The Mer- Lion

by Lee Arthur

  "I said to relax... and I meant it." She squirmed up his body, kissing where she willed, rubbing her breasts about him. Finally she looked down on him. His eyes glittered, whether from lust or love or bleeding she didn't know, nor did she really care. At this moment, he was simply man, and as such, wax in her hands. She chose to take him and shape him and mold him, but mosdy play with him. Then let him ride away if he could and not regret her! She was determined that every time he shared bed with another woman, it would be Anne Boleyn's face before him, her breasts rubbing against his, her hands taking charge. Ride away and leave her, would he? Go back to his Scotland without so much as a by-yourleave? He'd see. Anne Boleyn was a woman not easily forgotten.

  But she'd not sacrifice her close-kept, carefully guarded virginity for that. There was no need. She knew another way. One her brother had taught her years before. One that she'd used to bind Percy, Ormond, and Wyatt to her.

  She reached for his sport. It jumped at her touch and pulled away, its owner stifling a gasp. But like a well-beaten pup, it came quick to heel and returned to her hand. To fondle and dandle and stroke was not enough, she must possess it, own it, make it hers, and so be mistress to its master. She slid down his body, caressing it with her lips as she went until those red lips were level with his red-tipped sceptre. Then, throwing a gore of her petticoat over it, like some devouring harpy, she engulfed it cloth and all. His body thrashed, his staff pulsed, and her teeth through the cloth tightened slighdy. He froze in delicious pain, not to move again until she released him. She waited to make sure he understood that she, not he, was in control; then tenderly she loosed her grip, releasing him only to gently place a kiss directly on his most sensitive part. Alternating between pain and pleasure was, as Rochford had taught her well, a technique most women never dreamed of, much less used. More fools they, she thought, it always works!

  As Anne's mouth played his member as if it were living flute, de Wynter forgot to think or speak. He could only feel and follow wherever she led. She was the conductor, moving from andante to allegro and back again, the petticoat providing now soft, now rough appoggiatura. He wanted her to stop. No, to go on forever. No, he knew not what he wanted. Whatever she wanted.

  Anne delighted in her play, that much did she relish again being in command of man. In some ways, this compensated for the years she danced attendance, courting and fawning over Henry. However, the hour was late and the night short. The longer her absence the greater chance she'd be found out. Faster and faster she went, her soft lips like unholy succuba setting a lively pace until his whole body heaved to her rhythm. Satisfied, she sat back watching as he continued on to a final solo cadenza; Anne, gathering the petticoat close about his instrument, slowly fingered it until the cloth was saturated.

  When next de Wynter opened his eyes, wetting lips parched from gulping for breath, Anne was calmly restoring her clothes to order. Her blouse decorously about her shoulders, the drawstring pulled tight, her hair curled up beneath her caul. With one lithe move, she slipped off her torn, wet petticoat. "I leave you a souvenir," she said, smiling down at him once more.

  "I'll tie it round my lance, the next tourney I enter."

  "Don't you dare."

  "To tell the truth, right now I dare little." "What of your leg?"

  "What leg? You have numbed it and my other two as well." "Such talk. Did your mother teach you that?" He raised up on one elbow. "The question is who taught you that?"

  She pushed him back down. The conversation was straying on difficult ground. "'Tis a Boleyn family secret. Now I must be leaving. Unless there was indeed some matter of import you wished to discuss?"

  "Oh, aye, that." He punched up the pillows behind him, the better to look her in the eye. "I need information." "Say on."

  "I need know where next Margaret Douglas will move." "Why?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "Then, tell me this: Why should I help you?"

  He paused, considering. "Out of love for me?"

  She laughed. "Was what I just did not enough? Greedy man. Very well, I bargain with you. I'll have the information for you tomorrow or the next... but you must agree to stay on at court another fortnight."

  That he must consider. His needs conflicted. He had to know the Douglas girl's next stopping point if he were to return successful to Scotland. However, to stay even an extra day. was tempting the fates. Yet what if there were a chance that this course that he and Anne had run tonight might be repeated? "Agreed. But remember, not where she is now—that I already know—but where she goes next."

