Henry and Anne rode on stony-faced. Anne had never dreamed that this divorce would arouse such opposition.
The Queen must have heard the speculation and the heckling, but when they got back to Beaulieu, she remained courteous to Anne, if a little distant. She only ever made one gentle thrust. Henry, somewhat naively, seemed to think it perfectly acceptable for his wife and his mistress to join him in a game of cards. Anne did not want to join in, but he insisted. When she won, drawing a king, which scored high, Katherine smiled at her and said, “My lady Anne, you have the good luck to stop at a king—but you are like the others: you will have all or none.”
Henry glowered at her. Anne flushed, but she could say nothing. She sat there feeling intensely embarrassed, resentment and anger mounting. It was unfair of Katherine to taunt her publicly, especially as Anne had tried to fend off Henry’s courtship. Now everyone within earshot was staring at her, or whispering, knowing looks in their eyes. Her pride revolted. What did they think she was, the King’s whore? She felt her cheeks flushing.
To her relief, the Queen rose, begged Henry’s leave, and retired to bed. Anne glared after her. The sympathy she had felt for Katherine, the ever-present guilt, had dissipated. Katherine was her enemy, and would bring her down without a qualm if she could.
She turned to Henry.
“Did I deserve that?” she flared.
“No, but let it be, Anne,” he said. “The Queen is fighting a battle she cannot win. I have enough to trouble me as it is. This afternoon my sister shouted at me. She told me she supported the Queen and would leave the court if I insisted on having you here with me. I told her she could go, and she stormed out without even a curtsey.” He looked injured at the memory.
“She hates me, doesn’t she?” Anne seethed. “She swept past me yesterday holding her nose, as if there was a bad smell.”
“I won’t have her hold me to ransom like that,” Henry growled, upset because he loved his sister. “Thank God Suffolk supports us. He’ll talk some sense into her.”
—
Throughout August, Anne, her father, her uncle of Norfolk, and their friends, who now included the Duke of Suffolk, took advantage of the Cardinal’s absence in France. Anne arranged for her father and the two dukes to sup with the King every night, and over the dinner table they dropped hint after subtle hint that, far from working to secure an annulment, Wolsey might actually be doing his best to prevent the Pope granting one. Henry was skeptical, but no matter—a doubt had been planted in his mind.
At one supper, Sir Henry Norris was present, seated next to Anne, who was all too aware of his physical nearness.
Henry explained, “I have invited Sir Henry to join us, darling, because henceforth he will act as go-between for us. As Groom of the Stool and head of my Privy Chamber, he will guide you while you establish your position at court, and he is utterly trustworthy.”
“It is an honor, sir,” Norris said warmly, smiling at Anne. And there it was again, that sense of recognition, and she found herself hardly able to look away. For a brief moment there had been a frisson of attraction between them, and she was certain that he had felt it too.
Henry was chatting on, oblivious to the momentous thing that was happening to her. The poets wrote of love at first sight, which she had often dismissed as a mere literary conceit, but now she knew. It did not matter that she was barely acquainted with Norris; there was no doubt in her mind that love was what she had felt for him from the first, or that he was everything she wanted. His looks, his strong body and beautiful hands, his courtesy, his smile—they proclaimed what he was.
But he was married, and she had promised to wed the King. For a mad moment she thought she would tell Henry that she could not go through with it, could not face the uproar or the opprobrium. But even if she did, Norris was not free—and Henry would never accept it.
The men were laughing and she remembered where she was. Quickly she picked up the gist of the jest and joined in.
She sensed Norris watching her, and when the conversation turned to hunting, a favorite topic of Henry’s, she smiled at him.
“You have been at court long, Sir Henry?”
He fixed those wondrous light blue eyes on her. “Please call me Norris, Mistress Anne,” he invited. “Everyone else does. Yes, my family have had long associations with the court. I came here in my youth and was fortunate to be honored with the friendship of the King, who has generously bestowed on me many offices. I’ve served in his Privy Chamber for ten years, and was made head of it last year.”
All the time they were talking, Anne was acutely aware that something else was happening between them, something they could never acknowledge.
“And what do your duties encompass?”
“I am in charge of the twelve gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber. We are all especially privileged, for we have the right of entry to His Grace’s private chambers; we look after his personal needs and provide him with daily companionship.”
“Then you must be in positions of great power.”
“We are, Mistress Anne, but I hope we do not abuse it.”
“And the Cardinal—he resents this power.” It was not a question.
“It stands to reason,” murmured Father, sitting the other side of Anne, as the King and the dukes rattled on about bloodstock. “Those in the Privy Chamber are able to advise and influence His Grace, control access to his presence, and exercise patronage. The Cardinal fears that. As Lord Chancellor, he can control the Privy Council but not the Privy Chamber. He has tried twice to reform the Privy Chamber, as he put it—which meant flushing out those who had too much influence.”
“Some were invited back,” Norris smiled. “I need not say that the Cardinal is not very popular in the Privy Chamber.”
“And you are in charge,” Anne said, avoiding his gaze. Father must not suspect anything.
“Norris is the most highly trusted man in the court,” Father said. “He has the confidence of the King, and, if I may say it, could be accounted one of his closest friends.”
Norris bowed his head. “I have that honor,” he said modestly.
“And the King has given him a fine house at Greenwich.” Anne had a fleeting vision of herself and Norris tucked away there, far from the court and their duties and obligations. What joy that would have been!
Father was asking after Norris’s children. He had three. She could not bear to think about them, the living proof of his intimacy with his wife.
“I know you will be a friend to my daughter,” Father was saying.
“I will do all in my power to support her, my lord,” Norris promised. There was no doubting his sincerity—or the warmth with which he said it.
—
The Queen was fighting back.