The Secret: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (Tudor Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  ‘Good morning,’ she managed to say. He dropped her fingers and traced the outline of her jaw with his hand, and she turned her head to place a kiss in his palm. He groaned softly.

  ‘Shall I see you later, my love?’ He had taken her hand again, and was bending over it in a courtly display to mask his words.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she managed to breathe, before other people came up behind her wanting to pass, and she walked down into the tilt-yard and towards the platform to watch the jousting. Her ladies were already there, as was Henry, with her uncle, Suffolk, Cromwell and the hated Seymours round him. She silently curtseyed her greeting, Henry nodded coldly at her, and she took her seat.

  The knights came up to the platform to collect their favours, and as Henry’s injured leg didn’t allow him to take part this year, Anne gave her favour to George. As he had done years before in France, he kissed the blue silk ribbon she gave him, and tucked it next to his heart. Anne’s breath caught in her throat at the look in his eyes as his gaze met hers, and suddenly a memory flooded her mind. She remembered the time she had last been truly happy – the night before her coronation, when George had come to her and they had made love for hours on a bed of fine linen and lace.

  The knights returned to the stable yard, to learn the order of the jousts, and suddenly there was a commotion, and the palace guard entered the stable yard too. Tom Weston, Harry Norris and Will Brereton were ordered off their horses and escorted back into the palace and then to a barge on the river. George was made to accompany them.

  Anne rose in her seat and looked around in bewilderment. Henry stood up and without acknowledging her, walked away, accompanied by the Seymour brothers and Cromwell. Her uncle Norfolk, and Charles Brandon, Lord Suffolk approached her.

  ‘Madam, you must come with us.’ Anne looked at her uncle, confusion in her eyes.

  ‘Where are we going, Monseigneur?’ she asked, looking questioningly at her uncle, then up to Suffolk, who loomed over her.

  ‘The Tower, Madam.’ came the terse reply.

  Anne walked with them down to the jetty and boarded the barge, confused about why they were going to the Tower, why her brother and his friends had been taken from the joust. Neither her uncle nor Suffolk would answer her questions, and Anne looked towards the landing dock of the Tower, just within sight.

  Sir William Kingston, Keeper of the Tower, assisted her from the barge, but both Norfolk and Suffolk didn’t alight with her.

  ‘Sir William, why am I here?’ Anne looked up at the imposing structure, remembering her coronation.

  Sir William looked towards the barge, pulling away from the dock. He was astounded that Anne’s uncle hadn’t explained on the ride down river.

  ‘Did your uncle not explain, Your Highness?’

  ‘No,’ a little girl’s whisper.

  ‘You are to be tried for treason, my Lady. Plotting the death of the King.’

  The shadow just beyond Anne’s sight came rushing towards her. She fell to her knees on the landing dock and started to scream.

  Chapter 23 - 1536

  nne paced her chamber for hours, fingers twisting together, tears coursing down her pale face. Her attendants thought she might lose her mind, or die of sorrow. Her tears didn’t stop, and surely no-one could cry so much without dying of a broken heart, they thought. She paced throughout the night, not stopping to eat and hardly sleeping at all.

  Anne had been allowed four attendants in the Tower. The two chosen by her uncle were obviously there to spy on her, she thought, and she was allowed two of her own choosing. She had chosen Madge Shelton, whose mother Lady Anne was one of the spies Norfolk had sent. The other spy was the wife of the Constable of the Tower, Lady Kingston. Anne had also chosen little Meg, as she knew Meg would help where she could, and could smuggle messages out if necessary.

  Anne huddled in the window embrasure, looking out but trying not to see the scaffold they were building. She rubbed her fingers over the prayer book lying in her lap, and looked across at her attendants, sat in a circle near the other window, speaking quietly with their heads bowed towards their sewing. Lady Shelton, Lady Kingston and Madge were working on some embroidery, but dear Meg was patiently mending her shift.

  ‘Meg,’ Anne called softly, her voice hoarse and worn out with tears. Meg stood immediately and came towards her, an enquiring look on her pretty face.