  "Yes, I heard you. Her whereabouts next. Why you should want to know that, I cannot imgine. She is very like her mother, big boned, clumsy, and bad of breath. A typical Tudor." Then she was between the curtains, her feet stirring the rushes slightly as she tiptoed across the room.

  Between his wound and his wooing, he had no energy to go after. Instead, he slept, his clothes awry, the precious petticoat clutched in one hand. So he was found, first by Fionn, who came to warn him, then by Henry's Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard.

  CHAPTER 15

  Anne stormed into the king's writing closet like some raven-tressed, mourning-dressed avenging Fury, her somber gown—as she knew—merely heightening her exotic coloring. She looked ravishing, not ravished, frightening, not fearful. Immediately, Henry grew apprehensive. Suppose the spy were wrong? He consoled and congratulated himself on his forethought in summoning Thomas Cromwell as interrogator. If she were faultless, let the base-born councilor feel the scourge of her tongue.

  Without appearing to, she took in the scene with one glance: Henry, still in his breakfasting robes, tankard in hand, lounging in and overflowing his too-small chair. Cromwell, who had been Wolsey's crony, stood at desk, dressed solemnly in marten-edged black, wielding a scratchy quill. De Wynter's serving man of the previous night, his hair disheveled, his clothes torn, his eye swollen shut, but—a good sign—not bound. Her eyes dwelled an extra second on de Wynter, standing relaxed and looking more rakish than rumpled, in slept-in, fought-in, ripped shirt-sleeves, open to the waist. The lace-edged, red-stained bandage was wrapped round his thigh, worn as elegantly as the king wore his blue of the Order of the Garter. Where, she worried, was the rest of that petticoat?

  Forewarned by the oddity of the hour, Anne had predetermined her course of action. De Wynter's presence confirmed her fears. No meek milksop, she took the offensive.

  Ignoring all but Henry, she curtsied deeply but briefly, not waiting to be bidden rise. "Sire, you awakened me."

  There, she had done it again. Made him feel in the wrong. He cross-answered peevishly, "Madame, you hurried not a whit so far as I can see, yet I asked you come straight forth when I sent for you some time ago."

  Her reply reeked of patient reasonableness. "I could not very well come in my dishabille."

  He broke eye-contact, reacting like a child to that maternal tone of voice. "Well, why weren't you up?"

  "I kept my bed this morning''—she allowed a trace of anger to enter her voice—"because I was up late last night on king's business."

  "King's business?" Cromwell interjected in a voice hard and emotionless as the man himself.

  Anne ignored the man, yet answered his question. "You have a spy at court." Henry's eyes narrowed—which one had she found out?

  "I sought to discover his purpose. So I went to his room last night."

  "You admit you went to his room?" Cromwell said. "There I discovered he was not, as I feared, plotting death for my beloved king, but another. Or at least so I thought till now!" "You thought... till now?"

  Cromwell, Henry decided, sounded more echo than accuser.

  "Yes, thought. Was I mistook, my dear lord?" she asked, moving forward and gracefully dropping to her knees at Henry's feet. "Or have these Scots dared raise hand against your imperial person?"

  Her beauty, the apparent sincerity of her question took Henry aback. "Nay, madame, my person is fine—"

  "Th
ank God. When I saw them standing there, I feared the worst."

  "And well you should, madame," interjected Cromwell, unswayed by Anne's dramatics. "It is your person that is in danger."

  Casually Anne rested one hand on the king's knee as she swung around to look at Cromwell. Henry could feel the heat of it penetrate his hose as-she replied. "Lord Councilor, I assure you you are mistaken. See? The Scot bears proof I can defend my person." Without warning, her other hand brought forth from the depths of her gown a small stiletto. As the king watched fascinated, she restored it to its home within her well filled-out stocking. "Ask the Scot, he'll tell you." Her stare dared De Wynter to dispute her.

  Not he. He, too, would save his skin if he could, and if she wished to cry attempted rape—not a hanging offense—let her. Better to defend himself against that, than what actually happened. "Unfortunately, my leg is mute proof she is right."

  Cromwell's head swiveled round as far as possible on his stubby neck. "You attacked the lady?"

