The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn

by Arnopp, Judith

  “Give him to me,” I say, “I will take him to the stables and get a groom to look at him.”

  She parts with him as reluctantly as I hand Elizabeth to Lady Bryan. He is an obnoxious little beast but it will not do to let the creature sicken and die. He is Grandmother’s only remaining friend, and the only member of the household who does not mind the stench of pee and cabbage that seems to cling to her.

  Mother is distracted, as if she doesn’t know what to do with me. She is no longer comfortable having me home; it is one thing to entertain a daughter, a queen is another matter altogether. She is tense, awkward and nervous. In the end, when she continues to put on airs for my benefit, I can bear it no longer.

  “Mother! I came home for some respite from royal etiquette. Just let it rest and come and sit with me, bear me company. Come; pick up your sewing.”

  She perches on the edge of a chair, lowers her head over a row of tiny stitches while I fasten an edging of swansdown to a tiny linen bonnet. For a while the afternoon ticks on, and we work in companionable silence.

  From time to time I look up at her bowed head, the light shining upon her lined brow, cheeks that are beginning to droop. They say she was very beautiful as a girl, rather like Mary in looks. It has been my eternal regret that I resemble Grandmother. I have heard stories of how Mother danced with Henry when he was still the Prince of Wales, how their beauty and grace caused quite a stir.

  “What was Henry like as a boy, Mother?”

  She jumps a little, looks up from her work, a flush pinkening her cheeks. She shrugs, inserts her needle and fumbles for the point at the back of the cloth.

  “Oh, you know. Handsome and gallant, very athletic and always with a song on his lips.”

  “I suppose all the women were in love with him – young and old.”

  She puts down her work, tips her head to one side.

  “Oh yes. Court ladies are always in love with the Prince of Wales, whatever he looks like, but with Henry there was a genuine reason for fancying him.”

  “It’s a mercy he doesn’t resemble his father,” I say. Not that I ever met the old king, for he was dead long before I was old enough to come to court. His portrait shows a closed, private man, the hooded eyes hiding secrets, plotting mischief. Of course, I could be influenced by Henry’s aversion to him. He has never said anything good about his father, apart from once when he commended his father for ending the war between York and Lancaster. Although he is a Tudor and proud of it, I know Henry sees himself as more of York than Lancaster, and looks beyond his penny-pinching father to the grandeur of his grandfather, Edward IV.

  We never know our parents, not really. We only ever hear the stories they wish us to hear. I know the tales linking Mother and Henry, and wonder again if there is any truth in them, but I do not ask her for fear I would not like her reply.

  The king has always had an eye for a pretty lady and this does not sit well with his prudish nature. I know that sometimes, after a night of love with me, his lawful wedded wife, he creeps away to make confession to his God. I wonder how Henry excuses his consorting with my cousin to himself, let alone God.

  To me, love between married people is a God-given right, and we should think ourselves fortunate to be so in love. Love and marriage excuses even the most inventive of intimacies, and it only becomes a sin when those same things are carried out with someone like my cousin; or an ill-spent hour with a Bankside whore. Such crimes cannot be forgiven, neither by God nor by me.

  Madge is always on my mind. I look down at my swollen body and fat ankles and wonder if I will ever regain the attributes needed to win my husband back. It does seem the day will never come. I have two more months at least before the birth, and then a further month before I am churched. By then my pretty cousin could easily have won him with her favours or, worse still, he may have moved on to fresher waters.

  August 1534 - Whitehall

  Although it is several weeks yet to the birth, I have set my seamstresses to making new gowns for after the confinement. Just seven months into my pregnancy, it is weeks since I have seen past my belly. As the summer grows hotter so does my temper, and I have to bite my tongue, remember that Henry is a man with needs and that Madge is doing me a favour.

  He doesn’t flaunt their relationship and she is discreet, keeping her eye on her needlework whenever he enters our presence. But I know, and it smarts worse than any wound.

