The Last Boleyn

by Karen Harper

  She felt icy at the thought of Cromwell’s eyes on her, so coldly, so completely. She drank her wine. “Did you send Nancy to bed?” she inquired while pouring another glass of wine.

  “No. I told her where Stephen was awaiting me, and she went down to see him. She misses him. We really ought to find a way to merge our two meager households so they could be together.” His arms came around her from behind and he nuzzled her neck.

  “I do not intend to be so easy for you when you are so sweet on that Cobham wench,” she said.

  “And I do not intend to take long rides on the cold Thames and be turned out of the bed of the woman I love,” he returned, and his arms tightened.

  “You may have the bed. I shall sleep elsewhere.”

  “My temper is right on the edge, sweet. You have seldom seen my temper and you would not like it. Turn around, and I will unlace you.”

  She began to tremble at his tone, but she was angry. What right did he have to order her into bed with him? Anne was lying down the hall thinking that William Stafford was the fondest, gentlest lover. And her father still meant to use her for whatever suited his plans. Play the whore for Stafford if you must, he had told her once. She did not belong to any of them to command like this!

  She felt his hands on the laces at her back, and she pushed out hard against him. Startled, he dropped his arms, and she darted from his grasp toward the fireplace. She was instantly grabbed off her feet and plopped down on the bed in a tumble of skirts and loosed hair. Staff threw himself down beside her.

  “Take your hands off m—,” she began, but he held her so close that their noses touched. He would not dare force her at Whitehall with people all around and her sister’s guards within shouting distance. Everyone would find out about them, and he would never allow that. He was bluffing.

  She shoved him away, and it was the last thing she could remember doing for a long while after. She had intended to struggle but she only met his ardor with her own. When it all ended, her cheek was tight against his, and her lips rested in the short hair at his temple. She began to laugh, happily, crazily.

  “What is it, my love?” he asked.

  “It is not only you who are too strong for me, Staff. It is my love for you.”

  This was the one man in the whole world she wanted to possess her, to use her, she thought deep in the swirl of her emotions. But the difference was she chose to have it so.

  As soon as he stopped kissing her, she would tell him. She would tell him that she would choose to wed him as he had asked, whenever they could escape the lions in their surrounding dens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  October 24, 1532

  Calais Castle

  Although the quaint coastal town of Calais, France, was wrapped in clear blue skies and sunny days that October, inside the great white castle on the cliffs the weather was sharp and dark. Anne Boleyn raged and stormed for almost an entire week at what she termed the greatest affront and most cruel desertion she had ever had to bear. Her ladies cowered or fumed beneath her nasty temper or, if they secretly yet championed Queen Catherine, they smirked behind their hands. None dared to walk within the boundaries of Anne’s thundering wrath—no one but her sister Mary, who understood full well the agonies of politics when they clashed with the agonies of a woman’s heart and pride.

  “How dare they? How dare they?” Anne repeated for the hundredth time in the five days since Henry Tudor and the men of his English retinue had ridden off to hunt and carouse with the French king’s all-male entourage. “I shall be Queen of England and we shall see then if they dare to snub me the next time we meet! I will have the French in the dust at my feet for this!”

  “Anne,” Mary’s voice came low in the lull of passion, “Francois’s new Queen Eleanor is Queen Catherine’s niece. She dare not welcome you for her family pride. Despite it all, you can see that.”

  “Francois should have made her come here to greet us. And that is no reason his too-fond sister Marguerite should not have come in the queen’s place. Does Marguerite grow so bold now that she is Queen of Navarre? She knew me when I was here. She loves Francois far better than any queen of his anyway. And to think I read her damned bawdy book to discuss it with her!”

  Anne flounced by Mary and her full skirts swished as she turned to pace again. “The wily French never sent Henry word that there would be no ladies of their court to visit us in this—this prison. I have a good nerve to throw all my trunks of new gowns off the castle parapet and let the fish wear them. Then Henry would know how much this meant to me, and he will be sorry!”

