“It is a title the Pope gave you.”
Henry was the only man she had ever known who could look so utterly alone in a room crowded with people clamouring for his attention, ready to spring up and do his will. Anne saw the realm in his face—the cries for relief, the bitter scrambles for position and power, the burdens that Henry would let no one else carry. It was arrogance to her, once. She began praying under her breath, asking for wisdom for Henry, for comfort and aid. He was alone in this battle, alone on a front where the soldiers behind him could be a danger as much as the enemies in front of him. All she had ever had to offer him was herself, and now this comfort too was denied. All she could do was pray.
He stood, knocking her bedside table. The Hutchins book hit the floor with a great whump. Henry bent to pick it up, studying it before he replaced it and left.
The pains began as a dull ache in her midsection. She had her girls remove her bodice and skirts. Her midwife began rubbing a stinking ointment on her belly to ease the pain.
The baby was still not delivered in twenty contractions. Midwives sent the alarm downstairs, but Anne ignored it. She would not fail in this. Yet she knew that, all below her in the palace, doors were being thrown open, cabinets propped open, every lock released, every knot pried free and loose. The palace was working desperate magic below her to assure her body would open and release the child. If she failed, next they would have soldiers from here to the Tower shooting arrows in the air.
She pushed again, bearing down, mad with pain, not caring about crown or reputation. Nothing mattered, nothing existed, except these awful contractions and the animal urge to push.
“I see the head!” the midwife yelled. “Push harder!”
Anne heard the midwife christening the baby as the head emerged. It was a secret gesture between the women in this sacred chamber, so that the child would be baptized before birth. In this way, no child would be born unbaptized and risk purgatory.
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I christen thee Henry, Prince of England.” The assurance was all Anne needed for strength, and she gave one last mighty push.
The immediate crowd at her feet told her the baby was delivered. Anne screamed in relief and collapsed back into the arms of another girl. The air of the room was thick, and she thought she saw the air shimmer.
There was much whispering, and Anne watched, dumb from exhaustion, as the midwife, cradling the heir in her arms, tied off the cord and cut it with her scissors. The babe was washed with wine, and a little salt rubbed on its tongue. Anne had heard that some midwives recommended washing the tongue in hot water, to make for smooth speech later in life, but Anne had forbidden this. It was too harsh.
The midwives wrapped the baby snugly in strips of clean linen and carried him to Anne, nestling the tiny bundle in her arms. Anne beheld the face of her future and wept. The baby was beautiful, exceeding any miracle the church had ever proclaimed, any relic they had ever offered the people for viewing. She caught her Yeoman stealing a glance in, smiling.
“Who will bring him to Henry?” Anne whispered, not taking her eyes from the beautiful face.
“Anne,” her midwife began, “there is something we must tell you. We rejoice in a safe birth, we rejoice in a healthy baby.”
“What is it?” Anne interrupted her.
The midwife was crying.
Anne could hear Henry’s scream, and she winced.
When he entered the room, he was carrying the baby. His courtiers trailed closely behind him, their eyes down, but he turned, glaring at them, glaring at the women in the chamber. Everyone fled from the room, leaving him with Anne alone. He laid the baby in the cradle, tucked in the darkest corner of the chamber. He stayed in the darkness.
“She is beautiful,” he said finally.
“We should call her Elizabeth. It would have made your mother happy,” Anne said. She didn’t have the strength to get out of the bed and walk to him, to try to persuade him to comfort or happiness. She could only lie there, exhausted. Her best offering had been in his arms, and it was not enough. It defined her relationship to him.
“Why, Anne?” he whispered.
She could not answer.
He came out of the shadows and laid his head on her empty womb. “Why? Why was it a girl?”
He was crying. He was shaking under Anne’s hands.
She cursed herself under her breath … a stupid little fool, she said. Where had she gone wrong? She felt naked, her faults all exposed in this tiny bundled baby.
“I have done all this for you!” he screamed at her. “I dismantled the Church! Two cardinals are dead because of you, Anne, and many men are in the Tower tonight, suffering, because you promised me an heir!”
“No, Henry,” she tried to say. “I tried. I did everything you asked.”