Tarnish (42 page)

Mary laughs. A harsh sound, like gulls crying.

“He never loved me. He doesn’t even love his wife anymore.”

“He was with you for three years.”

She stops, finally. Looks at me. Rests her hands with the twisted and ruined piece of linen on her knees.

“Three years? You speak as if that’s a lifetime.”

“It’s as long as I’ve been in England,” I say. It feels like a lifetime.

“It hardly matters now. He’s found someone else.”

We stare at each other for a long, slow stretch of time. We have to talk about it now.

“I thought he was just teasing,” I finally manage to whisper, knowing it’s a lie, after what I saw in the tiltyard gallery.

“That’s how it starts.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Not a lie. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Mary sighs. She picks up the counterpane from the floor and wraps herself in it tightly, despite the heat.

“I know.” She sounds weary.

She doesn’t look at me. Then she sighs again.

“He was the one who had you recalled, Nan. From Hever.”

“The king wanted me back at court?” I can scarcely wrap my mind around it.

“He said he missed your clever repartee.” I wonder if Mary makes her voice sound deliberately dull with this sentence. Still she doesn’t look at me. She’s picking at the threads of her counterpane.

“He missed . . . talking to me?”

“I don’t think there are many women who talk to him like you do. I mean, we never talked. For what it’s worth, Nan, I think he likes you. Intellectually. Not just . . . physically.”

And it feels like a betrayal to Thomas, but her words send a little thrill through me. This man, this unattainable, golden god of a man, is actually interested in me. Anne Boleyn. In my words.

“Is he . . .” I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to cause Mary any more pain. But I have to. “Is he the man you said was interested? The one who is afraid of me?”

Mary barks a little laugh. “The king is afraid of no one, Nan.”

“Oh.”

“No.” Mary turns and finally looks at me. “That was Thomas Wyatt.”

I sink the rest of the way to the floor, and my skirts belly out around me. Mary rests a hand on my head and strokes my hair. I lower my head onto the folds of velvet covering her.

“I’ve made such a mess, Mary. It’s all such a mess.”

Again a little sad bark. “Not as much as I have, Nan.”

I tilt my head and look at her. “But now your life can go back to normal.”

“Normal? My life has never been normal, Nan. For the past three years, it’s like I’ve been married to two men. Or not really married at all. I don’t know my husband. I don’t know the father of my child.”

“Catherine is well taken care of. You love her. That’s what matters.”

“I’m having another,” she whispers.

I sit farther back.

“Is it his?”

“Wouldn’t that be what Father and George want?” she asks. “Wouldn’t that just be the making of the Boleyn family? A royal son?”

“Do you know?”

My own treacherous thoughts race to calculate when the king first expressed interest in me. And my calculations tell me an unsavory truth.

“No, Nan. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Her voice is hollow, completely empty of emotion. But I think maybe she does know. She just isn’t going to say.

“It would be the making of William, too,” she says quietly. “He’s so far into debt, he can’t even see the surface. Right now, it’s only me who is keeping us in clothes and candles.” She pats my knee. “And I won’t be for long.”

“I won’t let it happen to me, Mary. I won’t be his mistress. I won’t be easily discarded.”

“Don’t be anyone’s mistress, Nan.” She looks at me sadly, and I know what she’s saying.
Not even Thomas Wyatt’s.

“Make sure you know what you want,” she finishes. “If anyone can achieve it, you will.”

“What do
you
want, Mary?”

Her eyes are almost as red as her skin.

“You know, you’re the first person to ask me that. Everyone else just thinks I’ll do whatever is asked of me. I’ve spent my entire life being what everyone else wants. An object to be passed around.”

“Do you know what you want?” I whisper.

“I want to be loved, Anne.”

Mary finally uses my name. My real name. It sounds awkward and makes me strangely sad. She turns, and my arm drops from her shoulders.

“I want to be somebody to someone.”

She pauses and gazes at the thin bead of light perched on the edge of the velvet curtain over the window.

“And I want everyone else to leave me alone.”

63

T
HE RAIN TURNS TO SUNLIGHT AND THE SUN SITS UPON THE
earth like a blacksmith’s anvil, pounding everything to the consistency of iron. There doesn’t seem to be a drop of moisture in the air, the sky gleams without a cloud, and even the grass begins to crumble beneath our feet.

The women shed their heavy velvets like snakeskins, opting for silks and damasks, but we still sweat through the light-colored fabrics, chemise, petticoat, kirtle, bodice, gown, and sleeves weighing us down.

I receive a summons.

To see my father.

