The Last Boleyn

by Karen Harper

  He came closer and stared warmly down at her. “You are talking in riddles, my golden one. Still so beautiful after a husband and a child.”

  “Two children, Your Majesty.”

  “I thought there was only the lad your king spoke of.”

  Mary felt her pulse quicken.

  “And let us face the truth, Mary, you held the Tudor for five years, though now he is the heritage you leave your sister.”

  “My relationship with Henry Tudor, Your Grace, was truly none of my doing, except for the fact that I used to be a frightened little pawn of my father—and my kings.”

  “Ah, this is another Marie indeed, but one so beautiful still, so tempting, just as your goddess rising from the foam of the sea tonight, my Venus. I pictured you then without your garments and recalled the lovely days we spent together.”

  She moved to step aside, but he was too quick for her. His long hands darted to her silken waist. He bent to kiss her, but she turned her head. “Please, Sire, I cannot know what Anne or the king or even my father has said to you. The memories are one thing, but I wish for no others. Please, let me free and leave this chamber.”

  His arched brows descended over his deep-set eyes. “Why would you deny me?”

  “I loved you once, Your Grace, or thought I did, but no more. The years have changed me. I ask of you, Francois du Roi, to...” As he suddenly parted her robe, her hands darted to tug at his wrists. “No, Your Grace, I will not—”

  “Love, my Venus, has nothing to do with what joy we can give each other in the privacy of this room tonight. I have chosen you from all the women here. Whomever you fear, they need not know.”

  He massaged the curve of her hip as he covered her mouth with his. She bit his lip and tried to twist away, but he slammed her back into the wood-paneled wall, then pressed her there with his big body.

  “Damn, vixen!” He touched his fingers to his lower lip and brought away his own blood.

  “I cannot help what they have told you or promised, Sire,” she repeated. “I will scream, and everyone will come. Everyone will know the Great Whore’s sister, who was the English king’s mistress before her sister, does not wish to lie with Francois du Roi!”

  He stood stock-still against her. She felt smothered by his weight; he had such a stomach and great chest on him that she could hardly draw a breath where he pressed her bosoms flat. He stepped back, and she feared he would strike her. She raised her chin, for anything would be better than his caresses.

  Instead, he yanked her several steps after him into the room where the firelight fell on them. She stood straight facing him, afraid to dart back toward the bed.

  “It is obvious to me, Marie,” he voice came coldly, “that your sister is succeeding where you did not. You used to ask for nothing, but she wins a kingdom, eh? You see, she is a clever whore and you are—as ever—a foolish one.”

  “I was foolish once when I played the whore for you, Sire, but no more. Say what you will and then be gone to make your complaint of my actions to my sister or whomever you are to report to.”

  His jeweled hand came at her, and she crashed to the floor. She tasted blood; her cheek stung. The ceiling seemed to tilt. He towered over her, and his slippered foot kicked at her derriere as he gritted out his words.

  “Here is what I report to you, Marie. Your grand Henri du Roi is demented to wed instead of just bed your skinny sister and ruin the holy church in the process. You keep that secret, and I shall keep the one that the ripe, blonde Bullen refused Francois du Roi her sweet body to plunder as he used to when it amused him.”

  Wrapping his velvet robe tighter around his girth, he turned away. “I will amuse brother Henri and his concubine tomorrow with an elaborate tale of how well you served me any way I would have you, eh? They will be very pleased to hear of your—your groveling—performance.”

  He shouted a strangled laugh, and the door slammed. She lay stunned, but relieved, totally free of him. Let him lie to her family or his amused and jaded cronies, for her good name had been long trod in the royal dust of France and England too. It only mattered that Staff must know the French king told lies, terrible lies.

  The chill of the castle snatched at her again, and she scrambled to her feet. She shot the bolt on her door, then stripped naked and scrubbed herself with cold water from her wash basin until the tingle became a rough ache. Mary Bullen belonged body and mind to William Stafford only, and she would die before anyone else ever touched her again.

