by Nell Gavin
In time I calmed down and attempted to view the matter in a rational way.
“There must be something we can do,” I offered hopefully, wiping my nose and eyes. “We will ask again. We will plead with the King. There is something.”
“I am to be married just as soon as the arrangements can be made,” Henry said softly, looking away, then back at me. “Arrangements are already in progress.” He did not speak of the dread he felt in facing this.
“We must appeal to him immediately. We must.”
“My parents agree with him,” Hal said gently.
“And thou wouldst obey them?” I asked, knowing the answer. Hal would never bring pain to his parents. He was as dutiful as I was. I understood duty. It was the one argument I could not argue against.
“Thy father’s line,” he began, then fretted that it might sound like a reproach and hurt me. He cleared his throat, paused, then shook his head in anger and exasperation. “You are not ‘suitable’,” Hal hissed, pressing his face into the back of my neck. “And I was told the King has someone else in mind for you, though you know it not.” I could feel dampness where his face pressed. It was his tears.
For a split second, and for no reason, I thought back to the evening when I had flirted with the King, and I felt a cold chill. My eyes widened in terror that I had brought this down upon the two of us, then I dismissed the thought as vain. Gnawing at me in the back of my mind, however, were the looks of recognition I had seen in Henry’s eyes of late. Should I believe that I was unsuitable for Hal? Technically I was, but pairings such as ours were quite common, and if convenient to the throne were most certainly considered “suitable”. Had the argument been that the King preferred another sort of alliance for specific political reasons, I might have seen more sense in it. None of this rang true, unless I viewed it as a purposeful attempt by Henry to keep me unwed. Nothing else could have caused such rapid upheaval with such vague and conflicting rationale.
The man Henry said he “had in mind” for me would never appear at my door. No man but Henry ever would.
Nevertheless, I hated Wolsey as much as Henry, for his tongue had spoken the words. And as time went on and my love for Henry grew, I came to overlook that Henry even had a part in it and fully blamed Wolsey for my grief, much to his misfortune and my own shame.
I had a choice. Did I prefer to think of myself as not good enough for Hal? Or did I prefer to think that my stupid, playful indiscretions were the cause of this?
I far preferred to think my actions were not the cause. I would be disabused of that belief shortly when Henry would make his intentions clear, but while the wound was still raw, I had to believe that my bloodline was to blame, and not I. This was hard enough to bear. Again, I convulsed with sobs.
Hal looked at me, turned my face toward his with one finger, whispered “Shhh” and wiped my tears. “Shhh. It breaks my heart to watch thee weep,” he murmured.
How could I cast loose a man so sweet? I could not lose Hal. I could no more give him up than I could give up food and drink. I could more easily give up food and drink, I thought.
Hal abruptly continued his original thought in a musing tone of voice. “Yet what has been found suitable—” He said it again to emphasize the word—“what has been found suitable for a man of my station is a bovine creature with a bad complexion and a bulbous nose. By my troth, that large round nose doth run,” he added as a conspiratorial aside, his eyes deliberately widened to suggest innocuous, childlike sincerity. “Tis indeed a most remarkable nose contrived to excrete remarkable fluids.”
He said this as if he were selling me that nose, trying to convince me of its value.
Do not jest about this, Hal, I thought. Do not make me laugh. I can never laugh again.
Still, a laugh escaped and nearly strangled me. Even now, I thought. Even in the midst of this, he can make me laugh. I nuzzled closer to him, and clung to his chest in grief.
At the sound of a laugh, he took heart and began to speak as if he were telling a story for my amusement.
“God help me on my wedding night.” His hand made a gentle, caressing movement across my back. “I do foresee the need to install myself in my finest of all possible wine cellars for days before that night,” he sniffed conversationally, “And quaff it dry.”
I squirmed as the knife pierced ever closer to my heart.