  She was past tears now and stared sullen-eyed at Mary. Mark Smeaton had long ceased his gentle strumming on his lute as the tirade swelled, broke, and passed into a hushed stillness. They sat, as they had these last long days, in Anne’s fine bedroom perfectly transported over the English Channel from Whitehall for her comfort and, some thought, for the king’s, too. Her woven tapestries of Roman goddesses graced the stone walls of ancient Calais Castle and the flowered plush carpet stretched from hearth to bedstead. Draped in ermine and gold, the coverlet of the massive eight-foot-square bed bore Anne’s new falcon and rose crest. The polished furniture and golden plate in the chamber seemed to dance with hidden light within while the wall sconces and burned tapers lent a soft glow to the entire scene.

  “I would ordinarily be the last one to say this, Anne, but I think you would do best to heed father’s last whispered words to you.”

  “Oh? What? ‘Buck up girl and smile His Grace all the way out the door as he goes to meet Francois’?”

  “Yes. And to have this huge place elaborately decked and ready to entertain your two kings when they return from the hunt and the conferences.”

  “Conferences! Pooh! They are having the time of their lives—probably dancing, gambling, and having bawdy masques every night besides fine hunting in the French forests just outside the English pale where we cannot follow. Do not forget I knew Francois too, Mary. His idea of a great amusement is to go in disguise to some little fishing village or vineyard-decked hamlet—I am certain little Calais which lies below the cliffs would do quite well—and throw eggs at the men and rape the women. There! Did you know that of France’s precious du Roi?”

  “He told me something of the kind once about some little wine town across the Loire valley from Amboise. He could not remember the name of the place but said he would have to go back again some day.”

  “He could not even remember the name of the place. How like him, Mary.” A tiny smile crept to Anne’s pouting lips and Mary found the courage to smile back.

  “He shall probably not remember my name either, Anne. But my pride for such treatment has gone long ago. I cannot say I miss any of it.”

  Anne regarded her sister sideways through her black lashes. “And I cannot say I fully believe you, Mary, though I know your thoughts are hardly on the lusty French king. ’Tis more like you miss your Stafford.”

  Mary kept her tongue. She had learned weeks ago to refuse to rise to the tease as she too often had, and lately Anne had taken to amusing herself by wondering aloud in Mary’s hearing how true passion would feel on the body and the heart.

  “Well, so much for that topic. You are as testy as I am, Mary, only you have the sweet disposition and you choose to suffer in silence. You are right to spout father’s fine advice to me like a dutiful daughter, and I shall be a dutiful daughter in return. I have won His Grace and others before and I shall do it again. They are only men. When they clatter up the winding road to the postern gate and see what awaits them, they will curse the day they deserted the next queen of England to ride sweaty and dirty after boar or deer or the sluts in some French village. They will find far lustier game here.” She motioned impatiently to Smeaton, who immediately broke into a romping galliard tune. Her dark eyes dancing with plans, she flounced out her skirts and began to pace again in little quick circles around Mary’s chair.

  “Listen well now, Mary. I need you
r help. I could not possibly stand Jane’s simpering face right now, and some of the others are not to be trusted. I may have Catherine’s—I mean the newly declared Duchess of Wales’s—royal jewels in my coffers now, but she still has some of their hearts and well I know it. Now, we will have the most elaborate banquet this old place has ever seen—hundreds of French delicacies and some English. I shall visit the kitchens myself to see that the French dishes are prepared properly. You could check those too, Mary, for you ate at Francois’s royal banquets as long as I. We will have dancing, masked I think, and a wonderful mime, maybe some charades. Yes, how appropriate. Something about the loving French and English relations, though that is a wretched lie. Some mimes from mythology. I know! We can hang these tapestries in the banquet hall instead of the silver and gold arras which are there now—we shall use those for table cloths—and put on mimes of every tapestry scene!”

  “It sounds wonderful, Anne. I will help you any way I can.”

  “In any way? Remember you said that, Mary.” Anne whirled and clapped her hands together once. “Can you see it all now, Mary? A feast and fun, yes, but revenge pure and simple on all of them, not the least on their foolish women who choose to let their French lords go gallivanting off to visit the English king’s latest concubine. We shall show them.”

