Page 59 of The Queen’s Witch

“The king!” cried a page, rounding the corner. Mark bent into a bow so deep he could have kissed the floor. I crept away. But apparently the king felt no need for music, because a few moments later Mark swept past me, frowning.

Emma Colmer emerged from the queen’s apartments and curtly told me not to stand there, to go to the queen’s privy kitchen and find someone to tell me where I should sleep.

There had been many changes at court.

Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher had both refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy and were imprisoned in the Tower. Katherine, a prisoner far away in Kimbolton Castle, was forbidden to go to her ailing daughter, Lady Mary, formally stripped of her status as Henry’s heir. That honor now belonged to the baby Princess Elizabeth. And in the taverns, the markets, outside the walls of Whitehall, there was muttering, and sometimes louder chatter. Much louder.

“God save Queen Katherine!”

“We want no Nan Bullen!”

“She bewitched him with dark arts, she did.”

“The king tires of his whore.”

“She poisoned Princess Mary.”

“No Nan Bullen!”

Always the common people knew everything, true or not. And always the blame fell on Anne, not Henry. Blame for Katherine’s exile, Mary’s illnesses, the bad harvest, the many arrests for refusing the oath, the executions that often followed. Anne was the cause of every ill. Some of the blame, I suspected, was indeed earned.

But the common people did not see Anne’s desperation, her rooms once thronged with courtiers and now holding only a few loyal men and her ladies-in-waiting, some of whom clearly did not want to be there. At King Henry’s court, all was frivolity, dancing, singing, laughing, barely masking fear. The king dallied with pretty Madge Shelton, Anne’s own cousin, and Anne pretended not to notice, pretended she did not care, pretended that Henry came to her bedchamber more often than he did, pretended that he came from pleasure rather than duty.

After weeks of this, Anne risked a dangerous ruse. From my perch below, I saw her put her hand on his leg beneath the dinner table, not flinching when he pulled away and turned to scowl at her.

She said softly, “My king, I have had a dream, sent directly from God. He revealed to me that I cannot conceive a son while Katherine and Mary live, or our prince might not be accepted by your subjects. I so desperately want your son, as does Your Grace! We must take no chances.”

Henry froze. He valued dreams, and he still considered himself God’s servant in all things. My breath tangled in my throat.

“Why,” he demanded of Anne, “would God send such a dream to you? I rule here, not you, madam. If such a dream were truly from God, it would have come to me, not you.” He turned his back and spoke to her no more.

Anne’s hand, hidden by the cloth, clenched into a fist. But she flashed a brilliant smile at the watching company and called, “Let us have music! Master Smeaton! A song!”

Smeaton. Mark had changed his name too. Perhaps he thought “Smalacombe” unwieldy, uncourtly, provincial. Perhaps he merely wished to leave the past behind. He still sang as sweetly as ever, accompanying himself on the virginals. Despite myself, I was moved. But under the musician, the Mark I knew had vanished as completely as his peasant speech, as completely as the love Henry had once felt toward the woman who had cost him so much. Unlike Anne, I would not pursue a man who, from pride or anger or swollen importance, no longer wanted me. I could not, however, stop myself from mourning his loss.

Anne retired to her apartments as soon as the lengthy dinner—all the king’s dinners were lengthy—had ended. She did not send for me, nor for her ladies. Only for Emma, providing whatever aid and comfort that tight-faced, utterly loyal retainer could give.

After her failure, I sensed Anne moving toward some way to force the matter. Something to bring the king back to her. Something that I could supply, but only if I came into my full power through her, my Third. Lying awake on my pallet, staring at the ceiling I could not see in the dark, I allowed myself to hope.

Then, abruptly, everything changed again. The king had done his duty. Anne was pregnant.

19

Whitehall Palace

For perhaps a month the king treated Anne with renewed attention. Whatever delicacy she craved must be procured. She must have music, good fires, many Masses said for her welfare and that of the unborn prince. She must not be disturbed in any way. The dalliance with Madge Shelton ended, whether from concern for Anne or from Henry’s boredom. Courtiers again flocked to the queen’s chambers.

Such care brought out Anne’s better nature. On Maundy Thursday, three days before Easter, it was traditional to distribute alms to the poor. Anne gave away more coin than any queen before her. Generosity or competition? I remembered that at Hever Anne had been generous to the needy, whether her position seemed secure or not. Stories of her charity, especially to children, were repeated throughout court and kitchen alike, some so grudgingly told that they must be true. I felt ashamed of my doubt.

But no one praised Anne when tidings came about a midwife in Oxford.

“They put the poor woman in gaol,” whispered Elizabeth Holland to Jane Seymour, both ladies-in-waiting. “For calling the queen ‘a goggle-eyed whore and a bawd.’”

Before Mistress Seymour could respond, Lady Worcester said, “And she a midwife!”

Mistress Holland noticed Anne’s cousin and loyal supporter Lady Lee nearby and said quickly, “No more than the midwife deserves! And worse!”

All these ladies, these Elizabeths and Janes and Marys, fawned on Anne, complimented her, assisted the royal seamstresses when Anne added extra panels to the front of her gowns long before it was necessary.