Above All Others

by G Lawrence

  Putting my bloody hands to my face, I found there was no skin there, but only raw, red and pink flesh… muscle, sinew, bone… I looked up at the tower, and its walls and stones had disappeared, concealed under the flow of blood. It fell, as though from a vast waterfall above me, pouring over the dry land, soaking into the parched earth. The scrubby plants shuddered, their roots lifted. They drifted away, carried by the river of blood.

  As I stood staring, a wave of blood rose and washed me away. I went to cry out, but the wave lashed over my head. My feet lifted from the ground. I was carried into the surging river. I struggled to keep my head, my mouth, from the soft yet insistent power of the blood-river, but I could not. I cried out weakly for help, gulping in mouthfuls of the tepid blood and spitting them out. But there was no one there to help me. As my head disappeared under the crimson waves, I awoke with a scream, which sent Bess reeling to my side, half-tripping, stumbling, her legs half-tangled in her covers. She crushed her toes painfully on the edge of my bed and with a pale face, biting her lip hard to stop from cursing with pain, she scrambled to my side.

  “My lady!” she exclaimed, grabbing hold of me, her eyes white-wild. “What is it?”

  Seeing Bess made me realise I was no longer in that awful dream. I shook my head, falling back upon my pillows, unable to speak for a moment. I shuddered, but assured Bess it was but a bad dream. I tried to lie down again, but the cloying sensation of my own sweat on the covers made me rise. It felt like the sticky blood. I did not care if the room was cold, or that it was still an hour before dawn. I wanted to be out of this bed, and away from the horrific dreams that had visited me on what should have been the happiest night of my life.

  Bess helped me to dress and I went outside, ordering her to stay within the castle. She looked confused, but did not seek to accompany me. I walked quietly through the empty, shadowed corridors, down the stairs and into the courtyard. The cool, fresh air was soothing against my heated skin. My soft shoes made little noise on the cobblestones. I wandered the paths of my mother’s gardens until the dawn began to emerge on the horizon, unwilling to return to bed. I could not shake the dream from my mind. My skin felt dirty; soiled by my nightmare. Where had that dream come from? Should I not have dreamt of happiness and joy? I had just been promised all I wanted, and more. Why now had this nightmare struck? Was it a warning? A portent?

  I shook my head angrily. I did not believe in such things. Visions were for the blessed of God… holy men and women… and even then they were rare, and often faked for profit and acclaim. No… this had not come from God… but if not He, then whom? The Devil? My imagination? My fears of the future?

  I had gone to bed happy, yes, but another part of me had questioned the girlish joy that had been mine that day. Another part of me had whispered warnings before I slept. Perhaps it is as simple as that, I thought. My own suppressed fears had intruded upon my dreams, since I had not allowed them a voice when I was awake. My fears were trying to be heard.

  I glanced up at the sky. Dawn was coming. Streaks of orange, pink and white flitted through the darkness on the horizon. Dew was as silver upon the grass. At the edge of the woodlands, heads of graceful columbines bobbed in the light breeze, their petals like grey-blue eagle claws. Woody nightshade fluttered, reaching up to stroke the shadows, the dim light of dawn revealing its dark red berries. Bitter rue whispered as I passed it in my mother’s physic garden. I could see the tiny yellow tufts of flowers upon stalks of silver-green. I rubbed a hand over my gritty eyes and smoothed my dress. I should go in and await the arrival of my father and mother. They knew Henry had come to Hever, and they would have guessed at his purpose. Soon enough all of my family would know I was Henry’s intended wife and future Queen. Soon, all of the world would know too… although for now, Henry and I had agreed secrecy was of the utmost importance. But we knew it would not be long… Not long until he could leave Katherine, and I could take her place…

  I gazed up at Hever. Her bright stone sides had started to glimmer with the distant light of the dawn. I would need to give orders to the kitchens and to the servants to prepare my parent’s room anew after Henry had slept there. But right now, the thought of going back to the castle was too much for me. I needed time to clear my mind of all the horrors I had dreamt of last night. I needed to leave those visions behind.

  I turned on my heel and made for the stables. The lads there would be rising. They would not mind if I came for my palfrey and took a ride before dawn turned to day.

  Chapter Two

  Hever Castle

  Summer 1527

  That afternoon my parents returned to Hever, finding me dazzled and somewhat bemused by the prospect of my glittering future. My night of but little sleep, and my strange dreams, had left me with a haunted mind. I sought to dismiss the eerie feeling, and look instead to the future Henry had promised me. This was not a time for worries and fears! I should be rejoicing, for all I had and all that had been promised to me. I did not speak of my dreams to my parents. I did not wish to trouble them with such foolishness.

  My father grinned widely at me as he leapt from his horse. His questioning, hopeful glance was mirrored by that of my mother, and quickly he ushered us into their chambers, so that we might talk in private.