“There are those who would envy me. I shall be belching upon the very finest and rarest of all possible libations—” He nodded at me briskly, with mock enthusiasm. “—which will then go on to nourish a rose bed as the very finest — and rarest — of warm summer rains. I shall make a special trip to the garden, to bestow my treasure upon the bonny blossoms.”
He made a sweeping gesture with his hand and said softly, encouragingly, “Grow yon roses! Grow!” He turned to me, and explained himself in voice so controlled it contained not the faintest hint of irony. He made his voice sincere: “My betrothed once confessed she has a fondness for roses. I can only but give them the finest of care, now that they shall be hers as well.”
I almost giggled at the thought of him weaving drunk, urinating on his carefully pruned and lovingly nurtured roses. The picture nearly pushed the rest of it out of my mind for just a moment. Then his words came back to me, and it was here that the knife found its mark. The mention of his wedding night caused my heart to palpitate with panic and despair. The words “my betrothed” hung in the air. “My betrothed” no longer referred to me, and the title was my holy right. I could not force my mind to accept. I erupted once more into frantic, violent tears.
Hal apologized profusely for upsetting me and sank into a despondent silence while I sobbed into his chest. A few moments passed, and he apologized for the disrespectful manner in which he had spoken to me about his betrothed, then sat silently once again. He spoke over my weeping a third time to apologize for talking in such a vulgar manner about such vulgar things as belching, and noses, and the watering of roses. He had no need to apologize for that. His vulgarity had been the only thing to bring a smile.
“She is my betrothed,” Hal amended bluntly. “But thou art my beloved.” He turned away from me and pressed his fingers to his eyelids.
Defiance began to surface. I would not lose him. I would not. My tears stopped and my face grew cold. Stiff with determination, I twisted around and placed my hands on either side of Hal’s face drawing his lips to mine. He responded reluctantly, then gently pulled away. I wrapped my arms around his waist and turned my face up to his.
“Stay with me,” I commanded. “I am thy true wife, and shall be in all but name henceforth, if thou wilt but stay.” I fingered his shirt in an angry attempt to remove it.
Hal stiffened and gently pushed my hands away. “No, Anne,” he whispered. “Please, no.”
I had no use for my immortal soul without Hal and made a decision in that instant to risk it, in order to be his mistress. It seemed a small risk. God surely knew I was Hal’s one true wife and would find no sin in this. He surely knew we were married—I wore Hal’s ring. After our handfasting ceremony it must be the other woman who committed sin.
Stopping for a moment, I held up my hands for Hal to see, not even hesitating, my deformity in full view. I was thinking that Hal had never even blinked at my hand and often kissed and stroked it. That was one of the things I had always needed most from him. I pulled the ring off my right hand and fumbling, placed it on my left.
“There,” I said. “It is done. Before God, I am thy wife unto death.”
Hal shook his head and looked toward the ceiling. “Anne . . . no.”
Determined, I reached into my bodice and pulled at one of my breasts so that the nipple peeked over the low neckline of the dress. I tugged at and pulled down the shoulder of my dress to free the breast so it was fully exposed. I took Hal’s hand with both of mine and softly placed it on my bosom. Hal stared as if hypnotized and let his hand rest there. I held firm, so he was forced to feel my heart beat. For a
few moments he closed his eyes and counted his breaths, then suddenly he shook himself awake and pulled away as if he were touching something hot. I reached for his hand once more and slowly drew it back. Hal closed his eyes again and breathed. He allowed his fingers to tentatively explore on their own.
I stretched up, pressed my lips to his, and felt him stir. I took my hand away from his, yet his hand remained where it was, gently cupping and massaging the breast he had never before touched or seen. I whispered “I love thee,” between long hard kisses. Hal put his arms around me, and pulled me to him, kissing my lips and then my eyes, then moving downward and resting his opened mouth on the nipple of my breast. “I love thee too. Oh God, I love thee too,” he whispered back. The words were muffled by my bosom.
“Be my husband, my sweet. Come, be my husband.”
We both were weeping, now.
