Free The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn by Judith Arnopp

By the hearth, Grandmother is snoring gently, oblivious to my predicament. I could wish I were an old woman, freed from the betrayals of my own body, my own heart. Mother will not let it rest. “What if the king should follow you here? You will not refuse to see him?”
    I sigh and look from the window where a sprightly breeze is making the catkins dance. “Tell him I am sick, that should cool his ardour.”
    Henry has a great fear of infection and makes himself scarce at the least sign of plague.
    “Many parents would shut you in your chamber until you relent.”
    “Many parents wouldn’t try to coerce their daughter into whoredom.”
    “Anne, don’t dare speak to me so!”
    I spring up from my seat. “Then don’t treat me so. I have told you that my conscience will not allow me to bed a man who is not my husband. You should not chide me for that. It is God’s teaching.”
    She gentles. “Anne, how can you not love him?”
    “Mother! I do love him. He is my king, he is a man above all others, but he is not free to love me. What he offers me is … is specious –I cannot give him what he wants.”
    She gives up for the time being and retreats into her stillroom , where I hear her crashing bottles and slamming doors. Thereafter I stay wisely close to my grandmother, safe in the knowledge that her noxious fumes will keep all but the most determined of bullies at bay.
    And then the letters start arriving. Beautiful letters penned in Henry’s own hand. Knowing how he hates to pick up a pen, preferring to dictate to others, this says almost as much f or his regard for me as the words themselves.
    He is missing me. It is evident in every ardent sentence, every passionate request for my return. He could, of course, order me back to court , but instead he requests it quite gently, and enclosed in each missive is a gift. Sometimes he sends me a purse, sometimes a jewel. Once, knowing my taste for it, a fresh slaughtered hind is delivered for my table, killed by the king. Sometimes he sends a verse, penned by his own lovesick hand.
    O, my heart!
    And O, my heart,
    It is so sore!
    Since I must needs from my Love depart;
    And know no cause wherefore!
     
    F inding me reading it in the garden, George slumps onto the grass beside me and snatches it from my hand. After one scan of the page he lets out a loud guffaw. I hide my mouth behind my fingers. It is cruel of us to laugh but the king is not greatly skilled at poetry, and spoiled as I am by Wyatt’s pretty lines, I cannot help but smile at Henry’s.
    “At least the sentiment is there ,” I say, snatching the paper back again and tucking it within my bodice. George lies back in the long grass, plucks a stalk and puts it in his mouth like a peasant.
    “What is going to happen, Anne? How long do you think you can resist him? You make trouble at court, you know, whether you are there are not.”
    “How so?”
    George rolls onto his side, props his head on his hand and watches my reaction to his words. “The king continues to seek his divorce. Wolsey is tearing out his hair looking for a solution, and the queen simmers with resentment …”
    “And who can blame her? She has been legally wed to him for years and now he is tired of her, expects her to retire gratefully.”
    “And Wyatt too makes trouble.”
    “Tom makes trouble? In what way?”
    “He glowers every time the king mentions your name, and that is often. Henry suspects something between you, and each time Wyatt is absent from court, he enquires as to his whereabouts, as if he is afraid it is your bed he is keeping warm.”
    I frown, shake my head. “Why would the king think a thing like that?”
    “Tom has made no secret of his affection for you, Anne. The pretty rhymes he pens are circulated at court. Half the queen’s ladies are in love with him , yet it is you he desires. At least he and the king have that much in common. When did you last see Tom?”
    I cast my mind back a few weeks, lower my gaze