  “Well?” my father asked, pouring himself wine from the leathern jug that Henry had touched only the night before. My father smirked at me. He seemed to be treating me less like a tool and more like an ally these days. He did not want to relinquish the power he had over me as a father, but now, there was a subtle change in his manner. Perhaps he respected me now, or perhaps he simply saw me as more useful than I had ever been before…

  “Henry has asked me to be his queen…” I nodded slowly. “He proposes that the Pope should annul the marriage between Katherine and him, and he and I will marry within the year. He has gone to court to take the counsel of his advisors…” I lifted an eyebrow at my father. “I trust my uncle Norfolk will advise him rightly on the course that he should take?”

  My father laughed heartily. “Aye!” he exclaimed. “I have no doubt that your uncle will advise him on the best course for our family.”

  “Should you not also be there, father?”

  “I return almost immediately,” he replied. “I will stay here tonight, and return to London in the morning. I just wanted to hear what occurred from your own mouth first.” He looked jubilant. I don’t believe I had ever seen him so happy. “You have done well, Anne. I am delighted… Finally! We have the outcome we desired! My daughter will be the Queen of England, and my grandsons will become kings!”

  My father’s crowing tone gnawed at my frayed spirits. He thought only of what this meant to him, rather than all it meant to me. But I did not attempt to reproach him; there would have been small point. My mother was quiet but she, too, smiled to hear Henry’s intentions. She was happy that, unlike Mary, I would not have to whore myself to win the man I loved. My father may have been the wiliest in our family, but it was my mother who read people better. She knew I loved Henry. She knew I was concealing the depths of my feelings from my father. She was happy for me. After all, I was to be married most advantageously to a man who truly loved me, and whom I loved in return. What more can a mother ask than happiness for her children?

  My father, true to his word, stayed the night and left before first light the next morning. He promised to send word, as soon as he was able, on the progress of the King’s secret Great Matter; the process and proceedings of the annulment of his marriage. My father seemed almost impatient that I was so eager for news to be sent to me… as though, now that I had secured Henry, I would, in truth, have little to do with what followed. My father believed now was the time for men to take control. I was to sit back and wait, fulfilling my role as a woman. I was to be the placid girl hiding behind these men of action and decision. I did not like it, but if they could get our Matter decided quickly, I would not complain.

  Before my father left, he gave me a
book. It was to remain a secret, for it was a banned text in England, and many other countries. It was an English translation of the New Testament, by a scholar and reformist named Master William Tyndale, and it was a work of brilliance. Working from Cologne, Tyndale had managed to get his translation of the New Testament printed, and copies had started to trickle into England in the year just passed. It was illegal to translate the Bible into English, but Tyndale believed, as I did, that the common man had the right to hear the Word of God in his own language, to better understand his faith. Tyndale was an exile, banished from England for what the Church called heretical beliefs. But no matter this dangerous condemnation, he continued to work for the good of the faith.

  Working from the original Greek, rather than the Latin translations of the Bible, Tyndale’s text contained many revolutionary elements; one being the use of the word ‘congregation’ rather than ‘Church’. The different choice of words showed that the authority the Church had long professed over spiritual matters was erroneous, and demonstrated that all of God’s children were the representatives of Christ on earth. He also used ‘elder’ rather than ‘priest’, thus again nullifying the power of the Church. This work questioned the tyranny of the Church, and showed that each soul was responsible alone for their goodness, and faith. It was no wonder the Church had been scared by this text. Last year, Sir Thomas More, Henry’s good friend and advisor, had led a raid with armed men upon merchants suspected of supplying Lutheran works. A procession of condemned men had been led through London after the raid. They had been bound in St Paul’s, with symbolic faggots tied on their backs, as Cardinal Wolsey conducted a Mass over them. Forced to publicly recant, confess and beg forgiveness, the men had been pardoned for their ‘sins’, and baskets filled with seized works the Church considered heretical were taken outside to the rood, and had been burned on huge bonfires.

  I have always thought that those who choose to burn books are those who fear the knowledge they contain.

  More and Wolsey worked together, hunting down the banned Tyndales which were now flooding into England, along with other works of ‘heresy’, as they saw it. Last summer, the influx of Tyndale’s work had caused the Church to set up a special meeting. Henry, ever a conservative in religious matters, and intensely proud of the title Defender of the Faith, conferred upon him by the Pope, had supported Wolsey. A proclamation had gone out banning Tyndale’s New Testament and threatening arrest, and death, if any were found in possession of it. Bishop Tunstall had preached a passionate sermon against Tyndale’s translation, and hundreds of copies had already been burned. Many, such as I, thought it was more disrespectful to God that His own words had been burned, than that they had been translated….

  Thomas More set himself up in opposition to Tyndale, and the two men hated each other with a passion. Tyndale saw More as an enemy of God, and More saw Tyndale as a heretic. But the experience of reading the Bible in English was not one many forgot. It was exciting, and since the Church was so zealous in its attempts to have the book wiped from the face of the earth, many came to read it.

