“There is nothing you can do here now, Mary,” Staff said low. “You will get on your horse with me now or I shall carry you? This way. Come on, sweetheart.”
But Mary looked back at her father’s incredulous, shattered face and hesitated. He raised his blank eyes to Stafford and then to Mary. “It says here,” he read, his voice suddenly old and quavering, “that the Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, is arrested for treason and adultery with Smeaton, her musician, and Lords Norris, Weston, and Brereton, and with her brother, George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford. Smeaton has already confessed and Jane Rochford has given sworn testimony of her husband with the queen.” His voice trailed off and Mary realized that she had screamed.
Instinctively, she reached for her father’s arm, but he recoiled, crumpled the document and threw it down. “Lies! Lies!” Tears made jagged tracks down his wrinkled face and his lip trembled.
Staff loosened his firm hold on Mary as she moved like a sleepwalker toward her father. The horror of what the paper said, her mind could not encompass yet. But her father was crushed and in pain, that she could feel deep inside. She put one hand on his shoulder, but he stared into vacancy as though she were not there.
“Father,” she said gently. “Father, I know you are thinking of all your dreams and of George and Anne. Go home to Hever and mother. They will comfort you.”
His eyes fastened on her tear-streaked face. “Leave with your husband, Mary,” he said as though exhausted. She could barely discern his words. “I am staying. The king has ordered it, but something must be done to save it all. Surely something can be done. I only have to think about it now.” He turned away, stooped, and her hand fell off his shoulder as he went. She fought the urge to chase after him and throw her arms around his thin neck, but Staff’s hands were on her again and he half-pulled, half-carried her down the far side of the gallery, gaily decked with Tudor white and green. He took her, unprotesting, through the gardens to the stableblock. It was only when he lifted her on Eden’s back and she turned to glance back at the palace that her calm became hysteria, and Staff had to carry her before him on Sanctuary until they reached the outskirts of London.
In a little inn on the edge of Lambeth, he held her on his lap and let her sob. While the grooms and Stephen hovered nervously with the horses in the street, he made her drink wine and eat fruit and cheese. “Can you ride, my love? If you do not think you can, Sanctuary can handle the extra weight until we reach Banstead.”
She turned her swollen eyes slowly to him. “Banstead?”
“Yes, lass. I can fetch our son from Wivenhoe after we make it to Hever. I want us far away from here and I do not care if we never see His Grace’s fine palaces again. Your mother has need of you and you of her. We can make it from Banstead to Hever by noon tomorrow.”
Mary nodded slowly. Her head hurt terribly, and she was certain she would be sick if she had to get on a horse. “I can make it to Banstead, my Staff. If you are near.”
“I will be near every step of the way, my love,” he comforted, his mouth pressed close in her hair.
What will happen to George and Anne? she wanted to ask him, but she was afraid he would tell her the truth and not what she so desperately wanted to hear.
“We are off to Banstead and Hever, then.” He swung her into his arms and strode for the door. “And never fear that our dreams will crash about us like that, my sweetheart. Our dreams are quite a different thing.”
She looked up dazedly into his worried face. Pain etched his forehead and wrinkled his firm brow.
“I shall remember that, my lord, no matter what befalls,” she said, and he shouldered open the inn door to put her on the waiting Eden’s back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
February 5, 1536
Hever Castle
Hever stood cold and bare against the gray Kent sky as they approached. The ivy cloak of the castle was gone for winter and only the clinging tendrils of brown vines etched the walls. The forest’s trees stood stark and straight, and the eyelike windows reflected only the flatness of the threatening sky. Mary’s tears were long gone and a steely calm held her rigid on Eden’s back. She felt on the sharp edge of jagged screaming fits, but they never came. Surely all the terror and agony would dissolve when she saw mother’s face. If only she could pull herself awake from the smothering nightmare safe in her bed at Wivenhoe!
The horses’ hoofs echoed hollowly off the inner courtyard walls, and they drew to a halt in a ragged circle to dismount. Mary’s swollen eyes scanned the upper windows for a familiar face—of mother, or Semmonet, or a well-remembered servant. Then the central door under the proud Boleyn family crest opened and her mother rushed out dressed in velvet black.