by Diana Rubino
"I know that! But to expire so suddenly! Is the King in residence? I must go to him!"
She gathered her skirts and, not even pausing to bathe off the dirt and grime of her last day's journey or change from her travelling garments, tossed her cloak on the bed and hurried to the King's chambers.
The Yeomen of the Guard halted her at the entrance to Henry's privy chamber.
"The King is receiving no visitors," the guard stated, his eyes straight ahead, focused on some faraway pinpoint.
"But I am... You know who I am! Let me through!"
"We have our orders, Madam."
Just then the King appeared, waving the guards aside. He looked as if he hadn't slept since she left him.
"Sire! I just arrived back and I just heard..."
He held his hand out to her and they swept past the guards who'd parted for the King. They entered his bed chamber and he sat on the edge of his bed. It looked as if he'd been abed all day, the sheets rumpled, the pillows strewn about the floor.
"I am so sorry."
"She is to be interred at Peterborough Abbey." He turned away, as if needing her touch, but not the sight of her, with him still holding her hand. She let him continue. "I just received a letter..." His voice was so strained it was barely audible, against the wind rattling the windows and the crackling fire, each fighting to defeat the other.
"A letter? From whom?"
"From Catherine." They shuddered in unison at the thought. "She wrote it before she died."
"I would think she did, sire."
"She knew the end was upon her, and she made a few requests of me."
"And what were they, sire?"
"After pardoning me... pardoning me..." His voice indicated that perhaps he indeed had acted in a fashion that demanded a pardon. "...she asked me to provide for her maids. She asked something else of me... Oh, yes, she asked me to be a good father to Mary."
"Not very unreasonable requests, my lord."
"Nay, that is true. Your Aunt Margaret is like a mother to her, and for that I am grateful in some ways. Perhaps I can bring her to court, along with Elizabeth, and we shall be just like a family."
Like a family, he'd said, for a solid family he'd never really had since the day his brother Arthur had died and he had become heir and his mother had died and left Henry VII bereft.
"We shall have a family of our own someday, sire."
He nodded. "Aye, some day."
As much as she wanted to give Henry that first male heir, she was sure Anne was praying just as much, for if the child within her lived, then she would live.
"Chapuys thinks Anne poisoned Catherine," he said, a quiver in his voice that betrayed his own doubt.
"Oh, no, my lord, she wouldn't have done such a thing. Anne may be self-centered and impetuous at times, but I do not believe she would ever take such drastic measures."
An uneasy smile parted his lips and he looked deeply into her eyes. "You are so trusting, Amethyst, seeing the good side of everyone."
"If Anne had wanted to poison Catherine, she would have done so long ago, when the divorce was pending. She easily could have poisoned Catherine any time when she was still at court and she was serving as lady in waiting. Chapuys is wrong. Of course he has his own reasons for accusing Anne. He was ever so devoted to Catherine."
"Anne's behavior towards Catherine's death was not exactly mournful, either," Henry said.
"Did you expect it to be? It has just happened and it is a great shock. Apart from that, she is no doubt greatly relieved. There can be no doubt as to your married state now and she is hoping to give you a legitimate son and heir. All her worries have been removed. She is only being true to her feelings. She is a greatly troubled girl, sire. She is under enormous pressure to produce your son, the next King of England."
"Then why doesn't she give me my heir and be done with it!" he thundered, turning to his wine decanter, filling his goblet to the rim, but not spilling a drop. He slammed the decanter down, the gold liquid sloshing inside.
She smiled despite herself. "Even the great King of England has to wait nine months for a bonny baby boy, does he not?"
"Aye."
"So just be patient with Anne," Amethyst said, approaching him, taking the goblet from his hand and twining her fingers through his. "Let her have her child in peace. Son or daughter matters not so long as it is a living child who is of the royal blood and offers proof that your marriage to Catherine was cursed as you have said and you were right to seek heirs from a new bride. If it is a girl, she will have clearly failed in her duty. Then you and she can part amicably so you and I can finally live our life without our love being locked behind closed doors."
"And if it's a son?"
She sighed and shook her head. "I know not."
He changed the subject, then, asking her about Warwickshire. It was obvious he had no desire to discuss his relations with Anne. Nor did he mention Topaz, and for that she was grateful. She wasn't quite sure what she would have said. The death of the former Queen made her more concerned than ever, but without a clear idea of Topaz's intentions, it was best to just wait rather than alarm the King unduly.
He had a funeral to attend to. They might have divorced but Henry had once loved her and known her all of his adult life. It was yet another cruel loss to endure. The last thing Henry wanted to deal with was a vague report of a possible rebellion by a mere woman.
