• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Mistress Boleyn,” I said loudly, and she turned.

What had I expected? I knew she was not like her sister Mary, yet I was ill prepared for this dark wraith.

She looked at me with wide eyes, great black eyes, child’s eyes. “Your Majesty,” she gasped, then swooped to the ground like the brushing of a butterfly’s wing. All I could see for a moment was the top of that black head, a gleaming part in the middle. As she rose, the wind caught her hair and for an instant her face disappeared, like a pale spring moon covered by fast-moving clouds.

Then s"1emn?

But I knew what he had meant. He feared and revered the Cardinal above his King. How many other people in the realm felt likewise?

It was already dark as we mounted for our long ride back to London. We would not reach Westminster until well past midnight. As soon as they were out of eyesight of the Viscount, my companions, having assured him that they were not in the least hungry, dug into the linen-wrapped food parcels the royal cooks had prepared in the morning for them. They ate ravenously as we rode along.

I should have been hungry, but I was not. The moon, in its last quarter, did not rise until we approached the outskirts of London. Even then I was neither hungry nor tired, but strangely filled with energy and purpose. The rising moon illuminated the sleeping city, and from a distance I thought there could be no fairer city, no more fortunate ruler, no more blessed land.

Anne was coming to court!

And once there, she would become my mistress—no, my lover, for “mistress” was too circumscribed, too curtailed. My lover, my confidante, my soul-mate. Yes, my soul-mate. My soul, alone too long, needed this fellow wanderer. Together we would make a whole. And, wandering stars no more, joined, blaze through the sky....

How can I explain it? There was something in her which drew me, as if lying on her breast I would know everything in life I desired to, and the unopened door would open for me....

At base it is inexplicable. Something deep within Anne called to something deep within me. And the calling was powerful; nay, undeniable.

XXXIV

In a fortnight I must go and make my progress about the home shires. And then, when I returned, Anne would be waiting for me, having by that time settled herself at court. Knowing this made each day of the progress (normally so satisfying for me) something that only served to bring me one day closer to my goal, my desire....

But when I returned, and made my customary call on Katherine, I was disappointed to find no hint of Anne’s presence among her attendants.

“I had assigned a new maid of honour to your entourage,” I said when we were at last alone. “Mistress Anne Boleyn.”

Katherine wheeled around and faced me. “Yes. After the other—”

“She is nothing like her sister,” I informed her quickly—too quickly.

Katherine, clad all in black, raised her eyes to heaven. “God be thanked for that.”

“Mistress Anne is chaste, and very concerned with matters of learning.” “You seem well acquainted with the lady. Is she to be your next mistress?” Katherine cried. Her whole body shook in the noonday light. Part of me wished to take her in my arms and comfort her; another part was repelled by her.

“I do not wish to cause you discomfort,” I said. “I merely enquired as to whether she had come to—”

“I will not permit it!” she shrieked, and came at me—slowly, in light of her d width="1em">“Of course not!” I pushed her back with one hand, summoning all the outrage I could find within myself. “Wife, you forget yourself. I have no mistresses, nor have had for some three years past. I have no wish for mistresses —and if I had, it would not be Boleyn’s scrawny younger daughter, fresh from the French court!”

Katherine drew herself up. “Of course not,” she agreed.

She is true royalty, I found myself thinking of Katherine in admiration. “Mistress Anne is nothing to excite any man’s imagination,” I sneered.

Yet she excited mine. Even as I exited from the Queen’s inner chambers, I looked for Anne.