  She donned her crumpled mauve and beige gown, not stopping to put on undergarments. Wherever they had sent Staff or maybe even locked him away, she would find him. She smoothed her mussed hair and seized the silver fruit knife from the table. The fruit and fine wine, of course, were for the French king. The whole thing had been calculated by her sister. The dull pain in her stomach twisted sharp again.

  The knock was so quiet on the door that she hardly thought she had heard it at first. Not even the sneaky Cromwell would knock that quietly. Perhaps her father had found out that she had failed the Boleyns now and would tell black Cromwell he could claim his prize to punish her. The knock came again. Maybe it was only the foolish maid. “Isabelle, is that you?” Her voice quavered in the room, barely discernible over the low snapping of the hearth fire.

  “Lass, it is I.”

  Half fearing a trick, she cracked the door and peered out, her knife poised just out of the visitor’s sight. It was Staff’s voice, but perhaps that was another trick.

  “Staff. Oh, Staff!”

  She was in his arms the moment he closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Cold still clung to his garments and skin, but he felt wonderful against her.

  “Come on, sweetheart. You and I are going to hide out for the night in a place they will never think to look,” he was saying. “Your dangerous little sister has some sort of dire plan for you, I fear, and we had best get out of here before it happens.”

  He craned his head to survey the hall through a cracked door. When he turned back to take her hand, his eyes widened in surprise as though he were seeing her for the first time. “What the hell has happened,” he shot out. “Are you dressing or undressing? Why the knife? Cromwell? Francois?” Anger stained his tanned face livid and he took the knife from her unresisting fingers and hurled it behind her. “I shall kill your father.”

  “No, no, my love. Everything is all right now, truly. Francois was here, but I denied him and he left in a huff.”

  “In a huff? And what did the royal bastard do before he left?”

  “Please, Staff, do not look so awful. He, well, he said some terrible things and tried to seduce me, but I dissuaded him.”

  His eyes widened further. “With a fruit knife?”

  “No. With a refusal—and the truth. It hurt his pride.”

  “And did he hurt you, my little tigress?”

  “He tried. I fear him no more, Staff, though he did threaten to tell the Boleyns I submitted to his every whim.”

  “I am sure he will and probably believe it himself rather than ever grasp the fact that he faced a real woman tonight and she saw him for the whoreson bastard that he is. Swear to me he did not hurt you. Did he try to pull this dress off?” He tugged the still-loosened gown slightly off her shoulder.

  “I was in my robe then. I was just getting dressed now in a hurry to come see where they had sent you. I knew my father meant to get you out of the way somehow.”

  “Yes. Lord Thomas Boleyn sent me on a king’s errand to see if the royal party could visit the flagship of his navy on the tide tomorrow. I doubt if they really mean to visit, but I had no choice. He even walked me to my horse and watched me canter away.” He stuck his head slowly out the door into the hall again.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I do not know what will happen now that you have set Francois back on his royal heel, but we had best stick to my original plan. No one is ever getting hands on you again unless it is a certain William Stafford, l
ove. Who knows if your father shall send someone else to your door?”

  “But where will we hide? Did you find some place outside the castle? The gates are secured by two armies.”

  “Hush, love. Come on.”

  He tugged gently at her wrist and she followed him willingly. She would follow him anywhere he led her, though she be half dressed as she was now or even naked. The halls were greatly deserted and Mary was surprised to see no guards at the door to Anne’s rooms as they approached. Instinctively, she tried to draw back from him as he swung open the door.

  “Sh,” he said low. “She beds with the king in his chamber and all the guards are there.”

  The vast room where Mary had spent so much of the past week listening to Anne’s desperate tirades glowed in a strange half-light. The fire was low, but two large cresset lamps threw their circles of light near the hearth.

  “Are you certain she will not return?”

  They stood on the flowered light-blue hearth rug when he loosed her wrist. “She has finally taken the plunge to submit her precious body to the king, Mary. I think you would agree she will have enough political wile to stay at least the night no matter what discomforts or terrors befall her in the lion’s den.”

