19th May, 1536
She sank to her knees, arranging her skirts neatly around her legs. She sure as hell wasn't about to die in creases.1126Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYNJtB14OKU
A blindfold was placed over her eyes and she saw nothing more but darkness. The breeze was cold against the bare skin at the back of her neck, and the fingers of one of her ladies made her flinch as they tucked a stray hair into her coif. She bit her tongue and with great effort brought herself under control.1126Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOHVjRsmQQO
She wasn't about to die trembling, either.
Prayers fell from her lips as she prepared for the strike that would cleave her head from her shoulders. She steadied herself by laying her hands on the edge of the block. Her slender fingers gently caressed the age-worn block of wood that, if she could see, she knew would be stained with the blood of hundreds of other that had knelt where she knelt now.
Blood hammered through her veins, and as she waited with baited breath, no blow came. She was waiting for the sudden blossoming of pain at the back of her neck, but found that it didn't come. Surely executions didn't usually take this long?1126Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnVXfDM4Xo
“Halt!” A voice called. It was a man’s voice, deep and out of breath. He was hurrying up the steps now - she could feel the wooden boards beneath her shake as his feet pounded up to the scaffold - and with numb fingers, Anne gripped the block to keep from fainting.
The executioner had been told to halt, but how long for? That was the question. As Anne mused, she heard the clearing of a throat and the unrolling of a piece of parchment from beside her.
“By order of his majesty, King Henry VIII of England, Ireland and France, mistress Anne Boleyn is to be pardoned of the offences committed by her against our sovereign lord. She is to receive the king's almighty grace and will leave the Tower as soon as the king permits.” The hurried man declared. His voice was loud enough to carry through the grounds of the Tower, but Anne couldn't help but think she'd misheard. She wanted to rise from her feet, to untie the blindfold, but found that she was frozen. It wasn't until she felt a cloak thrown round her shoulders, the blindfold untied, and her ladies helping her to her feet that she dared to hope.
“Am I to return to the King?” She asked, voice trembling but a little, holding her head - the one that moments before was to be separated from her shoulders - high.
The Yeoman of the Guard scoffed. “No, ma’am,” he said incredulously. “I am told that you are to be stripped of your titles, save that of the Marquess of Pembroke. You will retire from court immediately and, thanks to the king's generous spirit and kind heart, spend the rest of your days at an estate in the country.”
Anne turned her back on the waiting crowd. She was sure that later she would be furious. She was certain that once her heart stopped racing and she could breathe normally again that she would be apoplectic with rage and determined to win back her crown, but as she looked round the scaffold, her eyes landed on a wooden box lined with fabric.1126Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEDCLoCzagW
She realised it was supposed to have been her coffin - though it looked like a bloody arrow chest - and that the king had honestly meant to have her killed, and as Anne looked at the swordsman sheathing his blade, her stomach turned.1126Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZDr5P9g216
In the crowd she saw the surprise on the features of Charles Brandon. Even Henry's closest friend hadn't known he would spare her.
The harshness of it all almost broke her. She had prided herself on her strength, on never wavering, even when the blindfold was put over her eyes. But now, as she looked at the disappointment on the faces of the crowd, she felt her eyes begin to fill, and bit hard on her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
She was led back to her rooms in the Tower, where she was shown to her chair and presented with a glass of watered down wine. She held the bronze goblet stiffly and remained immobile. She could hardly lift her arm to bring the goblet to her lips.
Gazing at the sky out of the window, she remembered how only two days ago Henry had demanded that she stand at that window and watch as her brother lost his head. In her mind she saw George, speaking words she would never hear, as he took his last breaths before the axe came down on him. Why had she been spared, and George not? The unfairness of it all stung like salt in a fresh wound.
A brisk knock broke her from her thoughts. Instinctively she retreated within herself as the bitter memory of her arrest came flooding back to her. With eyes like a deer before it's struck by an arrow, her hands began to tremble. It was all too fresh, the memory of heavy boots and hands gripping her arms like vices escorting her to the Tower through Traitor's Gate. She remembered the coldness of the trial, the betrayal that pierced her heart like ice as her own uncle declared her guilty and sentenced her to die.
One of Anne’s ladies scurried to the door and upon opening it stepped aside to let in their visitor. She bowed, and for half a second Anne expected to see the king entering. It wasn't Henry, and Anne couldn't tell if the sinking feeling in her gut was one of disappointment or relief.
“My lady.” He said as he strode into the room. He sat in the seat opposite Anne, taking the goblet of wine her lady in waiting presented him with gratefully.
“Cromwell.” Anne said curtly. He was here on business, she noted, looking at the leather case he had with him. He immediately began searching through this case with leather-gloved hands, shuffling his papers and murmuring under his breath.
Thomas Cromwell was the king's right hand man. The son of a blacksmith, he had been raised high by those the very likes of Anne. He was clever and calculating, with narrow eyes and a round face and there was a time, so long ago, when Anne had once liked the man.
