Free Doomed Queen Anne by Carolyn Meyer

stumbled, tossing me into the mud. Later, as Nell dried my hair and laced me into a velvet-trimmed gown, I added further details of the mishap for the benefit of Lady Alice, Lady Honor and her cousin, and the other curious maids.
    The banquet that day was held in a pavilion erected by the host to accommodate the royal visitors and their court. The king seemed in fine fettle. When the last of the many dishes had been presented, tasted, and taken away. King Henry ordered servants to fetch his virginals, and for hours the king entertained us by playing and singing music of his own composition. I recognized the song my sister claimed he had written for her. Then he called for the dancing to commence.
    The host’s wife was King Henry’s first partner. And then, to my surprise, he chose me as his second. “Lady Anne,” he said as he grasped my hand, “I am told that you suffered a mishap today. I hope that you were not injured?” It was the first time I had danced with the king, the first time we had touched. His hand was warm; mine was trembling.
    “Only bruises to my pride, Your Majesty,” I replied as we moved easily through the rapid steps of a galliard.
    Four times that night the king returned to claim me as his partner—often enough to provoke whispers among the ladies, and, I hoped, the notice of my father. The dancing continued through the hours past midnight, until host and guests were in a state of exhaustion. Of the company, only two seemed tireless: I, exhilarated by the king’s attentions, and the king himself.
    The next morning King Henry was up at dawn, eager to go hawking. And then an extraordinary thing happened, of which we learned later. While following his hawk, the king attempted to vault over a stream. The wooden pole broke under the king’s weight, plunging him headfirst into mud so thick that he would have suffocated had it not been for the quick action of a friend. The friend was Tom Wyatt.
    Naturally, the king’s narrow escape was the talk of the banquet that evening, where King Henry celebrated his rescue, proposing toast after toast to the embarrassed poet.
    When the dancing began and the king once again sought me as his partner, I dared to twit him, turning back on him his words to me: “I am told that Your Majesty suffered a serious mishap today. I hope that you were not injured?”
    “Only bruises to my pride, Lady Anne,” King Henry replied. Then he added, quoting from Holy Scripture, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
    “Then certainly I am guilty of a haughty spirit,” I said, laughing.
    “That haughty spirit is the source of your great charm,” said the king, keeping hold of my hand far longer than the dance required.
    That night I was too excited to sleep. The game of love was in play.
    CHAPTER 6: The Game of Love, 1525-1526
    With the first cool days of autumn, the royal progress came to an end, the members of the court returned to their estates, and I went to Hever with my sister, who brought her little daughter, Catherine, to visit. When we were at court or on progress, I managed to keep my distance from Mary and her sly taunts, but at Hever there was no avoiding her. Mary and I passed the afternoon hours in the gardens, where little Catherine amused herself by creeping into the bushes and then toddling back, first to her mother and then to me, blossoms crushed in her fat little fists.
    As we rested in a sunny bower, sheltered from a chill breeze, sipping goblets of hippocras, our conversation found its way to King Henry, as it inevitably did.
    “The king seems somewhat downcast of late, have you noticed?” asked Mary.
    “I have not. He appeared both jovial and tireless on the royal progress, hunting all day and dancing half the night.”
    And surely , I thought, you noticed that he was dancing with me.
    “Do not be deceived by appearances. Will tells me that King Henry has much to trouble him. He has increased taxes to support his