  At the hottest part of the day, Henry comes into my apartment to escape the heat. He smiles congenially at everyone, tells them not to rise, and after leaving a careless kiss upon my veil, takes his place beside me. Once, he would have made sure his lips made contact. He would have thrown my sewing aside and bade me sit upon his knee. It has been a long time since we shared such intimacy. I stab the needle into the fabric. These days, his affection is all for her.

  The lutenist, Mark Smeaton, strums a relaxing tune while my ladies are gathered in small groups with the gentlemen, who are lounging, idling away an hour listening to the music and admiring the women. From the corner of my eye I notice Norris scrawl a note. When he thinks no one is watching, he slips it into Madge’s hand. I see her secrete it away … and so does the king.

  I glance up, immediately recognising the significance of his narrowed eyes, pinched nostrils. He is annoyed and his eyes dart from Norris back to Madge. My guts twist with jealousy and I cannot help but nudge him with my elbow. Henry turns his head and with a subtle shake of my own, I silently advise him not to make a fuss. He ignores my wisdom and leaps to his feet.

  “With me, Norris,” he growls, and stomps from the room, the guards struggling to throw open the doors in time. After a moment I put down my sewing and follow, my heart thumping sickeningly beneath my ribs.

  I should turn around, go back to my chamber, closet myself away, draw the bed curtains, and bury my head beneath the pillows, anything to shut out the knowledge. I should be blind, as Catherine was before me. But something drives me to follow … and to listen at the king’s privy chamber door.

  Henry’s voice is loud, his wishes clear. “Stay away from the lady, or I will have you sent from court, do you hear?”

  Norris’ reply is muffled, but I detect fear in his voice as well as pain as he begs the forgiveness of his king.

  Henry cannot love my cousin, I know that. He loves me, and always will. Our passion that lasted, ungratified, for more than seven years cannot be quenched by the charms of an insipid girl. I am queen and I will not allow it.

  Norris opens the door so suddenly that we almost collide. He is so upset that he forgets the respect due to his queen. Instead of pausing and making a knee to me, he pulls off his cap and speeds along the passage in the direction of the gardens.

  I press myself against the wall, reluctant for Henry to find me here, and with the blood rushing in my ears I flinch as he kicks a stool furiously against the chamber wall, where it splinters into firewood.

  Before I can escape, Henry is there. He towers over me, his face reddening with rage as he realises I have witnessed his petty jealousy. “Why are you here?” he yells. “Get you back to your own chamber, and mind your own business.”

  I cringe against the force of his anger and flee from his presence, lifting my skirts and literally running along the corridor. Even the guards, usually so immovable, are surprised to see my flight. I burst into my chambers, falling back against the door as the tears spill forth.

  “Your Majesty?” Nan is the first to my side and she takes my elbow, calls for Jane as she steers me to my bed.

  They lay me on pillows, ease off my slippers, and Jane bathes my face with cool water. Slowly my sobs cease and I look around, the sympathetic faces of my women shaming me. I have never let them see my vulnerability before, and I hate the pity that is so clear in their eyes.

  A shadow at the bedside and Jane Seymour is there, her plain face stodgy with concern. She offers me a cup of wine then stands back, her hands clasped in her hanging sleeves as she watches m
e drink. She is a quiet girl, always watching and listening, not joining in with the others, but she is pious and well-behaved, so I tolerate her despite her cloying ways.

  She fusses with my pillows but her hands are clammy. My hair sticks to her fingers, snagging and pulling, so I irritably pull away. “Leave me,” I snap and she creeps away like a kicked spaniel. I lay back, emit a huge sigh and close my eyes, to battle with demons until I fall asleep.

  It is pain that wakes me. I clap both hands to my stomach, holding my breath until the cramp has passed. Then, when I can breathe, I call out for Nan. Almost immediately her head appears around the door, her face draining of colour when she sees me contorted with agony.

  “Your Majesty.” She is at the bedside in seconds. I grab her arm, clench my fingers down hard.