  He squinted in the direction of Anne’s huge dark-curtained bed. “This bed will be comfortable enough for us, I assure you, love. We shall remake it carefully when we go at dawn.”

  “No, I cannot.”

  His strong brown hands slid up her arms. “Cannot what, sweetheart?”

  “I will not sleep in her bed. How could you do so?”

  “I see. Well, lass, I have no respect for the Lady Anne Boleyn’s bed.”

  “I have no respect for it. Only contempt.” She heard her voice break, and he pulled her a step forward into his arms.

  “I am sorry, sweet, but I thought it would be the safest harbor for us this night. I take it that this dire plan to seduce the French and Francois was her doing?”

  “Yes,” she said muffled into his velvet jerkin.

  “She is far more stupid than I thought,” he said against her disheveled hair. “Then we, my lady, shall spend the night right here on this hearth rug, and I shall build the fire up a bit.” He pulled her down gently to sit on the plush rug in the protective crook of his arm and she leaned securely against him. Moments passed. He moved away and threw two logs into the dying flames. She sat on her haunches studying the muscle bulges on his back and the lean angles the firelight etched on his face. He turned to face her three feet away.

  “What are you thinking, love,” he asked.

  “That I have done with everything except my love for you and that if you still want me for your wife, I will marry you whenever you will have me and go with you to the ends of the earth if you ask.”

  His eyes glowed dark and his lower lip trembled as though he would speak. The tiny muscle on his jaw line moved. “Then you will be my wife on the first instant we can manage to escape their snares when we return. And though we may have to travel to the ends of the earth when they find out, I will wager the manor at Wivenhoe will be the place we will live the rest of our days together.”

  Their smiles met wordlessly across the tiny firelit space between them and the whole room seemed to recede and drift away as it often did when he gazed upon her rapt that way and her limbs turned to warm water. It was as though they were afloat on this blue, blue rug in a boat of their own making. The waters of time were held in abeyance for only them as when they had drifted on Master Whitman’s tiny pond behind the inn at Banstead. The loomed flowers were the water lilies and the light wool pile the surface on which their little boat sailed. There was nothing that could ever hurt them now and the golden fireflies of night danced in the darkness of his eyes.

  PART FOUR

  The Bargain

  My true love hath my heart, and I have his,

  By just eschange, one for the other given.

  I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;

  There never was a better bargain driven.

  My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

  His heart in me keeps me and him in one;

  My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides.

  He loves my heart, for once it was his own;

  I cherish his because in me it bides.

  My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

  —Sir Philip Sidney

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  February 22, 1533

  Greenwich

  The shouts and boisterous laughter of people in the cobbled courtyard caught Mary’s attention only for a moment. She was far too nervous and excited to watch her brother and his cronies, including the once-restrained Weston and Norris, throw snowballs at one another and duck guffawing in white icy breaths behind the glazed marble fountain. She was grateful that the snowfall was only two or three inches deep—enough to keep the courtiers outside for a while but not enough to stop a rider on the roads on an important mission. Her warm breath clouded the pane of glass through which she stared, and she turned back into the hall to continue toward the new queen’s apartments. It had been a chilly, blustery day much like this one, she remembered, that His Grace had wed Anne secretly here at cold Greenwich in the early hours of the morn—wed her hurriedly only two days after he had learned that the Lady Anne was pregnant.

  But all that was hardly of consequence to Mary. Finally, there was a glimmer of hope she might escape the treacherous maze of duties and involved relationships and spies—Cromwell’s spies, Staff said. Today the long-treasured plan to leave the court and her family to secretly wed William Stafford and have a few days at Banstead before they must return to duties and the masks of pretense could become reality.

  She nodded curtly to the yeoman guards at the double doors to the queen’s suite and they swung them wide. Staff had gone to Wivenhoe three days ago, but now awaited her arrival at a London inn. Everything hinged on her being allowed to leave the palace for a few days. Everything she had lived for these last hard months, even these long, long years since she had loved him, depended on Anne’s letting her go.