  "Nay, she only thought I did. Like others of her sex, the lady was overly quick to react when she thought her chastity under attack."

  "It wasn't?" Cromwell persevered.

  "Hardly. The lady has made it quite clear she saves her favors for another. And I lack not for offers to forego my lonely bed." His quick wits seized on a diversionary tactic. "Besides, I prefer to share my bed with ladies, not she-cats who scratch and claw and make demands. Oh, no, Your Eminence, I pity the man who takes this lass to bed. Little sleep will he get. I know the type, totally insatiable."

  Two of his listeners breathed quicker in response to his words. Cromwell, a man of base passions unsoftened by emotion, and Henry, who had had no female release for too long. Anne, noting their reaction, took up the cudgels.

  "I, a she-cat? How dare you, you Scots barbarian. You would not know a real woman if you met one, much less bedded her. I know your type, too. You would have your women passive, apathetic, lethargic, content to lie there with legs spread. Now, true Englishwomen, we—" Her voice faltered. To say more might reveal too much.

  "Are known throughout Europe," de Wynter smoothly continued, "as the viragos you are. Strumpets more at home in a stew than at court."

  "Milord!" she protested, turning to the king with feigned shock, her hand deliberately squeezing his thigh. "Will you let him impugn our gentlewomen so?" Henry, bemused by the thought of a sexually greedy Anne in his bed, only wished his Englishwomen were so

  loose and lecherous as the Scot contended. However, no need to admit this to the braggard. No lack of offers had he had, eh? Well, no more.

  "You puling cockatrice," he said, his own hand anchoring Anne's to his thigh. "Enough of your tainted tongue. One more word and I'll have your head, herald or no."

  The silence that followed was prolonged, broken only by Henry's noisy sucking at his tankard. Finally, Cromwell intervened. "Sire, we still know not wiry the Lady Anne went to the gendeman's suite... nor why he admitted her. Then there is the matter of the evidence."

  "Good point, Thomas."

  Anne returned his suspicious gaze with the wide-eyed innocence of the hunted hind. Her voice too was soft and almost meek. "Sire, I told you. To unmask the man. To determine his evil intentions."

  "Did you?"

  "Indeed, I did," she confided. "The Lady Margaret Douglas. But whether to do for, or woo and wed, I know not."

  To her surprise, Henry seemed not surprised. She could not know his spies had kept the Douglas girl always one estate ahead of the Scots for weeks now. This Henry was sure Anne had not known, which was to her credit. She now spoke at least partial truth. But how much?

  Cromwell, the cynic, voiced his disbelief. "Lady Anne, you would have us believe you compromised yourself for another woman, a child yet?"

  "I knew not that," she hissed, pure venom in her voice, "when I went there. I feared for my lord's life." Her story would not bear up under long questioning. It was time to hazard her trump. Turning to the king, she put on her most loving look, butter melting in her mouth. "Sire, I swear to you, he never even kissed me. I left his room as chaste as I entered it. Put me to the proof!" De Wynter never turned a hair, but Fionn misswallowed, and fell to gagging. He doubted any woman in the world could make such a statement as he had so warned his sister, Devorguilla, in his letters home.

  "How—" The King licked his suddenly dry lips and started over. "How propose you to do this?"

  "Send for your physician. I wilt submit me to his examination. But first, sire, spare me this man's gaze. Send him and his lackey away."

  Henry's throat tightened. To know for sure, never again to doubt. He couldn't speak, he'd squeak; he nodded.

  Cromwell was not so overwhelmed as he. "Sire, the evidence?" The king found his voice. "Not now, later!" Cromwell, silenced, could bide his time; he disliked the proud Anne more than any at court. For now, he would do his master's will and send for the physician and Anne's women. The Captain of the Yeomen Guard Henry charged with the care of the two Scots. To the question, "Here or the Tower?" Henry, aware once again of Anne's hand, this time almost imperceptibly inching its way up his thigh, shrugged. "Let Cromwell decide." An ungentle shove started Fionn on his way out the room; the guard stood by respectfully as the Scots lord made his.leg to the English monarch. Already de Wynter was plotting how best to use his hidden pearls to secure assistance and release from prison. However, the tender scene before him—Anne sitting so subserviently at her monarch's feet while her fingers worked their magic near his well-padded codpiece—was too much for the Scot's sense of mischief. "Farewell, my sweet suckets; next time, remember, the lips!"

