I hold myself still. Tell myself I won’t react. Won’t respond. Won’t say a word.
Then I take a deep breath and turn on Lady Arundel.
“Two earls and a
prince
, your ladyship.”
She purses her already thin lips until they disappear. “And what right have you to an opinion,
Mistress
Boleyn? What right have you even to be here?”
I look at her, knowing I shouldn’t say what I’m about to.
“I received a personal invitation from the king.”
The words are just too sweet.
I look to the dais, where he sits. Where the little boy shines, the king is positively radiant. Dressed in red and gold, he is my memory made manifest, the embodiment of all I ever wished for. And I am here at his request.
The cardinal, Wolsey, stands on his right, the two dukes on his left. But he dwarfs them all. For the rest of the ceremony, its parade of pomp and cloth of gold, I can’t take my eyes off him.
Little Fitzroy is granted the title of his grandfather, Duke of Richmond, and the title of the Duke of Somerset, the earldom of which had belonged to the boy’s great-great-grandfather, himself the illegitimate son of royalty. Fitzroy’s grandfather became Henry VII. I’m sure the entire world wonders if this little boy will become Henry IX. Princess Mary is the king’s only legitimate child and therefore his heir. But these men don’t want a girl on the throne. Rumor has it that Queen Katherine has gone through the change and will now never have sons. So the court—and the king—may be seeking other options.
He needs a legitimate son. She can no longer have children. He has good reason to wish to replace the queen.
A commoner may marry a king.
I tell myself it’s impossible, but his words beat against the back of my mind like the tide:
what seems impossible is not always so
.
The list of elevations grows long, and the number of peers increases. The king honors each new peer with a word, a glance, a smile. Each man takes a turn as the center of attention, the heart around which the world revolves.
I allow myself to imagine, for a moment, what it might be like to be that heart forever.
Finally, my father stands before the king, kneels, and is given a blessing. Raised from nothing. The Boleyns, sons of merchants and mayors, commoners, but not common.
The king looks out at the crowd over my father’s head and finds me immediately, following the line of tension between us. It resonates through me. I cannot look away.
When the ceremony is over, the crowd spills out into the garden and courtyards, finally able to move and breathe. I find myself in the outer court, baking and breathless beneath the midday sun.
Face to face with the Duchess of Suffolk.
“You’re here,” she says, looking me up and down over the bridge of her nose. She knows. Somehow, she knows.
She holds a tiny boy by the hand. Her three-year-old son has been made the Earl of Lincoln today.
“Well?” she snaps. “Do you not honor the new earl?”
I curtsy to the little boy, who looks about to cry.
When I rise, I match the duchess’s level gaze.
“Only an earl, Your Grace?” I ask, delirious with the pleasure of watching her pout.
She flounces away, dragging the boy behind her, his thumb in his mouth.
The king and his son enter the courtyard. They greet the new peers one at a time, following courtly rules, following precedence. After each greeting, the king scans the crowd and finds me. Every time. Acknowledging me. Wanting me.
Fitzroy is starting to droop, his face flushed, his eyes heavy. But he maintains an air of strength and control, despite his age, despite the heat.
He might actually make a good king.
“Mistress Boleyn,” the king says, as his son arrives at my skirts. “May I introduce the Duke of Richmond and Somerset.”
I curtsy deeply, my head almost at the height of the boy himself.
“Your Grace,” I murmur, look into his face, and wink.
Little Henry Fitzroy grins back, and squinches up his face in an attempt to wink as well. Then we both giggle.
“Will you be attending the banquet and dancing later this evening?” the boy asks, standing to his full height, which is still just level with my midriff.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Will you do me the honor of a dance?”
I like this boy. Almost as much as his father.
“Yes, of course, Your Grace.”
He bows and I curtsy again. When I rise, I risk a glance at the king’s face. His smile creases deep into his cheeks, his eyes alive with it. The hum starts to throb within me, and I take a deep breath, catching a whiff of cloves.
“Dare I exploit your generosity by requesting a dance, as well?” the king asks. He watches my every move.
“It would be an honor, Your Majesty.”
He leans over his son so he can whisper to me out of the boy’s hearing. “The honor to touch you will be all mine.”
I am submersed in a premonition of that touch sparking like fireworks on my skin. I fall into a curtsy to hide my expression—or to hide from his. I rise when he moves on to show off his son to yet another group of courtiers. He turns once to look over his shoulder at me.
And to wink.
“You’ve done it, Anne.” George takes my arm, squeezes it, and swiftly kisses my cheek. “You are the clever one.”
I look at him over my shoulder. I don’t smell wine on his breath.
“Aren’t you lucky to be related to me, then?”
He grins, but there is sadness in the corners of his eyes.
“I always have been, Sister.”
“As have I.”
The white flags are raised. For now.
“I have something for you.”
“A gift?”
“Yes, but not from me. Even I don’t change that quickly.”
He presses a little package into my hand.
“It’s from Wyatt.”
I look away, across the courtyard to where the glass shines flat like eyes.
“I almost didn’t give it to you.”
When I turn back to him, George seems vulnerable, beseeching.
“I hope I did the right thing.”
I nod, but cannot answer.
I find a corner beneath the all-seeing windows and open the parchment. Inside is my jewel, the bright golden
A
, the single pearl. The ribbon is gone. Instead, around it is a poem:
Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind!
But as for me, alas! I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written, her fair neck round about:
“Noli me tangere; for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
I look for him, to tell him I am no one’s but mine. Not his. Not Caesar’s. I look to argue with him. To kiss him. To run away with him.
