The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [105]
She spun round. “Indeed it is. For no man will tell you the truth. All seek their own advancement, all come to drink as a horse from the trough. And slobber beforehand.”
I winced. “Anne. Be a little kind.”
“Never! As they were not kind to me!”
“I was.”
“At times.” She resumed her walking. “Yet, like all men, you will have both. Trinkets and love-tokens for me, and ceremonial appearances with Katherine. Two wives. I wonder that you do not turn Turk and acquire two others. The Islamic law permits four, so I believe.”
I felt anger rising in me. “By Our Lady, Anne! You do push me too far!”
She stood still, at last. In the firelight she looked like a statue; the folds of her gown fell in carved lines. Then she spoke again. “Too far? You who have had women for over twenty years? All sorts—from the pious Katherine to my honeycombed sister, Mary? And I a virgin?” She then moved, came closer. “You sent away the boy I loved, before I was even twenty. And what have you offered me in return? Nothing. Nothing but waiting—and vituperation.”
“I offer you myself—and the throne.”
“In what order?” Her harsh laughter rang out. I hated her laugh. Then she turned again, and I saw her face by firelight and forgot all else.
“I cannot make you Queen before we are married,” I said. “Cranmer will marry us. But until he is empowered by the Pope, his words and ceremony mean nothing. Worse, they will taint our cause. It is only a little time more. We must be patin advancem since I first came to court! And now they are already judged passé! How much longer? How much longer?”
“But a few months, sweetheart.” I hoped to soothe her.
“A few months! A few years! A few decades!” She looked ugly, her mouth twisted abnormally.
“This is unseemly,” I said. “A Queen must not behave so.”
She stopped and pulled herself up. “Yes. A Queen must be patient and long-suffering. Like Katherine. Wait ten years for a betrothal. Wait another seven for a marriage. And then wait another six while the King plays himself out with his paramour ... the latest in a long list.”
“Anne—this is unfair. You know that the others—”
“Were as nothing to you? Why, then, did you bother with them?”
“I cannot—”
“Answer that? Nay, you will not!”
She tossed that long heavy hair and smirked at me. Anger mastered me, made me its slave.
“I will answer what I please!” I reached forward and grasped her shoulders. They were thin things; I could feel the bone right through the flesh. I expected her to wince; she did not.
“I have jeopardized my kingdom for you! Alienated myself from the ruling order of things in this world, made an enemy of the Pope, the Emperor, and my beloved daughter—what else can I do to prove to you that you are supreme in my life?” She still kept that aloof, smug expression on her face, until it finally drove me into a fury. “And yet you will not give me the simplest gift—the gift any milkmaid gives her lover. And all the while you wear the royal jewels!”
I reached over and with one adroit movement ripped the jewels from her neck. I did not bother with a clasp, and the string broke; I heard some stones glancing off the floor. Anne’s hands flew to her neck; a thin red welt was already appearing where I had snapped the cord. She was outraged. Her eyes followed the bouncing, freed jewels onto the carpet. Already she was marking the place where they might have fallen.
“Such wanton destruction betokens immaturity,” she said, gathering up the pearls and rubies hastily. Soon she stood to her full height, her hands brimming with precious stones. I took each of her hands and pried them open, spilling the gems and pearls.
“Such haste betokens greed,” I said.
She looked back at me. She was as beautiful as ever, but somehow I now both hated and wanted her.
“You shall hold me in your hands no longer,” I heard myself saying, and suddenly it was true. I reached out for her and kissed her. She resisted for an instant, but then suddenly flung her arms around me hungrily.
Never had she inflamed me so. I knew that tonight—this bleak October night in France—was the