  “Help me,” I croak, and slowly she assists me to rise. Abandoning all decorum, she screams for my ladies and they all come running, their pattering feet and murmuring voices dying away when the torches are lit and they see my soaked petticoats and the pink puddle on the counterpane.

  “I will fetch the midwife …” Jane Seymour scurries from the room while the other women clamour to assist me.

  Exhausted after hours of travail, I slump on my pillows as they hand me my child. My son is swaddled in linen, his little blue face closed as in sleep, his purple lips like a bow. I cast back the covering to examine his perfectly formed limbs, his minute nail-less fingers, the tiny proof of his manhood. Apart from the fact he does not breathe, our little prince is perfect.

  They take him from me, creeping away, and I roll over and wish I could die. I can find no comfort. I have lost our son, the prince that we have fought for all these years. What has it all been for? The tears don’t fall, they wash down my face, no sobbing, no thrashing. I am saturated in grief.

  My attendants don’t know what to say to me. They avoid my eye, speak in whispers and creep from my presence. When Henry finally deigns to come and face me I am quite alone, with only the terror of my thoughts for company.

  He is deflated, like a child’s bladder ball, his royal brilliance destroyed, his confidence quashed. I raise sore, wet eyes to him and for a long while we stare at each other, my throat working painfully, my breast burning. His face is flaccid and I can detect no anger, just unquenchable sorrow. In the end I hold out a hand, and after a long time of just looking at it, he eventually takes it and falls onto the bed beside me.

  I curl myself around him, cling to the strong trunk of his body, my arms choking, my legs wrapped about his hips. If I could climb inside him I would, for there is nowhere and no one safe in this world but him; nowhere I can escape to and no way to put things right.

  As we lie there together, his torso begins to quiver and then shakes as great heaving sobs begin to tear him apart. I weep with him; useless, wrenching tears that have no end and do not heal. Henry and I are the most powerful couple in all of England and yet, in the face of death, we are powerless.

  August 1534 – Hatfield

  When my body is sufficiently healed, Henry and I travel to visit Elizabeth. She knows me now and falls happily into my arms. I almost crush her in my grief as I give vent to starved motherhood. Anxious to hide my sorrow and my sense of helplessness from my enemies, I do not let my tears fall but weep inwardly, painfully internalising my unrelenting grief.

  I know there are spies everywhere. Those who are against reform, those who persist in loving Catherine. Brandon, pretending to be Henry’s friend, while all the time an enemy to me. More and Fisher, while continuing to campaign against reform, refuse to acknowledge that Henry’s first marriage was invalid. They whisper lies, terrible lies, and wish me dead.

  All these people hate me, but Chapuys and his cursed mistress are the worst of all. I know they plot with Spain to steal Henry’s throne and put Mary on it, and still, after all our efforts, Catherine refuses to acknowledge me as queen. Mary, the bastard, takes her lead and will never betray her mother, not even to please her father and get back into his good graces. She is like some smug Christian, smiling as she is fed to the lions, and her martyred expression sickens me.

  I want to slap her.

  I have been cuddling Elizabeth for so long that she begins to squirm. I relax my hold a little and look up just in time to see Mary hesitating at the door. She wears a smile of satisfaction. She is glad my son is dead. That is treason, surely.

  I turn to Henry with a protest on my lips, but already he is bearing down upon his bastard daughter, tears in his eyes as they embrace. She is like a child, lost in the circumference of his arms.

  Fury is like a poison in my heart. I long to ride away and leave it all behind me; the hatred, the grief, the strain of retaining my status. I wish I could take Elizabeth and get away, away from all of them. These days I am even unsure of Henry, and George is now my only true friend. The only person in the world whom I trust.

  September 1534 – Whitehall

  Yet as I recover my health I begin to realise I have more supporters than I had thought. There is Nan Zouche, who is ever on my side, and even Jane and cousin Madge have proved constant in their care of me since the miscarriage. Cromwell and Cranmer are hot for the cause of reform, and then there is Mother who, despite her failing health, has ridden from Hever to be with me.