  Anne sat in her massive curtained bed leaning on satin pillows each embroidered with her new crest. Her hair was loose and long and, though she looked pale, her eyes glowed with confidence and were no longer haunted with the fears of desertion and possession by the Tudor king she now knew to be her devoted servant. Jane Rochford sat in the corner doing nothing in particular and several ladies sewed on standing embroidery frames about the room. The languorous Mark Smeaton perched on the far edge of the bed playing almost pensively on an elaborately gilded and painted lute.

  Mary curtseyed slightly and Anne nodded without a smile. Her eyes looked large and luminous framed by her dark brows and lashes. “Are you feeling better this morning, sister?” Mary asked.

  “’Sblood, no, Mary. That is why I am not up yet, obviously. I take it that all the shouting is another game of ducks and geese or a snowball fight. Is George out there?”

  “Yes, and many others. There is a new dusting of snow on the ground.”

  “What a time to have the morning sickness for the babe. I never feel well until nearly noon and His Grace has a fit if he thinks I get up too early. Oh well, it will be well worth it when he is born. And,” she added as a smile lit her face, “it makes the whole court wonder if the queen is indeed with royal child already. I hope the French spies have told Francois and his snobby queen. It amuses me to tease them all, but soon everyone will be able to tell for certain anyway. I have made it clear to my sweet-faced lutenist that if he tells all he knows, I will have him strung up on the ramparts of the Tower.” Her slender foot kicked out in Smeaton’s direction under the covers and she shot him a smile.

  “I will tell them nothing, Your Grace, nothing,” he sang back to her in tune with his strumming.

  “I am glad you told me this terrible nausea and dizziness when I rise would not outlast a three-month span, Mary. I could not have managed it ot
herwise. And I can feel my fine slim waistline fast going.” She looked down at her barely rounded belly. “But the son for the throne, he will be worth it.”

  “It is of a son I wished to ask, Your Grace.” Mary resisted the impulse to wring her hands and tried to keep her voice calm.

  “My son, Mary?”

  “No, Your Grace. Henry Carey, Will Carey’s son and mine. You see, I almost never see the lad and he grows so fast. And since you keep to your bed in the mornings and see His Grace much in the afternoons, I thought it might be a convenient time for you to let me visit him at Hatfield.” Anne’s almond-shaped eyes fastened on her blonde sister’s face. “It is sad for a child to be without a father and mother too.”

  “I hope you do not mean that as another of your pious suggestions that the king’s illegitimate daughter Mary be allowed to visit her Spanish mother the Princess of Wales just because she is so ill this winter.”

  Mary could feel her heart pounding, vibrating her velvet bodice. “No, of course not. I meant nothing by the remark yesterday. I am speaking only of my son and your legal ward. Please Anne, Your Grace, it would mean much to me to see him even if for a day or two.”

  “Well, if you are not gone long, I am certain I can spare your services. Sometimes, sister,” she said leaning toward Mary and lowering her voice, “I am not certain whose side you are on, although the Boleyns have quite vanquished the treasonable forces of the Spanish princess. And, as His Grace and I have said, her stiff-necked daughter will be allowed back to court only when she will bow her head to the rightful heir to the throne after he is born this autumn. Indeed, after I am crowned at the Abbey in June as His Grace has promised, no one will dare to doubt who is queen or whisper ‘there goes the king’s concubine, his whore’ in the streets.”

  “You have many loyal followers and more to come, sister,” Mary comforted.

  “Yes, Mary. Father, the king, and Cromwell shall make certain of that. Only, it would help me to know that you are one of my most loyal subjects and not only my sister.” She sighed and her slender hands smoothed the silk coverlet over her legs pensively. “I can see why the court is more boring for you now that your paramour Stafford has gone off to Wivenhoe.” She raised her hand and pointed her finger at Mary as though she were warning or scolding a child. “See that you do not accidentally stray to his little manor after seeing your child.”