His breathing was hard and ragged. We were facing each other, touching each other in ways we never had before, urgently while time was left.
I found his waistband and pushed my hand within. He tilted his head back, his face contorted, with tears traveling in rivulets down his cheeks and onto my chest. Then I thrust my fingers down. I touched him and, eyes forced open with panic, he cried out.
Startled, I pulled my hand free.
My fingertips burned, remembering the touch.
Hal pushed me away and stood, straightening his clothing. He motioned to me to pull up my bodice. He did not assist me, nor did he come close to me.
“The command came from the King,” he said in a deadened voice, shaking his head and himself into composure. “And my parents have threatened me. They have already taken this possibility into account.” He enunciated the next two words very carefully and almost coldly: “We cannot.”
I wondered what his parents had threatened but dared not ask because of the look in his eyes.
“We shall hide from thy parents. And the King will never know,” I assured him, adding, “The King merely said we could not marry. He did not command us to keep apart. Besides, he does not punish persons for their lovemaking. What have we to fear from him?”
“There is much to be feared from my parents. I need not go into detail.”
Hal grew silent and looked down.
We could not meet in stealth, Hal knew. He had thought it through. Primarily, he feared the consequences when we were caught (it was not a question of “if” for Anne was involved in it). I could not be relied upon to take only a small, secret portion of his time, no matter how frantically I promised it would be enough. I would want more and more, no matter what the danger, and I would have brushed aside any risks.
He knew we could arguably have escaped with one or two marital visits before detection. His fear though was of a pregnancy and a child he could never claim, and that possibility was to be feared each time—even the first time—we were together. Were I to become pregnant, there would be no question of paternity in anyone’s mind, and such a pregnancy would be in direct defiance of the King’s orders. Hal feared he would ruin me and be unable to step forward to salvage me, for not only would we be found out and punished, but he would be married and unable to rectify the situation. The “honorable” thing could not be done. He would be at fault, and helpless in the face of it while his dearest love volunteered for a life as his whore, and as unholy mother to his bastards. Hal knew I would do this, and he would not allow me to, for that would not even have been the worst of it.
He knew there was no point in explaining to me. My love was greedy, and cared not for logic. It cared not for safety, nor for sense. Partly because of my leanings toward indiscretion, he would not risk speaking of a plan aloud, nor even of devising one, although he had had some passing thoughts of Ireland or France. He discarded them, for in leaving there would be damage left behind and two families that would suffer punishment. He had deduced quite accurately that a trap had been laid and there was no plan to serve us.
I only seemed to those outside to be the dominant partner. In truth, it was Hal who possessed the strength, and he was called upon to draw from it now.
I reached for his hand, pleadingly. He pulled it away and stepped backward, away from me, protectively hiding his hand behind his back. He knew the pain would last. He was opting for a lesser pain. He wanted not to weaken later and come back to me for more. He wanted not to know what it was he could not have, and, in this life, it was a wife.
I took a step toward him, and he jumped away, fearful that I might touch him and shake his resolve.
He tilted his chin up to prevent tears from spilling, and looked at me for just a second before looking away again.
“We will just need to make the best of it.”
The pull was too strong for us. We were in pain “ . . . of the writhing sort,” Hal would one day muse aloud to a trusted manservant, draining his stout.
“Please,” I said calmly, knowing he could not abandon me.
“We cannot see each other again.” He did not say that it had been forbidden; he did not want me to question him. Hal suspected the reason much as I did, but knew more than I the extent of Henry’s determination.
Sadly, it made sense to Hal, that the King should desire his incomparable Anne. He was not angry; he was resigned and broken-hearted.
“Thou art taunting me,” I laughed uncertainly. Surely he was only bargaining for the sake of his parents’ threats and could be brought to reason. If he said “never”, I could make it mean “sometimes”. From there I could wheedle more frequent visits. “We shall meet in secret, surely? I shall make plans anon and meet thee.”
Hal shook his head and turned to leave. He was not haggling price with me. He had rejected the sale.