  “The best thing you can do, Anne, is to have another child.” She sits in my chamber handing out sympathy and clichés as if they are refreshment. As if I didn’t know that I need to produce a child. Hasn’t my whole adult life been taken up with trying to give Henry his prince?

  Madge is gentle. “Don’t worry, Anne. I won’t keep him from you. He doesn’t need me now.”

  I pat her hand and try not to mind the barbs that her gentle words drive deep into my skin. After the trauma of the last few months I feel I have been flailed. I am sore and bleeding, exhausted and sick, both physically and mentally. I don’t even know if I have the attributes or the energy necessary to win Henry back into my bed. Not now.

  But as soon as I let it be known I am likely to be fruitful again he comes, quite willingly, to my chamber. He stands at the edge of the bed in his nightshirt and we pray together, asking God to bless our union and deliver us a son safely, this time.

  We have suffered enough, after all we’ve been through, surely we deserve to get it right this once. I hold out my arms and Henry climbs onto the bed, drags my shift over my head and begins to fondle my breasts. I close my eyes, snuggle into the pillow and give myself up to the joy of it.

  But something is wrong. After a while I squint down at our sprawled nakedness, our entwined legs, mine smooth and long, his muscular and clothed in short golden hair. Our torsos are facing, our faces parallel on the pillow as his thumbs rub to and fro across my nipples. I can barely feel his touch. Frowning inwardly, I take a deep breath and force myself to relax, squirm a little on the mattress and part my legs, thinking lovely thoughts to try to nurture a little desire.

  In the centre of the royal bed we curl like babes, trying so hard to please each other, wanting so desperately for it to work between us, for things to be like they used to be. But it is no use. I cannot stop imagining him with Madge, and what little excitement had begun to rise now dwindles. I cannot be stirred, and after a while I realise that Henry is also unmoved; his member is as flaccid as an empty sack.

  “Perhaps it is too soon,” I whisper into his beard, stroking his forlorn cheeks. “Maybe we are just too tired.”

  Maybe he is tired of me. But I do not speak the fear aloud as I continue to stroke and soothe him until his body relaxes and his head sinks upon my shoulder. When he begins to drool and his snores reassure me that he is asleep, I am not disappointed, just greatly relieved that the embarrassing fiasco is over … for now.

  February 1535 - Windsor

  “George!” When my brother appears suddenly in the great hall after so long away, I forget I am queen and almost run across the floor to launch myself into his arms. His breath is warm on my neck, his laughter sof
t in my ear as he swings me around. By the time he places me back on the ground, we are both breathless. I hang onto his arm and lead him toward Henry, who slaps him on the back, almost as delighted as I.

  “How was the crossing? The wind got up last night, didn’t it?”

  “I’ve known worse, Your Grace, and I was so eager to reach home I would have swum across the Channel.”

  Henry laughs, the courtiers tittering in agreement. “If you hadn’t come soon I think the queen would have swum across to find you.” The laughter grows louder. It doesn’t do to ignore the king’s jokes, no matter how poor they are. I smile, still clutching George’s sleeve, his hand warm on mine.

  “What did Francis say about the match? Did he agree?”

  George’s face falls a little, and he glances about the room to see who is near. “I would discuss that matter in private, if Your Grace will allow.” He makes a short bow and Henry, sensing disappointment, grows solemn.

  “Come,” he says. “Let us retire so we can speak freely.”

  The private chamber is dark and warm, the bright fire and gleaming torches reflecting in the black diamonds of the windows. Henry and George take their places about the table, but I move a little a way off to stand before the hearth.

  “So, what did our friend the French ambassador say?” Henry leans back in his chair and clasps his hands over his belly while George glances at me and pulls a face.

  “Erm … he was not helpful, I am afraid. He declines your offer of Elizabeth in Mary’s place and prefers to keep to the original proposal. He offers Elizabeth his third son …”

  “What? Francis said that?” I rush forward and George puts up his hands in self-defence.

  “I am only the messenger, Anne, but I gather the ambassador passes on his master’s wishes.”