  Mary stood to stop Anne’s nervous pacing. She took a step into her swirling path and touched her sister’s slender arm. “Just what kind of revenge are you thinking of, Anne? It is one thing that they will miss the festivities and the chance to meet the English king and his future wife—that loss shall be theirs whether they know it or not—but you seem to be implying another.”

  Anne smiled devastatingly at her taller sister. “You had best get the ladies assembled for rehearsals for the mimes, Mary, while I care for the other orders. Do not concern yourself now with the minute details.”

  Mary’s fingers tightened slightly on Anne’s arm. “Anne, I think you had better tell me what you are thinking. There is something you have not said, of revenge, I think. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Can you, sister? I thought I was rather good at hiding what I would hide. Then I shall tell you since you have no way of stopping me. The sweetest revenge shall be this. Let the pious ladies of this fair realm stay away from contact with the English King’s Great Whore! Oh yes, I know what they are thinking now they do not come as they are bidden. Their husbands and sons will all go back to them awed and humbled by their evening here with Anne Boleyn—and they will all go back having been quite unfaithful to their pious little snobs.” Her voice broke in anger. Smeaton had long given up playing and sat stock-still, listening to their heated exchange.

  “You had best consider this again, Anne. You are starting to sound like you are opening a brothel. His Grace will never permit it.”

  “Which His Grace, Mary? Well enough you know that Francois’s court has no scruples about a quick conquest of any lovely, willing lady, and I have brought enough of those—single and beautiful women with dazzling dresses. Add that to wine, dancing and a man away from his home and wife and we shall see.” She yanked her arm from Mary’s grasp and began her rapid pacing again.

  “As for Their Graces, sister,” Anne went on with an increasingly sharp edge on her voice, “you and I shall see to them personally. How perfect—it will certainly amuse father. Two kings in bed with two Boleyns at the same time, though maybe not in the same place.” She smothered a giggle.

  Mary felt a stab of hurt deep inside, but the great waves of disgust overwhelmed that pain. “Anne, how dare you think and talk so to me. Seduce your king if you will. Heaven knows he has wanted you long enough and has done overmuch to earn your love, but I shall have no part of Francois!”

  “Do not speak to me that way, Mary. He is your old lover—oh, yes, I knew of it at the time though I was young and pondered it and wondered ever since. He must be magnificent in bed. You have no one now but William Stafford, and he is so obviously beneath you that I cannot believe that affair is serious. Francois is the king, Mary, and he deserves to be humbled. It can be your revenge for his casual handling of you. Think of the fun we shall have together laughing about it after.”

  “Your anger and fears have gotten the best of you, Anne. You should rest and I will see to the plans for the banquet.” Mary fought an urge to reach out and shake the girl, but she was obviously sick and distraught—poisoned by revenge. Wolsey’s death and Catherine’s fall had not yet appeased her. “Please, Anne, sit and I will call Lady Guildford.”

  “I do not want that old watchdog here! She is still loyal to the Spanish princess. And do not patronize me, Mary. I know father thinks you are here to watch me, to calm me as if I am not responsible for myself. Well, I am responsible for the rise of the Boleyns and you had best not forget it! Both you and father must do what I say now, for I shall soon be queen and you must do what I say then. Be gone and see you hold your tongue about my plans. And that goes for you too, my lovely lutenist. You are much too much of a gossiper.”

  She patted his cheek and spun away. The smooth-faced Smeaton gazed up at her slim back adoringly. “Yes, my dear Lady Anne,” he said only.

  “Go on, Mary,” Anne prodded with her hands, then pressed them to her slim hips through her voluminous yellow skirts. “I will have no more of your lectures. You are hardly one to warn me of traps and indiscretions, sister.”