  ‘Sit with me a moment, Meg. I want to give you something.’ Anne grasped her hand and brought her down to share the window seat.

  ‘My Lady?’ Meg was surprised Anne had asked her to sit, and wasn’t speaking to Madge Shelton.

  ‘When all this is over, Meg, I want you to go to Mary in the country and find yourself a husband who will love you forever.’ Her tears began to fall again, but Anne ignored them.

  ‘But, my Lady, I cannot bring a husband anything. I have no dowry.’ Meg was still confused about where this conversation was going. Anne removed the necklace she was wearing and pressed it into Meg’s hand. Meg gasped and pressed it back towards Anne.

  ‘My Lady, no. I can’t accept this.’

  Lady Kingston stood and looked across at Anne, ‘You cannot give away your jewellery, Lady Anne’. They had all been instructed not to call her Your Highness by Sir William, thought Anne, ‘It belongs to the Crown!’

  Anne narrowed her eyes and looked back at Lady Kingston, her voice becoming stronger in her irritation at these spies watching and listening all the time.

  ‘Lady Kingston, this necklace came with me from France. It was a gift from Queen Claude and as such, is mine to give away as I see fit.’ Lady Kingston coloured slightly and sat down again, head bowed.

  Anne pressed the gift into Meg’s hands again. ‘It is not so very valuable, Meg. The topaz and amber stones are only semi-precious, but the pearls are quite fine, and the gold itself will be worth a goodly sum. Sell it for your dowry and find a good husband. One who will not cast you off thus.’

  Meg looked at Anne with sympathy, and Anne continued, ‘I would have been happier in Northumberland, Meg, with Harry. Happier if the King had never noticed me.’

  ‘But surely the King did love you, my Lady. He cast off Queen Katharine for you, after all.’ Meg’s voice held a question that she did not dare ask.

  ‘I was a prize, Meg. A prize he had to win, as he had always won everything else in his life. No-one before me had ever told him he couldn’t have something, so he wanted me all the more because of it. He had Harry Percy sent away, he took England away from the Church of Rome, he changed the statutes and the law of the land, all so he could win me! And once I was won, he decided that perhaps I wasn’t quite what he had wanted in the first place, so he looks for another prize in my stead.’

  ‘And did you not love him, my Lady?’ Meg’s eyes were wide at her own temerity, asking such a question.

  ‘I have loved only one man in my whole life, Meg. And he could never be mine. Everyone else was just …….’ Tears prevented Anne from continuing.

  ‘Harry Percy,’ breathed Meg, mind whirling at her mistress being involved in such a doomed romance.

  Anne was crying too hard now to correct her.

  ***

  The Constable allowed Anne’s sister Mary to bring some gowns and linens from the palace, and visit her for an hour. They sat together in the tiny chapel just off the main chamber. Anne didn’t want this conversation overheard, and she needed honest information from Mary.

  Mary was trying her best to be dry-eyed, as she knew tears wouldn’t help Anne now. She didn’t say she thought nothing could help. The King was in Wiltshire with the Seymours, the court had been disbanded and arrangements were going forward for the trials to take place. Tom, Harry,
Will and Mark would be tried first, then Anne and finally George. That the timetable was thus had made a question in Mary’s mind – why was George last?

  ‘What are the charges?’ whispered Anne, her hands holding Mary’s hands tightly as they sat together.

  ‘Adultery.’

  Anne gasped. ‘With whom?’ Her eyes closed and her stomach clenched, waiting for Mary’s answer.

  ‘Mark Smeaton has confessed that you slept with him,’ Mary looked quickly at her sister and saw the genuine astonishment there. Anne snorted her contempt at the idea of that.

  ‘Anyone else?’ Anne breathed, the dark shadow over her shoulder coming nearer. She looked round the chapel as if expecting to see someone there. ‘He will have named others, to try and mitigate his own imagined sins.’

