England, 1529
"In a net I seek to hold the wind..." He murmured, his lips almost motionless against the gentle summer breeze. He tapped his quill idly on the scrap of paper he had torn from a notebook, musing over the words he was trying to commit to paper. She was the wind; as changing and as forceful as the wind and as much as he knew it was folly to chase her, he found himself always at her heels. She influenced him like the moon over the waves, and he was helpless to her charms.
He glanced up from where he sat underneath the shade of the tree. He could see her, walking through the grounds of the palace. Her back was straight with determination, her head held high with all the practiced grace of a noble lady. Each footstep she took was light enough that it barely seemed to touch the grass under her slender feet, and as she almost glided by, the folds of her dress caressed the ground. A winning smile lit up her features as she glanced him underneath the leaves of the tree, lounging against its trunk.
"Thomas!" She called. She lifted her skirts and closed the distance between them with a run. When she had reached the shade of the leaves, she offered him her hand.
"It would be rude of you to let a lady walk in the garden alone." She said with a smile, her eyes burning bright like the embers of a dying flame. Thomas considered it, studying the pale palm that was turned upwards towards him. If he took her hand now, if he accompanied her across the grounds... he knew in his heart that she would find to burrow deeper into his very soul, and he had spent so long trying to push her out. He was hopelessly in love with her. But it was clear now that she was the king's, and so she would never - could never - be anything but his dear childhood friend. 579Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZpKq1sn1RE
It was like a knife twisting in his gut; her every movement, every touch, every breath seemed like heaven on earth, but after the brief rush of bliss came the sorrow and the pain, the realisation that she was so close and yet still inconceivably out of his reach.579Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlnrEXnn7qJ
Every time he was within an inch of her, he felt his heartbeat race and his insides grow weak. He tried to resist, but she overcame him every time - and she wasn't even aware of it.
"I must refuse you, Anne. I believe I see the king approaching." He said, casting his eyes downwards to the page. Glancing at the number of men approaching dressed in the king's livery, Anne withdrew her hand. She smiled softly - almost sadly - and nodded. Straightening her skirts, she leaned towards Thomas and for the briefest of moments her lips touched his cheek.
His skin seemed to burn under her touch, and then the flame seemed to spread until it had consumed his entire body. Under the shade of the tree, the king would not see his unofficial mistress pressing a kiss to the sunburned skin of a lovesick poet. Anne would be safe to return to his dotings, to hang from his arm like a piece of exquisite jewellery. Indeed, as Thomas had studied her hand he had noticed a ring that had not been there before, shining of pure gold and rubies on her index finger. It must have been worth more than a small manor, but she wore it as though it were nothing. As though she deserved it. Like she was always destined for such grand occasions and extravagant gifts. It suited her, he thought, the regality of it all.
She would make a fine queen, he mused, for he knew that once the king's divorce had gone through Anne would wear a crown herself on that delicate brow of hers. And he would continue to serve her as though she were the queen of the world, for she had already been queen of his since the moment they had met.
She walked towards the king, and Thomas watched as she was presented with a box wrapped in cloth of gold fabric. He saw Anne sink to her knees in a curtsey, and he saw the king raise her by the hand up from the floor. He watched as she turned and allowed the king to fasten the necklace he had just gifted her around her slender neck. Even from this distance, he saw it shine in the sunlight.
He inhaled deeply as the blossoms from the leaves above sailed gently down around him. A single pink flower landed in his lap, and for a moment he considered tearing the petals off and scattering them about him in a pointless exercise of destruction. Then he thought the better of it, and placed the flower on the grass next to him. As sunlight streamed through the leaves and branches above him, he took up his quill once again.
"Graven with diamonds in letters plain, there is written, her fair neck round about, noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am." He wrote with a flourish. "Noli me tangere," he repeated, his words almost inaudible. "Touch me not, for Caesar's I am."
Across the lawns, he saw her with the king. He saw the woman he loved with the Caesar of England, and he rested his head against the trunk of the tree, his soul weary and his heart threatening to break.
A:N: This is based on a poem by Thomas Wyatt the elder that I'm currently studying for one of my units at uni. It's suspected that Wyatt either had a relationship with Anne Boleyn before she became involved with the king, or that even if there was no relationship, there was a feeling of love between the two. Caesar in the poem is a reference to Henry VIII, and the deer that he is hunting is supposed to be Anne Boleyn. The dating of 1529 is a guess; the poem 'Whoso List to Hunt' wasn't published till the 1550's, and in my notes I have that it was done between 1526-7. I've chosen to nudge it up the time scale just slightly so Wyatt's writing it at the time when he was still (possibly) in love with Anne Boleyn and her relationship with the king was on the brink of becoming really very serious - the king married her in 1533 (though three years later she had been executed).
ns 15.158.61.8da2