He had been the one to cook up the charges against her, she was sure of it. Of course she'd never had affairs with the likes of the bloody commoner Mark Smeaton, not when it had taken her so long to win her crown. But, she supposed, Henry had decided he wanted another, and all it had taken was a word to Cromwell and there Anne was, kneeling on the scaffold waiting for her death.
She glared at his round, weather worn face and dark hair under a velvet cap and cursed his name. He glanced up momentarily, with piercing eyes that seemed to see right through to her soul. Despite her instincts, she shrank back into herself. She was vulnerable, and now was not the time to piss off Thomas Cromwell.
“The king shall afford you a small pension.” He said calmly, passing her the parchment he had fished out of his case. Removing his leather gloves, he pulled at each fine finger until his hands were free. He rearranged the glittering rings - too many for the son of a blacksmith, thought Anne - on each of his fingers.
What he had given her told her that Henry had annulled their marriage on the grounds of adultery - she bit back a scathing comment - and she was now to go to Pembroke. Everything else on the page was menial. She read the whole thing twice, but noted one glaring omission.
“My daughter?”
“A bastard.” Cromwell said simply. She could have sworn he almost shrugged.
“That is of no matter. Not at the present. Can I see her?” She said, waving her hand in dismissal. That Elizabeth was a bastard meant nothing. Oh, she was sure it would mean something, when she had her fire back and she had fully recovered from her ordeal. But at this very moment, it meant nothing. All she wanted was her baby girl with her hair like fire and eyes like storms over the ocean.
Cromwell raised an eyebrow, “I do not think the king-“
“Why should he care? She is a bastard!” Anne cried painfully. Her composure slipped, and for a moment her hands shook and her eyes grew wide and sorrowful.
“Your sister is to take her to the country and raise her until she is of a fitting age. She will then come to court and serve as lady in waiting to the Queen.”
“The Queen?” Anne spat, her tone venomous. Like a snake she had managed to writhe her way into the King’s heart. It stung to find her hard work undone so easily.
“The King is to marry Jane Seymour.” Cromwell said evenly.
Cromwell could be a cold man, but he took no pleasure in the pained expression that briefly flashed across Anne’s features. What he did revel in was that at last, at long last, it was his hands that held the balance of power between them.
Ah, thought Thomas Cromwell, how fortunes change.
“When?” Anne asked, taking great effort to mask her bitterness.
“Before the week is out, I would imagine. Before the end of the month, at the latest.” He said calmly.
Anne nodded neutrally. It took all she had to keep her face blank, to keep her composure and to bite her tongue. She hoped he didn't notice that her knuckles had turned white from balling her fists, and she hoped that when he went to the king and reported every small detail, he said that she was a hard, emotionless bitch.
Cromwell noted that she had nothing else to say and, affording her the small mercy of privacy, began putting back on his riding gloves.
“Cromwell,” Anne asked when Cromwell rose and turned to the door. “Will you speak to Henry? Will you ask him to let me see my daughter?”
She was too far above pleading, he knew that, but he sensed the desperation in her request, even if it was not written plainly on her features.
He said nothing, and his face betrayed no glimmer of emotion. He turned his back to her, and her temper lit like a match against dry firewood. Her expression darkened. Although she was no longer queen, she had still her ferocity. A tiger remains a tiger, despite the clipping of its claws.
"You would do well to remember Cromwell, that I helped raise you. I can bring you down just as easily."
Cromwell gave a small, placid smile. Her threats were useless and empty, but her determination won his attention. He admitted to himself that he did owe her much, and he nodded stiffly.
“I shall speak to His Majesty.” He said simply.
Anne nodded and bid him farewell, knowing she could ask for no more.
She watched him leave the grounds of the Tower from the window - the window she watched her brother die from - and breathed deeply. Cromwell would regret it, she swore.
“We shall begin packing. I imagine we shall be shipped off to Pembrokeshire tomorrow.” She announced to her ladies. They dutifully nodded, and began opening chests and folding dresses.
"He'll regret this." She muttered darkly.
"Who?" Bess Holland asked tentatively. Bess was the mistress of Anne's uncle, and as she folded away a dark purple gown, she noticed her mistress' hands holding so tightly onto the parchment Cromwell had given her that her that it was almost tearing. In one fluid movement, Bess had taken the parchment and took Anne's hand in her own.
"All of them." Anne replied almost silently. Her voice was scratchy, weighed down with a thousand tears she refused to shed. Her face had turned a deathly pale, and her eyes were fixed on a crow in the grounds of the Tower, hopping on the gravel. She barely blinked, standing motionless as Bess straightened her necklace with the golden 'B' and brushed dust from the sleeves of her gown like a mother.
“And your daughter ma’am? What about Elizabeth?” Bess said softly, tucking a stray hair behind Anne's ear.
Anne smiled numbly, looking down at the small portrait she had of her daughter encased in the silver locket she had taken out of her bodice. She had hidden it in there before she went to the scaffold, determined that at the very least she would carry a memory of her daughter to the grave.
“Elizabeth?” She said softly. An air of sheer determination and defiance devoured her tone, replacing the cold and empty shell that had been present only seconds before. "Elizabeth shall be Queen.”
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