1536
"Henry!" She called.
She was in the gardens, and she had seen him across the shrubbery. He was still a distance away, and the moment he saw her he turned to leave. Seizing her only chance, she began to run after him, her slender legs carrying her as fast as her painful, pointed shoes would allow. She carried Elizabeth in her arms, hoping the presence of his daughter would remind Henry of all that had transpired between them.
Henry turned his head and continued walking, oblivious to her cries. He carried on as though he could not hear her, as though her piercing screams were background music.
Anne was desperate, confused, and angry, and she had vowed she would make the king listen to her, no matter what it took.
She was under arrest, and she had no idea why.
There were guards on either side of her constantly, and she had no idea why.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLeITXtdpAH
"Henry! Henry, please!" She cried. "Your majesty!"
Anne fell to her knees, hitting the gravelled paths with a dull thud. She held Elizabeth's head to her chest and tears began to fall on her cheeks. Her skirts were in disarray about her, gathering mud and dust and she knew in the back of her mind they would have to be thrown out. She needed the king's attention, and she was not used to going without it.
Henry turned at last. His eyes grazed over her as she kneeled on the gravel, but instead of walking towards his wife and daughter and offering a hand, he blinked. His eyes were void of emotion, his lips neither turned downwards in a frown or upwards in a smile; he looked at Anne blankly, his gaze lingering on her kneeling form. He looked at Elizabeth and considered her.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqc4bbCyDNy
After an agonisingly slow minute, Henry blinked, inhaled and turned, carrying on walking as though she was a stranger. He left Anne sobbing on the gravel, tears on her cheeks and a pain in her chest that was equal parts heartbreak and agonising fear.
That was the last time Anne saw him.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwm1cNSIN0Y
The next morning she was shipped off to the Tower.
1526
His eyes were burning into the back of her skull. She could feel them on her as she danced, watching her as her hand twinned with that of her brother.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf4I78GTqnn
When George spun her around, she lifted her eyes up to the grand table at the top of the hall. Sure enough, when she looked at the centre and saw the figure sitting in the tallest chair, her dark eyes met his blue.
The king had noticed her.
As she glanced around the hall, she noticed that others had noticed, too. There were whispers behind cupped hands, quick, sharp glances darting between the king and Anne, and then pitifully landing on poor Queen Katherine.
Katherine turned to her husband, and studied him as he watched her. Katherine blinked several times and attempted to engage her husband in conversation. Over the volume of the minstrel's music, the king did not hear her. Or rather, he pretended not to hear her, as he focussed all of his attention on the pretty young girl dancing before him.
Anne giggled under her breath.
"Mary will kill you." George said with a laugh. He paraded his sister on his arm like a fine piece of jewellery; the most coveted girl at Henry's court - and he was related to her.
Anne threw her head back in laughter as she turned and swapped the hand George was holding.
"Mary is off somewhere bearing the king's child. She can hardly be jealous."
George scoffed.
"My sweet little sister... of course she'll be jealous. She'll have your head!" He said with a grand cascade of laughter. Anne laughed too, flashing a smile at the king.
"Oh George, do you really think I will allow myself to become the king's strumpet?" She said with raised eyebrows. "Any man that wishes to have me will have to marry me!"
"Only one small problem, sis," George said, drawing closer and whispering in her ear. "The king is already married."
Anne smiled deviously.
"I never said I wanted him to be the one to marry me...." She paused. "But I don't see how it can hurt to have him... chase me for a while." She said, her eyes glinting in the candlelight. George roared with laughter.
"You will allow the king to covet you, to lust for you, to give you titles and gifts... all whilst withholding from him the thing he wants most?"
Anne nodded sweetly.
"Exactly, brother." She grinned. "And then Mary will come back and take up her residence in his bed again and I shall find myself married to a wealthy earl or a duke without ever having to sacrifice anything." She blinked innocently, a smile on her lips.
George raised his eyebrows, nodding slowly.
"You, my dear sister, are a devious vixen." He said lightly.
Anne shrugged.
"If it gets me what I want, George..." She said, trailing off. Her eyes wandered again to the dais where the king sat.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7lNNy0HbE
As the music slowed and the dance finished, she faced the king and curtseyed as lowly as she could, keeping her eyes fixed upon his the entire time.