CHAPTER FORTY
The torches blazed through the biting cold as the funeral procession approached Peterborough Abbey, where Catherine was to be interred. Anne was not present, using her pregnancy for an excuse. This would have sounded like a lame excuse to anyone, the King included, who voiced his disgust before the court at every opportunity, but Amethyst believed there was some validity to Anne's absence. Desperate to give the King his heir, she had every reason to be cautious.
Amethyst was at the King's side throughout the two-day journey to Peterborough, as they followed the black hearse groaning mournfully on its wheels over the frozen rutted ground. Mary, draped in black, clung to Amethyst's arm, sobbing pitifully.
Her heart broke for Mary, who had not been allowed to see her mother during the last final months of her illness. The poor girl had been bastardized, her claim to the throne shoved aside to make way for Anne's children, for the sake of the as-yet-unborn but eagerly awaited son.
Bursting with grief for Mary, and her sorrow over Catherine's wasted life, which mingled with anger at the King of his neglect of Mary, coupled with her devotion to him, all converged on her during this bleak and sorrowful occasion, rendering her a confused jumble of emotions.
Knowing she was able to be of some comfort to Mary was her only solace as she took a tiny step back, the King and Mary on either side, and watched as they slowly made eye contact across the empty space she'd created, and finally, with grudging acceptance, fell into a sobbing embrace.
The next day she was practicing a motet with the other musicians in the conservatory when a page approached her and summoned her to the King's apartments.
She set down her lute and plectrum and followed him down the corridors, across the great hall and up the staircase to his chambers, past the guards, and knocked on his door.
Most times, he answered it personally, as he knew her knock, but this time it was opened by a Yeoman of the Guard. The bed chamber was dark, lit by only a few candles scattered about, and he lay upon the bed, prone, his bad leg propped up on pillows.
"What is it, my lord?" she rushed up to the bed, taking his hand.
He squeezed it tightly, which gave her great comfort.
"I had a...a small accident. I fell off my horse."
"Oh, my lord! Are you all right?"
"I sustained no serious injuries. It is not necessary to go into detail."
"Can I help you at all...with anything?"
"Aye. See if my manhood is intact." He propped himself up on an elbow, eyes twinkling.
"Gladly, my lord."
/> She sat upon the bed and let him pull her towards him gently. She lowered her head in order for him to remove her caul and let her hair spill over his fingers. "Take off everything but the jewels, and go to that velvet box over there and take whatever you want."
She crossed the bed chamber, opened the velvet box, and, closing her eyes, chose at random a dazzling diamond-and-ruby pendant with pearl-encrusted gold rope, two more necklaces of diamond and emerald, and a three-tiered choker fastened with a huge pearl surrounded by three rows of diamonds.
She draped them all around her neck, chose three diamond-and-ruby rings that glittered on her fingers and shot back the firelight, and stepped out of her chemise, skirts, and petticoats, winding a golden braided girdle round her waist.
She approached the bed, stood upon it, and spread her arms, each hand winding about an ornately carved bedpost, her hair tumbling down around her shoulders. She placed a foot on each side of him and lowered herself onto his manhood, straining against his breeches, which she pulled down to his knees, as not to disturb the bad leg. Straddling him, she eased him into her.
He grabbed her buttocks and arched his back, letting her set the pace, and she began thrusting slowly, then faster and faster as their passion mounted.
The familiar delicious fire spread through her, deep inside, and she felt an explosion swelling up within her. He placed his hands on her breasts and caressed them softly, bringing her to a frenzy of desire.
She wished she could cease breathing; she wished the burden of their flesh and mass would simply disperse in order to let their souls mingle and pulsate together.
There was no food, no wine, no water, no fragrance, nothing but their throbbing heartbeats and delighted moans as they coupled. He pulled her head down to him and crushed her lips to his, his tongue exploring, darting round her mouth with his surging frenzy.
She thrust up and down and in circles, and finally spent him. As he laid her on her back and kissed her all over, her sensitive breasts rising like two rubies beneath the glittering jewels, down past her navel and to her inflamed womanhood. She writhed under the touch of his tongue and lips within her sensitive folds. She wrapped her trim thighs around his head and exploded once more.
If only it could always be like this between us, she wished with all her heart as she clutched his hair and gave into the frenzy once more.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Greenwich
Amethyst entered the King's inner chamber. She hadn't been summoned this time, and the guards let her through. His ushers and pages bowed to her, with the usual reverence, but with solemnity.
"Do you wish to sup with me, sire? Matthew sent some barrels of dry-salted beef and mutton from his neighboring farms along with his delicious apples."
The room was damp and chilly, for the fire had gone out and he hadn't bothered letting his chamberlain in to relight it. He sat facing the dying embers, deep in thought.
Not wanting to disturb him, she waited patiently for any sort of reply.
A moment later he turned to her, an ominous grimace splitting his lips, a confused mixture of emotions on his face that she couldn't even begin to discern. Lately he had been displaying emotions she'd never seen before in him. Had they always been there, dormant, or were they reactions to the new stresses in his life he'd never encountered?