  Anne barely stifled her smile. Henry started to rise to his feet to buffet the lordling who looked far too elegant for the Englishman's taste, despite his disarray. Anne's restraining hand, not to mention a head gone slightly woozy from too much ale on an empty stomach, curbed his momentum.

  "Never. Never a next time. Get him out of my sight before I have his head. Cromwell, round up the rest of the rogues. I would have them all through Traitor's Gate 'fore vespers." The captain's grip on de Wynter's arm was steely as he ushered the man out of the room. Even as she watched him go, Anne was plotting how best to get him returned to court. But first, her, own ordeal.

  Long before she had felt her first flux, gossips had terrorized her with the gory particulars of losing one's hymen: the cruel impalement of her passage, the pounding, punishing pain culminating in one breathtaking stabbing spasm, the bloody flow bathing her tender tissues without relieving the aching soreness known to last for days afterward. Such talk had proved a telling incentive for remaining virgin. And she had. Now she prayed she need not experience the loss of her hymen to prove its presence. That it was there she had no doubt... nor that soon the king would dangle and dance at the end of her strings.

  With the royal physician came his retinue: his barber assistants, his midwives, his herbalist, even a woman-witch. After them, Anne's women of the bedchamber trooped in. Her time upon her, Anne put on brave face, blew a kiss to her king, and led the way within to the king's retiring room.

  Henry, his tankard replenished, quaffed deeply and again, in forlorn hope of clearing his head. Besides, his wait might be tedious. Bored, he reached for the papers left in the green velvet box for his perusal and approval by Cromwell who, despite being newmade Master of the Jewels, spent more time as king's amanuensis. The topmost paper was a note from one of Archbishop Cromwell's cronies. Its author, Browne, according to the inked scrawl in Cromwell's hand across the top of it, aspired to appointment to the Royal College of Arms. The message itself Henry read through twice, but in his ale-groggy condition, he could not fathom the purpose of it.

  We are unwilling to question the Royal Supporters of England, that is the approved descriptions of the Lion... Although, if in the Lion, the position of the pizel be proper, and that the natural situation, it will be hard to make out their retrocopulatipn, or their coupling and pissing according to the determ
ination of Aristotle; all that Urine backward do copulate aversely, as Lions, Hares, Linxes.

  Copulate? Retrocopulate? Who gave a damn how lions did it? Henry dropped the instantly forgotten note to the floor. What was taking the physician so long? If she were intact, one dextrous finger should determine that. God help the man if a too long fingernail should damage it; Henry had other plans for the splitting of that skin.

  Idly, he reached for the next document, a letters patent creating a new peer, a Marquess of Pembroke, the date, witnesses, and recipient left blank for Henry to dictate later. Unfortunately, the lucky recipient's name drew a blank for the king. Then Henry recalled. Cromwell's idea. To reward his advocate, the Earl of Huntington, for efforts on behalf of Henry's proposed visit next week to France, to the Second Field of Cloth of Gold. Henry shrugged. Pembroke's holdings were not munificent, they would not be missed by the royal exchequer. Besides, Huntington might well be content with title without holdings. It was a thought, a good thought.

  Henry was pleased with himself as he put this aside and picked up the next. It bore the seal of the Turcopilier of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and its contents shattered the king's benevolent mood. Henry had little hope that Carlby was renouncing his claim. A quick skim told him he was right. The knight was adamant; he would have Hampton Court Palace or its rents immediately. Henry swore. How dare these gnats, protected by pope or position, annoy God's anointed king? De Wynter after his Boleyn, the Knight Hospitaler after his Hampton. "The devil take the two," he fumed.

  Then he heard what he'd said. "That's it! Let the Hospitalers trade one for the other." With one stroke he would swat two gnats and be at peace. He pounded his tankard with glee, sloshing the ale over the sides and drenching his hand. He upped the tankard, drained it dry, and signaled for more.