But he’s nowhere to be seen.
He left me.
My palms begin to sweat and I have to grip the paper between my fingers to keep them still.
No.
I fold the poem deliberately, paying careful attention to every crease until my heart resumes a steady beat.
He let me go.
A trumpet blasts. The king stands at the bottom of the processional stair, his son beside him. The entire court descends into a hot, heavy hush.
“Please accompany me into the great hall,” he says. “We will celebrate this day with feasting.” His eyes find me. “And dancing.”
The crowd murmurs, a sound heavier than the buzzing of bees in the roses.
He extends his hand to the queen but watches me all the while.
Queen Katherine cannot begin to smile. She refuses to look the little duke in the eye when she passes him. She is here under duress.
Owned.
By him.
I hesitate, watching the guests scramble to queue according to precedence. None of them notices when the king winks at me again.
“Come, Sister.” George is at my side, offering his hand. “Shall we embark on the future?” In his face, I see a glimmer of my childhood familiar. The one who challenged me to climb the highest, because he knew I could.
I look once more around the emptying courtyard. The shadows from the palace walls have just begun to nip at our feet. I step away from them and slip the poem and my jewel into the little pocket at my waist.
“Together,” I say.
Hand in hand, we climb the processional stair, rising in the celebratory uproar of a capricious court. As we enter the palace, we are blinded by the ascent from sunshine into darkness.
Author’s Note
A considerable amount of research goes into any work of historical fiction, and I am indebted to the writings of the multitude of historians who devote their time and their passion to discovering the truths of history and making the past come alive in the retelling. Particular thanks are due here to Julia Fox, Antonia Fraser, Eric Ives, David Loades, Claire Ridgway, Nicola Shulman, David Starkey, Simon Thurley, Retha Warnicke, Alison Weir, and Josephine Wilkinson.
The facts about Anne Boleyn’s early life are sketchy at best. There isn’t consensus among historians even about the year of her birth. Strong evidence presented by Hugh Paget in 1981 suggests that she was born in 1500 or 1501. Most modern historians accept this date. However, a marginal comment in a seventeenth-century biography of Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I, suggests Anne was born in 1507. This theory is supported in detail by Retha Warnicke in her biography
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn
. Because I wanted to write a book about a teenage girl who returns to a “home” that is patently not her own, I chose the latter date. I don’t necessarily think it is more likely, but it serves my purpose best. I am, after all, a writer of fiction. Though I am committed to historical accuracy in my novels, to me, the story matters most, and I will leave the debate to the experts.
We know that Anne participated in the pageant of
The Château Vert
at Shrovetide in 1522, performing the part of Perseverance—a name that ultimately describes her well. I suggest that Anne is sent to Hever in disgrace after the pageant, but because she disappears from the accurately dated historical record for a while, there is no evidence to support or contradict this.
There is evidence that Anne formed an attachment to Henry Percy, the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, during the spring of 1523. In fact, Percy was interrogated twice about this relationship—it would have been an impediment to Henry and Anne’s marriage, but it also might have provided grounds for divorce when things went sour. Both times, Percy swore upon the Bible that there had been no precontract, no betrothal, no attachment. Do we believe him?
During the reign of Katherine of Aragon’s daughter, Mary I (who temporarily was made illegitimate when Henry declared his marriage to Katherine invalid and subsequently married Anne), several stories were written defaming Anne Boleyn as promiscuous and possibly a poisoner. One story involved Thomas Wyatt and a visit to Hever during which he spent the night in her bedroom. Another tells how Henry interrogated Wyatt, who admitted to a relationship with Anne, which the king told him to keep quiet. These stories could be hearsay—invented by Mary’s supporters, who would naturally want to depict Anne and her daughter, Elizabeth, negatively. I have my doubts about the truth of these stories—their intention was slander—but found the concept interesting.
Anne’s detractors also made much of any perceived physical imperfections. Though I don’t believe the myth that Anne had a sixth finger, I give a basis for the invention of one by creating a minor deformity caused by a childhood accident.
Thomas Wyatt’s grandson George wrote a biography of Anne Boleyn as a rebuttal of her detractors. In it, he describes an argument between the king and Wyatt over a game of bowls during which both men produced little trinkets belonging to Anne Boleyn. George Wyatt’s tale was written decades after Anne’s death and, again, the accuracy is questionable—it was probably passed to him verbally by Thomas himself. If my version is slightly different from his, couldn’t it be because a poet would want to present himself in the best possible light—and his rival in the worst?
No one knows the exact timing of the beginning of Henry’s interest in Anne. Some place it as early as
The Château Vert
in 1522. Others speculate that Henry’s displaying the motto “Declare I Dare Not” at a joust in 1526, proves that was the beginning. And still others trace it to 1527, when they think they can date his first love letters to her. David Starkey, in
Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
, suggested
The Castle of Loyalty
and Christmas 1524, and I have gone with that. I shortened the time line and slightly altered the chronicle of the pageant (which took place over several weeks) in order to preserve the pace of the story. The imagery of that Christmas and the creation ceremony the following summer captured my imagination.
I also took a little poetic license with the card game Anne plays with the men of the court. Primero is a complicated forerunner of poker, with four of a kind being the best hand. However, because of an intricate point-counting strategy, Anne winning with a hand of four kings was not a foregone conclusion, and despite the excellent hand, she still could have lost. I just couldn’t give up the delicious image of the four kings on the table signaling her victory.