"Anne did not attend the funeral rites I held for Catherine last week." His voice was dry, flat.
"Does that come as a surprise, my lord?"
"At this point, no. But when I entered her apartments afterwards, I thought I'd stepped into a May Day feast. She was all dressed in the brightest yellow. She was dancing with her courtiers, also clad in yellow, like a field of jonquils swaying in the breeze. I include the males in that description."
"Perhaps she is not one to mourn death," she said quietly.
"Death is only mournful to those close to the deceased. In Anne's case, Catherine was nothing to her."
"Did you reprimand her?"
"I did not bother. God punished us both. She dances no more."
"What do you mean?"
"She lost my son. Four months along, and she danced him right from her womb. It was deformed, a hideous, half-formed creature that could only have been borne by the witch that she is!" He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair, causing her to jump.
Amethyst stepped back in shock. She could feel the blood draining from her cheeks, realizing that Anne had played her last hand, and lost the gamble.
"Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry. But you know that cannot be true, my lord. Catherine was delivered of a deformed child and she was no witch."
"Nevertheless, Anne had conceived a son within her womb, my son, my only hope for an heir. And she expelled him...she thrust him out into the world to die!"
"Not purposefully, I do not believe. She knows her duty, the way things stand between us all and what we've all done for the sake of England, to give you an heir."
" I do not know what goes on in that foul creature's mind, but I suspect much evil. She was supposedly too concerned about our unborn heir to attend Catherine's funeral, but she was cavorting about her apartments to bright, joyous music, jeeringly scorning Catherine's memory, as well as her very husband when she lost our child."
"Anne never really understood how to make you happy, my lord. She never loved you. She is a young and ignorant—"
"It matters not!" he interrupted her sharply, for this time he didn't need her soothing. He needed to fume and rave, and wanted her to simply listen. "But she blames the miscarriage on the fright she suffered when hearing of my accident the other day."
"Well, that may be, sire. I was quite shaken when you told me about it. Any sudden shock can cause great turmoil in an expectant mother—"
"Five days later?" he cut her off, slapping his hand against his thigh in exasperation. "She very conveniently used it as an excuse. I would not put it past her to deliberately kill my child, being a boy, of course, to twist the knife she's already plunged through my heart. What could she possibly do to torture me more brutally than to kill my prince? But she failed this time, Amethyst. This sinister plan of hers did not succeed. I cannot be totally outraged, nay, I cannot, because I feel the strangest jumble of gladness and sadness, all mixed together like those crazy concoctions Dr. Butts mixes up and grinds with his mortar and pestle. Sad because I lost my prince, but glad because Anne has just forfeited her last chance. It is the end for her. I am free."
"Free? You are going to divorce her now?" She tried to keep the eager rise out of her voice.
"Divorce...bah! Divorce is too good for her! Anne is to die. She is to be tried and convicted."
"Tried and convicted, for what? As a witch?" she asked, feeling numb with shock.
"No..." He walked about the chamber in circles, his hand flattened to his forehead, urging his brain to think fast, faster than the crafty Anne ever had.
"Something more earthly, more mundane, something more fitting for the deceitful, lying, scheming, treacherous whore that she is... That is it! Adultery!" He said as simply as if they'd just composed a song together. "I shall accuse her of adultery, bring her up on charges, throw her into the Tower and be done with her!"
"How will you find someone with whom to charge her, sire? Adultery does take two, you know."
"It can take two. But in this case it will take three. No; four, five! I shall accuse her of having five lovers!" He smacked his desk with a flattened palm, his eyes shut tight in calculation. "One will be no more incredible than five, so why not? Let her go to her death in shame and degradation! I do not need to look very far to round up conspirators. That Smeaton pouf is just as good as dead, always fawning round Anne's ankles like a lovesick poodle waiting for a pat on the head, strumming his lute with those pretty fingers and pared nails, singing his way into her heart with that shrill voice of his like he got his tarriwags whacked off! Then there is that poet, although I use the term loosely, when I saw the kind of mucus that spurted from his
pen."
"You mean Thomas Wyatt, my lord?"
"Wyatt, aye, he's the one." Henry opened the top drawer of his writing desk and yanked out a sheet of parchment, torn and creased, as if it had been opened and closed many times. "This is the kind of muck he has been writing to her. 'The lively sparks that issue from those eyes, sunbeams to daze men's sight...' Yecch!"
Spittle ran down the side of his mouth and he wiped it with the parchment. "Sickening, that is what it is. It makes me want to puke. I would wipe my arse with it, for a better use it could never have. However, I must keep it as evidence."
She wanted to ask the King why he felt it necessary to snoop through Anne's personal effects in order to incriminate her. Why did he have to stoop so low? she wondered. It was beneath his station to resort to snooping.
