“Not as well as your Grace,” she said, seeking safety in the correct, the expected, response. And all the while Katherine was smiling at them both, poor deceived woman.
And then it was Christmas, with the usual revelry, a time when good order was turned on its head and all ceremony was forgotten. The King roared with laughter when the Lord of Misrule tapped him with his wand of office and demanded his fee of five pounds—right now, sire! There was a game of Hoodman Blind, when the Master of the Revels, blindfolded, chased the shrieking courtiers through the royal apartments, Anne running with Tom, hand in hand, and hiding behind an arras, with Tom trying to snatch a kiss, and her neatly ducking away. And then there were the disguisings. Anne was astonished one evening when a man wearing an elaborate mask, clad entirely in green, caught her under the kissing bough suspended from a roof beam above the doorway, twisted her round to face him, and kissed her heartily on the lips. She knew, by his large presence and the smell of herbs, that it was the King, but pretended ignorance, breaking away and running off down the deserted galleries until the sounds of merriment had been left far behind and there was not a soul to be seen.
She was just about to retrace her steps, for it was cold here, and she wanted to be back in the warm, enjoying the revelry, when she heard a footfall, and another, growing closer, and there he was, still masked, framed in the archway at the farther end of the gallery. She realized that they were entirely alone. Her heart beat furiously as he approached with an air of determination. She did not want this, did not want him as she feared he wanted her. She remembered how King Fran?ois had raped her sister in a room off a deserted gallery such as this.
“Anne!” Henry said, in that high, imperious voice. “Do not fear me. I am no rapist, as your sister alleges. For weeks now I have been unable to think of anything but you.” He was standing before her now, the big, powerful man, looking as diffident as a schoolboy. “I come to you as a supplicant, hoping you will take pity on me.”
She did not want to go through more anxious days worrying that she had offended him, so she kept her voice sweet. “Sir, I am flattered to receive the attention of so great a king, but in truth I do not know how I can help you.”
Henry pulled off his mask and placed his hands on her shoulders, fixing her with that magnetic gaze that had no power to move her. She could never love him. The essential alchemy that should be between male and female was decidedly absent.
“Anne!” He sounded quite emotional. “You have cast an enchantment on me. I do not know how to explain it. It seems presumptuous to use the word ‘love,’ but I know what I feel. I do not sleep at night; I see only your face before me. I am in torment!”
“Sir!” she cried, shocked that he might think she dabbled in witchcraft. “I have cast no enchantment! I am your good subject, nothing more.”
For answer, his hands slid down to her waist, and he drew her to him. His hold was strong, and in that moment she understood how it must have been for Mary, and how vulnerable she herself was. “I want you, Anne,” he murmured in her hair. “I want to be your servant, and I want you for my mistress.” The passion in his voice alarmed her. “Venus, that insatiable goddess, has brought me to this pass, but I pray that you, sweetheart, will be kind to me.”
“Sir!” Anne went rigid in his arms, and he let her go, standing back and looking at her with such longing that she almost took pity on him. To think that she, plain Anne Boleyn, had power over this man who held the lives of thousands in his hand. But she did not want him!
What was the right, the proper, answer? Frantically she sought in her mind for a way to deflect his interest without offending him.
“Sir, may I have time to think on this?” she asked at length. “Your Grace has so overwhelmed me that I do not know what to say to you. Please give me time.”
“Of course,” the King agreed, his face jubilant, for now she was playing the game properly. Except that this was not a game.
1526
“Declare I dare not” indeed! What was the King about? She had told him, several times now, that she could not love him or be his mistress, as he was married. She had said it in sorrow, in regret, in indignation, and in anger—and still he would not take no for an answer. Instead he had bargained that, in return for his promise never to compromise her virtue, she would permit him to acknowledge her publicly as his mistress, and himself as her devoted servant. Thus no one would be offended, he pointed out, with that naive streak that she was learning was as much a part of his character as his imperiousness, his sentimentality, and his courtesy.
Still she had said no, and now he had gone too far, wearing that enigmatic motto with the device of a man’s heart in flames emblazoned on his trappings of cloth of gold and silver as he thundered into the lists. For all the world to see! Even the Queen was looking at it, her adoring eyes narrowing in a slight frown. Henry had become so importunate lately that some must have noticed his singling Anne out, and it didn’t take much perception for someone—not Katherine, God forfend—to put two and two together and make five.
How she held her patience during the jousts she did not know, shivering in her furs in the freezing February weather. She was beginning to feel cornered, and coming to the realization that decisive action was called for. She was torn between running away—her preferred, instinctive option—or reprimanding her sovereign, which, if she were his mistress, as he wanted, she was entitled to do!
But why, she asked herself angrily, should I have to leave court because he can’t contain himself? No, she would stay. He would not drive her away. Yet she would not make it easy for him.
There was a commotion in the lists. Francis Bryan had been felled, and blood was spouting from his eye. People, even the King, came running to help. Anne could not bear to look. Poor Bryan! Pleading a headache, she asked the Queen if she might go and lie down, so that she would be nowhere to be seen when the King came with his guests to have supper with his wife.
But she could not lie down forever. Morning came, as relentless as Fate, and there were duties to be attended to. And there he was, looking like a naughty schoolboy, lying in wait for her in the antechamber to the Queen’s rooms. As she paused, startled, to curtsey, he closed the door behind her, leaving them alone. No ushers, no grooms, no maids. He must have dismissed them. She was uncomfortably aware that only yards from the inner door, the Queen was having her breakfast.
“I trust you are recovered, Mistress Anne,” Henry said, taking her hand and kissing it, even the place where that ugly sixth nail grew.