She felt a thrill rise in her when he winked at her before downing the contents of his goblet in one.
"Lady Anne," He said casually, leaning against a tapestry-covered wall. He was tall and slim, athletic and healthy. His hands were slender and strong, decorated with jewels of every colour. His hair was like a fire as wild and untameable as his personality. They said he was the most handsome king in all of Europe, and Anne thought they must have been right.
"Your majesty," She replied, sinking into a curtsey.
He placed one of his bejewelled hands under her chin, lifting her head until she was looking him in the eye. The gold bands of his rings were cold on her skin, but his touch was gentle.
"You are so very different from your sister." He said curiously. His head was tilted to one side, like a child asking questions. "She is so very fair, but you..." He said, considering her. He had not removed his hand from underneath her chin, and she was still on her knees. "You are dark. You remind me of the sea and she the sky."
"Your majesty?" She asked.
"Mary is... reliable. Steady as the sky. Stormy occasionally, but her tempers blow over eventually." He said. Anne laughed at this, and Henry smiled. "You are like the sea. I cannot quite figure you out, Anne Boleyn. Dark and stormy, changeable as the tides."
"And does your majesty think this a good thing?" She asked, her eyes shining.
Henry laughed.
"The truth is, my lady, I have been trying to ask myself the very same question and am struggling to find the answer. Perhaps if you visited my chamber tonight, it would help your king work it out." He said with a grin.
Anne's smile dropped, and as it did so did the king's hand from beneath her face. She took the opportunity to rise slowly to her feet.
"Your majesty, I do not think I can oblige." She said softly, but firmly. Henry's eyes flashed; he was not used to being refused.
"I apologise, my lord, but I must ask your permission to leave." She said, blinking and casting her eyes downward in a display of modesty. Henry, taken aback, nodded.
As she turned to leave, she did not raise her eyes to look at his again.
Once she had turned, she raised her eyes and straightened her shoulders, a conspirators smile playing on her lips.
Her plan was working.
1541
Anne woke up in a sweat.
That night she had been plagued by exceptionally bad dreams, and all she wanted was someone to be there in the darkness, waiting to comfort her. It stung that there was none but an empty space beside her. She had woken shaking - as she had on so many nights since her imprisonment - and her dreams had been haunted by the memory of the block beneath her hands, the feel of the cold steel on the nape of her neck as the swordsman gently touched it to her skin before swinging backwards ready to strike. Only in her dreams she languished in the tower forever. In her dreams the king's men didn't come to set her free, they came to take her back to a filthy dungeon.
She had seen Mark Smeaton, carried up to the scaffold since he could no longer use his legs - they had tortured a false confession out of him - and the axeman take his head. She had seen Henry Norris, and in her dream he had looked up at the window where she stood watching, and he had spoken to her. Despite the distance and the panes of glass between them, she heard his words with startling clarity.
"This is your doing." He said before kneeling. Even as the axe came down, his eyes were fixed on hers. She could still feel the hard grip of the king's men, keeping her standing at the window, refusing to let her turn her head. Henry had made sure she had watched every agonising second, and even now she saw the scenes from that window in her dreams.
She rose from her bed and lit a candle. Sitting at her writing table, she pulled out some paper and began to write, putting down onto paper plans she had been thinking about for some time.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuutBTFv6ZA
She had always been so good at planning, at getting her own way, and now she had realised that she had been too fixated for too long on living and staying alive, and had spent too much time simply getting by. She'd always sworn she'd have her revenge, and well, now was the time to take it.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3my1qPtMdf
Mary, she wrote.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfNHrCGVRxo
Come and see me as soon as you can. I have things I want to discuss with you, and they cannot be committed to paper.
She put down the quill and folded the letter, but just before she added the wax seal, she added:
Burn after reading.
Anne had a plan, a scheme to get Elizabeth to the throne. At last she felt like she was doing something, and now all she had to do was get to Mary, Thomas Wyatt and, perhaps strangely, Gregory Cromwell.
The first two would be easy, but the latter... Anne's plans rested entirely on Gregory Cromwell's compliance, but how much the son of her former enemy would be willing to help her was up for debate.771Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrOQl1OOf6x
All she could do was cross her fingers and hope and pray that Gregory felt more contempt for the king than he did for herself.