  It was like a final slap across the face. Mary almost feared her, feared for them all. She turned swiftly as tears stung her eyes. If only Staff were here, but he was off riding at the king’s elbow somewhere. She nearly tripped as she hurried from Anne’s sumptuous chamber. She threw herself down on the narrow bed in her own small room, but the tears she thought would overwhelm her would not come. She kept thinking over and over how strange it was to wish for father to be here to stop this revenge-ridden foolishness, this mad precipice to which the laughing Anne pulled them all.

  As the messenger had promised, the kings and their men rode into Calais before dinner on the next day. The watchmen had shouted their arrival throughout the waiting palace as the Lady Anne had bidden and the well-rehearsed ladies scurried to their appointed stations along the great staircase rising from the courtyard. Mary had kept to her room during most of the hurried preparations, and it had only been in the last hours of the frantic practices for the evening’s mimes that Anne had insisted Mary join the others. Mary could tell by the ominous narrowing of Anne’s almond-shaped eyes that she was angry with her older sister. Let her know how I feel, Mary had thought vehemently, as she had walked through her given parts in the tableaus of Greek and Roman scenes. Now perhaps Anne would drop her crazed plans or at least leave her well out of it. Mary smoothed her lavender skirts which rustled in the still October breeze on the cliffs of Calais. Her eyes quickly scanned the laughing bunches of men for Staff.

  Anne swept down the center of the steps in her stunning striped dress of Tudor green and white with white puffed sleeves and slashings of glittering gold. She walked under a green-boughed arch at the bottom of the staircase and curtseyed to the beaming English king and the wide-eyed Francois du Roi. Mary squinted into the sun and spotted George just dismounting. There was Norris and Weston and—yes, there he was standing beside her cousin Francis Bryan and not looking her way at all. Then the king’s dark raven Cromwell blocked her view of Staff as he dismounted, and she silently cursed the king for dragging that man along to always hover nearby and stare.

  Whatever pretty snares Anne was weaving for the two tall monarchs, they looked well pleased to be stepping wide-eyed into them. Now as the men streamed up the stairs, the English women joined them taking a proffered arm here, bestowing a kiss there, and laughing, laughing. At least Anne had allowed the women who were married to men of His Grace’s court to walk with them, Mary noted grimly. She would wait for Staff to come by and take his arm no matter what they thought if she lagged that far back. She stiffened her knees to stop their trembling as Anne approached holding
on to both the kings, Tudor and Valois. Francois had aged and the magnificent physique had faded. She had heard he had been to war and held a prisoner, but there was so much change in so little time. Still the face was the same—and the piercing eyes which bored into Anne’s dazzling smile. He was speaking to them. His fine French floated to Mary’s ears: “...so as I say, Mademoiselle de Boleyn, my advice to my dearest brother Henri du Roi was to wed now and then—voila!—see what the Pope and Charles of Spain will do afterwards, oui, Henri?”

  Mary moved back a step in the cluster of silken skirts about her and curtseyed low with the rest. She kept her eyes on her sister’s golden slippers as Anne lifted her emerald skirts and they climbed the stairs. Anne’s tiny feet halted.

  “You do remember my dearest sister, Marie, Your Grace?” she heard Anne’s lilting voice say in flawless French. “She is a widow now, and I am pleased to bring her back to see you again as one of my ladies d’ honneur.”

  There was a silence and Mary stood unwillingly, her long nails biting into the palms of her hands.

  “But of course, the beautiful, golden Marie. How wonderfully these twelve years grace your face and form since I saw you last, Marie.”

  Mary swept him another low curtsey, but she could not force a smile to her face. Henry Tudor cleared his throat and tugged gently on Anne’s arm behind Francois.

  “My sister has been anxious to see her French king again,” Anne added directly at Francois. “Tonight, after you are rested, you will see much of each other.” She lifted her foot to the next step as Henry Tudor began to recount for her the skills of the two kings on their fine hunt.

  “Charmed, ma Marie, charmed,” Francois du Roi repeated as he turned away from Mary and went on up the vast stairs.

  Mary loosened her fists. She could have killed Anne. What possessed her to embarrass her, to hurt her like that? She should have believed Staff as usual and not defended Anne to him. The girl was dangerous and her whims were to be feared. She would never argue with him on that point again.