Not Norris! Not loyal, good, devoted Norris, who had done nothing wrong apart from love her hopelessly from afar.
She must warn him! Bidding her attendants stay, she hastened into the palace, heading for Henry’s apartments. She caught up with Norris in the pages’ chamber, where he was administering a rebuke to some wretched boy for idleness. When the page had gone, goggling at the sight of the Queen standing there, she closed the door. Norris stared at her in dismay.
“I think we were overheard,” she said, as he looked at her with horror. “Sir Henry, I pray you, go to my almoner now and swear that, whatever he hears of me, I am a good woman.”
“Anne, is this wise?” Norris asked, profoundly agitated. “It smacks of protesting too much. I could swear it myself, should the need arise.”
“Go!” she shrilled. “There is no time to be lost!”
—
“Madam, the King wishes you to attend him,” her chamberlain announced.
Having spent the past two hours agonizing over what had happened with Norris, Anne was expecting the worst. This was the retribution she had been expecting. Henry had found out. Well, she would not go down without a fight! For ammunition she picked up Elizabeth—with her child, so unmistakably the King’s, in her arms, she would appeal to Henry as a wronged mother.
She found him staring through an open window at the courtyard below. He was frowning, restless. She curtseyed, still clutching the child, and he turned.
“I have been hearing strange things of you, Anne,” he said, his eyes like steel. “Your almoner told your chamberlain that you felt the need to send Norris to protest your virtue to him.”
“Sir,” she cried, “it was to counteract horrible gossip about me, that I am a loose woman, and I did not want Father Skip believing it. I thought it would come well from Norris, because he is known for an upright man and loyal to you.”
Henry did not answer. “If I thought you had played me false, I would never forgive you,” he said.
“How could you think that?” she asked. “I love you, Henry. This child was born of our love. I could never forsake you for another.”
His gaze bore down on her. “Never let it be said that you made me a cuckold, madam!”
“Why is Papa cross?” Elizabeth asked as Anne carried her away.
“It is nothing to worry about,” Anne assured her, fighting tears and praying that was true. “All will be well, sweeting.”
—
That evening there was a banquet, and Henry was once more his usual self, courteous and companionable. His anger, to Anne’s relief, had burned itself out. They led the dancing, and he admired her gown, a new one of gray damask with a crimson kirtle. He left at ten o’clock, pleading the need to attend to urgent state business.
When he had gone, she became aware of an undercurrent of speculation in the presence chamber. Around eleven o’clock, someone said that the Council was still in session. Clearly some deep and difficult question was being discussed. Was war imminent?
She waited until the meeting of the Council broke up, and caught her father as he emerged from it. His face was gray and he looked as if he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“What is it?” she asked urgently.
“I cannot tell you, Anne,” he croaked. “We are all sworn to secrecy. But the King’s visit to Calais is to be postponed for a week. They’re announcing it shortly.”
“Does this concern me?” She could hear the fear in her voice.
“It concerns us all. Now I bid you good night.”
If it concerned everyone, it must be war.
1536
Anne had always loved May Day and the annual court festival celebrating the coming of spring, which was customarily marked by a great tournament. This year it was to be held in the tiltyard at Greenwich. It was a warm day, and pennants fluttered in the breeze as she took her seat at the front of the royal stand, her ladies clustering behind. Presently Henry arrived, to a great ovation. He greeted her cordially, but seemed preoccupied as he took his seat. He had been meaning to compete himself, but the old wound in his leg was still giving him trouble, and did not seem to be healing.
They watched as the contestants ran their chivalrous courses, lances couched, armor gleaming. George led the challengers, thrilling the crowd by his skill in breaking lances and vaulting on horseback. Norris headed the defenders, but his temperamental mount refused to enter the lists, whereupon Henry called down that Norris could ride his own horse as a token of his esteem. Anne was thankful that Henry seemed to harbor no suspicions of his old friend.
Tom Wyatt excelled himself, surpassing all the rest, although Norris, Weston, and Brereton all performed great feats of arms, and Henry was loud in his applause and appreciation. Anne smiled down encouragingly on all the gallant knights.
Halfway through the contests, a page appeared and handed a folded piece of paper to Henry, who read it, flushed a dangerous red, then got up and stalked off, nearly overturning his chair. Father and George were among the lords who hastened after him.
Anne could not credit that Henry was leaving. There was a hubbub of comment. What had happened? Had the French invaded? He had not troubled to say farewell to her—he who rarely scanted in his courtesy—so it must be serious. She could not help but read something ominous into his hasty departure.
She signaled for the jousts to resume, but she was aware of the whispers and the speculation. When, bewildered and fearful, she returned to the palace a few hours later, and was told that the King had gone to Whitehall, she knew that some great catastrophe was at hand. And there was no one she could ask about it. As soon as the jousting ended, Norris had hurried to join the King. All her powerful protectors were gone.
She slept fitfully that night. In the morning, hoping and dreading that the day would bring Henry’s return, or at least some news of what was going on, she had her women dress her in a sumptuous gown of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, and then tried to divert herself by watching her household officers playing tennis. Her champion won, which lifted her spirits a little.
“I wish now I had placed a wager on him,” she said to Madge, who was sitting next to her in the viewing gallery. Madge nodded, indicating that there was someone behind her. Anne turned to see an usher in royal livery standing, waiting.
“Your Grace, I am come to bid you, by order of the King, to present yourself before the Privy Council at once,” he said. The Privy Council was here at Greenwich? She had thought it with the King at Whitehall.
“Very well,” she replied, trying to stem the tide of panic that gripped her. For a queen to be thus summoned was strange indeed, and she was in deep trepidation as she entered the Council chamber.