Free Between Two Kings by Olivia Longueville

labor, she was screaming over and over again that she was innocent and that you, Your Majesty, had killed many innocent people. She called you a murderer. She was also cursing you and her fate,” Cromwell declared.
    It worked as Cromwell predicted. The king raised his head, his gaze hard and angry. He was furious, his eyes shooting daggers. “What did she say?” he asked impatiently.
    “Lady Anne cried out many accusations against Your Majesty.” Cromwell’s response was firm.
    “Master Cromwell, repeat what she said.”
    “Lady Anne declared that you, Your Majesty, had murdered several innocent people in order to please yourself and marry Lady Jane Seymour whom Lady Anne cursed and called in numerous shameful epithets,” Cromwell said tonelessly. Cromwell had to be insistent as he had to push the king to order Anne’s execution. He thought that a little lie would save many lives. Additionally, he would make sure the midwife and the ladies, who attended Anne during the delivery of her child, would keep silent and would disappear from London. He would convince them to keep silent – bribe them if necessary – and even fabricate something against them if he had to ensure that they would never repeat public Anne’s true words during the childbirth in public. He knew that Anne had never accused Henry of murdering someone and that she had never cursed the king or Jane Seymour.
    Henry’s eyes blazed with anger. He clenched his teeth. “What a whore! A whore! A harlot!” he roared in an outburst of rampage. “How dare she call me, her king and her sovereign, a murderer? She is a traitor! She is an adulteress! She betrayed me with so many men! She slept with more than a hundred various men! She is a prostitute! She must thank me that I allowed her to live several more months to produce her bastard boy, the result of that incestuous union.” He screwed up his face in anger and disgust. “I am the king, and I can do what I want with this whore, after all she betrayed me and England,” he bellowed.
    The king raised a small vase from the nearby table and tossed it toward the fireplace in a self-indulgent show of superiority. The vase hit the wall above the mantel, and many tiny splinters of glass sprayed the room.
    Cromwell was delighted. His plan was working. The king was infuriated and almost ready to sign Anne’s death warrant. It looked like he would be safe.
    “Your Majesty is right. Lady Anne was accused of high treason, adultery, and incest. The court tried her and found her guilty. The punishment is death,” Cromwell said imperturbably.
    Cromwell’s story infuriated Henry to the bottom of his heart. Suddenly, he wanted to take cruel revenge on Anne for all the years he had wasted on her, divorcing Catherine for her and then not giving him a son and a legitimate male heir. He hated Anne with the most dark and cruel parts of his heart. He had never hated anyone else more than he hated Anne at that moment. Yet, if he had been honest with himself, he would have realized that he had hated her because her alleged adultery had wounded his pride and because his heart had been in tatters since Anne’s arrest. However, Henry wasn’t ready to be frank with himself. Henry stared at Cromwell, his eyes full of fresh determination. “Did you send for the French executioner from Calais?”
    Henry meant the same executioner who had been hired from France the first time, before it became clear that Anne carried a child. As the news of Anne’s pregnancy was announced, the executioner was paid for his travel expenses and sent back to Calais.
    “I asked the same executioner to come. He responded that he would be unable to arrive in December. I don’t know a reason,” Cromwell announced with a sigh. “Should I find another French executioner? It would probably take several weeks. Not every executioner will agree to come to London before Christmas and New Year.”
    The king rolled his eyes. “I want to marry Lady Jane