I try to move serenely through the donjon and down the stairs into the hall. The palace is stiflingly hot and the galleries are haunted by the smell from the river, suffocating and steamy. I may never complain about the rain again.

The palace is quiet and uncrowded, so Father has claimed a double room, with bed, closet, and outer chamber—the latter perfect for meeting with recalcitrant children.

I curtsy when I enter, reminding myself of Thomas’s words.
I am clever. I am more. I am loved.

The last thought helps me smile as I rise to look at him.

“Daughter.”

“Father.”

“You come to me at a very busy time. Very busy. I suppose you want money. What do you need, girl?”

With that one word—
girl—
he used to be able to render me small and useless. But I am worth more than that now.

“Father, you summoned me.”

I no longer want to control my verbal flux. I want to beat him with it.

Father glares at me from under the ridge of his brow, barely taking the time to look up from his correspondence.

“If that’s the way you want to play this, Anne, that’s the way we’ll play. I know what’s going on. I know about your activities.”

“From George?”

“From everyone.”

The silence grows and fills the room.

“Speak!” he barks. “I have other things to worry about. The king is quarrelsome and petulant about the money I’m to collect for his war. Your brother is making a name for himself as a rake. Your sister is about as much use as a decrepit breeding mare. And you”—he points at me—“have yet to earn your keep.”

I don’t say,
One day you will have to earn yours.
I don’t say,
One day you will be a decrepit old warhorse.
I hold my tongue. One day I will say these things, and more. One day, my words will matter. Even to him.

“What say you?”

“Maybe you should have married me off when you could.”

Father stops shuffling his papers. I have never spoken to him so directly. None of us has. He stands and walks slowly toward me, leonine. It takes everything I am not to run away.

“That would have cost me not only a dowry but also the earldom of Ormond. Don’t be disingenuous, Anne. It doesn’t suit you.”

I press my lips together and stay silent. My father is playing with me. And I’m still learning the rules of the game.

“However, you have somehow managed to become the delight of the court. At least certain members of it.”

“How do you know that?” I ask, my voice rising again and my color with it.

“So it’s true, then.”

He didn’t know. It was a bluff. It’s all a game to him. A risky one. One with high stakes. But a game nonetheless. My feelings, desires, and words count nothing to him.

“Your silence is encouraging,” he breathes. I feel it on my face. The words smell like pewter. “Well done.”

And then my father smiles at me. A smile I haven’t seen since I was six years old and began speaking French better than George. A fist of pain clenches in my chest when I smile back. His minimal praise warms something long-concealed inside me. I still
want
to be the one he admires. The one he loves. The one to whom he wants to give everything.

And I hate myself for it.

He turns away abruptly, back to his desk. Lays just the fingers of his left hand upon it and looks over his shoulder to me.

“Did you know I’m to be made a viscount?”

I shake my head. Another elevation. My sister’s efforts made him a baron.

“Congratulations.”

“The king assures me it is because of my
continued
service to the crown.”

I don’t like the way he stresses the word
continued.
His first elevation to the peerage was a payment for the prostitution of his oldest daughter. Is this new one because of me? Is the quality of loyalty and service dependent on pandering?

“The Ormond earldom is also likely to be restored to its rightful inheritors.”

The Boleyns. I begin to feel I am fetching a high price. I’m not sure I want that on my head.

“The king asked that you attend the creation ceremony at Bridewell next month,” Father continues. “He would like to see you there.

“I have already ordered a new gown for you. Slashed with cloth of gold, as befits your status as the daughter of a viscount.”

For my father, the deal is already done. Signed, sealed, and delivered in a cloth-of-gold gift wrap.

Father shuffles his papers and brings out a little wooden box, decorated with the Boleyn bull, edged in gilt.

“For you, Daughter,” he says, and gives it to me. “Make me proud.” He strokes the newly acquired ermine collar of his doublet.

My hands shake as I open it. It is lined with crimson velvet.

With one finger, he pushes aside the folds of velvet to reveal a string of pearls—much like the one I gave to Jane. But this string carries a pendant. A gold
B
from which hang suspended three teardrop pearls.

“So you don’t forget where you came from.”

He walks back behind his desk, then turns to me with something almost like affection in his eyes.

“My clever girl.”

I look at the box and the jewel it contains, the fresh gleam of the gold. For once, I’m the prized possession of Thomas Boleyn. But my rise in value is dependent on the depreciation of my siblings.

“I may be clever, Father,” I tell him coldly, “but I am not yours.”

I curtsy and leave him there. I will make my own choice, whether or not it elevates my father.

Still, I fasten the chain around my neck. Because the Boleyns will stick together. I can never forget where I came from, whatever choice I make.

Bridewell Palace

1525