  ‘Tom Weston, Harry Norris and Will Brereton have all been arrested and charged. But Tom Wyatt was released.’ Mary still scrutinised Anne’s face as she recited the names of their friends, but she saw no guilt there, just amazement that they had been caught up in this madness. ‘They have also been charged with treason – plotting the death of the King.’ Anne was horrified.

  ‘They never …. We ….. It was a GAME!’ Anne’s tears had started again. ‘It was a game, Mary,’ she whispered, ‘Who would you marry if? That’s all. Just a foolish game to pass the time.’ She covered her face with her hands and tried to wipe her tears with the tips of her fingers. She looked at Mary and could tell by the expression in her eyes that there was more.

  ‘What else?’ her voice hard now. What could be worse than all her friends charged with treason and imprisoned here? Poor Madge, she thought suddenly. All this time waiting for Harry to propose and now they’re both here, because of her. And Tom Wyatt safe, but only because he was one of the few friends Henry had left. He wouldn’t kill all his friends, surely? But then Mary began to speak and thoughts of anything and anyone else left her mind.

  ‘Jane has accused George.’ The words were just a breath, as if speaking them louder somehow made it worse.

  ‘Jane? Which Jane?’ Anne’s voice broke slightly, and Mary’s brow furrowed and her lips began to twist as she tried not to cry. ‘Jane Rochford?’ Anne whispered hoarsely and Mary nodded mutely.

  ‘Accused George of what?’ Anne was bewildered. What did Jane have to do with all this? She knew her voice was rising and she tried to calm down, to listen properly, but her heart had begun to beat too quickly in her chest, and her stomach was knotting again.

  ‘Of incest!’ Anne looked at Mary blankly, shocked beyond speech at hearing the word spoken aloud. But the blush started on her neck and rose slowly up her cheeks until her face flamed to her hairline. Mary looked at her in horror.

  ‘Oh, Anne,’ when her breath returned and she could speak, ‘I knew you had someone. I just couldn’t decide who it could be. And then when I saw the baby, and saw how devastated you were, I knew that whoever it was, you were truly in love.’ Mary’s sympathy had started Anne’s tears again, and her own eyes started to blur once more.

  ‘How did Jane know?’ asked Anne. ‘We were so careful.’

  ‘She says she saw you kiss, with his tongue in your mouth and yours in his.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Anne was incensed. ‘We never kissed like that unless we were completely alone.’

  ‘But you can’t say that at your trial, Anne. You can’t admit to anything at your trial.’ Mary’s voice had taken on a worried tone. ‘Jane also saw him going in to your room, and heard him lock the door. She says he was in there a long time.’

  Anne cast her mind back, and realised the only time Jane saw, or thought she saw, something untoward was the morning George had helped her bathe. Her eyes again filled with tears at the memory.

  ‘That was the morning George told Henry that I was with child,’ she whispered. Mary looked at her sister and remembered the state Henry had left her in, and being sent for by George to take care of her when she woke. She sighed.

  ‘Your trial is in one week,’ Mary told her, ‘Uncle Norfolk will preside, alongside other Lords of the council.’ Anne blew out her breath at the mention of her uncle, knowing she wouldn’t find any mercy there. ‘Suffolk will be there, Sir William Courtenay, Sir Edward Pole, the Earl of Northumberland,’ her voice trailed off as Anne drew a sharp breath at that last name.

  ‘Harry Percy is to be my judge?’ she asked, ‘after all these years, and after he ran away and left me, rather than stand up and fight for me.’ Anne’s voice had taken on a note of hysteria now, and Mary took her hand again and tried to calm her.

  ‘You know he couldn’t fight his father, Wolsey and the King,’ Mary said quietly. ‘Henry had already decided he wanted you, and he told Wolsey to make sure there was no impediment to having you.’

  ‘He had my body, Mary. But he never had my heart, not once, even in the beginning.’ Anne bowed her head, shoulders drooping. ‘And now he doesn’t want me anymore, he fabricates charges of treason and adultery so he can cast me off for Plain Jane Seymour. An idiot without a brain in her head or an opinion of her own that hasn’t been passed on by her dreadful brothers.’ Anne’s spine straightened and her head came up. ‘I shall defend my friends at my trial,’ she said determinedly. ‘Henry might want to put me away to a nunnery, but Will and Tom and Harry don’t deserve this.’ She didn’t, couldn’t, mention George.

