her skin. Her face was as pale as the full moon on a clear night and dark circles hugged her eyes, giving her an almost skeletal appearance. But she was still gentle, and beautiful. She had not been strong these past years, and yet, she, the least hale of all of us, had not caught this dread sickness. “We found you in your room, collapsed on the floor, your face covered in blood and thrashing around like you were possessed.” Her face puckered and tears fell from her eyes. She did not heed them. Clearly she had been crying much over the past days, and had learned to carry on regardless.

  “That same night, just after he had sent word to the King to send his best doctor to you, your father fell in the hall…” My mother’s face crumpled. “He did not even seem ill a minute before he collapsed, Anne, this sickness is so quick to take effect. I was so frightened. I thought I might lose you both. Many servants were taken ill on the same day and there is not a room in the house that has not been turned into a sick room… But the King sent his doctor and I had the help of the cunning woman of the village. With her herbs and the doctor’s medicines we were able to save you.”

  My mother gestured towards another figure that I had not noticed before now; an old woman, her face crinkled and soft like a fallen crab-apple. She sat quietly in the corner near the fire. Swathed in dark brown wool, she seemed to waver in and out of the shadows. I remembered her vaguely from her visits to Hever during the time of my banishment. She lifted her aged head and nodded once in recognition. Her eyes were as dark as coal and they shone with pride. My weak eyes met her gaze, and then, with the humility expected of her rank and station, she dropped those black eyes to the fire where she stirred a pot of herbs in water.

  “George… and Mary…. Will?” I asked. Each word was a stab of pain. I sipped more water, feeling it flow over every crack on my lips. I could taste blood as it washed free from where I had chewed my lips. My skin was parched and my mind was foggy, as though I had not slept in days. Everything, every bone, every muscle in me, ached.

  “George is recovered and anxious for news of you, and Mary did not catch the sweat. But… Will… He died, Anne, as did many of their servants. Mary is now a widow. Her children are safe, though, the sweat did not reach Will’s mother’s house.”

  My heart tore within me. Poor Will. Poor Mary. She had loved him so, and now he was gone. “And Henry?” I asked. She poured more of the sweet water down my broken, dry throat.

  “Both well and desperate for news of you,” she said with a trembling smile. “It took all the force of his advisors to prevent him rushing to your side, but they convinced him it was too dangerous. He could not send his best doctor to us as he was away when the King heard of your sickness. His Majesty did not want you to have to wait to get treatment, so he sent Dr Butts, a fine man.” Her voice glowed with gratitude.

  “The King has been sending messages daily to us, and remedies and potions, all to try to save you from the sweat, my love. He tells us that he prays hourly for your recovery and has given many great presents and promises to the Church for your recovery.” She paused to give me more water. The taste of tansy, sugar and feverfew flooded my mouth and I felt my head clearing as I lapped up the water eagerly. “I will read you the letter he sent when he first heard of your illness,” she said, putting down the bowl and taking up a parchment from the dark oaken cabinet at one side of the room.

  “There came to be suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have arrived,” she read aloud, her finger moving along the parchment. “The first, to hear of the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem more than all the world, and whose health I desire as my own, so that I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well.”

  My cracked lips broke into a smile, causing the fragile, dry skin there to fracture into more tiny wounds. I winced and put a hand to my lips. When I removed it I saw spots of blood on my white fingers. “Henry has a great terror of illness, mother,” I rasped. “That is a compliment above all others, if you understand his fears.”

  She looked up at me and pursed her lips. I knew she was thinking that he should have been willing to take all my illness, but I would settle for even half from a man so obsessed with avoiding sickness as my Henry.

  “The second,” she continued, “from the fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy, Absence, much longer, who has hitherto given me all possible uneasiness, and as far as I can judge is determined to spite me more because I pray to God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor. The third, because the physician in whom I have the most confidence, is absent at the very time when he might do me the greatest pleasure; for I should hope, by him and his means, to obtain one of my chief joys on this earth; that is the care of my mistress. Yet for want of him I send you my second, and I hope that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I beseech you to be guided by his advice in your illness. In so doing I hope to see you again, which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the world.

  Written by that secretary, who is, and for ever will be, your loyal and most assured servant,

  H. (A.B). R.”

  “I must write to him,” I said slowly, feeling my throat burn. “He must know that I am recovered.” My mother took out writing materials and gave them to me, but my hand shook so badly that I could not write and in the end I gave her the quill and dictated my response to her.

  “My good lord and King,

  This day has found me awakened from that fever which so threatened my life. For days now I have known nothing of this world and it was feared by my family and the great doctor that you, in your graciousness, sent to me, that I should be called forth to join God, never to see Your Majesty again.

  But this day I have woken to the great relief of your great doctor and my family. It is due to the kindness and care of Your Majesty that I have recovered in body, and due to the will of God that I have recovered at all. I give thanks to both powers for my recovery. It seems that God wishes for us to be together; in preserving my life, our Holy Father hath shown His approval of our marriage. He has tested my resolve and I have come back to the world in which you live. I have been tested by God, my lord, and He has allowed me to live, to return to you. In this I take the greatest comfort.

  I long to see Your Majesty, to hold you in my arms, and to see your face again. Once I am recovered I hope to be able to see you, my love, for this has been the hardest of separations we have yet endured. Yet I remain in this world and as long as I do remain, I am your servant, mistress and friend, and I send to you all my love and wishes for us to be reunited, and

  I remain, as ever, your servant,

  Anne Boleyn.”

  My mother sent the letter as soon as she could and in time, still in my sick bed, I received a reply filled with relief and gratitude. Henry’s letter was almost incoherent for the joy he professed in hearing I was alive and out of danger. Over and over his words assured me of his love, and of his impatience to see me. He was giving thanks daily to God, he told me, and now nothing would stand in the way of our union. He sent me a gift of a freshly-killed buck, to replenish my health, for he had heard that good, rich meat was a helpful food for invalids.

  My mother tsked at the venison, and only allowed me a little. She did not hold with Henry’s idea that this meat was beneficial for invalids. She fed me on chicken broth with boiled rice, and pottages of the same bitter herbs I had eaten in my recovery. She gave me as much beer and ale as I could drink, also infused with those herbs, but would not allow wine, saying that it was too acidic for my fragile stomach. She smothered my lips in concoctions of clean goose fat, sanicle and parsley
to heal them. She bathed my reddened skin with lemon juice, and washed my body in rose water. Once I was clean, it was remarkable how much better I felt, and, snuggling into fresh covers of cool linen, I went back to sleep. I slept with Henry’s letter in my hand that night. It made me feel closer to him.

  When I awoke the next morning, feeling a great deal better, Doctor Butts was at my bedside. As I opened my eyes, I saw he was leafing through a book. My heart froze. When I had fallen sick, my copy of the Tyndale translation of the New Testament had been on a table in my room. It was that book he was now holding.

  I sat up quickly, and immediately felt a great pain in my head. Seeing me wince, Butts set the book on the bed and reached out to touch my head. “You still need to have a care for yourself, my lady,” he said calmly. His finger reached out and tapped the book. “And if I were you, I would have more care for where you leave such books as these.” He tapped the top of the book. A glimmer in his eyes and a smile on his lips told me however, he did not disapprove of the text.

  “You… have read it too?” I asked warily.

  He nodded. “I have found much within this book that I never knew before,” he said. “When I went to Church and listened to the priests there, I never felt as inspired as when I read this work.” He looked about him, even though there was no one in the room. “Although, both for my position, and for my life, my lady, I would that none knew of my evangelical sympathies.”