It took a moment for my mind to register what my eyes were seeing. Hal was walking toward the door. My beloved one. My life. I screamed in panic then hugged myself. It had not been truly final until his back was turned to me.
“Do not le-eave . . . ” I moaned, bending at the waist as if I had been stabbed. I jammed a fist into my mouth. I was dying. I was going to die.
He looked back at me with his mouth twisted, and his eyes burning. He started to say something, then stopped and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“I cannot be with you!” He bellowed, slamming his fist against the wall.
I had never heard him shout so. I cowered in the face of it.
“Dost thou not understand? Canst thou not see this is the end of it? Make the best of this as I am trying to do! Why dost thou make this so difficult?” He fell against the wall and stood there for a moment, then pulled himself upright, head lowered.
He appealed to me more softly with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“I cannot bear this. I did not mean to speak to thee in this way. I am sorry. I need to go now. I need to . . . to forget. I need for thee to let me go.”
“Forget . . . ” I echoed in a whisper. My whole body began to shake, and my teeth to chatter. My eyes suddenly lost their focus, and I drifted into a kind of stupor. I looked around me. Hal had chosen the sewing room to tell me. My half-finished bridal gown was crumpled on the floor where I had hurled it in my fit, cream-colored wool with love knots of that lovely blue—Hal’s blue—and shimmering cloth of gold sewn to the skirt. It swirled through tears.
I thought of the garland of roses. “White,” I decided in that instant, in a split second of insane denial. “I shall have white.”
“In a few years we will both think things were for the best. Meanwhile, I want us to not see each other again. I could not endure it, nor couldst thou.” Again, he did not mention that he had been forbidden to ever speak to me and had come to Hever in secret, and in defiance.
I looked at him stupidly with a slack jaw and parted lips. I shook my head almost imperceptibly, and hugged myself to stop the chattering. I could not make out his words.
Hal seemed to waver. He saw tears that needed wiping, and a shaking girl who required attention and a warm lap. Bracing himself against these t
hings, he turned away again.
For just a moment, I seemed to lose my mind from pain and shock. I saw Hal’s back and felt a scream welling up inside me. How could he have allowed this to happen to us? Why had he done nothing to stop it? How could he leave me so? He could not do so, if he had truly loved me. Did he not love me? Surely he must not! The agony of this truth erupted within me.
“May God damn thee to eternal Hell, Henry Percy!” I shrieked. I had never called him Henry. I wanted God to make no mistakes when He gathered up the damned and pitched them into Hell. “May Satan take thy miserable soul! Wilt thou never have a backbone? Be a man, sirrah, and be thou brave instead! Must thou ruin both our lives with thy sniveling cowardice? Is the fear of reprisal so much greater than the love? If so, I was deceived, and hate thee for it!”
My eyes were wild with fury and contempt. My hair was a clawed, disheveled mess. I could not take back the words once spoken, but in a sense they alone were giving me some peace. They were a wedge that was making it possible for him to leave, and for me to let him go.
Hal winced and sent me a look of betrayal and of hurt. Then, with sudden self-possession, he gave a small droll smile and called over his shoulder, “My dearest love, my bravery surely knows no bounds, for I am standing up to thee. I wouldst that thou were only Satan and his armies, for I fear facing them less than I feared coming to thee this night.”
Then he stopped and looked back at me with sad and tired eyes. “I do love thee, Anne . . . ” He said it again softly as if to himself: “I do love thee. I cannot stop it.” Then, almost shyly, in obvious discomfort, Hal said, “I could not bear it, were thou to love another.”
“I can never love another,” I answered softly. “Thou knowest my heart. I vow to thee, I never shall.”
We exchanged small smiles, then wiped our eyes.
In a stronger voice Hal made the simplest of apologies. “I am sorry,” he said with the corners of his mouth twisted down and tears welling up in his eyes.
He stood and waited for me to respond, or for something to occur that would allow him to leave me.