  It was a dangerous, revolutionary book to have in one’s possession. Banned by the King, banned by the Church, and should More have found my father had a copy, dangerous to our position at court. But Tyndale’s book was beautiful. Tyndale might have been a poet for the glory of the language he used. It was lyrical, pretty, clever and sweet to the tongue. I had never read anything like it. I was captivated. Never had I been so inspired by an author before. Not even the reformists whose works I had read in France had expressed themselves so beautifully. I treasured the book, and I kept it safe. It would not do to have it fall into unfriendly hands. And neither could I share this with my love, for he would see my possession of such a text as scandalous.

  It was the one thing I was saddened about, in Henry. He was a fierce defender of the Church, even in matters where he should not be. His devotion to the Pope, and to the institutions of the Church as a whole, was passionate and intense. He would not understand my opinions. He would see them as heretical.

  But that book helped me a great deal in those days of waiting. For a few hours each day, I could lose myself in it. Give myself up to the power and poetry of Tyndale, and hear the Word of God resounding in my head and my heart.

  As I tarried restlessly at Hever, waiting on news, I had something made for Henry; a novelty that I thought would please him and allow him to understand my feelings. Henry loved games and riddles, and so I sent him one. A rather expensive riddle. It was a ship made crafted from pewter with a single woman standing on its bow. The woman held a diamond, tiny, but perfect, in her hands. Pewter waves crashed at the side of the ship. The jewel-makers did a fine job and I had it sent to Henry. The ship was to symbolise his protection over the lady from the storms of the sea, and the lady was, of course, meant to represent myself. The diamond was to signify my purity, my virginity, which I had now placed in his hands as my future husband. Henry wrote to tell me he was overjoyed with the gift. “For so beautiful a gift and so exceeding, I thank you right cordially; not alone for the fair diamond and the ship in which the solitary damsel is tossed about, but chiefly for the good intent and too-humble submission vouchsafed in this your kindness…”

  I smiled as I read; he understood my meaning then. Henry continued, “…ensuring you that henceforth my heart shall be dedicate to you alone, greatly desirous that so my body could be as well, as God can bring to pass if it pleaseth Him, whom I entreat once each day for the accomplishment thereof, trusting that at length my prayer will be heard, wishing for the time brief, and thinking it but long until we shall see each other again,

  Written with the hand of that secretary who in heart, body and will is

  Your loyal and most ensured servant

  H aultre AB ne cherse R “

  Henry despised the task of writing. It was a mark of his devotion that he took on the office of scribe in writing to me. I kept every one of the letters Henry sent to me in a small chest in my rooms. When I missed him I would take them out and read them over and over, until I knew them by heart. Henry sent not only declarations of his love, but also some news on our Matter. He would soon speak to Wolsey, he wrote, and they would convene learned men to put together the case for his separation from Katherine. He assured me it would not be long until we were together, and soon, we would never again have cause to part.

  His words brought me comfort, but I felt isolated at Hever. Even though I understood the sense in keeping me away from the proceedings, it still irked me. I did not like to be so far from Henry, so far from court, which was the only place I felt truly myself. The days went on, and I found myself staring out with a troubled brow at the beautiful countryside, wishing I was in London.

  I tried to distract myself. Tried to fill the dragging, lonely hours. I read my Tyndale. I rode and I walked in the summer sun, wearing a plain mask of linen, strengthened with smooth bone so that my skin would not darken. Purple and russet butterflies flew to the tops of the tall trees, fluttering to the ground to sip water from small puddles left by the rain. Every now and then, as dusk fell, I would see the slinking shapes of black-striped badgers or russet foxes moving in the undergrowth. Maids from the village were out in the woods during the day, gathering wild herbs to dry and save for winter medicines. I heard their chatter as I rode with my father’s servants through the country, and saw them emerge from the dark woodland with baskets full of wild mint, feverfew, tansy and hawthorn leaves.

  There was a sense of happiness in the countryside at such times. Nature gave to her people bountifully in the summer, and none had to worry for the cold or the rain. There was enough for all… In the summer months, only sickness was a worry, for plagues spread more rapidly and with great vigour in the heat. But that summer at Hever, nothing came to threaten us. But even with the peace and beauty of Hever’s lands surrounding me, I was restless.

  The next letter from Henry arrived as I returned from one of these rides, and it came
with another gift; a portrait, a miniature of Henry’s handsome face set into a bracelet. It was beautiful… made of gold with our initials twinned in love knots on either side of his image. Whenever I missed him I would wear it. Soon enough, as the waiting wore on, I wore it every day.

  Chapter Three

  Hever Castle

  Summer 1527

  After two weeks, George came riding home to Hever. As he arrived I ran into the courtyard. “What news, brother?” I demanded, grasping at his reins and staring up at him with eager, desperate eyes.

  He smiled and cocked his head. “May a man not climb off his horse and be greeted by a loving sister before he is bombarded with questions?” He swung gamely from his mount and threw the reins into the hands of a waiting servant. He pulled me into his arms. There was something calming about the comfort of his strong body and the smell of his fresh sweat.