“I seem to have heard those words before, sweet Mary. You are my strength now, you and Andrew. So we shall help your mother and get through this somehow.”
“Our strength shall be that we are together,” she murmured against his chest, and they stood for a very long time at the window.
The messengers came and went from Lord Boleyn over the weeks of Anne and George’s imprisonment and the days of their trials. At Hever they despaired when the three commoners whom the king had raised so high and Anne’s little lutenist were declared guilty and condemned to die. And their hopes rose again when they heard of Anne’s fine defense of George and herself at her trial. Both Jane Rochford and their cousin Sir Francis Bryan had successfully survived the dreadful storm of accusations by totally disassociating themselves from the Boleyn family, which had originally been their making at court. Their Uncle Norfolk sat, with continual tears in his eyes, it was reported, as judge of the proceedings, so his desertion of his blood relatives was complete. Mary had asked that Staff burn all of Cromwell’s letters to them from the past two years when Staff returned on one of his biweekly visits to Wivenhoe, for Cromwell was both artist and architect of the disgusting cruelty and despicable charges in Anne’s court of justice.
After Anne’s condemnation, they still dared to hope, for the king had called a special court to declare that Anne Boleyn had never been lawfully married to Henry Tudor since she herself had made a pre-contract with her long-lost love Harry Percy. But even the court’s assurance to the king that he had never been legally married to the witch queen was not to be Anne’s salvation. She was condemned to be beheaded for treason, incest and adultery in the Tower. Norris, Weston and her brother George would die the day before.
Anne’s death day dawned clear and fair that May. Mary rose to watch from her bedroom window as the sun sifted its earliest rays upon the spring gardens at Hever. She was not certain she had slept at all and knew Staff had dozed fitfully. They had both paced the room or gone next door to watch Andrew sleep. Once Mary had met her mother at the nursery door and hugged her wordlessly.
Staff rolled out of bed and padded barefoot to stand behind her at the window. “I was wondering,” she said, “if it makes it easier or harder to die on such a beautiful day.”
He stood warm against her back and pushed the window wide ajar and inhaled the sweet, fresh air. “I think it would make it easier, like something special to take with you,” he said quietly. “She takes your love with her, Mary. She knows that. Were you trying to send your thoughts and strength to her again?”
“Oh, yes, my love, yes!” she cried and turned to bury her face against him as she had in weaker moments these last two months.
His arms went strong and sure around her. “I love you, my golden Mary. I have always loved you.” His voice faltered. “Yet I am not certain saying ‘love’ is strong enough to tell it all—all of how deeply I have felt for you over the years. The dear Lord in heaven knows I would have killed the king if he had touched you that last time we were at court—when Anne sent for you.” He paused again, then his voice came rough and hard, “As well as I could have broken Francois’s damned royal neck with my bare hands for his brutal treatment of you.”
Mary’s hands darted to her throat involuntarily and her thoughts jumped from Francois to Anne again. Anne’s slender neck would be broken by a sharp headsman’s sword, and on such a sunny day!
“Sweetheart.” Staff’s hands were warm on her waist. “Come away from the window. I did not mean to speak such violence. There has been enough killing,” he said against her hair. He lifted her in his arms as sure and strong as he had that first time in the vast reaches of Greenwich when she had been Will Carey’s wife and had thought that her life ahead would be all darkness. He laid her carefully on the sheets in the morning sunlight which streamed through the window. He lay beside her and pulled her against his body. She sighed and clung to him desperately, trembling, but no tears came as they had over the long weeks of Anne’s trial, the long weeks of waiting for George’s and Anne’s deaths.