  A light tapping came on the door of the chapel, and they heard Lady Kingston’s voice.

  ‘You must go, Lady Stafford.’

  Anne clung to Mary’s hands. ‘Will you be allowed to visit George?’ she asked softly. Mary nodded, tears in her eyes again at the mention of her brother.

  ‘Would you give him a message for me? Only a brief one.’ Anne’s pleading whisper made Mary’s tears fall faster. ‘Would you tell him,’ Anne swallowed hard, and steadied her voice so Mary could understand her words, ‘Tell him I hold to our vow. Tell him ‘til my last night’. Will you remember that? ‘Til my last night’. Say it, so I know you’ll remember.’ Mary could hardly speak, but she sniffed loudly, and swallowed, and looked her sister in the eye, ‘Til your last night.’

  They clung together for a few moments more, both sobbing uncontrollably, then Anne led Mary back into the main chamber and said goodbye, her calm returning for a few moments in front of her uncle’s spies. They clasped their hands for another long moment, then Anne hugged her sister, whispering urgently.

  ‘You must go back to the country, Mary. Back to your children. Promise me, after today, you will go home. Do not come to the trial, and do not come here again. Go home, where you’ll be safe.’ Mary nodded, unable to speak. She looked at Anne as if to commit her image to memory and then said, ‘I will go to the country, Anne. I promise that, after my visit to our brother I will go to my children.’

  She turned and left the room, and Anne collapsed in a puddle of amber silk on the floor, sobbing as if her heart would break. The shadow came a little closer.

  ***

  ‘Oh, George.’ Mary could hardly speak when she saw her brother. He was lodged in the apartments, not the dungeon, but at her first glimpse of him, he had such a hopeless air about him, Mary’s heart broke for him a little more. Then, seeing her at the door, he unfolded himself from the chair at the writing table and stood, tall, gilded, himself once more, smiling towards her.

  Mary looked at him, trying to see him through Anne’s eyes, trying to see how her sister could have fallen in love with him so completely she would die for it, but although she could see how aesthetically attractive George was, with his broad shoulders and slender frame, green eyes and slight smile, to Mary he was still her younger brother. And he was going to die for it, too!

  ‘Mary! Lovely Mary.’ George swiftly came and swept her into a ti
ght embrace. ‘Have you seen Anne? His voice broke slightly as he said her name, she thought.

  ‘Yes, George,’ she whispered. ‘She told me’. He met her gaze evenly, a slight smile in his green eyes.

  ‘Told you? What did she tell you?’ his voice was quiet, but there was an urgency in his words, in his expression. Mary walked across to the bed and sank down, as if her legs would no longer hold her.

  ‘She told me a message for you.’ Mary couldn’t begin to tell George all that she knew, without being told. ‘Anne said “Til my last night”. Do you understand? Anne said you would.’

  George sat on the bed beside Mary, took her hand and began to inspect it. ‘Yes, Mary. I understand,’ he said quietly. ‘That was our vow to each other. Our wedding vow.’

  ‘Why, George?’ Mary looked down at his auburn head as he examined her fingers closely rather than meet her gaze.

  ‘She is my soul, Mary,’ he murmured. ‘She left for France when she was a little girl, my little sister. I liked her then. We understood each other. We wrote to each other all the time she was away.’ Mary recalled all the letters and poems George had sent to Anne while they were in France.

  ‘We thought alike, we liked the same things, then when I saw her at the joust, she had grown into a young lady, clad in a gown of blue silk. I was amazed. I thought she was so….. But she was still my sister. I had to listen to all my friends talk about her, how lovely she was, and I felt….’ he stopped abruptly.

  ‘Felt what, George?’ Mary asked quietly. His head came up and he looked her directly in the eye, green into blue.