She drew it away. “I am recovered from my headache, thank you, sir. I have yet to recover from seeing you publicly proclaiming your feelings at the tournament. Truly that was unfair of you. I felt like running away.”
He looked stricken. “Never do that to me, Anne,” he begged. “I cannot live without you. I have never been this powerfully attracted to any other woman. Help me, please! Give me some crumb of affection.”
“Alas, sir, you are not free, so it would not be proper. How is Francis?”
Henry grimaced. “His eye cannot be saved, but he will otherwise recover.”
“I am so relieved to hear it. Forgive me, sir, Her Grace is waiting, and I shall get into trouble if I am late. Fare you well!” She pushed open the inner door and almost fled from him.
—
Mary came up to court in March, leaving her little ones at Hever to be spoiled by their doting grandmother. Anne visited her in Will’s lodging; he was waiting on the King, so they could talk freely.
This was the first time that Anne had seen Mary since Henry had started paying court, and she suddenly found herself wanting to confide in her. Mary was the one person who would understand her dilemma. But how would she take the news that her former lover was pursuing her sister?
Mary was waxing lyrical about her children, and Anne listened restlessly for a while, then stood up and walked to the fire, stretching out her hands to warm them.
“What is it?” Mary asked. “You seem agitated.”
“I need to tell you something, Mary,” Anne said. “The King is trying the same tactics with me as he did with you.”
Mary gaped at her.
“He is becoming very persistent, and I know not how to deter him. He wants me to become his mistress.”
“You mean he wants to bed with you?”
“Of course. I am not so foolish as to think he has a purer motive. For all his fine words, this is all about lust. Believe me, I understand now how it was for you, although he insists you consented.”
“That’s not true!” Mary cried out. “He made me! You saw me afterward.”
“I told him so. I taxed him with it,” Anne said, sitting down again and taking Mary’s hands in hers. “He still said he believed you were willing, and of course I don’t accept that for one moment. But I am not willing, and mercifully he has not tried to force me.”
“You are lucky,” Mary said, drawing her hands away and reaching for the tiny smock she was sewing. “He is the last man you should tangle with.”
Anne looked at her sister, the epitome of domestic contentment. Father still thought that Mary could have done better for herself by holding the King to his responsibilities and asking for money, but at least Mary was happy now. And she herself had learned a salutary lesson from her sister’s experience, for it had forewarned her of the King’s fickle nature. The woman he pursued today might easily be discarded tomorrow. Anne Boleyn was not going to end up as another abandoned royal mistress.
“I don’t encourage him!” she protested. “I can’t fend him off. And then there’s Tom Wyatt pressing his suit—and he’s married too!”
“You can’t really blame Henry, I suppose,” Mary said. “The Queen is so devout and virtuous, she looks old and she’s lost her figure—hardly an enticing prospect.”
It was true, although Anne felt disloyal in agreeing, for Katherine had been kind to her. But the Queen had no joy in life anymore, and no sexual allure. Without boasting, Anne knew she had both these things, and must appear delightful to the King in contrast to his wife’s piety and solemn dignity.
“Well, he can go and look for someone else to entice him,” she said. “I’m going to end it.”
But that proved more difficult than she had thought.
—
One spring evening, Henry invited Anne to walk with him in his privy garden, a place only the privileged entered, and in that small paradise of Nature tamed by man into neat, railed flower beds and graveled paths, he led her into an exquisite little banqueting house. There, on a table, lay four gold brooches. He presented them to her as if they were votive offerings to a deity. She looked down in dismay at the beautiful pieces lying in their velvet nest: one represented Venus and Cupid, the second a lady holding a heart in her hand, the third a gentleman lying in a lady’s lap, and the fourth a lady holding a crown.
She took the meaning in the first three—it was the crown she did not understand.
Henry saw her turning it over in her hand. “It symbolizes aloofness or virginity,” he said, “which I think is highly apt. It is also symbolic of your holding the love of a king. You do like them?” He was almost boyish in his eagerness.
“They are beautiful, sir,” she said, “but I am unworthy of them.”
“Nonsense!” he declared. “Even though they can only be eclipsed by your beauty, they will enhance it. To me, remember, you need no adornment, but I should like you to wear these tokens of my love for you.”
“Then I must wear them in private,” Anne said, “or people will wonder how I acquired such costly jewels.”
“Let them!” he cried.
“But I dare not,” she protested. “I’m not sure that I should even accept them, sensible though I am of your Grace’s generosity.”
“Oh, but you must, Anne. I commissioned them for you alone. Please wear them, in private if you must, and think of me when you do.”
She sighed inwardly. There was no gainsaying him.
“Very well,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And will you give me something in return?” Henry asked. “I beg only for a small token.”
How could she deny it, seeing he had been so generous? She drew a ring from her finger and gave it to him. It was a trifle, of little value, but he kissed it with reverence and pushed it down to the first joint of his little finger.
“I will have it resized,” he said, beaming.
He wore it all the time, but she never wore the brooches. To her, they symbolized something sordid: the price of her body and her virtue. She hoped that Henry, not seeing them, would get the message.
—
Summer blazed forth in all its golden glory, and still Anne had not succeeded in rejecting the King. The more evasive she became, the more ardent was his pursuit. He had taken care to be discreet, but if he carried his heart on his sleeve like this, the whole world would soon notice. All their trysts had to be snatched in secret, often under cover of darkness. She could not even bring her maid, but she had come to trust Henry. He was always the supplicant, never the conqueror.
“Be mine!” he urged yet again, as he clasped her in his arms. He had summoned her to his bowling alley, deserted in the late evening. “I want to hold you and love you…”
“I cannot love you!” she replied. “Not only on account of my honor, but also because of the great love I bear the Queen. How could I injure a princess of such great virtue? I live in daily dread of her finding out about…” She would not say the word “us.” It implied collusion.
“She would not know,” Henry hastened to assure her. “I would act with the utmost discretion.”